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+Santorini (Greek: Σαντορίνη, pronounced [sandoˈrini]), officially Thira (Greek: Θήρα [ˈθira]) and classic Greek Thera (English pronunciation /ˈθɪərə/), is an island in the southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km (120 mi) southeast of Greece's mainland. It is the largest island of a small, circular archipelago, which bears the same name and is the remnant of a volcanic caldera. It forms the southernmost member of the Cyclades group of islands, with an area of approximately 73 km2 (28 sq mi) and a 2011 census population of 15,550. The municipality of Santorini includes the inhabited islands of Santorini and Therasia, as well as the uninhabited islands of Nea Kameni, Palaia Kameni, Aspronisi and Christiana. The total land area is 90.623 km2 (34.990 sq mi).[2] Santorini is part of the Thira regional unit.[3]
+
+The island was the site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history: the Minoan eruption (sometimes called the Thera eruption), which occurred about 3,600 years ago at the height of the Minoan civilization.[4] The eruption left a large caldera surrounded by volcanic ash deposits hundreds of metres deep. It may have led indirectly to the collapse of the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete, 110 km (68 mi) to the south, through a gigantic tsunami. Another popular theory holds that the Thera eruption is the source of the legend of Atlantis.[5]
+
+It is the most active volcanic centre in the South Aegean Volcanic Arc, though what remains today is chiefly a water-filled caldera. The volcanic arc is approximately 500 km (310 mi) long and 20 to 40 km (12 to 25 mi) wide. The region first became volcanically active around 3-4 million years ago[citation needed], though volcanism on Thera began around 2 million years ago with the extrusion of dacitic lavas from vents around Akrotiri.
+
+
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+Santorini was named by the Latin Empire in the thirteenth century, and is a reference to Saint Irene, from the name of the old cathedral in the village of Perissa – the name Santorini is a contraction of the name Santa Irini.[4] Before then, it was known as Kallístē (Καλλίστη, "the most beautiful one"), Strongýlē (Greek: Στρογγύλη, "the circular one"),[6][full citation needed] or Thēra. The name Thera was revived in the nineteenth century as the official name of the island and its main city, but the colloquial name Santorini is still in popular use.
+
+The present municipality of Thera (officially: "Thira", Greek: Δήμος Θήρας),[7][8] which covers all settlements on the islands of Santorini and Therasia, was formed at the 2011 local government reform, by the merger of the former Oia and Thera municipalities.[3]
+
+Oia is now called a Κοινότητα (community), within the municipality of Thera, and it consists of the local subdivisions (Greek: τοπικό διαμέρισμα) of Therasia and Oia.
+
+The municipality of Thera includes an additional 12 local subdivisions on Santorini island: Akrotiri, Emporio, Episkopis Gonia, Exo Gonia, Imerovigli,  Karterados, Megalohori, Mesaria, Pyrgos Kallistis, Thera (the seat of the municipality), Vothon, and Vourvoulos.[9]
+
+Santorini's primary industry is tourism. Agriculture also forms part of its economy, and the island sustains a wine industry, based on the indigenous Assyrtiko grape variety. White varieties also include Athiri and Aidani, whereas red varieties include mavrotragano and mandilaria.
+
+The Cyclades are part of a metamorphic complex that is known as the Cycladic Massif.  The complex formed during the Miocene and was folded and metamorphosed during the Alpine orogeny around 60 million years ago. Thera is built upon a small, non-volcanic basement that represents the former non-volcanic island, which was approximately 9 by 6 km (5.6 by 3.7 mi). The basement rock is primarily composed of metamorphosed limestone and schist, which date from the Alpine Orogeny. These non-volcanic rocks are exposed at Mikro Profititis Ilias, Mesa Vouno, the Gavrillos ridge, Pyrgos, Monolithos, and the inner side of the caldera wall between Cape Plaka and Athinios.
+
+The metamorphic grade is a blueschist facies, which results from tectonic deformation by the subduction of the African Plate beneath the Eurasian Plate.  Subduction occurred between the Oligocene and the Miocene,  and the metamorphic grade represents the southernmost extent of the Cycladic blueschist belt.
+
+Volcanism on Santorini is due to the Hellenic Trench subduction zone southwest of Crete.  The oceanic crust of the northern margin of the African Plate is being subducted under Greece and the Aegean Sea, which is thinned continental crust. The subduction compels the formation of the Hellenic arc, which includes Santorini and other volcanic centres, such as Methana, Milos, and Kos.[10]
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+The island is the result of repeated sequences of shield volcano construction followed by caldera collapse.[11]  The inner coast around the caldera is a sheer precipice of more than 300 metres (980 ft) drop at its highest, and exhibits the various layers of solidified lava on top of each other, and the main towns perched on the crest.  The ground then slopes outwards and downwards towards the outer perimeter, and the outer beaches are smooth and shallow.  Beach sand colour depends on which geological layer is exposed; there are beaches with sand or pebbles made of solidified lava of various colours: such as the Red Beach, the Black Beach and the White Beach.  The water at the darker coloured beaches is significantly warmer because the lava acts as a heat absorber.
+
+The area of Santorini incorporates a group of islands created by volcanoes, spanning across Thera, Thirasia, Aspronisi, Palea, and Nea Kameni.
+
+Santorini has erupted many times, with varying degrees of explosivity.  There have been at least twelve large explosive eruptions, of which at least four were caldera-forming.[10]  The most famous eruption is the Minoan eruption, detailed below.  Eruptive products range from basalt all the way to rhyolite, and the rhyolitic products are associated with the most explosive eruptions.
+
+The earliest eruptions, many of which were submarine, were on the Akrotiri Peninsula, and active between 650,000 and 550,000 years ago.[10]  These are geochemically distinct from the later volcanism, as they contain amphiboles.
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+Over the past 360,000 years there have been two major cycles, each culminating with two caldera-forming eruptions.  The cycles end when the magma evolves to a rhyolitic composition, causing the most explosive eruptions.  In between the caldera-forming eruptions are a series of sub-cycles.  Lava flows and small explosive eruptions build up cones, which are thought to impede the flow of magma to the surface.[10]  This allows the formation of large magma chambers, in which the magma can evolve to more silicic compositions.  Once this happens, a large explosive eruption destroys the cone.  The Kameni islands in the centre of the lagoon are the most recent example of a cone built by this volcano, with much of them hidden beneath the water.
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+The devastating volcanic eruption of Thera around 1600 B.C. has become the most famous single event in the Aegean before the fall of Troy. It may have been one of the largest volcanic eruptions on Earth in the last few thousand years, with an estimated VEI (volcanic explosivity index) of 6 according to the last studies published in 2006, confirming the prior values.
+The violent eruption was centred on a small island just north of the existing island of Nea Kameni in the centre of the caldera; the caldera itself was formed several hundred thousand years ago by the collapse of the centre of a circular island, caused by the emptying of the magma chamber during an eruption. It has been filled several times by ignimbrite since then, and the process repeated itself, most recently 21,000 years ago. The northern part of the caldera was refilled by the volcano, then collapsed once more during the Minoan eruption. Before the Minoan eruption, the caldera formed a nearly continuous ring with the only entrance between the tiny island of Aspronisi and Thera; the eruption destroyed the sections of the ring between Aspronisi and Therasia, and between Therasia and Thera, creating two new channels.
+
+On Santorini, a deposit of white tephra thrown from the eruption is found lying up to 60 m (200 ft) thick, overlying the soil marking the ground level before the eruption, and forming a layer divided into three fairly distinct bands indicating different phases of the eruption. Archaeological discoveries in 2006 by a team of international scientists revealed that the Santorini event was much more massive than previously thought; it expelled 61 cubic kilometres (15 cu mi) of magma and rock into the Earth's atmosphere, compared to previous estimates of only 39 cubic kilometres (9.4 cu mi) in 1991,[12][13] producing an estimated 100 cubic kilometres (24 cu mi) of tephra. Only the Mount Tambora volcanic eruption of 1815, the 181 AD eruption of Lake Taupo, and possibly Baekdu Mountain's 946 AD eruption have released more material into the atmosphere during the past 5,000 years.
+
+In The Parting of the Sea: How Volcanoes, Earthquakes, and Plagues Shaped the Exodus Story,[14] geologist Barbara J. Sivertsen seeks to establish a link between the eruption of Santorini (c. 1600 BC) and the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt in the Bible.
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+A 2006 documentary film by Simcha Jacobovici, The Exodus Decoded,[15] postulates that the eruption of the Santorini Island volcano (referred to as c. 1500 BC) caused all the biblical plagues described against Egypt. The documentary presents this date as corresponding to the time of the Biblical Moses. The film asserts that the Hyksos were the Israelites and that some of them may have originally been from Mycenae. The film also suggests that these original Mycenaean Israelites fled Egypt (which they had in fact ruled for some time) after the eruption, and went back to Mycenae. The Pharaoh of the Exodus is identified with Ahmose I. Rather than crossing the Red Sea, Jacobovici argues a marshy area in northern Egypt known as the Reed Sea  would have been alternately drained and flooded by tsunamis caused by the caldera collapse, and could have been crossed during the Exodus.
+
+Jacobovici's assertions in The Exodus Decoded have been extensively criticized by religious and other scholars.[16][17]  In a 2013 book on this connection, Thera and the Exodus, a dissident from the consensus Riaan Booysen, tries to support Jacobovici's theory and claims the pharaoh of the Exodus to be Amenhotep III and the biblical Moses as Crown Prince Thutmose, Amenhotep's first-born son and heir to his throne.[18]
+
+Archaeological, seismological, and vulcanological evidence[19][20][21] has been presented linking the Atlantis myth to Santorini. Speculation suggesting that Thera/Santorini was the inspiration for Plato's Atlantis began with the excavation of Akrotiri in the 1960s, and gained increased currency as reconstructions of the island's pre-eruption shape and landscape frescos located under the ash both strongly resembled Plato's description. The possibility has been more recently popularized by television documentaries such as The History Channel programme Lost Worlds (episode "Atlantis"), the Discovery Channel's Solving History with Olly Steeds, and the BBC's Atlantis, The Evidence,  which suggests that Thera is Plato's Atlantis.[22][non-primary source needed]
+
+Post-Minoan eruptive activity is concentrated on the Kameni islands, in the centre of the lagoon.  They have been formed since the Minoan eruption, and the first of them broke the surface of the sea in 197 BC[10]  Nine subaerial eruptions are recorded in the historical record since that time, with the most recent ending in 1950.
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+In 1707 an undersea volcano breached the sea surface, forming the current centre of activity at Nea Kameni in the centre of the lagoon, and eruptions centred on it continue—the twentieth century saw three such, the last in 1950. Santorini was also struck by a devastating earthquake in 1956. Although the volcano is dormant at the present time, at the current active crater (there are several former craters on Nea Kameni), steam and carbon dioxide are given off.
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+Small tremors and reports of strange gaseous odours over the course of 2011 and 2012 prompted satellite radar technological analyses and these revealed the source of the symptoms; the magma chamber under the volcano was swelled by a rush of molten rock by 10 to 20 million cubic metres between January 2011 and April 2012, which also caused parts of the island's surface to rise out of the water by a reported 8 to 14 centimetres.[23] Scientists say that the injection of molten rock was equivalent to 20 years’ worth of regular activity.[23]
+
+Santorini has a semi-arid climate (Bsh in the Köppen climate classification) with Mediterranean characteristics.[24] Total rainfall averages 371 mm (14.6 in) per year. In the summer season, strong winds can also be observed.[25]
+
+Excavations starting in 1967 at the Akrotiri site under the late Professor Spyridon Marinatos have made Thera the best-known Minoan site outside of Crete, homeland of the culture. The island was not known as Thera at this time. Only the southern tip of a large town has been uncovered, yet it has revealed complexes of multi-level buildings, streets, and squares with remains of walls standing as high as eight metres, all entombed in the solidified ash of the famous eruption of Thera. The site was not a palace-complex as found in Crete, but neither was it a conglomeration of merchants' warehousing, as its excellent masonry and fine wall-paintings show. A loom-workshop suggests organized textile weaving for export. This Bronze Age civilization thrived between 3000 and 2000 BC, reaching its peak in the period between 2000 and 1630 BC.[27]
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+Many of the houses in Akrotiri are major structures, some of them three stories high. Its streets, squares, and walls were preserved in the layers of ejecta, sometimes as tall as eight metres, indicating this was a major town. In many houses stone staircases are still intact, and they contain huge ceramic storage jars (pithoi), mills, and pottery. Noted archaeological remains found in Akrotiri are wall paintings or frescoes, which have kept their original colour well, as they were preserved under many metres of volcanic ash. The town also had a highly developed drainage system and, judging from the fine artwork, its citizens were clearly sophisticated and relatively wealthy people.
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+Pipes with running water and water closets found at Akrotiri are the oldest such utilities discovered.[citation needed] The pipes run in twin systems, indicating that Therans used both hot and cold water supplies; the origin of the hot water probably was geothermic, given the volcano's proximity. The dual pipe system, the advanced architecture, and the apparent layout of the Akrotiri find resemble Plato's description of the legendary lost city of Atlantis, further indicating the Minoans as the culture which primarily inspired the Atlantis legend.[5]
+
+Fragmentary wall-paintings at Akrotiri lack the insistent religious or mythological content familiar in Classical Greek décor. Instead, the Minoan frescoes depict "Saffron-Gatherers", who offer their crocus-stamens to a seated lady, perhaps a goddess. Crocus has been discovered to have many medicinal values including the relief of menstrual pain. This has led many[who?] archaeologists to believe that the fresco of the saffron/crocus gatherers is a coming of age fresco dealing with female pubescence. In another house are two antelopes, painted with a kind of confident, flowing, decorative, calligraphic line, the famous fresco of a fisherman with his double strings of fish strung by their gills, and the flotilla of pleasure boats, accompanied by leaping dolphins, where ladies take their ease in the shade of light canopies, among other frescoes.
+
+The well preserved ruins of the ancient town are often compared to the spectacular ruins at Pompeii in Italy. The canopy covering the ruins collapsed in an accident in September 2005, killing one tourist and injuring seven more. The site was closed for almost seven years while a new canopy was built. The site was re-opened in April 2012.
+
+The oldest signs of human settlement are Late Neolithic (4th millennium BC or earlier), but c. 2000–1650 BC Akrotiri developed into one of the Aegean's major Bronze Age ports, with recovered objects that came not just from Crete, but also from Anatolia, Cyprus, Syria, and Egypt, as well as from the Dodecanese and the Greek mainland.
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+The Minoan eruption provides a fixed point for the chronology of the second millennium BC in the Aegean, because evidence of the eruption occurs throughout the region and the site itself contains material culture from outside. The eruption occurred during the "Late Minoan IA" period at Crete and the "Late Cycladic I" period in the surrounding islands.
+
+Archaeological evidence, based on the established chronology of Bronze Age Mediterranean cultures, dates the eruption to around 1500 BC.[28] These dates, however, conflict with radiocarbon dating which indicates that the eruption occurred at about 1645–1600 BC.[29] For those, and other, reasons, the date of the eruption is disputed. For discussion, see Minoan eruption#Eruption dating.
+
+Santorini remained unoccupied throughout the rest of the Bronze Age, during which time the Greeks took over Crete. At Knossos, in a LMIIIA context (14th century BC), seven Linear B texts while calling upon "all the gods" make sure to grant primacy to an elsewhere-unattested entity called qe-ra-si-ja and, once, qe-ra-si-jo. If the endings -ia[s] and -ios represent an ethnic suffix, then this means "The One From Qeras[os]". If the initial consonant were aspirated, then *Qhera- would have become "Thera-" in later Greek. "Therasia" and its ethnikon "Therasios" are both attested in later Greek; and, since -sos was itself a genitive suffix in the Aegean Sprachbund, *Qeras[os] could also shrink to *Qera. An alternate view takes qe-ra-si-ja and qe-ra-si-jo as proof of androgyny, and applies this name by similar arguments to the legendary seer, Tiresias, but these views are not mutually exclusive. If qe-ra-si-ja was an ethnikon first, then in following him/her/it the Cretans also feared whence it came.[30]
+
+Probably after what is called the Bronze Age collapse, Phoenicians founded a site on Thera. Herodotus reports that they called the island Callista and lived on it for eight generations.[31]  In the 9th century BC, Dorians founded the main Hellenic city on Mesa Vouno, 396 m (1,299 ft) above sea level. This group later claimed that they had named the city and the island after their leader, Theras. Today, that city is referred to as Ancient Thera.
+
+In his Argonautica, written in Hellenistic Egypt in the 3rd century BC, Apollonius Rhodius includes an origin and sovereignty myth of Thera being given by Triton in Libya to the Greek Argonaut Euphemus, son of Poseidon, in the form of a clod of dirt. After carrying the dirt next to his heart for several days, Euphemus dreamt that he nursed the dirt with milk from his breast, and that the dirt turned into a beautiful woman with whom he had sex. The woman then told him that she was a daughter of Triton named Kalliste, and that when he threw the dirt into the sea it would grow into an island for his descendants to live on. The poem goes on to claim that the island was named Thera after Euphemus' descendant Theras, son of Autesion, the leader of a group of refugee settlers from Lemnos.
+
+The Dorians have left a number of inscriptions incised in stone, in the vicinity of the temple of Apollo, attesting to pederastic relations between the authors and their lovers (eromenoi). These inscriptions, found by Friedrich Hiller von Gaertringen, have been thought by some archaeologists to be of a ritual, celebratory nature, because of their large size, careful construction and – in some cases – execution by craftsmen other than the authors. According to Herodotus,[32] following a drought of seven years, Thera sent out colonists who founded a number of cities in northern Africa, including Cyrene. In the 5th century BC, Dorian Thera did not join the Delian League with Athens; and during the Peloponnesian War, Thera sided with Dorian Sparta, against Athens. The Athenians took the island during the war, but lost it again after the Battle of Aegospotami. During the Hellenistic period, the island was a major naval base for Ptolemaic Egypt.
+
+As with other Greek territories, Thera then was ruled by the Romans. When the Roman Empire was divided, the island passed to the eastern side of the Empire which today is known as the Byzantine Empire.[33] According to George Cedrenus, the volcano erupted again in the summer of 727, the tenth year of the reign of Leo III the Isaurian.[34] He writes: "In the same year, in the summer, a vapour like an oven's fire boiled up for days out of the middle of the islands of Thera and Therasia from the depths of the sea, and the whole place burned like fire, little by little thickening and turning to stone, and the air seemed to be a fiery torch." This terrifying explosion was interpreted as a  divine omen against the worship of religious icons [35][36] and gave the Emperor Leo III the Isaurian the justification he needed to begin implementing his Iconoclasm policy.
+
+The name "Santorini" first appears c. 1153-1154 in the work of the Muslim geographer al-Idrisi, as "Santurin", from the island's patron saint, Saint Irene.[37] After the Fourth Crusade, it was occupied by the Duchy of Naxos which held it up to ca. 1280 when it was reconquered by Licario (the claims of earlier historians that the island had been held by Jacopo I Barozzi and his son as a fief have been refuted in the second half of the twentieth century)[38][39][40]; it was again reconquered from the Byzantines ca. 1301 by Iacopo II Barozzi, a member of the Cretan branch of the Venetian Barozzi family, whose descendant held it until it was finally annexed in c. 1335 by Niccolo Sanudo after various legal and military conflicts.[41] In 1318–1331 and 1345–1360 it was raided by the Turkish principalities of Menteshe and Aydın, but did not suffer much damage.[37] From the 15th century on, the suzerainty of the Republic of Venice over the island was recognized in a series of treaties by the Ottoman Empire, but this did not stop Ottoman raids, until it was captured by the Ottoman admiral Piyale Pasha in 1576, as part of a process of annexation of most remaining Latin possessions in the Aegean.[37] It became part of the semi-autonomous domain of the Sultan's Jewish favourite, Joseph Nasi. Santorini retained its privileged position in the 17th century, but suffered in turn from Venetian raids during the frequent Ottoman–Venetian wars of the period, even though there were no Muslims on the island.[37]
+
+Santorini was captured briefly by the Russians under Alexey Orlov during the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, but returned to Ottoman control after. Following the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence on the Greek mainland in March 1821, in May Santorini followed suit, although the local Catholic population had its reservations. The island became part of the fledgling Greek state, rebelled against Governor Ioannis Kapodistrias in 1831, and became definitively part of the independent Kingdom of Greece in 1832, with the Treaty of Constantinople.[37]
+
+The island is still home to a Catholic community and the seat of a Catholic bishopric.
+
+During the Second World War, Santorini was occupied in 1941 by Italian forces,  and in 1943 by those of the Germans. In 1944, the German and Italian garrison on Santorini was raided by a group of British Special Boat Service Commandos, killing most of its men. Five locals were later shot in reprisal, including the mayor.[42][43]
+
+Santorini's primary industry is tourism, particularly in the summer months. The expansion of tourism has resulted in the growth of the economy and population. Akrotiri is a major archaeological site, with ruins from the Minoan era. Santorini was ranked the world's top island by many magazines and travel sites, including the Travel+Leisure Magazine,[44] the BBC,[45] as well as the US News.[46]  An estimated 2 million tourists visit annually.[47]
+
+The island's pumice quarries have been closed since 1986, in order to preserve the caldera. In 2007, the cruise ship MS Sea Diamond ran aground and sank inside the caldera. As of 2019, Santorini is a particular draw for Asian couples who come to Santorini to have pre-wedding photos taken against the backdrop of the island's landscape.[48]
+
+Santorini has no rivers, and water is scarce.  Until the early 1990s locals filled water cisterns from the rain that fell on roofs and courts, from small springs, and with imported assistance from other areas of Greece. In recent years a desalination plant has provided running, yet non-potable, water to most houses.  Since rain is rare on the island from mid-spring to mid-autumn, many plants depend on the scant moisture provided by the common, early morning fog condensing on the ground as dew.
+
+Because of its unique ecology and climate, and especially its volcanic ash soil, Santorini is home to unique and prized produce.[citation needed]
+
+The island remains the home of a small, but flourishing, wine industry, based on the indigenous grape variety, Assyrtiko, with auxiliary cultivations of two other Aegean varietals, Athiri and Aidani.  The vines are extremely old and resistant to phylloxera (attributed by local winemakers to the well-drained volcanic soil and its chemistry), so the vines needed no replacement during the great phylloxera epidemic of the late 19th century. In their adaptation to their habitat, such vines are planted far apart, as their principal source of moisture is dew, and they often are trained in the shape of low-spiralling baskets, with the grapes hanging inside to protect them from the winds.
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+The viticultural pride of the island is the sweet and strong Vinsanto (Italian: "holy wine") (Visanto), a dessert wine made from the best sun-dried Assyrtiko, Athiri, and Aidani grapes, and undergoing long barrel aging (up to twenty or twenty-five years for the top cuvées). It matures to a sweet, dark amber-orange, unctuous dessert wine that has achieved worldwide fame, possessing the standard Assyrtiko aromas of citrus and minerals, layered with overtones of nuts, raisins, figs, honey and tea.
+
+White wines from the island are extremely dry with a strong, citrus scent and mineral and iodide salt aromas contributed by the ashy volcanic soil, whereas barrel aging gives to some of the white wines a slight frankincense aroma, much like Vinsanto. It is not easy to be a winegrower in Santorini; the hot and dry conditions give the soil a very low productivity. The yield per hectare is only 10 to 20% of the yields that are common in France or California.  The island's wines are standardised and protected by the "Vinsanto" and "Santorini" OPAP designations of origin.[49]
+
+A brewery, the Santorini Brewing Company, began operating out of Santorini in 2011, based in the island's wine region.[50]
+
+The traditional architecture of Santorini is similar to that of the other Cyclades, with low-lying cubical houses, made of local stone and whitewashed or limewashed with various volcanic ashes used as colours.  The unique characteristic is the common utilisation of the hypóskapha: extensions of houses dug sideways or downwards into the surrounding pumice.  These rooms are prized because of the high insulation provided by the air-filled pumice, and are used as living quarters of unique coolness in the summer and warmth in the winter. These are premium storage space for produce,  especially for wine cellaring: the Kánava wineries of Santorini.
+
+When strong earthquakes struck the island in 1956, half the buildings were completely destroyed and a large number suffered repairable damage. The underground dwellings along the ridge overlooking the caldera, where the instability of the soil was responsible for the great extent of the damage, needed to be evacuated. Most of the population of Santorini had to emigrate to Piraeus and Athens.[51]
+
+The island was featured in The 2005 film ”The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants“.
+
+Santorini Film Festival held annually at the open air cinema, Cinema Kamari in Santorini.[52]
+
+American hip hop musician Rick Ross has a song titled Santorini Greece, and its 2017 music video was shot on the island.
+
+Bus services link Fira to most parts of the island.[53]
+
+Santorini has two ports: Athinios (Ferry Port) and Skala (Old Port).[54] Cruise ships anchor off Skala and passengers are transferred by local boatmen to shore at Skala where Fira is accessed by cable car, on foot or by donkey.[55] Tour boats depart from Skala for Nea Kameni and other Santorini destinations.[56]
+
+Santorini is one of the few Cyclades Islands with a major airport, which lies about 6 km (4 mi) southeast of downtown Thera. The main asphalt runway (16L-34R) is 2,125 metres (6,972 feet) in length, and the parallel taxiway was built to runway specification (16R-34L). It can accommodate Boeing 757, Boeing 737, Airbus 320 series, Avro RJ, Fokker 70, and ATR 72 aircraft.  Scheduled airlines include the new Olympic Air, Aegean Airlines, and Ryanair, with chartered flights from other airlines during the summer, and with transportation to and from the air terminal available through buses, taxis, hotel car-pickups and rental cars.
+
+Notes
+
+Bibliography
+
+Further reading

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+The Saône (/soʊn/ SOHN, French: [son];[1] Arpitan: Sona; Latin: Arar) is a river of eastern France. It is a right tributary of the Rhône, rising at Vioménil in the Vosges department and joining the Rhône in Lyon, just south of the Presqu'île.
+
+The name Saône derives from that of the Gallic river goddess Souconna, which has also been connected with a local Celtic tribe, the Sequanes. Monastic copyists progressively transformed Souconna to Saoconna, which ultimately gave rise to Saône. The other recorded ancient names for the river were Brigoulus  and Arar.
+
+The Saône rises at Vioménil at the foot of the cliff of the Faucilles in the Vosges at an elevation of 392 metres (1,286 ft), and flows into the Rhône at Lyon at an elevation of 158 metres (518 ft). Its length is 473 kilometres (294 mi).[2] Its largest tributary is the Doubs; upstream of receiving the Doubs at Verdun-sur-le-Doubs in Saône-et-Loire, the Saône is called the "Petite Saône" (lesser Saône), which reflects the large contribution of the Doubs to the Saône. In fact the Doubs' mean annual flow rate is slightly stronger than that of the Petite Saône, 175 cubic metres per second (6,200 cu ft/s) compared to 160 cubic metres per second (5,700 cu ft/s); some thus assert that it is in fact the Saône that flows into the Doubs. Nonetheless the Saône has a substantially larger watershed than the Doubs, at 11,500 square kilometres (4,400 sq mi) vs. 7,500 square kilometres (2,900 sq mi).
+
+At 30,000 square kilometres (12,000 sq mi) the Saône has the largest watershed of any French river that does not flow directly into the sea, covering approximately 1/18 of metropolitan France.
+
+In pre-Roman times the river's name was "Arar", a doubling of the Indo-European root ar (water). According to Caesar's Gallic Wars this doubling reflected the idea that it was difficult to identify the direction of the river due to its slow rate of flow. Its current name came from a sacred spring, Sauc-Onna, located at Chalon, which was used by Roman legionaries to refer to the entire river.
+
+R indicates a right tributary, L indicates a left tributary.
+
+The Saône is navigable from its confluence with the Coney at Corre in the north of the département Haute-Saône all the way to its confluence with the Rhône (itself a navigable river) at La Mulatière, in Lyon. The navigable stretch is 367 kilometres (228 mi) long, of which 206 kilometres (128 mi) has been redeveloped to European high-capacity dimensions from Saint-Symphorien-sur-Saône to Lyon. It has 5 locks.[3] The 161 km long part upstream from Saint-Symphorien-sur-Saône to Corre, also named Petite Saône, is navigable for Freycinet gauge ships and has 19 locks.[4]
+
+The Saône is linked with the Loire by the Canal du Centre, with the Yonne by the Canal de Bourgogne, with the Marne by the Canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne (previously the Canal de la Marne à la Saône), with the Meuse by the Canal de l'Est, whose southern branch has been renamed the Canal des Vosges, and with the Rhine by the Canal du Rhône au Rhin. All the canals are Freycinet gauge.
+
+Also navigable are the small Canal de Pont-de-Vaux (3 km), the Seille, navigable in a 40-kilometre (25 mi) stretch up to Louhans, and the lower part of the Doubs. None of these three connect the Saône to any other waterway.
+
+The lesser Saône has a tendency to flood (sometimes influenced by snow), with a very strong oceanic effect. The soils are not susceptible to much infiltration, so that they saturate quickly which contributes to surface runoff. The flow rate grows very quickly, and after receiving the waters of the Lanterne, the Saône already becomes a powerful river.
+
+The mean annual flow rate, or discharge, of the Saône has been measured over 50 years (as of 2013) at the Ray-sur-Saône hydrological station, situated about 30 kilometres (19 mi) after the Lanterne confluence between Port-sur-Saône and Gray.
+The figure is 59.7 cubic metres per second (2,110 cu ft/s) for a watershed area of 3,740 square kilometres (1,440 sq mi) (the upper basin of the lesser Saône), and has an annual maximum of 64.5 cubic metres per second (2,280 cu ft/s) and a minimum of 54.8 cubic metres per second (1,940 cu ft/s).
+
+The river exhibits seasonal variations in flow rate, with winter floods from 84 to 108 cubic metres per second (3,000 to 3,800 cu ft/s) from December to March inclusive, and summer reductions in July/August/September falling to a monthly average of 16.9 cubic metres per second (600 cu ft/s) in August.[5]
+
+The runoff curve number in the upper basin of the lesser Saône is 505 millimetres (19.9 in) annually, cf. 687 millimetres (27.0 in) for the Lanterne, an elevated figure resulting from the very high rainfall in the Vosgian part of its watershed. The specific flow rate rises to 16.0 litres per second per square kilometre of watershed.
+
+The maximum instantaneous recorded flow rate was 930 cubic metres per second (33,000 cu ft/s) on December 19, 1982.
+
+The greater Saône is formed by the confluence of the Doubs and the lesser Saône at Verdun-sur-le-Doubs. The Doubs brings a mean annual flow rate of 175 cubic metres per second (6,200 cu ft/s), and the lesser Saône, 160 cubic metres per second (5,700 cu ft/s).
+
+The greater Saône has only modest tributaries which have little effect on floods or other hydrological properties. It flows in a vast plain approximately 3 kilometres (2 mi) wide as far as Lyon in the basin of the former Bressan lake. The slope is very gradual, and without hydraulic projects up to the north of Chalon aimed at guaranteeing a deep navigation channel, overflows would be more frequent.
+
+At the Couzon-au-Mont-d'Or hydrological station, where the river enters the Lyon area, measurements taken between 1969 and 1986 revealed a mean annual flow rate of 473 cubic metres per second (16,700 cu ft/s), with a 100-year flood flow rate of 3,180 cubic metres per second (112,000 cu ft/s)[6] The runoff curve number from the river's entire watershed is 501 millimetres (19.7 in), and the specific flow rate rises to 15.8 litres per second per square km of watershed.
+
+Overall, the average flow rate in Lyon is 475 cubic metres per second (16,800 cu ft/s), with a minimum of 153 cubic metres per second (5,400 cu ft/s), in August, and a maximum of 954 cubic metres per second (33,700 cu ft/s), in February.[7]
+
+When the Saône floods, the impact varies considerably over the course of the river. A large flood with a strong flow rate upstream can be largely attenuated in the Bressan plain so as to have only moderate impact at Mâcon, particularly if it carries a limited volume of water. By contrast, a medium-sized flood of the lesser Saône can turn into a significant flood downstream, if the Doubs brings in a similar contribution at about the same time.
+
+Historic floods include:
+
+The reference flood in town planning is the 100-year flood. This reference was in the course of being modified as maps linked to modelling the 1840 flood in modern town planning conditions were distributed to local mayors in December 2008, and as new prevention plans were ordered for 2012.
+
+A plaque commemorating the flood of 1840 at Quincieux
+
+Historic floods since 1950 Écuelles, north Saône-et-Loire
+
+Indicators of the level of historic floods of the Saône on the Church of Notre-Dame de Belleville

en/5276.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+
+
+The Saône (/soʊn/ SOHN, French: [son];[1] Arpitan: Sona; Latin: Arar) is a river of eastern France. It is a right tributary of the Rhône, rising at Vioménil in the Vosges department and joining the Rhône in Lyon, just south of the Presqu'île.
+
+The name Saône derives from that of the Gallic river goddess Souconna, which has also been connected with a local Celtic tribe, the Sequanes. Monastic copyists progressively transformed Souconna to Saoconna, which ultimately gave rise to Saône. The other recorded ancient names for the river were Brigoulus  and Arar.
+
+The Saône rises at Vioménil at the foot of the cliff of the Faucilles in the Vosges at an elevation of 392 metres (1,286 ft), and flows into the Rhône at Lyon at an elevation of 158 metres (518 ft). Its length is 473 kilometres (294 mi).[2] Its largest tributary is the Doubs; upstream of receiving the Doubs at Verdun-sur-le-Doubs in Saône-et-Loire, the Saône is called the "Petite Saône" (lesser Saône), which reflects the large contribution of the Doubs to the Saône. In fact the Doubs' mean annual flow rate is slightly stronger than that of the Petite Saône, 175 cubic metres per second (6,200 cu ft/s) compared to 160 cubic metres per second (5,700 cu ft/s); some thus assert that it is in fact the Saône that flows into the Doubs. Nonetheless the Saône has a substantially larger watershed than the Doubs, at 11,500 square kilometres (4,400 sq mi) vs. 7,500 square kilometres (2,900 sq mi).
+
+At 30,000 square kilometres (12,000 sq mi) the Saône has the largest watershed of any French river that does not flow directly into the sea, covering approximately 1/18 of metropolitan France.
+
+In pre-Roman times the river's name was "Arar", a doubling of the Indo-European root ar (water). According to Caesar's Gallic Wars this doubling reflected the idea that it was difficult to identify the direction of the river due to its slow rate of flow. Its current name came from a sacred spring, Sauc-Onna, located at Chalon, which was used by Roman legionaries to refer to the entire river.
+
+R indicates a right tributary, L indicates a left tributary.
+
+The Saône is navigable from its confluence with the Coney at Corre in the north of the département Haute-Saône all the way to its confluence with the Rhône (itself a navigable river) at La Mulatière, in Lyon. The navigable stretch is 367 kilometres (228 mi) long, of which 206 kilometres (128 mi) has been redeveloped to European high-capacity dimensions from Saint-Symphorien-sur-Saône to Lyon. It has 5 locks.[3] The 161 km long part upstream from Saint-Symphorien-sur-Saône to Corre, also named Petite Saône, is navigable for Freycinet gauge ships and has 19 locks.[4]
+
+The Saône is linked with the Loire by the Canal du Centre, with the Yonne by the Canal de Bourgogne, with the Marne by the Canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne (previously the Canal de la Marne à la Saône), with the Meuse by the Canal de l'Est, whose southern branch has been renamed the Canal des Vosges, and with the Rhine by the Canal du Rhône au Rhin. All the canals are Freycinet gauge.
+
+Also navigable are the small Canal de Pont-de-Vaux (3 km), the Seille, navigable in a 40-kilometre (25 mi) stretch up to Louhans, and the lower part of the Doubs. None of these three connect the Saône to any other waterway.
+
+The lesser Saône has a tendency to flood (sometimes influenced by snow), with a very strong oceanic effect. The soils are not susceptible to much infiltration, so that they saturate quickly which contributes to surface runoff. The flow rate grows very quickly, and after receiving the waters of the Lanterne, the Saône already becomes a powerful river.
+
+The mean annual flow rate, or discharge, of the Saône has been measured over 50 years (as of 2013) at the Ray-sur-Saône hydrological station, situated about 30 kilometres (19 mi) after the Lanterne confluence between Port-sur-Saône and Gray.
+The figure is 59.7 cubic metres per second (2,110 cu ft/s) for a watershed area of 3,740 square kilometres (1,440 sq mi) (the upper basin of the lesser Saône), and has an annual maximum of 64.5 cubic metres per second (2,280 cu ft/s) and a minimum of 54.8 cubic metres per second (1,940 cu ft/s).
+
+The river exhibits seasonal variations in flow rate, with winter floods from 84 to 108 cubic metres per second (3,000 to 3,800 cu ft/s) from December to March inclusive, and summer reductions in July/August/September falling to a monthly average of 16.9 cubic metres per second (600 cu ft/s) in August.[5]
+
+The runoff curve number in the upper basin of the lesser Saône is 505 millimetres (19.9 in) annually, cf. 687 millimetres (27.0 in) for the Lanterne, an elevated figure resulting from the very high rainfall in the Vosgian part of its watershed. The specific flow rate rises to 16.0 litres per second per square kilometre of watershed.
+
+The maximum instantaneous recorded flow rate was 930 cubic metres per second (33,000 cu ft/s) on December 19, 1982.
+
+The greater Saône is formed by the confluence of the Doubs and the lesser Saône at Verdun-sur-le-Doubs. The Doubs brings a mean annual flow rate of 175 cubic metres per second (6,200 cu ft/s), and the lesser Saône, 160 cubic metres per second (5,700 cu ft/s).
+
+The greater Saône has only modest tributaries which have little effect on floods or other hydrological properties. It flows in a vast plain approximately 3 kilometres (2 mi) wide as far as Lyon in the basin of the former Bressan lake. The slope is very gradual, and without hydraulic projects up to the north of Chalon aimed at guaranteeing a deep navigation channel, overflows would be more frequent.
+
+At the Couzon-au-Mont-d'Or hydrological station, where the river enters the Lyon area, measurements taken between 1969 and 1986 revealed a mean annual flow rate of 473 cubic metres per second (16,700 cu ft/s), with a 100-year flood flow rate of 3,180 cubic metres per second (112,000 cu ft/s)[6] The runoff curve number from the river's entire watershed is 501 millimetres (19.7 in), and the specific flow rate rises to 15.8 litres per second per square km of watershed.
+
+Overall, the average flow rate in Lyon is 475 cubic metres per second (16,800 cu ft/s), with a minimum of 153 cubic metres per second (5,400 cu ft/s), in August, and a maximum of 954 cubic metres per second (33,700 cu ft/s), in February.[7]
+
+When the Saône floods, the impact varies considerably over the course of the river. A large flood with a strong flow rate upstream can be largely attenuated in the Bressan plain so as to have only moderate impact at Mâcon, particularly if it carries a limited volume of water. By contrast, a medium-sized flood of the lesser Saône can turn into a significant flood downstream, if the Doubs brings in a similar contribution at about the same time.
+
+Historic floods include:
+
+The reference flood in town planning is the 100-year flood. This reference was in the course of being modified as maps linked to modelling the 1840 flood in modern town planning conditions were distributed to local mayors in December 2008, and as new prevention plans were ordered for 2012.
+
+A plaque commemorating the flood of 1840 at Quincieux
+
+Historic floods since 1950 Écuelles, north Saône-et-Loire
+
+Indicators of the level of historic floods of the Saône on the Church of Notre-Dame de Belleville

en/5277.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+
+
+The Saône (/soʊn/ SOHN, French: [son];[1] Arpitan: Sona; Latin: Arar) is a river of eastern France. It is a right tributary of the Rhône, rising at Vioménil in the Vosges department and joining the Rhône in Lyon, just south of the Presqu'île.
+
+The name Saône derives from that of the Gallic river goddess Souconna, which has also been connected with a local Celtic tribe, the Sequanes. Monastic copyists progressively transformed Souconna to Saoconna, which ultimately gave rise to Saône. The other recorded ancient names for the river were Brigoulus  and Arar.
+
+The Saône rises at Vioménil at the foot of the cliff of the Faucilles in the Vosges at an elevation of 392 metres (1,286 ft), and flows into the Rhône at Lyon at an elevation of 158 metres (518 ft). Its length is 473 kilometres (294 mi).[2] Its largest tributary is the Doubs; upstream of receiving the Doubs at Verdun-sur-le-Doubs in Saône-et-Loire, the Saône is called the "Petite Saône" (lesser Saône), which reflects the large contribution of the Doubs to the Saône. In fact the Doubs' mean annual flow rate is slightly stronger than that of the Petite Saône, 175 cubic metres per second (6,200 cu ft/s) compared to 160 cubic metres per second (5,700 cu ft/s); some thus assert that it is in fact the Saône that flows into the Doubs. Nonetheless the Saône has a substantially larger watershed than the Doubs, at 11,500 square kilometres (4,400 sq mi) vs. 7,500 square kilometres (2,900 sq mi).
+
+At 30,000 square kilometres (12,000 sq mi) the Saône has the largest watershed of any French river that does not flow directly into the sea, covering approximately 1/18 of metropolitan France.
+
+In pre-Roman times the river's name was "Arar", a doubling of the Indo-European root ar (water). According to Caesar's Gallic Wars this doubling reflected the idea that it was difficult to identify the direction of the river due to its slow rate of flow. Its current name came from a sacred spring, Sauc-Onna, located at Chalon, which was used by Roman legionaries to refer to the entire river.
+
+R indicates a right tributary, L indicates a left tributary.
+
+The Saône is navigable from its confluence with the Coney at Corre in the north of the département Haute-Saône all the way to its confluence with the Rhône (itself a navigable river) at La Mulatière, in Lyon. The navigable stretch is 367 kilometres (228 mi) long, of which 206 kilometres (128 mi) has been redeveloped to European high-capacity dimensions from Saint-Symphorien-sur-Saône to Lyon. It has 5 locks.[3] The 161 km long part upstream from Saint-Symphorien-sur-Saône to Corre, also named Petite Saône, is navigable for Freycinet gauge ships and has 19 locks.[4]
+
+The Saône is linked with the Loire by the Canal du Centre, with the Yonne by the Canal de Bourgogne, with the Marne by the Canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne (previously the Canal de la Marne à la Saône), with the Meuse by the Canal de l'Est, whose southern branch has been renamed the Canal des Vosges, and with the Rhine by the Canal du Rhône au Rhin. All the canals are Freycinet gauge.
+
+Also navigable are the small Canal de Pont-de-Vaux (3 km), the Seille, navigable in a 40-kilometre (25 mi) stretch up to Louhans, and the lower part of the Doubs. None of these three connect the Saône to any other waterway.
+
+The lesser Saône has a tendency to flood (sometimes influenced by snow), with a very strong oceanic effect. The soils are not susceptible to much infiltration, so that they saturate quickly which contributes to surface runoff. The flow rate grows very quickly, and after receiving the waters of the Lanterne, the Saône already becomes a powerful river.
+
+The mean annual flow rate, or discharge, of the Saône has been measured over 50 years (as of 2013) at the Ray-sur-Saône hydrological station, situated about 30 kilometres (19 mi) after the Lanterne confluence between Port-sur-Saône and Gray.
+The figure is 59.7 cubic metres per second (2,110 cu ft/s) for a watershed area of 3,740 square kilometres (1,440 sq mi) (the upper basin of the lesser Saône), and has an annual maximum of 64.5 cubic metres per second (2,280 cu ft/s) and a minimum of 54.8 cubic metres per second (1,940 cu ft/s).
+
+The river exhibits seasonal variations in flow rate, with winter floods from 84 to 108 cubic metres per second (3,000 to 3,800 cu ft/s) from December to March inclusive, and summer reductions in July/August/September falling to a monthly average of 16.9 cubic metres per second (600 cu ft/s) in August.[5]
+
+The runoff curve number in the upper basin of the lesser Saône is 505 millimetres (19.9 in) annually, cf. 687 millimetres (27.0 in) for the Lanterne, an elevated figure resulting from the very high rainfall in the Vosgian part of its watershed. The specific flow rate rises to 16.0 litres per second per square kilometre of watershed.
+
+The maximum instantaneous recorded flow rate was 930 cubic metres per second (33,000 cu ft/s) on December 19, 1982.
+
+The greater Saône is formed by the confluence of the Doubs and the lesser Saône at Verdun-sur-le-Doubs. The Doubs brings a mean annual flow rate of 175 cubic metres per second (6,200 cu ft/s), and the lesser Saône, 160 cubic metres per second (5,700 cu ft/s).
+
+The greater Saône has only modest tributaries which have little effect on floods or other hydrological properties. It flows in a vast plain approximately 3 kilometres (2 mi) wide as far as Lyon in the basin of the former Bressan lake. The slope is very gradual, and without hydraulic projects up to the north of Chalon aimed at guaranteeing a deep navigation channel, overflows would be more frequent.
+
+At the Couzon-au-Mont-d'Or hydrological station, where the river enters the Lyon area, measurements taken between 1969 and 1986 revealed a mean annual flow rate of 473 cubic metres per second (16,700 cu ft/s), with a 100-year flood flow rate of 3,180 cubic metres per second (112,000 cu ft/s)[6] The runoff curve number from the river's entire watershed is 501 millimetres (19.7 in), and the specific flow rate rises to 15.8 litres per second per square km of watershed.
+
+Overall, the average flow rate in Lyon is 475 cubic metres per second (16,800 cu ft/s), with a minimum of 153 cubic metres per second (5,400 cu ft/s), in August, and a maximum of 954 cubic metres per second (33,700 cu ft/s), in February.[7]
+
+When the Saône floods, the impact varies considerably over the course of the river. A large flood with a strong flow rate upstream can be largely attenuated in the Bressan plain so as to have only moderate impact at Mâcon, particularly if it carries a limited volume of water. By contrast, a medium-sized flood of the lesser Saône can turn into a significant flood downstream, if the Doubs brings in a similar contribution at about the same time.
+
+Historic floods include:
+
+The reference flood in town planning is the 100-year flood. This reference was in the course of being modified as maps linked to modelling the 1840 flood in modern town planning conditions were distributed to local mayors in December 2008, and as new prevention plans were ordered for 2012.
+
+A plaque commemorating the flood of 1840 at Quincieux
+
+Historic floods since 1950 Écuelles, north Saône-et-Loire
+
+Indicators of the level of historic floods of the Saône on the Church of Notre-Dame de Belleville

en/5278.html.txt

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+São Tomé is the capital and largest city of the Central African island country of São Tomé and Príncipe. Its name is Portuguese for "Saint Thomas". Founded in the 15th century, is one of Africa's oldest colonial cities.[1]
+
+Álvaro Caminha founded the colony of São Tomé in 1493. The Portuguese came to São Tomé in search of land to grow sugarcane. The island was uninhabited before the arrival of the Portuguese sometime around 1470. São Tomé, situated about 40 kilometres (25 mi) north of the equator, had a climate wet enough to grow sugarcane in wild abundance. 2,000 Jewish children, eight years old and under, were taken from the Iberian peninsula for work on the sugar plantations.[2] The nearby African Kingdom of Kongo eventually became a source of slave labor as well.   São Tomé is centred on a sixteenth-century cathedral, that was largely rebuilt in the 19th century. Another early building is Fort São Sebastião, built in 1566 and now the São Tomé National Museum. On July 9, 1595, a slave revolt led by Rei Amador took control of the capital; they were subjugated the following year.[3] In 1599, the Dutch took the city as well as the islands for two days; they re-occupied it in 1641 for a year. The city served as the capital of the Portuguese colony of São Tomé and Príncipe and, from São Tomé and Príncipe's independence in 1975, as capital of the sovereign nation.[4]
+
+Important as a port, São Tomé is located on Ana Chaves Bay in the northeast of São Tomé Island, and Ilhéu das Cabras lies nearby offshore. São Tomé is located northeast of Trindade, southeast of Guadalupe and northwest of Santana. It is linked to these towns by a highway which encircles the entire island of São Tomé. It is linked to Cape Verde by a weekly ferry.[citation needed]
+
+Features of the town include the Presidential Palace, the cathedral, and a cinema. The city is also home to schools, and middle schools, high schools, one polytechnic, two markets, three radio stations, the public television station TVSP, several clinics and hospitals, the country's main airport - São Tomé International Airport (with direct regular scheduled flights to Angola, Gabon, Ghana and Portugal as well as occasional domestic flights to Príncipe), and many squares (praças). São Tomé also serves as the centre of the island's road and bus networks. The town is well known for the tchiloli playing.[5]
+
+São Tomé is served by São Tomé International Airport (IATA: TMS, ICAO: FPST) with regular flights to Europe and other African Countries.
+
+São Tomé features a tropical wet and dry climate (As) with a relatively lengthy wet season and a short dry season.  The wet season runs from October through May while the dry season covers the remaining four months. São Tomé sees on average just under 1,000 mm (39 in) of precipitation per year. Temperatures in the city are relatively constant, with average high temperatures usually around 30 °C (86 °F) and average low temperatures around 22 °C (72 °F).
+
+The following Portuguese international schools are in the city:[7]
+
+The main hospital of the country is Hospital Ayres de Menezes.
+
+Sports clubs based in the city include Sporting Praia Cruz and Vitória FC based in the neighborhood of Riboque.  All clubs play at Estádio Nacional 12 de Julho.
+
+Our Lady of Grace Cathedral, São Tomé
+
+Our Lady of Conception Church, São Tomé
+
+Among the places of worship, they are predominantly Christian churches and temples : Roman Catholic Diocese of São Tomé and Príncipe (Catholic Church), Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, Assemblies of God. [8]
+
+São Sebastião Museum.
+
+São Tomé City
+
+Downtown São Tomé
+
+São Tomé City
+
+Supreme Court of São Tomé and Príncipe
+
+Kids pier jumping
+
+One of the main roads in the capital São Tomé, Praia Cruz
+
+Old seat of Banco Internacional de São Tomé e Príncipe
+
+Downtown São Tomé
+
+Estádio Nacional 12 de Julho
+
+São Tomé, STP
+
+Central
+
+Baía Ana Chaves, São Tomé
+
+Presidential Palace of São Tomé and Príncipe
+
+Casa da Cultura de São Tomé
+
+São Tomé is twinned with:
+
+15th century
+
+
+
+16th century
+
+
+
+15th century
+
+
+
+16th century
+
+
+
+17th century
+
+18th century
+
+19th century
+
+
+
+16th century
+
+
+
+17th century
+
+
+
+15th century
+
+16th century
+Portuguese India
+
+
+
+
+
+17th century
+Portuguese India
+
+18th century
+Portuguese India
+
+
+
+16th century
+
+17th century
+
+
+
+19th century
+Portuguese Macau
+
+20th century
+Portuguese Macau
+
+
+
+15th century [Atlantic islands]
+
+
+
+16th century [Canada]
+
+
+
+
+
+16th century
+
+
+
+17th century
+
+18th century
+
+
+
+19th century
+

en/5279.html.txt

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+A firefighter (also known as a fireman or firewoman) is a rescuer extensively trained in firefighting, primarily to extinguish hazardous fires that threaten life, property, and the environment as well as to rescue people and animals from dangerous situations.
+
+The complexity of modern, industrialized life has created an increase in the skills needed in firefighting technology. The fire service, also known in some countries as the fire brigade or fire department, is one of the three main emergency services. From urban areas to aboard ships, firefighters have become ubiquitous around the world.
+
+The skills required for safe operations are regularly practiced during training evaluations throughout a firefighter's career. Initial firefighting skills are normally taught through local, regional or state-approved fire academies or training courses.[1] Depending on the requirements of a department, additional skills and certifications such as technical rescue and pre-hospital medicine may also be acquired at this time.
+
+Firefighters work closely with other emergency response agencies such as the police and emergency medical service. A firefighter's role may overlap with both. Fire investigators or fire marshals investigate the cause of a fire. If the fire was caused by arson or negligence, their work will overlap with law enforcement. Firefighters also frequently provide some degree of emergency medical service, in addition to working with full-time paramedics.
+
+The basic tasks of firefighters include: fire suppression, rescue, fire prevention, basic first aid, and investigations. Firefighting is further broken down into skills which include: size-up, extinguishing, ventilation, search and rescue, salvage, containment, mop up and overhaul.
+
+A fire burns due to the presence of three elements: fuel, oxygen and heat. This is often referred to as the fire triangle. Sometimes it is known as the fire tetrahedron if a fourth element is added: a chemical chain reaction which can help sustain certain types of fire. The aim of firefighting is to deprive the fire of at least one of those elements. Most commonly this is done by dousing the fire with water, though some fires require other methods such as foam or dry agents. Firefighters are equipped with a wide variety of equipment for this purpose that include: ladder trucks, pumper trucks, tanker trucks, fire hose, and fire extinguishers.
+
+While sometimes fires can be limited to small areas of a structure, wider collateral damage due to smoke, water and burning embers is common. Utility shutoff (such as gas and electricity) is typically an early priority for arriving fire crews. In addition, forcible entry may be required in order to gain access into the structure. Specific procedures and equipment are needed at a property where hazardous materials are being used or stored.
+
+Structure fires may be attacked with either "interior" or "exterior" resources, or both. Interior crews, using the "two in, two out" rule, may extend fire hose lines inside the building, find the fire and cool it with water. Exterior crews may direct water into windows and other openings, or against any nearby fuels exposed to the initial fire. Hose streams directed into the interior through exterior wall apertures may conflict and jeopardize interior fire attack crews.
+
+Buildings that are made of flammable materials such as wood are different from building materials such as concrete. Generally, a "fire-resistant" building is designed to limit fire to a small area or floor. Other floors can be safe by preventing smoke inhalation and damage. All buildings suspected or on fire must be evacuated, regardless of fire rating.
+
+Some fire fighting tactics may appear to be destructive, but often serve specific needs. For example, during ventilation, firefighters are forced to either open holes in the roof or floors of a structure (called vertical ventilation), or open windows and walls (called horizontal ventilation) to remove smoke and heated gases from the interior of the structure. Such ventilation methods are also used to improve interior visibility to locate victims more quickly. Ventilation helps to preserve the life of trapped or unconscious individuals as it releases the poisonous gases from inside the structure. Vertical ventilation is vital to firefighter safety in the event of a flashover or backdraft scenario. Releasing the flammable gases through the roof eliminates the possibility of a backdraft, and the removal of heat can reduce the possibility of a flashover. Flashovers, due to their intense heat (900–1200° Fahrenheit) and explosive temperaments, are commonly fatal to firefighter personnel. Precautionary methods, such as smashing a window, reveal backdraft situations before the firefighter enters the structure and is met with the circumstance head-on. Firefighter safety is the number one priority.
+
+Whenever possible during a structure fire, property is moved into the middle of a room and covered with a salvage cover, a heavy cloth-like tarp. Various steps such as retrieving and protecting valuables found during suppression or overhaul, evacuating water, and boarding windows and roofs can divert or prevent post-fire runoff.
+
+Wildfires (known in Australia as bushfires) require a unique set of strategies and tactics. In many countries such as Australia and the United States, these duties are mostly carried out by local volunteer firefighters. Wildfires have some ecological role in allowing new plants to grow, therefore in some cases they will be left to burn.[2] Priorities in fighting wildfires include preventing the loss of life and property.
+
+Firefighters rescue people (and animals) from dangerous situations such as crashed vehicles, structural collapses, trench collapses, cave and tunnel emergencies, water and ice emergencies, elevator emergencies, energized electrical line emergencies, and industrial accidents.[3] In less common circumstances, Firefighters rescue victims from hazardous materials emergencies as well as steep cliffs, embankment and high rises - The latter is referred to as High Angle Rescue, or Rope Rescue. Many fire departments, including most in the United Kingdom, refer to themselves as a fire and rescue service for this reason. Large fire departments, such as the New York City Fire Department and London Fire Brigade, have specialist teams for advanced technical rescue. As building fires have been in decline for many years in developed countries such as the United States, rescues other than fires make up an increasing proportion of their firefighters' work.[4]
+
+Firefighters frequently provide some degree of emergency medical care. In some jurisdictions first aid is the only medical training that firefighters have, and medical-only calls are the sole responsibility of a separate emergency medical services (EMS) agency. Elsewhere, it is common for firefighters to respond to medical-only calls. The impetus for this is the growing demand for emergency medicine and the decline of fires and traditional firefighting call-outs[4]—though fire departments still have to be able to respond to them—and their existing ability to respond rapidly to emergencies. A rapid response is particularly necessary for cardiac arrests, as these will lead to death if not treated within minutes.[5]
+
+The dispatch of firefighters to medical emergencies is particularly common in fire departments that run the EMS, including most large cities of the United States. In those departments, firefighters are often jointly trained as emergency medical technicians in order to deliver basic life support, and more rarely as paramedics to deliver advanced life support. In the United Kingdom, where fire services and EMS are run separately, fire service co-responding has been introduced more recently.[6] Another point of variation is whether the firefighters respond in a fire engine or a response car.[7] Either way, separate employees to crew ambulances are still needed, unless the firefighters can work shifts on the ambulances.
+
+Airports employ specialist firefighters to deal with potential ground emergencies. Due to the mass casualty potential of an aviation emergency, the speed with which emergency response equipment and personnel arrive at the scene of the emergency is of paramount importance. When dealing with an emergency, the airport firefighters are tasked with rapidly securing the aircraft, its crew and its passengers from all hazards, particularly fire. Airport firefighters have advanced training in the application of firefighting foams, dry chemical and clean agents used to extinguish burning aviation fuel.
+
+Fire departments are usually the primary agency that responds to an emergency involving hazardous materials. Specialized firefighters, known as hazardous materials technicians, have training and certification in chemical identification, leak control, decontamination, and clean-up procedures.
+
+Fire departments frequently provide advice to the public on how to prevent fires in the home and work-place environments. Fire inspectors or fire marshals will directly inspect businesses to ensure they are up to the current building fire codes,[8][9] which are enforced so that a building can sufficiently resist fire spread, potential hazards are located, and to ensure that occupants can be safely evacuated, commensurate with the risks involved.
+
+Fire suppression systems have a proven record for controlling and extinguishing unwanted fires. Many fire officials recommend that every building, including residences, have fire sprinkler systems.[10] Correctly working sprinklers in a residence greatly reduce the risk of death from a fire.[11] With the small rooms typical of a residence, one or two sprinklers can cover most rooms.  In the United States, the housing industry trade groups have lobbied at the State level to prevent the requirement for Fire Sprinklers in 1 and 2 bedroom homes.[12][13]
+
+Other methods of fire prevention are by directing efforts to reduce known hazardous conditions or by preventing dangerous acts before tragedy strikes. This is normally accomplished in many innovative ways such as conducting presentations, distributing safety brochures, providing news articles, writing public safety announcements (PSA) or establishing meaningful displays in well-visited areas. Ensuring that each household has working smoke alarms, is educated in the proper techniques of fire safety, has an evacuation route and rendezvous point is of top priority in public education for most fire prevention teams in almost all fire department localities.
+
+Fire investigators, who are experienced firefighters trained in fire cause determinism, are dispatched to fire scenes, in order to investigate and determine whether the fire was a result of an accident or intentional. Some fire investigators have full law enforcement powers to investigate and arrest suspected arsonists.
+
+To allow protection from the inherent risks of fighting fires, firefighters wear and carry protective and self-rescue equipment at all times. A self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) delivers air to the firefighter through a full face mask and is worn to protect against smoke inhalation, toxic fumes, and super heated gases. A special device called a Personal Alert Safety System (PASS) is commonly worn independently or as a part of the SCBA to alert others when a firefighter stops moving for a specified period of time or manually operates the device. The PASS device sounds an alarm that can assist another firefighter (firefighter assist and search team (FAST), or rapid intervention team (RIT), in locating the firefighter in distress.
+
+Firefighters often carry personal self-rescue ropes. The ropes are generally 30 feet long and can provide a firefighter (that has enough time to deploy the rope) a partially controlled exit out of an elevated window. Lack of a personal rescue rope is cited in the deaths of two New York City Firefighters, Lt. John Bellew and Lt. Curtis Meyran, who died after they jumped from the fourth floor of a burning apartment building in the Bronx. Of the four firefighters who jumped and survived, only one of them had a self-rescue rope. Since the incident, the Fire Department of New York City has issued self-rescue ropes to their firefighters.[14]
+
+Heat injury is a major issue for firefighters as they wear insulated clothing and cannot shed the heat generated from physical exertion. Early detection of heat issues is critical to stop dehydration and heat stress becoming fatal. Early onset of heat stress affects cognitive function which combined with operating in dangerous environment makes heat stress and dehydration a critical issue to monitor. Firefighter physiological status monitoring is showing promise in alerting EMS and commanders to the status of their people on the fire ground. Devices such as PASS device alert 10–20 seconds after a firefighter has stopped moving in a structure. Physiological status monitors measure a firefighter's vital sign status, fatigue and exertion levels and transmit this information over their voice radio. This technology allows a degree of early warning to physiological stress. These devices[15] are similar to technology developed for Future Force Warrior and give a measure of exertion and fatigue. They also tell the people outside a building when they have stopped moving or fallen. This allows a supervisor to call in additional engines before the crew get exhausted and also gives an early warning to firefighters before they run out of air, as they may not be able to make voice calls over their radio. Current OSHA tables exist for heat injury and the allowable amount of work in a given environment based on temperature, humidity and solar loading.[16]
+
+Firefighters are also at risk for developing rhabdomyolysis. Rhabdomyolysis is the breakdown of muscle tissue and has many causes including heat exposure, high core body temperature, and prolonged, intense exertion. Routine firefighter tasks, such as carrying extra weight of equipment and working in hot environments, can increase firefighters’ risk for rhabdomyolysis.[17][18]
+
+Another leading cause of death during firefighting is structural collapse of a burning building (e.g. a wall, floor, ceiling, roof, or truss system). Structural collapse, which often occurs without warning, may crush or trap firefighters inside the structure. To avoid loss of life, all on-duty firefighters should maintain two-way communication with the incident commander and be equipped with a personal alert safety system device on all fire scenes and maintain radio communication on all incidents(PASS).[19][20] Francis Brannigan was the founder and greatest contributor to this element of firefighter safety.
+
+In the United States, 25% of fatalities of firefighters are caused by traffic collisions while responding to or returning from an incident. Other firefighters have been injured or killed by vehicles at the scene of a fire or emergency (Paulison 2005). A common measure fire departments have taken to prevent this is to require firefighters to wear a bright yellow reflective vest over their turnout coats if they have to work on a public road, to make them more visible to passing drivers.[21] In addition to the direct dangers of firefighting, cardiovascular diseases account for approximately 45% of on duty firefighter deaths.[22]
+
+Firefighters have sometimes been assaulted by members of the public while responding to calls. These kinds of attacks can cause firefighters to fear for their safety and may cause them to not have full focus on the situation which could result in injury to their selves or the patient.[citation needed]
+
+Once extinguished, fire debris cleanup poses several safety and health risks for workers.[23][24]
+
+Many hazardous substances are commonly found in fire debris.  Silica can be found in concrete, roofing tiles, or it may be a naturally occurring element. Occupational exposures to silica dust can cause silicosis, lung cancer, pulmonary tuberculosis, airway diseases, and some additional non-respiratory diseases.[25]  Inhalation of asbestos can result in various diseases including asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma.[26] Sources of metals exposure include burnt or melted electronics, cars, refrigerators, stoves, etc. Fire debris cleanup workers may be exposed to these metals or their combustion products in the air or on their skin. These metals may include beryllium, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, lead, manganese, nickel, and many more.[23] Polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), some of which are carcinogenic, come from the incomplete combustion of organic materials and are often found as a result of structural and wildland fires.[27]
+
+Safety hazards of fire cleanup include the risk of reignition of smoldering debris, electrocution from downed or exposed electrical lines or in instances where water has come into contact with electrical equipment. Structures that have been burned may be unstable and at risk of sudden collapse.[24][28]
+
+Standard personal protective equipment for fire cleanup include hard hats, goggles or safety glasses, heavy work gloves, earplugs or other hearing protection, steel-toe boots, and fall protection devices.[28][29] Hazard controls for electrical injury include assuming all power lines are energized until confirmation they are de-energized, and grounding power lines to guard against electrical feedback, and using appropriate personal protective equipment.[28] Proper respiratory protection can protect against hazardous substances.  Proper ventilation of an area is an engineering control that can be used to avoid or minimize exposure to hazardous substances.  When ventilation is insufficient or dust cannot be avoided, personal protective equipment such as N95 respirators can be used.[28][30]
+
+Firefighting has long been associated with poor cardiovascular outcomes. In the United States, the most common cause of on-duty fatalities for firefighters is sudden cardiac death. In addition to personal factors that may predispose an individual to coronary artery disease or other cardiovascular diseases, occupational exposures can significantly increase a firefighter's risk. Historically, the fire service blamed poor firefighter physical condition for being the primary cause of cardiovascular related deaths. However, over the last 20 years, studies and research has indicated the toxic gasses put fire service personnel at significantly higher risk for cardiovascular related conditions and death. For instance, carbon monoxide, present in nearly all fire environments, and hydrogen cyanide, formed during the combustion of paper, cotton, plastics, and other substances containing carbon and nitrogen. The substances inside of materials change during combustion their bi-products interfere with the transport of oxygen in the body. Hypoxia can then lead to heart injury. In addition, chronic exposure to particulate matter in smoke is associated with atherosclerosis. Noise exposures may contribute to hypertension and possibly ischemic heart disease. Other factors associated with firefighting, such as stress, heat stress, and heavy physical exertion, also increase the risk of cardiovascular events.[31]
+
+During fire suppression activities a firefighter can reach peak or near peak heart rates which can act as a trigger for a cardiac event. For example, tachycardia can cause plaque buildup to break loose and lodge itself is a small part of the heart causing myocardial infarction, also known as a heart attack. This along with unhealthy habits and lack of exercise can be very hazardous to firefighter health.[32]
+
+A 2015 retrospective longitudinal study showed that firefighters are at higher risk for certain types of cancer. Firefighters had mesothelioma, which is caused by asbestos exposure, at twice the rate of the non-firefighting working population. Younger firefighters (under age 65) also developed bladder cancer and prostate cancer at higher rates than the general population. The risk of bladder cancer may be present in female firefighters, but research is inconclusive as of 2014.[33][34] Preliminary research from 2015 on a large cohort of US firefighters showed a direct relationship between the number of hours spent fighting fires and lung cancer and leukemia mortality in firefighters. This link is a topic of continuing research in the medical community, as is cancer mortality in general among firefighters.[35]
+
+Firefighters are exposed to a variety of carcinogens at fires, including both carcinogenic chemicals and radiation (alpha radiation, beta radiation, and gamma radiation).[36]
+
+As with other emergency workers, firefighters may witness traumatic scenes during their careers. They are thus more vulnerable than most people to certain mental health issues such as post-traumatic stress disorder[37][38] and suicidal thoughts and behaviors.[39][40] Among women in the US, the occupations with the highest suicide rates are police and firefighters, with a rate of 14.1 per 100 000, according to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC.[41] Chronic stress over time attributes to symptoms that affect first responders, such as anxiousness, irritability, nervousness, memory and concentration problems can occur overtime which can lead to anxiety and depression. Mental stress can have long lasting affects on the brain.[42] A 2014 report from the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation found that a fire department is three times more likely to experience a suicide in a given year than a line-of-duty death.[43] Mental stress of the job can lead to substance abuse and alcohol abuse as ways of coping with the stress.[44] The mental stress of fire fighting has a lot of different causes. There are those they see on duty and also what they miss by being on duty. Firefighters schedules fluctuate by district. There are stations where fire fighters work 48 hours on and 48 hours off. Some allow 24 hours on and 72 hours off[45] . The mental impact of missing your child's first steps or a ballet recital can take a heavy impact on first responders. There is also the stress of being on opposite shifts as your spouse or being away from family.
+
+Another long-term risk factor from firefighting is exposure to high levels of sound, which can cause noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) and tinnitus.[46][47] NIHL affects sound frequencies between 3,000 and 6,000 Hertz first, then with more frequent exposure, will spread to more frequencies.[47] Many consonants will be more difficult to hear or inaudible with NIHL because of the higher frequencies effected, which results in poorer communication.[47] NIHL is caused by exposure to sound levels at or above 85dBA according to NIOSH and at or above 90dBA according to OSHA.[47] dBA represents A-weighted decibels. dBA is used for measuring sound levels relating to occupational sound exposure since it attempts to mimic the sensitivity of the human ear to different frequencies of sound.[47] OSHA uses a 5-dBA exchange rate, which means that for every 5dBA increase in sound from 90dBA, the acceptable exposure time before a risk of permanent hearing loss occurs decreases by half (starting with 8 hours acceptable exposure time at 90dBA).[47][48] NIOSH uses a 3-dBA exchange rate starting at 8 hours acceptable exposure time at 85dBA.[47][49]
+
+The time of exposure required to potentially cause damage depends on the level of sound exposed to.[49]  The most common causes of excessive sound exposure are sirens, transportation to and from fires, fire alarms, and work tools.[46] Traveling in an emergency vehicle has shown to expose a person to between 103 and 114dBA of sound. According to OSHA, exposure at this level is acceptable for between 17 and 78 minutes[48] and according to NIOSH is acceptable for between 35 seconds and 7.5 minutes [49] over a 24-hour day before permanent hearing loss can occur. This time period considers that no other high level sound exposure occurs in that 24-hour time frame.[49] Sirens often output about 120 dBA, which according to OSHA, 7.5 minutes of exposure is needed[48] and according to NIOSH, 9 seconds of exposure is needed[49] in a 24-hour time period before permanent hearing loss can occur. In addition to high sound levels, another risk factor for hearing disorders is the co-exposure to chemicals that are ototoxic.[50]
+
+The average day of work for a firefighter can often be under the sound exposure limit for both OSHA and NIOSH.[47] While the average day of sound exposure as a firefighter is often under the limit, firefighters can be exposed to impulse noise, which has a very low acceptable time exposure before permanent hearing damage can occur due to the high intensity and short duration.[46]
+
+There are also high rates of hearing loss, often NIHL, in firefighters, which increases with age and number of years working as a firefighter.[46][51] Hearing loss prevention programs have been implemented in multiple stations and have shown to help lower the rate of firefighters with NIHL.[47] Other attempts have been made to lower sound exposures for firefighters, such as enclosing the cabs of the firetrucks to lower the siren exposure while driving.[47] NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) is responsible for occupational health programs and standards in firefighters which discusses what hearing sensitivity is required to work as a firefighter, but also enforces baseline (initial) and annual hearing tests (based on OSHA hearing maintenance regulations).[46] While NIHL can be a risk that occurs from working as a firefighter, NIHL can also be a safety concern for communicating while doing the job as communicating with coworkers and victims is essential for safety.[46] Hearing protection devices have been used by firefighters in the United States.[47] Earmuffs are the most commonly used hearing protection device (HPD) as they are the most easy to put on correctly in a quick manner.[47] Multiple fire departments have used HPDs that have communication devices built in, allowing firefighters to speak with each other at safe, but audible sound levels, while lowering the hazardous sound levels around them.[47]
+
+In a country with a comprehensive fire service, fire departments must be able to send firefighters to emergencies at any hour of day or night, to arrive on the scene within minutes. In urban areas, this means that full-time paid firefighters usually have shift work, with some providing cover each night. On the other hand, it may not be practical to employ full-time firefighters in villages and isolated small towns, where their services may not be required for days at a time. For this reason, many fire departments have firefighters who spend long periods on call to respond to infrequent emergencies; they may have regular jobs outside of firefighting. Whether they are paid or not varies by country. In the United States and Germany, volunteer fire departments provide most of the cover in rural areas. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, by contrast, actual volunteers are rare. Instead, "retained firefighters" are paid for responding to incidents, along with a small salary for spending long periods of time on call.
+
+A key difference between many country's fire services is what the balance is between full-time and volunteer (or on-call) firefighters. In the United States and United Kingdom, large metropolitan fire departments are almost entirely made up of full-time firefighters. On the other hand, in Germany and Austria,[52] volunteers play a substantial role even in the largest fire departments, including Berlin's, which serves a population of 3.6 million. Regardless of how this balance works, a common feature is that smaller urban areas have a mix of full-time and volunteer/on-call firefighters. This is known in the United States as a combination fire department. In Chile and Peru, all firefighters are volunteers.[53]
+
+Another point of variation is how the fire services are organized. Some countries like Israel and New Zealand have a single national fire service. Others like Australia, the United Kingdom and France organize fire services based on regions or sub-national states. In the United States, Germany and Canada, fire departments are run at a municipal level.
+
+Atypically, Singapore and many parts of Switzerland have fire service conscription.[54][55] In Germany, conscription can also be used if a village does not have a functioning fire service. Other unusual arrangements are seen in France, where two of the country's fire services (the Paris Fire Brigade and the Marseille Naval Fire Battalion) are part of the armed forces, and Denmark, where most fire services are run by private companies.[56]
+
+Another way in which a firefighter's work varies around the world is the nature of firefighting equipment and tactics. For example, American fire departments make heavier use of aerial appliances, and are often split between engine and ladder companies. In Europe, where the size and usefulness of aerial appliances are often limited by narrow streets, they are only used for rescues, and firefighters can rotate between working on an engine and an aerial appliance.
+[57][56] A final point in variation is how involved firefighters are in emergency medical services.
+
+The expedient and accurate handling of fire alarms or calls are significant factors in the successful outcome of any incident. Fire department communications play a critical role in that successful outcome. Fire department communications include the methods by which the public can notify the communications center of an emergency, the methods by which the center can notify the proper fire fighting forces, and the methods by which information is exchanged at the scene. One method is to use a megaphone to communicate.
+
+A telecommunicator (often referred to as a 000 Operator)[citation needed] has a role different from but just as important as other emergency personnel. The telecommunicator must process calls from unknown and unseen individuals, usually calling under stressful conditions. He/she must be able to obtain complete, reliable information from the caller and prioritize requests for assistance. It is the dispatcher's responsibility to bring order to chaos.
+
+While some fire departments are large enough to utilize their own telecommunication dispatcher, most rural and small areas rely on a central dispatcher to provide handling of fire, rescue, and police services.
+
+Firefighters are trained to use communications equipment to receive alarms, give and receive commands, request assistance, and report on conditions. Since firefighters from different agencies routinely provide mutual aid to each other, and routinely operate at incidents where other emergency services are present, it is essential to have structures in place to establish a unified chain of command, and share information between agencies. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has established a National Incident Management System.[58] One component of this system is the Incident Command System.
+
+All radio communication in the United States is under authorization from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC); as such, fire departments that operate radio equipment must have radio licenses from the FCC.
+
+Ten codes were popular in the early days of radio equipment because of poor transmission and reception. Advances in modern radio technology have reduced the need for ten-codes and many departments have converted to simple English (clear text).
+
+Many firefighters are sworn members with command structures similar to the military and police. They do not have general police powers (some firefighters in the United States have limited police powers, like fire police departments, while certain fire marshals have full police powers, i.e. the ability to make warrantless arrests, and authority to carry a firearm on and off-duty), but have specific powers of enforcement and control in fire and emergency situations.
+
+The basic unit of an American fire department is a "company", a group of firefighters who typically work on the same engine. A "crew" or "platoon" is a subdivision of a company who work on the same shift. Commonwealth fire services are more likely to be organized around a "watch", who work the same shift on multiple engines.[59]
+
+New South Wales Rural Fire Service
+
+New rank structure of 2015.
+
+Ranks amongst Canadian firefighters vary across the country and ranking appears mostly with larger departments:
+
+Toronto
+
+Montreal
+
+Vancouver
+
+Ranks are divided between Company Officers and Fire Department Officers, which can be subdivided between Active Officers (Field Officers) and Administrative Officers each. The active officers are the captain, and three or four lieutenants, these four active officers are distinguished by red lines on their helmets.
+
+Most fire brigades in Commonwealth countries (except Canada) have a more "civilianised" nomenclature, structured in a traditional manner. For example, the common structure in United Kingdom brigades is:
+
+French civilian fire services, which historically are derived from French army sapper units, use French Army ranks. The highest rank in many departments is full colonel. Only the NCO rank of major is used in both the Paris Fire Brigade and the Marseille Naval Fire Battalion; since 2013 it has been abolished in the other fire departments.
+
+In Germany every federal state has its own civil protection laws thus they have different rank systems. Additionally, in the volunteer fire departments, there is a difference between a rank and an official position. This is founded on the military traditions of the fire departments. Every firefighter can hold a high rank without having an official position. A firefighter can be promoted by years of service, training skills and qualifications. Official positions are partly elected or given by capabilities. These conditions allow that older ordinary firefighters have higher ranks than their leaders. But through this ranks are no authorities given (Brevet).
+
+Completed vocational training in a technical occupation suitable for the fire service. Basic firefighter training.
+
+Bachelor of Engineering and two years departmental training.
+
+Master of Engineering and two years of departmental training.
+
+Firefighters in Indonesia form part of the civil service of local governments and wear variant forms of uniforms worn by civil servants and employees.
+
+The Vigili del Fuoco, (literally the word "Vigili" comes from the Latin word "Vigiles", which means "who is part of certain guards") have the official name of Corpo nazionale dei vigili del fuoco (CNVVF, National Firefighters Corps).
+
+The CNVVF is the Italian institutional agency for fire and rescue service. It is part of the Ministry of Interior's Department of Firefighters, Public Rescue and Public Protection. The CNVVF task is to provide safety for people, animals and property, and control the compliance of buildings and industries to fire safety rules. The Ministry of the Interior, through the CNVVF, adopts fire safety rules with ministerial decrees or other lower rank documents. The CNVVF also ensures public rescue in emergencies that involves the use of chemical weapons, bacteriological, radiological and materials. Since 2012 the Corps uses its own rank titles (dating from 2007) with matching military styled insignia in honor of its origins.
+
+In 2016 the CNVVF has been committed in forest firefighting activities together with the regional forest agencies, following the suppression of the National Forest Guards, which were merged into the Carabinieri (firefighters were integrated into the CNVVF).
+.
+
+In Iran, every city has its own fire department, but ranks are the same in the whole country, and are as follows:
+
+In Ireland, the traditional brigade rank structure is still adopted. Below is the common structure for most brigades, Cork and Dublin Fire Brigade have additional ranks:
+
+Japanese Fire Department's rank insignias are place on a small badge and pinned above the right pocket. Rank is told by stripes and Hexagram stars. The design of the insignias came from older Japanese style military insignias. Officers and Team Leaders could wear an arm band on the arm of fire jacket to show status as command leader. Sometimes rank can be shown as different color fire jacket for command staff. The color whites and gray are reserved for EMS. Orange is reserved for rescuer.
+
+Grand-Ducal Fire and Rescue Corps of Luxembourg.
+
+Aspirant Brigadier
+
+Brigadier
+
+Corporal
+
+Chief Corporal
+
+Chief Corporal 1st Class
+
+Sergeant
+
+Chief Sergeant
+
+Sergeant major
+
+Aspirant Adjutant
+
+Adjutant
+
+Chief Adjutant
+
+Adjutant major
+
+Aspirant Lieutenant
+
+Lieutenant
+
+Lieutenant 1st Class
+
+Captain
+
+Major
+
+Lieutenant Colonel
+
+Colonel
+
+Director General
+
+In New Zealand, rank is shown on epaulettes on firefighters' station uniform, and through colors and stripes on firefighter helmets. As the nation only has a single fire department, the New Zealand Fire Service, ranks are consistent through the country.
+
+In the Russian Federation, the decals are applied symmetrically on both sides of the helmet (front and rear). The location of the decals on the special clothing and SCBA is established for each fire department of the same type within the territorial entity. The following ranks are used by State Fire Service civilian personnel, while military personnel use ranks similar to those of the Police of Russia, due to their pre-2001 history as the fire service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation before all firefighting services were transferred to the Ministry of Emergency Situations.
+
+Tunisian firefighter's ranks are actually the same as the army, police and national garde.
+
+In the United States, helmet colors often denote a fire fighter's rank or position. In general, white helmets denote chief officers, while red helmets may denote company officers, but the specific meaning of a helmet's color or style varies from region to region and department to department. The rank of an officer in an American fire department is most commonly denoted by a number of speaking trumpets, a reference to a megaphone-like device used in the early days of the fire service, although typically called "bugle" in today's parlance. Ranks proceed from one (lieutenant) to five (fire chief) bugles. Traditional ranks in American fire departments that exist but may not always be utilized in all cities or towns include:
+
+Chief/Commissioner
+
+In many fire departments in the U.S., the captain is commonly the commander of a company and a lieutenant is the supervisor of the company's firefighters on shift. There is no state or federal rank structure for firefighters and each municipality or volunteer fire department creates and uses their own unique structure.
+
+Still, some other American fire departments such the FDNY use military rank insignia in addition or instead of the traditional bugles. Additionally, officers on truck companies have been known to use rank insignias shaped like axes for Lieutenants (1) and Captains (2).
+
+Turkish firefighters in MOPP 4 level protective gear during an exercise held at Incirlik Air Base, Turkey
+
+Toronto firefighters prepare their equipment
+
+A firefighter using a hydraulic cutter during a demonstration
+
+British naval men in firefighting gear on HMS Illustrious (R06), Liverpool, 25 October 2009
+
+A partial list of some equipment typically used by firefighters:
+
+Although people have fought fires since there have been valuable things to burn, the first instance of organized professionals combating structural fires occurred in
+ancient Egypt. Likewise, fire fighters of the Roman Republic existed solely as privately organized and funded groups that operated more similarly to a business than a public service; however, during the Principate period, Augustus revolutionized firefighting by calling for the creation of a fire guard that was trained, paid, and equipped by the state, thereby commissioning the first truly public and professional firefighting service. Known as the Vigiles, they were organised into cohorts, serving as a night watch and city police force.
+
+The earliest American fire departments were volunteers, including the volunteer fire company in New Amsterdam, now known as New York.[62] Fire companies were composed of citizens who volunteered their time to help protect the community. As time progressed and new towns were established throughout the region, there was a sharp increase in the number of volunteer departments.
+
+In 1853, the first career fire department in the United States was established in Cincinnati, Ohio, followed four years later by St. Louis Fire Department. Large cities began establishing paid, full-time staff in order to try facilitate greater call volume.
+
+City fire departments draw their funding directly from city taxes and share the same budget as other public works like the police department and trash services. The primary difference between municipality departments and city departments is the funding source. Municipal fire departments do not share their budget with any other service and are considered to be private entities within a jurisdiction. This means that they have their own taxes that feed into their budgeting needs. City fire departments report to the mayor, whereas municipal departments are accountable to elected board officials who help maintain and run the department along with the chief officer staff.[citation needed]
+
+Funds for firefighting equipment may be raised by the firefighters themselves, especially in the case of volunteer organizations. Events such as pancake breakfasts and chili feeds are common in the United States. Social events are used to raise money include dances, fairs, and car washes.
+
+Media related to Firefighter at Wikimedia Commons
+
+Fact Sheet for Firefighters and EMS providers regarding risks for exposure to COVID-19, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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+A Christmas tree is a decorated tree, usually an evergreen conifer, such as a spruce, pine or fir, or an artificial tree of similar appearance, associated with the celebration of Christmas, originating in Northern Europe.[1] The custom was developed in medieval Livonia (present-day Estonia and Latvia), and in early modern Germany where Protestant Germans brought decorated trees into their homes.[2][3] It acquired popularity beyond the Lutheran areas of Germany[2][4] and the Baltic countries during the second half of the 19th century, at first among the upper classes.[5] The Catholic Church had long resisted this Protestant custom and the Christmas Tree stood for the first time in Vatican in 1982.
+
+The tree was traditionally decorated with "roses made of colored paper, apples, wafers, tinsel, [and] sweetmeats". In the 18th century, it began to be illuminated by candles, which were ultimately replaced by Christmas lights after the advent of electrification. Today, there is a wide variety of traditional and modern ornaments, such as garlands, baubles, tinsel, and candy canes. An angel or star might be placed at the top of the tree to represent the Angel Gabriel or the Star of Bethlehem, respectively, from the Nativity.[6][7] Edible items such as gingerbread, chocolate and other sweets are also popular and are tied to or hung from the tree's branches with ribbons.
+
+In the Western Christian tradition, Christmas trees are variously erected on days such as the first day of Advent or even as late as Christmas Eve depending on the country;[8] customs of the same faith hold that the two traditional days when Christmas decorations, such as the Christmas tree, are removed are Twelfth Night and, if they are not taken down on that day, Candlemas, the latter of which ends the Christmas-Epiphany season in some denominations.[8][9]
+
+The Christmas tree is sometimes compared with the "Yule-tree", especially in discussions of its folkloric origins.[10][11][12]
+
+Modern Christmas trees originated during the Renaissance in early modern Germany. Its 16th-century origins are sometimes associated with Protestant Christian reformer Martin Luther, who is said to have first added lighted candles to an evergreen tree.[13][14][15]
+
+The earliest known firmly dated representation of a Christmas tree is on the keystone sculpture of a private home in Turckheim, Alsace (then part of Germany, today France), with the date 1576.[16]
+
+Modern Christmas trees have been related to the "tree of paradise" of medieval mystery plays that were given on 24 December, the commemoration and name day of Adam and Eve in various countries. In such plays, a tree decorated with apples (to represent the forbidden fruit) and wafers (to represent the Eucharist and redemption) was used as a setting for the play. Like the Christmas crib, the Paradise tree was later placed in homes. The apples were replaced by round objects such as shiny red balls.[11][12][17][18][19][20]
+
+At the end of the Middle Ages, an early predecessor appears referred in the Regiment of the Order of Cister in the 15th century, in Alcobaça, Portugal. The Regiment of the local high-Sacristans of the Cistercian Order refers to what may be considered the oldest references to the Christmas tree: "Note on how to put the Christmas branch, scilicet: On the Christmas eve, you will look for a large Branch of green laurel, and you shall reap many red oranges, and place them on the branches that come of the laurel, specifically as you have seen, and in every orange you shall put a candle, and hang the Branch by a rope in the pole, which shall be by the candle of the altar-mor."[21]
+
+The relevance of ancient pre-Christian customs to the 16th-century German initiation of the Christmas tree custom is disputed.[by whom?] Resistance to the custom was often because of its supposed Lutheran origins.[22]
+
+Other sources have offered a connection between the symbolism of the first documented Christmas trees in Alsace around 1600 and the trees of pre-Christian traditions. For example, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "The use of evergreen trees, wreaths, and garlands to symbolize eternal life was a custom of the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Hebrews. Tree worship was common among the pagan Europeans and survived their conversion to Christianity in the Scandinavian customs of decorating the house and barn with evergreens at the New Year to scare away the devil and of setting up a tree for the birds during Christmas time."[23]
+
+During the Roman mid-winter festival of Saturnalia, houses were decorated with wreaths of evergreen plants, along with other antecedent customs now associated with Christmas.[24]
+
+The Vikings and Saxons worshiped trees.[24] The story of Saint Boniface cutting down Donar's Oak illustrates the pagan practices in 8th century among the Germans. A later folk version of the story adds the detail that an evergreen tree grew in place of the felled oak, telling them about how its triangular shape reminds humanity of the Trinity and how it points to heaven.[25][26]
+
+Georgians have their own traditional Christmas tree called Chichilaki, made from dried up hazelnut or walnut branches that are shaped to form a small coniferous tree.[27] These pale-colored ornaments differ in height from 20 cm (7.9 in) to 3 meters (9.8 feet). Chichilakis are most common in the Guria and Samegrelo regions of Georgia near the Black Sea, but they can also be found in some stores around the capital of Tbilisi.[citation needed]
+Georgians believe that Chichilaki resembles the famous beard of St. Basil the Great, because Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates St. Basil on 1 January.
+
+In Poland, there is a folk tradition dating back to an old pre-Christian pagan custom of suspending a branch of fir, spruce or pine from the ceiling, called podłaźniczka, during the time of the Koliada winter festival.[28] The branches were decorated with apples, nuts, acorns and stars made of straw. In more recent times, the decorations also included colored paper cutouts (wycinanki), wafers, cookies and Christmas baubles. According to old pagan beliefs, the branch's powers were linked to good harvest and prosperity.[29]
+
+The custom lasted among some of the rural peasants until the early 20th century, particularly in the regions of Lesser Poland and Upper Silesia.[30] Most often the branches were hung above the wigilia dinner table on Christmas Eve from the rafters. Beginning in the mid-19th century, the tradition over time was almost completely replaced by the German practice of decorating a Christmas tree.[31] The custom was partly revived in the 1970s and continues in some homes.[32]
+
+Customs of erecting decorated trees in wintertime can be traced to Christmas celebrations in Renaissance-era guilds in Northern Germany and Livonia. The first evidence of decorated trees associated with Christmas Day are trees in guildhalls decorated with sweets to be enjoyed by the apprentices and children. In Livonia (present-day Estonia and Latvia), in 1441, 1442, 1510 and 1514, the Brotherhood of Blackheads erected a tree for the holidays in their guild houses in Reval (now Tallinn) and Riga. On the last night of the celebrations leading up to the holidays, the tree was taken to the Town Hall Square, where the members of the brotherhood danced around it.[33]
+
+A Bremen guild chronicle of 1570 reports that a small tree decorated with "apples, nuts, dates, pretzels and paper flowers" was erected in the guild-house for the benefit of the guild members' children, who collected the dainties on Christmas Day.[34] In 1584, the pastor and chronicler Balthasar Russow in his Chronica der Provinz Lyfflandt (1584) wrote of an established tradition of setting up a decorated spruce at the market square, where the young men "went with a flock of maidens and women, first sang and danced there and then set the tree aflame".
+
+After the Protestant Reformation, such trees are seen in the houses of upper-class Protestant families as a counterpart to the Catholic Christmas cribs. This transition from the guild hall to the bourgeois family homes in the Protestant parts of Germany ultimately gives rise to the modern tradition as it developed in the 18th and 19th centuries.
+
+By the early 18th century, the custom had become common in towns of the upper Rhineland, but it had not yet spread to rural areas. Wax candles, expensive items at the time, are found in attestations from the late 18th century.
+
+Along the lower Rhine, an area of Roman Catholic majority, the Christmas tree was largely regarded as a Protestant custom. As a result, it remained confined to the upper Rhineland for a relatively long period of time. The custom did eventually gain wider acceptance beginning around 1815 by way of Prussian officials who emigrated there following the Congress of Vienna.
+
+In the 19th century, the Christmas tree was taken to be an expression of German culture and of Gemütlichkeit, especially among emigrants overseas.[35]
+
+A decisive factor in winning general popularity was the German army's decision to place Christmas trees in its barracks and military hospitals during the Franco-Prussian War. Only at the start of the 20th century did Christmas trees appear inside churches, this time in a new brightly lit form.[36]
+
+In the early 19th century, the custom became popular among the nobility and spread to royal courts as far as Russia. Princess Henrietta of Nassau-Weilburg introduced the Christmas tree to Vienna in 1816, and the custom spread across Austria in the following years. In France, the first Christmas tree was introduced in 1840 by the duchesse d'Orléans. In Denmark a Danish newspaper claims that the first attested Christmas tree was lit in 1808 by countess Wilhemine of Holsteinborg. It was the aging countess who told the story of the first Danish Christmas tree to the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen in 1865. He had published a fairy tale called The Fir-Tree in 1844, recounting the fate of a fir tree being used as a Christmas tree.[37]
+
+Although the tradition of decorating churches and homes with evergreens at Christmas was long established,[39] the custom of decorating an entire small tree was unknown in Britain until some two centuries ago. At the time of the personal union with Hanover, George III's German-born wife, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, introduced a Christmas tree at a party she gave for children in 1800.[40] The custom did not at first spread much beyond the royal family.[41] Queen Victoria as a child was familiar with it and a tree was placed in her room every Christmas. In her journal for Christmas Eve 1832, the delighted 13-year-old princess wrote:[42]
+
+After dinner ... we then went into the drawing room near the dining room ... There were two large round tables on which were placed two trees hung with lights and sugar ornaments. All the presents being placed round the trees ...
+
+After Victoria's marriage to her German cousin Prince Albert, by 1841 the custom became even more widespread[43] as wealthier middle-class families followed the fashion. In 1842 a newspaper advert for Christmas trees makes clear their smart cachet, German origins and association with children and gift-giving.[44] An illustrated book, The Christmas Tree, describing their use and origins in detail, was on sale in December 1844.[45] On 2 January 1846 Elizabeth Fielding (née Fox Strangways) wrote from Laycock Abbey to William Henry Fox-Talbot: "Constance is extremely busy preparing the Bohemian Xmas Tree. It is made from Caroline's[46] description of those she saw in Germany".[47] In 1847 Prince Albert wrote: "I must now seek in the children an echo of what Ernest [his brother] and I were in the old time, of what we felt and thought; and their delight in the Christmas trees is not less than ours used to be".[48] A boost to the trend was given in 1848[49] when The Illustrated London News,[50] in a report picked up by other papers,[51] described the trees in Windsor Castle in detail and showed the main tree, surrounded by the royal family, on its cover. In fewer than ten years their use in better-off homes was widespread. By 1856 a northern provincial newspaper contained an advert alluding casually to them,[52] as well as reporting the accidental death of a woman whose dress caught fire as she lit the tapers on a Christmas tree.[53] They had not yet spread down the social scale though, as a report from Berlin in 1858 contrasts the situation there where "Every family has its own" with that of Britain, where Christmas trees were still the preserve of the wealthy or the "romantic".[54]
+
+Their use at public entertainments, charity bazaars and in hospitals made them increasingly familiar however, and in 1906 a charity was set up specifically to ensure even poor children in London slums "who had never seen a Christmas tree" would enjoy one that year.[55] Anti-German sentiment after World War I briefly reduced their popularity[56] but the effect was short-lived,[57] and by the mid-1920s the use of Christmas trees had spread to all classes.[58] In 1933 a restriction on the importation of foreign trees led to the "rapid growth of a new industry" as the growing of Christmas trees within Britain became commercially viable due to the size of demand.[59] By 2013 the number of trees grown in Britain for the Christmas market was approximately eight million[60] and their display in homes, shops and public spaces a normal part of the Christmas season.
+
+The tradition was introduced to North America in the winter of 1781 by Hessian soldiers stationed in the Province of Québec (1763–1791) to garrison the colony against American attack. General Friedrich Adolf Riedesel and his wife, the Baroness von Riedesel, held a Christmas party for the officers at Sorel, Quebec, delighting their guests with a fir tree decorated with candles and fruits.[61]
+
+The Christmas tree became very common in the United States in the early nineteenth century. The first image of a Christmas tree was published in 1836 as the frontispiece to The Stranger's Gift by Hermann Bokum. The first mention of the Christmas tree in American literature was in a story in the 1836 edition of The Token and Atlantic Souvenir, titled "New Year's Day", by Catherine Maria Sedgwick, where she tells the story of a German maid decorating her mistress's tree. Also, a woodcut of the British Royal family with their Christmas tree at Windsor Castle, initially published in The Illustrated London News December 1848, was copied in the United States at Christmas 1850, in Godey's Lady's Book. Godey's copied it exactly, except for the removal of the Queen's tiara and Prince Albert's moustache, to remake the engraving into an American scene.[62] The republished Godey's image became the first widely circulated picture of a decorated evergreen Christmas tree in America. Art historian Karal Ann Marling called Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, shorn of their royal trappings, "the first influential American Christmas tree".[63] Folk-culture historian Alfred Lewis Shoemaker states, "In all of America there was no more important medium in spreading the Christmas tree in the decade 1850–60 than Godey's Lady's Book". The image was reprinted in 1860, and by the 1870s, putting up a Christmas tree had become even more common in America.[62]
+
+Several cities in the United States with German connections lay claim to that country's first Christmas tree: Windsor Locks, Connecticut, claims that a Hessian soldier put up a Christmas tree in 1777 while imprisoned at the Noden-Reed House,[64] while the "First Christmas Tree in America" is also claimed by Easton, Pennsylvania, where German settlers purportedly erected a Christmas tree in 1816. In his diary, Matthew Zahm of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, recorded the use of a Christmas tree in 1821, leading Lancaster to also lay claim to the first Christmas tree in America.[65] Other accounts credit Charles Follen, a German immigrant to Boston, for being the first to introduce to America the custom of decorating a Christmas tree.[66] August Imgard, a German immigrant living in Wooster, Ohio, is said to be the first to popularize the practice of decorating a tree with candy canes.[citation needed] In 1847, Imgard cut a blue spruce tree from a woods outside town, had the Wooster village tinsmith construct a star, and placed the tree in his house, decorating it with paper ornaments, gilded nuts and Kuchen.[67] German immigrant Charles Minnigerode accepted a position as a professor of humanities at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1842, where he taught Latin and Greek. Entering into the social life of the Virginia Tidewater, Minnigerode introduced the German custom of decorating an evergreen tree at Christmas at the home of law professor St. George Tucker, thereby becoming another of many influences that prompted Americans to adopt the practice at about that time.[68] An 1853 article on Christmas customs in Pennsylvania defines them as mostly "German in origin", including the Christmas tree, which is "planted in a flower pot filled with earth, and its branches are covered with presents, chiefly of confectionary, for the younger members of the family." The article distinguishes between customs in different states however, claiming that in New England generally "Christmas is not much celebrated", whereas in Pennsylvania and New York it is.[69]
+
+When Edward H. Johnson was vice president of the Edison Electric Light Company, a predecessor of Con Edison, he created the first known electrically illuminated Christmas tree at his home in New York City in 1882. Johnson became the "Father of Electric Christmas Tree Lights".[70]
+
+The lyrics sung in the United States to the German tune O Tannenbaum begin "O Christmas tree ...", giving rise to the mistaken idea that the German word Tannenbaum (fir tree) means "Christmas tree", the German word for which is instead Weihnachtsbaum.
+
+The Christmas tree by Winslow Homer, 1858
+
+Christmas in the Netherlands, c. 1899
+
+Illustration for Harper's Bazaar, published 1 January 1870
+
+Christmas tree depicted as Christmas card by Prang & Co. (Boston) 1880
+
+Vera Komissarzhevskaya as Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House (c. 1904). Photo by Elena Mrozovskaya.
+
+An Italian-American family on Christmas, 1924
+
+In Russia, the Christmas tree was banned after the October Revolution[71] but then reinstated as a New-year spruce (Новогодняя ёлка, Novogodnyaya yolka) in 1935. It became a fully secular icon of the New Year holiday, for example, the crowning star was regarded not as a symbol of Bethlehem Star, but as the Red star. Decorations, such as figurines of airplanes, bicycles, space rockets, cosmonauts, and characters of Russian fairy tales, were produced. This tradition persists after the fall of the USSR, with the New Year holiday outweighing the Christmas (7 January) for a wide majority of Russian people.[72]
+
+The TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) was influential on the pop culture surrounding the Christmas tree. Aluminum Christmas trees were popular during the early 1960s in the US. They were satirized in the Charlie Brown show and came to be seen as symbolizing the commercialization of Christmas. The term Charlie Brown Christmas tree, describing any poor-looking or malformed little tree, also derives from the 1965 TV special, based on the appearance of Charlie Brown's Christmas tree.[73]
+
+Christmas tree with presents
+
+Christmas Tree in the cozy room at the Wisconsin Governor's mansion.
+
+Christmas tea with Christmas Tree at an espresso shop in Eugene, Oregon
+
+A Soviet-era (1960s) New Year tree decoration depicting a cosmonaut
+
+Christmas Trees in church
+
+An aluminum Christmas tree
+
+Since the early 20th century, it has become common in many cities, towns, and department stores to put up public Christmas trees outdoors, such as the Macy's Great Tree in Atlanta (since 1948), the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree in New York City, and the large Christmas tree at Victoria Square in Adelaide.
+
+The use of fire retardant allows many indoor public areas to place real trees and be compliant with code. Licensed applicants of fire retardant solution spray the tree, tag the tree, and provide a certificate for inspection. Real trees are popular with high end visual merchandising displays around the world. Leading global retailers such as Apple often place real trees in their window displays. In 2009, Apple placed two Fraser fir trees in every one of its retail establishments.[citation needed]
+
+The United States' National Christmas Tree has been lit each year since 1923 on the South Lawn of the White House, becoming part of what evolved into a major holiday event at the White House. President Jimmy Carter lit only the crowning star atop the tree in 1979 in honor of the Americans being held hostage in Iran.[74] The same was true in 1980, except the tree was fully lit for 417 seconds, one second for each day the hostages had been in captivity.[74]
+
+During most of the 1970s and 1980s, the largest decorated Christmas tree in the world was put up every year on the property of the National Enquirer in Lantana, Florida. This tradition grew into one of the most spectacular and celebrated events in the history of southern Florida, but was discontinued on the death of the paper's founder in the late 1980s.[75]
+
+In some cities, a charity event called the Festival of Trees is organized, in which multiple trees are decorated and displayed.
+
+The giving of Christmas trees has also often been associated with the end of hostilities. After the signing of the Armistice in 1918 the city of Manchester sent a tree, and £500 to buy chocolate and cakes, for the children of the much-bombarded town of Lille in northern France.[76] In some cases the trees represent special commemorative gifts, such as in Trafalgar Square in London, where the City of Oslo, Norway presents a tree to the people of London as a token of appreciation for the British support of Norwegian resistance during the Second World War; in Boston, where the tree is a gift from the province of Nova Scotia, in thanks for rapid deployment of supplies and rescuers to the 1917 ammunition ship explosion that leveled the city of Halifax; and in Newcastle upon Tyne, where the main civic Christmas tree is an annual gift from the city of Bergen, in thanks for the part played by soldiers from Newcastle in liberating Bergen from Nazi occupation.[77] Norway also annually gifts a Christmas tree to Washington, D.C. as a symbol of friendship between Norway and the US and as an expression of gratitude from Norway for the help received from the US during World War II.[78]
+
+Christmas tree in Milan, Italy, 2008
+
+Christmas tree in Vatican City, 2007
+
+Christmas tree in Salerno old town, Italy, 2008.
+
+Trafalgar Square Christmas tree
+
+Christmas tree on Minin and Pozharsky Square, 2018. Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
+
+Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree
+
+Christmas tree on the Römerberg in Frankfurt (2008)
+
+in Lisbon (2005), at 75 metres (246 feet) the tallest Christmas tree in Europe.
+
+Boston's Christmas Tree.
+
+An Árbol navideño luminoso in Madrid (2011)
+
+Christmas tree in Warsaw
+
+Christmas tree in South Coast Plaza, California
+
+Christmas tree in Stockholm at the NK department store
+
+Christmas trees in Ocean Terminal, Harbour City, Hong Kong
+
+Christmas tree in Lugano (2018)
+
+Christmas tree in Vilnius old town, Lithuania, 2017.
+
+A "Chrismon tree" is a Christmas tree decorated with explicitly Christian symbols in white and gold.[79][80]
+First introduced by North American Lutherans in 1957,[81] the practice has rapidly spread to other Christian denominations,[82] including Anglicans,[83]
+Catholics,[84] Methodists,[85] and the Reformed.[86]
+
+"Chrismon" (plural "Chrismons") was adopted for the type of Christmas decoration and explained as a portmanteau of "Christ-monogram" (a Christogram).[87][88]
+
+Both setting up and taking down a Christmas tree are associated with specific dates. Traditionally, Christmas trees were not brought in and decorated until Christmas Eve (24 December)[citation needed] or, in the traditions celebrating Christmas Eve rather than the first day of Christmas, 23 December, and then removed the day after Twelfth Night (5 January); to have a tree up before or after these dates was even considered bad luck,[citation needed] and that to avoid bad luck from affecting the house's residents, the tree must be left up until after the following Twelfth Night passes.
+
+In many areas, it has become customary to set up one's Christmas tree at the beginning of the Advent season.[89] Americans will put up a Christmas tree after Thanksgiving (the fourth Thursday of November),[90] and Christmas decorations can show up even earlier in retail stores, often the day after Halloween (31 October). In Canada many stores wait until after Remembrance Day, as to show respect to fallen soldiers.[91] Some households do not put up the tree until the second week of December, and leave it up until 6 January (Epiphany). In Germany, traditionally the tree is put up on 24 December and taken down on 7 January, though many start one or two weeks earlier, and in Roman Catholic homes the tree may be kept until 2 February (Candlemas).[why?][citation needed]
+
+In Italy, Ireland and Argentina, along with many countries in Latin America, the Christmas tree is put up on 8 December (Immaculate Conception day) and left up until 6 January. In Australia, the Christmas tree is usually put up on 1 December, which occurs about two weeks before the school summer holidays (except for South Australia, where most people put up their tree in November following the completion of the Adelaide Christmas Pageant, a time frame that has started to filter into other states as the official time Christmas decorations and in store Santa Claus start to appear) and is left up until it is taken down.[citation needed] Some traditions suggest that Christmas trees may be kept up until no later than 2 February, the feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple (Candlemas), when the Christmas season effectively closes.[92] Superstitions say that it is a bad sign if Christmas greenery is not removed by Candlemas Eve.[93]
+
+Christmas ornaments are decorations (usually made of glass, metal, wood, or ceramics) that are used to decorate a Christmas tree. The first decorated trees were adorned with apples, white candy canes and pastries in the shapes of stars, hearts and flowers. Glass baubles were first made in Lauscha, Germany, and also garlands of glass beads and tin figures that could be hung on trees. The popularity of these decorations grew into the production of glass figures made by highly skilled artisans with clay molds.
+
+Tinsel and several types of garland or ribbon are commonly used to decorate a Christmas tree. Silvered saran-based tinsel was introduced later. Delicate mold-blown and painted colored glass Christmas ornaments were a specialty of the glass factories in the Thuringian Forest, especially in Lauscha in the late 19th century, and have since become a large industry, complete with famous-name designers. Baubles are another common decoration, consisting of small hollow glass or plastic spheres coated with a thin metallic layer to make them reflective, with a further coating of a thin pigmented polymer in order to provide coloration.
+Lighting with electric lights (Christmas lights or, in the United Kingdom, fairy lights) is commonly done. A tree-topper, sometimes an angel but more frequently a star, completes the decoration.
+
+In the late 1800s, home-made white Christmas trees were made by wrapping strips of cotton batting around leafless branches creating the appearance of a snow-laden tree.
+In the 1940s and 1950s, popularized by Hollywood films in the late 1930s, flocking was very popular on the West Coast of the United States. There were home flocking kits that could be used with vacuum cleaners. In the 1980s some trees were sprayed with fluffy white flocking to simulate snow.
+
+A transparent Christmas bauble
+
+A golden bauble decorating a Christmas tree
+
+Christmas baubles
+
+A snowman-shaped decoration painted as a baseball
+
+A toy bear Christmas decoration.
+
+Fabergé egg as a Christmas decoration.
+
+Christmas decorations
+
+Red ornamented Christmas bauble
+
+Christmas baubles
+
+Each year, 33 to 36 million Christmas trees are produced in America, and 50 to 60 million are produced in Europe. In 1998, there were about 15,000 growers in America (a third of them "choose and cut" farms). In that same year, it was estimated that Americans spent $1.5 billion on Christmas trees.[94] By 2016 that had climbed to $2.04 billion for natural trees and a further $1.86 billion for artificial trees. In Europe, 75 million trees worth €2.4 billion ($3.2 billion) are harvested annually.[95]
+
+The average cost of a live cut tree in the United States was $64 in 2015 and this rose to $73 in 2017. The price is expected to hold steady for the next year.[96]
+
+The most commonly used species are fir (Abies), which have the benefit of not shedding their needles when they dry out, as well as retaining good foliage color and scent; but species in other genera are also used.
+
+In northern Europe most commonly used are:
+
+In North America, Central America, South America and Australia most commonly used are:
+
+Several other species are used to a lesser extent. Less-traditional conifers are sometimes used, such as giant sequoia, Leyland cypress, Monterey cypress and eastern juniper. Various types of spruce tree are also used for Christmas trees (including the blue spruce and, less commonly, the white spruce); but spruces begin to lose their needles rapidly upon being cut, and spruce needles are often sharp, making decorating uncomfortable. Virginia pine is still available on some tree farms in the southeastern United States; however, its winter color is faded. The long-needled eastern white pine is also used there, though it is an unpopular Christmas tree in most parts of the country, owing also to its faded winter coloration and limp branches, making decorating difficult with all but the lightest ornaments. Norfolk Island pine is sometimes used, particularly in Oceania, and in Australia, some species of the genera Casuarina and Allocasuarina are also occasionally used as Christmas trees. But, by far, the most common tree is the Pinus radiata Monterey pine. Adenanthos sericeus or Albany woolly bush is commonly sold in southern Australia as a potted living Christmas tree. Hemlock species are generally considered unsuitable as Christmas trees due to their poor needle retention and inability to support the weight of lights and ornaments.
+
+Some trees, frequently referred to as "living Christmas trees", are sold live with roots and soil, often from a plant nursery, to be stored at nurseries in planters or planted later outdoors and enjoyed (and often decorated) for years or decades. Others are produced in a container and sometimes as topiary for a porch or patio. However, when done improperly, the combination of root loss caused by digging, and the indoor environment of high temperature and low humidity is very detrimental to the tree's health; additionally, the warmth of an indoor climate will bring the tree out of its natural winter dormancy, leaving it little protection when put back outside into a cold outdoor climate. Often Christmas trees are a large attraction for living animals, including mice and spiders. Thus, the survival rate of these trees is low.[97] However, when done properly, replanting provides higher survival rates.[98]
+
+European tradition prefers the open aspect of naturally grown, unsheared trees, while in North America (outside western areas where trees are often wild-harvested on public lands)[99] there is a preference for close-sheared trees with denser foliage, but less space to hang decorations.
+
+In the past, Christmas trees were often harvested from wild forests, but now almost all are commercially grown on tree farms. Almost all Christmas trees in the United States are grown on Christmas tree farms where they are cut after about ten years of growth and new trees planted. According to the United States Department of Agriculture's agriculture census for 2007, 21,537 farms were producing conifers for the cut Christmas tree market in America, 5,717.09 square kilometres (1,412,724 acres) were planted in Christmas trees.[100]
+
+The life cycle of a Christmas tree from the seed to a 2-metre (7 ft) tree takes, depending on species and treatment in cultivation, between eight and twelve years. First, the seed is extracted from cones harvested from older trees. These seeds are then usually grown in nurseries and then sold to Christmas tree farms at an age of three to four years. The remaining development of the tree greatly depends on the climate, soil quality, as well as the cultivation and how the trees are tended by the Christmas tree farmer.[101]
+
+The first artificial Christmas trees were developed in Germany during the 19th century,[102][103][self-published source?] though earlier examples exist.[104] These "trees" were made using goose feathers that were dyed green,[102] as one response by Germans to continued deforestation.[103] Feather Christmas trees ranged widely in size, from a small 2-inch (51 mm) tree to a large 98-inch (2,500 mm) tree sold in department stores during the 1920s.[105] Often, the tree branches were tipped with artificial red berries which acted as candle holders.[106]
+
+Over the years, other styles of artificial Christmas trees have evolved and become popular. In 1930, the U.S.-based Addis Brush Company created the first artificial Christmas tree made from brush bristles.[107] Another type of artificial tree is the aluminum Christmas tree,[103] first manufactured in Chicago in 1958,[108] and later in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, where the majority of the trees were produced.[109] Most modern artificial Christmas trees are made from plastic recycled from used packaging materials, such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC).[103] Approximately 10% of artificial Christmas trees are using virgin suspension PVC resin; despite being plastic most artificial trees are not recyclable or biodegradable.[110]
+
+Other trends have developed in the early 2000s as well. Optical fiber Christmas trees come in two major varieties; one resembles a traditional Christmas tree.[111] One Dallas-based company offers "holographic mylar" trees in many hues.[104] Tree-shaped objects made from such materials as cardboard,[112] glass,[113] ceramic or other materials can be found in use as tabletop decorations. Upside-down artificial Christmas trees became popular for a short time and were originally introduced as a marketing gimmick; they allowed consumers to get closer to ornaments for sale in retail stores and opened up floor space for more products.[114]
+Artificial trees became increasingly popular during the late 20th century.[103] Users of artificial Christmas trees assert that they are more convenient, and, because they are reusable, much cheaper than their natural alternative.[103] They are also considered much safer[115] as natural trees can be a significant fire hazard. Between 2001 and 2007 artificial Christmas tree sales in the U.S. jumped from 7.3 million to 17.4 million.[116] Currently it is estimated that around 58% of Christmas trees used in the United States are artificial while numbers in the United Kingdom are indicated to be around 66%.[117]
+
+A tree with fibre optic lights
+
+White Christmas tree
+
+Spanish artificial Christmas tree
+
+A chrismon tree (St. Alban's Anglican Cathedral, Oviedo, Florida)
+
+An artificial Aluminum Christmas tree
+
+Artificial tree
+
+The debate about the environmental impact of artificial trees is ongoing. Generally, natural tree growers contend that artificial trees are more environmentally harmful than their natural counterparts.[116] However, trade groups such as the American Christmas Tree Association, continue to refute that artificial trees are more harmful to the environment, and maintain that the PVC used in Christmas trees has excellent recyclable properties.[118]
+
+Live trees are typically grown as a crop and replanted in rotation after cutting, often providing suitable habitat for wildlife.[citation needed] Alternately, live trees can be donated to livestock farmers who find that such trees uncontaminated by chemical additives are excellent fodder.[119] In some cases management of Christmas tree crops can result in poor habitat since it sometimes involves heavy input of pesticides.[120]
+Concerns have been raised[by whom?] about people cutting down old and rare conifers, such as the Keteleeria evelyniana and Abies fraseri, for Christmas trees.[citation needed]
+
+Real or cut trees are used only for a short time, but can be recycled and used as mulch, wildlife habitat, or used to prevent erosion.[121][122][123] Real trees are carbon-neutral, they emit no more carbon dioxide by being cut down and disposed of than they absorb while growing.[124] However, emissions can occur from farming activities and transportation. An independent life-cycle assessment study, conducted by a firm of experts in sustainable development, states that a natural tree will generate 3.1 kg (6.8 lb) of greenhouse gases every year (based on purchasing 5 km (3.1 miles) from home) whereas the artificial tree will produce 48.3 kg (106 lb) over its lifetime.[125] Some people use living Christmas or potted trees for several seasons, providing a longer life cycle for each tree. Living Christmas trees can be purchased or rented from local market growers. Rentals are picked up after the holidays, while purchased trees can be planted by the owner after use or donated to local tree adoption or urban reforestation services.[126] Smaller and younger trees may be replanted after each season, with the following year running up to the next Christmas allowing the tree to carry out further growth.
+
+Most artificial trees are made of recycled PVC rigid sheets using tin stabilizer in the recent years. In the past, lead was often used as a stabilizer in PVC, but is now banned by Chinese laws.[citation needed]
+The use of lead stabilizer in Chinese imported trees has been an issue of concern among politicians and scientists over recent years. A 2004 study found that while in general artificial trees pose little health risk from lead contamination, there do exist "worst-case scenarios" where major health risks to young children exist.[127] A 2008 United States Environmental Protection Agency report found that as the PVC in artificial Christmas trees aged it began to degrade.[128] The report determined that of the fifty million artificial trees in the United States approximately twenty million were nine or more years old, the point where dangerous lead contamination levels are reached.[128] A professional study on the life-cycle assessment of both real and artificial Christmas trees revealed that one must use an artificial Christmas tree at least twenty years to leave an environmental footprint as small as the natural Christmas tree.[125]
+
+The earliest legend of the origin of the Christmas tree dates back to 723, involving Saint Boniface[129] as he was evangelizing Germany. According to a story not mentioned in his biographies (vitae), he stumbled upon a pagan gathering where a group of people dancing under a decorated oak tree were about to sacrifice a baby in the name of Thor. Boniface took an axe and called on the name of Jesus. In one swipe, he managed to take down the entire tree, to the crowd's astonishment. Behind the fallen tree was a baby fir. Boniface said, "let this tree be the symbol of the true God, its leaves are ever green and will not die." The tree's needles pointed to heaven. Tradition holds that trees were used in formerly pagan homes from that moment forth, but decorated in the name of Jesus.[130]
+
+The Christmas tree was first recorded to be used by German Lutherans in the 16th century, with records indicating that a Christmas tree was placed in the Cathedral of Strasbourg in 1539, under the leadership of the Protestant Reformer, Martin Bucer.[131][132] In the United States, these "German Lutherans brought the decorated Christmas tree with them; the Moravians put lighted candles on those trees."[133][134] When decorating the Christmas tree, many individuals place a star at the top of the tree symbolizing the Star of Bethlehem, a fact recorded by The School Journal in 1897.[6][135] Professor David Albert Jones of the University of Oxford writes that in the 19th century, it became popular for people to also use an angel to top the Christmas tree in order to symbolize the angels mentioned in the accounts of the Nativity of Jesus.[7]
+
+Under the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union, after its foundation in 1917, Christmas celebrations—along with other religious holidays—were prohibited as a result of the Soviet anti-religious campaign.[136][137][138] The League of Militant Atheists encouraged school pupils to campaign against Christmas traditions, among them being the Christmas tree, as well as other Christian holidays, including Easter; the League established an anti-religious holiday to be the 31st of each month as a replacement.[139] With the Christmas tree being prohibited in accordance with Soviet anti-religious legislation, people supplanted the former Christmas custom with New Year's trees.[138][140] In 1935 the tree was brought back as New Year tree and became a secular, not a religious holiday.
+
+Pope John Paul II introduced the Christmas tree custom to the Vatican in 1982. Although at first disapproved of by some as out of place at the centre of the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican Christmas Tree has become an integral part of the Vatican Christmas celebrations,[141] and in 2005 Pope Benedict XVI spoke of it as part of the normal Christmas decorations in Catholic homes.[142] In 2004, Pope John Paul called the Christmas tree a symbol of Christ. This very ancient custom, he said, exalts the value of life, as in winter what is evergreen becomes a sign of undying life, and it reminds Christians of the "tree of life" of Genesis 2:9, an image of Christ, the supreme gift of God to humanity.[143] In the previous year he said: "Beside the crib, the Christmas tree, with its twinkling lights, reminds us that with the birth of Jesus the tree of life has blossomed anew in the desert of humanity. The crib and the tree: precious symbols, which hand down in time the true meaning of Christmas."[144] The Catholic Church's official Book of Blessings has a service for the blessing of the Christmas tree in a home.[145] The Episcopal Church in The Anglican Family Prayer Book, which has the imprimatur of The Rt. Rev. Catherine S. Roskam of the Anglican Communion, has long had a ritual titled Blessing of a Christmas Tree, as well as Blessing of a Crèche, for use in the church and the home.[146]
+
+Chrismon trees are a variety developed in 1957 by a Lutheran laywoman in Virginia, as a specifically religious version appropriate for a church's Christmas celebrations, although most Christian churches continue to display the traditional Christmas tree in their sanctuaries during Christmastide.[147]
+
+In 2005, the city of Boston renamed the spruce tree used to decorate the Boston Common a "Holiday Tree" rather than a "Christmas Tree".[148] The name change was reversed after the city was threatened with several lawsuits.[149]

en/5281.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,237 @@
+
+
+A Christmas tree is a decorated tree, usually an evergreen conifer, such as a spruce, pine or fir, or an artificial tree of similar appearance, associated with the celebration of Christmas, originating in Northern Europe.[1] The custom was developed in medieval Livonia (present-day Estonia and Latvia), and in early modern Germany where Protestant Germans brought decorated trees into their homes.[2][3] It acquired popularity beyond the Lutheran areas of Germany[2][4] and the Baltic countries during the second half of the 19th century, at first among the upper classes.[5] The Catholic Church had long resisted this Protestant custom and the Christmas Tree stood for the first time in Vatican in 1982.
+
+The tree was traditionally decorated with "roses made of colored paper, apples, wafers, tinsel, [and] sweetmeats". In the 18th century, it began to be illuminated by candles, which were ultimately replaced by Christmas lights after the advent of electrification. Today, there is a wide variety of traditional and modern ornaments, such as garlands, baubles, tinsel, and candy canes. An angel or star might be placed at the top of the tree to represent the Angel Gabriel or the Star of Bethlehem, respectively, from the Nativity.[6][7] Edible items such as gingerbread, chocolate and other sweets are also popular and are tied to or hung from the tree's branches with ribbons.
+
+In the Western Christian tradition, Christmas trees are variously erected on days such as the first day of Advent or even as late as Christmas Eve depending on the country;[8] customs of the same faith hold that the two traditional days when Christmas decorations, such as the Christmas tree, are removed are Twelfth Night and, if they are not taken down on that day, Candlemas, the latter of which ends the Christmas-Epiphany season in some denominations.[8][9]
+
+The Christmas tree is sometimes compared with the "Yule-tree", especially in discussions of its folkloric origins.[10][11][12]
+
+Modern Christmas trees originated during the Renaissance in early modern Germany. Its 16th-century origins are sometimes associated with Protestant Christian reformer Martin Luther, who is said to have first added lighted candles to an evergreen tree.[13][14][15]
+
+The earliest known firmly dated representation of a Christmas tree is on the keystone sculpture of a private home in Turckheim, Alsace (then part of Germany, today France), with the date 1576.[16]
+
+Modern Christmas trees have been related to the "tree of paradise" of medieval mystery plays that were given on 24 December, the commemoration and name day of Adam and Eve in various countries. In such plays, a tree decorated with apples (to represent the forbidden fruit) and wafers (to represent the Eucharist and redemption) was used as a setting for the play. Like the Christmas crib, the Paradise tree was later placed in homes. The apples were replaced by round objects such as shiny red balls.[11][12][17][18][19][20]
+
+At the end of the Middle Ages, an early predecessor appears referred in the Regiment of the Order of Cister in the 15th century, in Alcobaça, Portugal. The Regiment of the local high-Sacristans of the Cistercian Order refers to what may be considered the oldest references to the Christmas tree: "Note on how to put the Christmas branch, scilicet: On the Christmas eve, you will look for a large Branch of green laurel, and you shall reap many red oranges, and place them on the branches that come of the laurel, specifically as you have seen, and in every orange you shall put a candle, and hang the Branch by a rope in the pole, which shall be by the candle of the altar-mor."[21]
+
+The relevance of ancient pre-Christian customs to the 16th-century German initiation of the Christmas tree custom is disputed.[by whom?] Resistance to the custom was often because of its supposed Lutheran origins.[22]
+
+Other sources have offered a connection between the symbolism of the first documented Christmas trees in Alsace around 1600 and the trees of pre-Christian traditions. For example, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "The use of evergreen trees, wreaths, and garlands to symbolize eternal life was a custom of the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Hebrews. Tree worship was common among the pagan Europeans and survived their conversion to Christianity in the Scandinavian customs of decorating the house and barn with evergreens at the New Year to scare away the devil and of setting up a tree for the birds during Christmas time."[23]
+
+During the Roman mid-winter festival of Saturnalia, houses were decorated with wreaths of evergreen plants, along with other antecedent customs now associated with Christmas.[24]
+
+The Vikings and Saxons worshiped trees.[24] The story of Saint Boniface cutting down Donar's Oak illustrates the pagan practices in 8th century among the Germans. A later folk version of the story adds the detail that an evergreen tree grew in place of the felled oak, telling them about how its triangular shape reminds humanity of the Trinity and how it points to heaven.[25][26]
+
+Georgians have their own traditional Christmas tree called Chichilaki, made from dried up hazelnut or walnut branches that are shaped to form a small coniferous tree.[27] These pale-colored ornaments differ in height from 20 cm (7.9 in) to 3 meters (9.8 feet). Chichilakis are most common in the Guria and Samegrelo regions of Georgia near the Black Sea, but they can also be found in some stores around the capital of Tbilisi.[citation needed]
+Georgians believe that Chichilaki resembles the famous beard of St. Basil the Great, because Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates St. Basil on 1 January.
+
+In Poland, there is a folk tradition dating back to an old pre-Christian pagan custom of suspending a branch of fir, spruce or pine from the ceiling, called podłaźniczka, during the time of the Koliada winter festival.[28] The branches were decorated with apples, nuts, acorns and stars made of straw. In more recent times, the decorations also included colored paper cutouts (wycinanki), wafers, cookies and Christmas baubles. According to old pagan beliefs, the branch's powers were linked to good harvest and prosperity.[29]
+
+The custom lasted among some of the rural peasants until the early 20th century, particularly in the regions of Lesser Poland and Upper Silesia.[30] Most often the branches were hung above the wigilia dinner table on Christmas Eve from the rafters. Beginning in the mid-19th century, the tradition over time was almost completely replaced by the German practice of decorating a Christmas tree.[31] The custom was partly revived in the 1970s and continues in some homes.[32]
+
+Customs of erecting decorated trees in wintertime can be traced to Christmas celebrations in Renaissance-era guilds in Northern Germany and Livonia. The first evidence of decorated trees associated with Christmas Day are trees in guildhalls decorated with sweets to be enjoyed by the apprentices and children. In Livonia (present-day Estonia and Latvia), in 1441, 1442, 1510 and 1514, the Brotherhood of Blackheads erected a tree for the holidays in their guild houses in Reval (now Tallinn) and Riga. On the last night of the celebrations leading up to the holidays, the tree was taken to the Town Hall Square, where the members of the brotherhood danced around it.[33]
+
+A Bremen guild chronicle of 1570 reports that a small tree decorated with "apples, nuts, dates, pretzels and paper flowers" was erected in the guild-house for the benefit of the guild members' children, who collected the dainties on Christmas Day.[34] In 1584, the pastor and chronicler Balthasar Russow in his Chronica der Provinz Lyfflandt (1584) wrote of an established tradition of setting up a decorated spruce at the market square, where the young men "went with a flock of maidens and women, first sang and danced there and then set the tree aflame".
+
+After the Protestant Reformation, such trees are seen in the houses of upper-class Protestant families as a counterpart to the Catholic Christmas cribs. This transition from the guild hall to the bourgeois family homes in the Protestant parts of Germany ultimately gives rise to the modern tradition as it developed in the 18th and 19th centuries.
+
+By the early 18th century, the custom had become common in towns of the upper Rhineland, but it had not yet spread to rural areas. Wax candles, expensive items at the time, are found in attestations from the late 18th century.
+
+Along the lower Rhine, an area of Roman Catholic majority, the Christmas tree was largely regarded as a Protestant custom. As a result, it remained confined to the upper Rhineland for a relatively long period of time. The custom did eventually gain wider acceptance beginning around 1815 by way of Prussian officials who emigrated there following the Congress of Vienna.
+
+In the 19th century, the Christmas tree was taken to be an expression of German culture and of Gemütlichkeit, especially among emigrants overseas.[35]
+
+A decisive factor in winning general popularity was the German army's decision to place Christmas trees in its barracks and military hospitals during the Franco-Prussian War. Only at the start of the 20th century did Christmas trees appear inside churches, this time in a new brightly lit form.[36]
+
+In the early 19th century, the custom became popular among the nobility and spread to royal courts as far as Russia. Princess Henrietta of Nassau-Weilburg introduced the Christmas tree to Vienna in 1816, and the custom spread across Austria in the following years. In France, the first Christmas tree was introduced in 1840 by the duchesse d'Orléans. In Denmark a Danish newspaper claims that the first attested Christmas tree was lit in 1808 by countess Wilhemine of Holsteinborg. It was the aging countess who told the story of the first Danish Christmas tree to the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen in 1865. He had published a fairy tale called The Fir-Tree in 1844, recounting the fate of a fir tree being used as a Christmas tree.[37]
+
+Although the tradition of decorating churches and homes with evergreens at Christmas was long established,[39] the custom of decorating an entire small tree was unknown in Britain until some two centuries ago. At the time of the personal union with Hanover, George III's German-born wife, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, introduced a Christmas tree at a party she gave for children in 1800.[40] The custom did not at first spread much beyond the royal family.[41] Queen Victoria as a child was familiar with it and a tree was placed in her room every Christmas. In her journal for Christmas Eve 1832, the delighted 13-year-old princess wrote:[42]
+
+After dinner ... we then went into the drawing room near the dining room ... There were two large round tables on which were placed two trees hung with lights and sugar ornaments. All the presents being placed round the trees ...
+
+After Victoria's marriage to her German cousin Prince Albert, by 1841 the custom became even more widespread[43] as wealthier middle-class families followed the fashion. In 1842 a newspaper advert for Christmas trees makes clear their smart cachet, German origins and association with children and gift-giving.[44] An illustrated book, The Christmas Tree, describing their use and origins in detail, was on sale in December 1844.[45] On 2 January 1846 Elizabeth Fielding (née Fox Strangways) wrote from Laycock Abbey to William Henry Fox-Talbot: "Constance is extremely busy preparing the Bohemian Xmas Tree. It is made from Caroline's[46] description of those she saw in Germany".[47] In 1847 Prince Albert wrote: "I must now seek in the children an echo of what Ernest [his brother] and I were in the old time, of what we felt and thought; and their delight in the Christmas trees is not less than ours used to be".[48] A boost to the trend was given in 1848[49] when The Illustrated London News,[50] in a report picked up by other papers,[51] described the trees in Windsor Castle in detail and showed the main tree, surrounded by the royal family, on its cover. In fewer than ten years their use in better-off homes was widespread. By 1856 a northern provincial newspaper contained an advert alluding casually to them,[52] as well as reporting the accidental death of a woman whose dress caught fire as she lit the tapers on a Christmas tree.[53] They had not yet spread down the social scale though, as a report from Berlin in 1858 contrasts the situation there where "Every family has its own" with that of Britain, where Christmas trees were still the preserve of the wealthy or the "romantic".[54]
+
+Their use at public entertainments, charity bazaars and in hospitals made them increasingly familiar however, and in 1906 a charity was set up specifically to ensure even poor children in London slums "who had never seen a Christmas tree" would enjoy one that year.[55] Anti-German sentiment after World War I briefly reduced their popularity[56] but the effect was short-lived,[57] and by the mid-1920s the use of Christmas trees had spread to all classes.[58] In 1933 a restriction on the importation of foreign trees led to the "rapid growth of a new industry" as the growing of Christmas trees within Britain became commercially viable due to the size of demand.[59] By 2013 the number of trees grown in Britain for the Christmas market was approximately eight million[60] and their display in homes, shops and public spaces a normal part of the Christmas season.
+
+The tradition was introduced to North America in the winter of 1781 by Hessian soldiers stationed in the Province of Québec (1763–1791) to garrison the colony against American attack. General Friedrich Adolf Riedesel and his wife, the Baroness von Riedesel, held a Christmas party for the officers at Sorel, Quebec, delighting their guests with a fir tree decorated with candles and fruits.[61]
+
+The Christmas tree became very common in the United States in the early nineteenth century. The first image of a Christmas tree was published in 1836 as the frontispiece to The Stranger's Gift by Hermann Bokum. The first mention of the Christmas tree in American literature was in a story in the 1836 edition of The Token and Atlantic Souvenir, titled "New Year's Day", by Catherine Maria Sedgwick, where she tells the story of a German maid decorating her mistress's tree. Also, a woodcut of the British Royal family with their Christmas tree at Windsor Castle, initially published in The Illustrated London News December 1848, was copied in the United States at Christmas 1850, in Godey's Lady's Book. Godey's copied it exactly, except for the removal of the Queen's tiara and Prince Albert's moustache, to remake the engraving into an American scene.[62] The republished Godey's image became the first widely circulated picture of a decorated evergreen Christmas tree in America. Art historian Karal Ann Marling called Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, shorn of their royal trappings, "the first influential American Christmas tree".[63] Folk-culture historian Alfred Lewis Shoemaker states, "In all of America there was no more important medium in spreading the Christmas tree in the decade 1850–60 than Godey's Lady's Book". The image was reprinted in 1860, and by the 1870s, putting up a Christmas tree had become even more common in America.[62]
+
+Several cities in the United States with German connections lay claim to that country's first Christmas tree: Windsor Locks, Connecticut, claims that a Hessian soldier put up a Christmas tree in 1777 while imprisoned at the Noden-Reed House,[64] while the "First Christmas Tree in America" is also claimed by Easton, Pennsylvania, where German settlers purportedly erected a Christmas tree in 1816. In his diary, Matthew Zahm of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, recorded the use of a Christmas tree in 1821, leading Lancaster to also lay claim to the first Christmas tree in America.[65] Other accounts credit Charles Follen, a German immigrant to Boston, for being the first to introduce to America the custom of decorating a Christmas tree.[66] August Imgard, a German immigrant living in Wooster, Ohio, is said to be the first to popularize the practice of decorating a tree with candy canes.[citation needed] In 1847, Imgard cut a blue spruce tree from a woods outside town, had the Wooster village tinsmith construct a star, and placed the tree in his house, decorating it with paper ornaments, gilded nuts and Kuchen.[67] German immigrant Charles Minnigerode accepted a position as a professor of humanities at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1842, where he taught Latin and Greek. Entering into the social life of the Virginia Tidewater, Minnigerode introduced the German custom of decorating an evergreen tree at Christmas at the home of law professor St. George Tucker, thereby becoming another of many influences that prompted Americans to adopt the practice at about that time.[68] An 1853 article on Christmas customs in Pennsylvania defines them as mostly "German in origin", including the Christmas tree, which is "planted in a flower pot filled with earth, and its branches are covered with presents, chiefly of confectionary, for the younger members of the family." The article distinguishes between customs in different states however, claiming that in New England generally "Christmas is not much celebrated", whereas in Pennsylvania and New York it is.[69]
+
+When Edward H. Johnson was vice president of the Edison Electric Light Company, a predecessor of Con Edison, he created the first known electrically illuminated Christmas tree at his home in New York City in 1882. Johnson became the "Father of Electric Christmas Tree Lights".[70]
+
+The lyrics sung in the United States to the German tune O Tannenbaum begin "O Christmas tree ...", giving rise to the mistaken idea that the German word Tannenbaum (fir tree) means "Christmas tree", the German word for which is instead Weihnachtsbaum.
+
+The Christmas tree by Winslow Homer, 1858
+
+Christmas in the Netherlands, c. 1899
+
+Illustration for Harper's Bazaar, published 1 January 1870
+
+Christmas tree depicted as Christmas card by Prang & Co. (Boston) 1880
+
+Vera Komissarzhevskaya as Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House (c. 1904). Photo by Elena Mrozovskaya.
+
+An Italian-American family on Christmas, 1924
+
+In Russia, the Christmas tree was banned after the October Revolution[71] but then reinstated as a New-year spruce (Новогодняя ёлка, Novogodnyaya yolka) in 1935. It became a fully secular icon of the New Year holiday, for example, the crowning star was regarded not as a symbol of Bethlehem Star, but as the Red star. Decorations, such as figurines of airplanes, bicycles, space rockets, cosmonauts, and characters of Russian fairy tales, were produced. This tradition persists after the fall of the USSR, with the New Year holiday outweighing the Christmas (7 January) for a wide majority of Russian people.[72]
+
+The TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) was influential on the pop culture surrounding the Christmas tree. Aluminum Christmas trees were popular during the early 1960s in the US. They were satirized in the Charlie Brown show and came to be seen as symbolizing the commercialization of Christmas. The term Charlie Brown Christmas tree, describing any poor-looking or malformed little tree, also derives from the 1965 TV special, based on the appearance of Charlie Brown's Christmas tree.[73]
+
+Christmas tree with presents
+
+Christmas Tree in the cozy room at the Wisconsin Governor's mansion.
+
+Christmas tea with Christmas Tree at an espresso shop in Eugene, Oregon
+
+A Soviet-era (1960s) New Year tree decoration depicting a cosmonaut
+
+Christmas Trees in church
+
+An aluminum Christmas tree
+
+Since the early 20th century, it has become common in many cities, towns, and department stores to put up public Christmas trees outdoors, such as the Macy's Great Tree in Atlanta (since 1948), the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree in New York City, and the large Christmas tree at Victoria Square in Adelaide.
+
+The use of fire retardant allows many indoor public areas to place real trees and be compliant with code. Licensed applicants of fire retardant solution spray the tree, tag the tree, and provide a certificate for inspection. Real trees are popular with high end visual merchandising displays around the world. Leading global retailers such as Apple often place real trees in their window displays. In 2009, Apple placed two Fraser fir trees in every one of its retail establishments.[citation needed]
+
+The United States' National Christmas Tree has been lit each year since 1923 on the South Lawn of the White House, becoming part of what evolved into a major holiday event at the White House. President Jimmy Carter lit only the crowning star atop the tree in 1979 in honor of the Americans being held hostage in Iran.[74] The same was true in 1980, except the tree was fully lit for 417 seconds, one second for each day the hostages had been in captivity.[74]
+
+During most of the 1970s and 1980s, the largest decorated Christmas tree in the world was put up every year on the property of the National Enquirer in Lantana, Florida. This tradition grew into one of the most spectacular and celebrated events in the history of southern Florida, but was discontinued on the death of the paper's founder in the late 1980s.[75]
+
+In some cities, a charity event called the Festival of Trees is organized, in which multiple trees are decorated and displayed.
+
+The giving of Christmas trees has also often been associated with the end of hostilities. After the signing of the Armistice in 1918 the city of Manchester sent a tree, and £500 to buy chocolate and cakes, for the children of the much-bombarded town of Lille in northern France.[76] In some cases the trees represent special commemorative gifts, such as in Trafalgar Square in London, where the City of Oslo, Norway presents a tree to the people of London as a token of appreciation for the British support of Norwegian resistance during the Second World War; in Boston, where the tree is a gift from the province of Nova Scotia, in thanks for rapid deployment of supplies and rescuers to the 1917 ammunition ship explosion that leveled the city of Halifax; and in Newcastle upon Tyne, where the main civic Christmas tree is an annual gift from the city of Bergen, in thanks for the part played by soldiers from Newcastle in liberating Bergen from Nazi occupation.[77] Norway also annually gifts a Christmas tree to Washington, D.C. as a symbol of friendship between Norway and the US and as an expression of gratitude from Norway for the help received from the US during World War II.[78]
+
+Christmas tree in Milan, Italy, 2008
+
+Christmas tree in Vatican City, 2007
+
+Christmas tree in Salerno old town, Italy, 2008.
+
+Trafalgar Square Christmas tree
+
+Christmas tree on Minin and Pozharsky Square, 2018. Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
+
+Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree
+
+Christmas tree on the Römerberg in Frankfurt (2008)
+
+in Lisbon (2005), at 75 metres (246 feet) the tallest Christmas tree in Europe.
+
+Boston's Christmas Tree.
+
+An Árbol navideño luminoso in Madrid (2011)
+
+Christmas tree in Warsaw
+
+Christmas tree in South Coast Plaza, California
+
+Christmas tree in Stockholm at the NK department store
+
+Christmas trees in Ocean Terminal, Harbour City, Hong Kong
+
+Christmas tree in Lugano (2018)
+
+Christmas tree in Vilnius old town, Lithuania, 2017.
+
+A "Chrismon tree" is a Christmas tree decorated with explicitly Christian symbols in white and gold.[79][80]
+First introduced by North American Lutherans in 1957,[81] the practice has rapidly spread to other Christian denominations,[82] including Anglicans,[83]
+Catholics,[84] Methodists,[85] and the Reformed.[86]
+
+"Chrismon" (plural "Chrismons") was adopted for the type of Christmas decoration and explained as a portmanteau of "Christ-monogram" (a Christogram).[87][88]
+
+Both setting up and taking down a Christmas tree are associated with specific dates. Traditionally, Christmas trees were not brought in and decorated until Christmas Eve (24 December)[citation needed] or, in the traditions celebrating Christmas Eve rather than the first day of Christmas, 23 December, and then removed the day after Twelfth Night (5 January); to have a tree up before or after these dates was even considered bad luck,[citation needed] and that to avoid bad luck from affecting the house's residents, the tree must be left up until after the following Twelfth Night passes.
+
+In many areas, it has become customary to set up one's Christmas tree at the beginning of the Advent season.[89] Americans will put up a Christmas tree after Thanksgiving (the fourth Thursday of November),[90] and Christmas decorations can show up even earlier in retail stores, often the day after Halloween (31 October). In Canada many stores wait until after Remembrance Day, as to show respect to fallen soldiers.[91] Some households do not put up the tree until the second week of December, and leave it up until 6 January (Epiphany). In Germany, traditionally the tree is put up on 24 December and taken down on 7 January, though many start one or two weeks earlier, and in Roman Catholic homes the tree may be kept until 2 February (Candlemas).[why?][citation needed]
+
+In Italy, Ireland and Argentina, along with many countries in Latin America, the Christmas tree is put up on 8 December (Immaculate Conception day) and left up until 6 January. In Australia, the Christmas tree is usually put up on 1 December, which occurs about two weeks before the school summer holidays (except for South Australia, where most people put up their tree in November following the completion of the Adelaide Christmas Pageant, a time frame that has started to filter into other states as the official time Christmas decorations and in store Santa Claus start to appear) and is left up until it is taken down.[citation needed] Some traditions suggest that Christmas trees may be kept up until no later than 2 February, the feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple (Candlemas), when the Christmas season effectively closes.[92] Superstitions say that it is a bad sign if Christmas greenery is not removed by Candlemas Eve.[93]
+
+Christmas ornaments are decorations (usually made of glass, metal, wood, or ceramics) that are used to decorate a Christmas tree. The first decorated trees were adorned with apples, white candy canes and pastries in the shapes of stars, hearts and flowers. Glass baubles were first made in Lauscha, Germany, and also garlands of glass beads and tin figures that could be hung on trees. The popularity of these decorations grew into the production of glass figures made by highly skilled artisans with clay molds.
+
+Tinsel and several types of garland or ribbon are commonly used to decorate a Christmas tree. Silvered saran-based tinsel was introduced later. Delicate mold-blown and painted colored glass Christmas ornaments were a specialty of the glass factories in the Thuringian Forest, especially in Lauscha in the late 19th century, and have since become a large industry, complete with famous-name designers. Baubles are another common decoration, consisting of small hollow glass or plastic spheres coated with a thin metallic layer to make them reflective, with a further coating of a thin pigmented polymer in order to provide coloration.
+Lighting with electric lights (Christmas lights or, in the United Kingdom, fairy lights) is commonly done. A tree-topper, sometimes an angel but more frequently a star, completes the decoration.
+
+In the late 1800s, home-made white Christmas trees were made by wrapping strips of cotton batting around leafless branches creating the appearance of a snow-laden tree.
+In the 1940s and 1950s, popularized by Hollywood films in the late 1930s, flocking was very popular on the West Coast of the United States. There were home flocking kits that could be used with vacuum cleaners. In the 1980s some trees were sprayed with fluffy white flocking to simulate snow.
+
+A transparent Christmas bauble
+
+A golden bauble decorating a Christmas tree
+
+Christmas baubles
+
+A snowman-shaped decoration painted as a baseball
+
+A toy bear Christmas decoration.
+
+Fabergé egg as a Christmas decoration.
+
+Christmas decorations
+
+Red ornamented Christmas bauble
+
+Christmas baubles
+
+Each year, 33 to 36 million Christmas trees are produced in America, and 50 to 60 million are produced in Europe. In 1998, there were about 15,000 growers in America (a third of them "choose and cut" farms). In that same year, it was estimated that Americans spent $1.5 billion on Christmas trees.[94] By 2016 that had climbed to $2.04 billion for natural trees and a further $1.86 billion for artificial trees. In Europe, 75 million trees worth €2.4 billion ($3.2 billion) are harvested annually.[95]
+
+The average cost of a live cut tree in the United States was $64 in 2015 and this rose to $73 in 2017. The price is expected to hold steady for the next year.[96]
+
+The most commonly used species are fir (Abies), which have the benefit of not shedding their needles when they dry out, as well as retaining good foliage color and scent; but species in other genera are also used.
+
+In northern Europe most commonly used are:
+
+In North America, Central America, South America and Australia most commonly used are:
+
+Several other species are used to a lesser extent. Less-traditional conifers are sometimes used, such as giant sequoia, Leyland cypress, Monterey cypress and eastern juniper. Various types of spruce tree are also used for Christmas trees (including the blue spruce and, less commonly, the white spruce); but spruces begin to lose their needles rapidly upon being cut, and spruce needles are often sharp, making decorating uncomfortable. Virginia pine is still available on some tree farms in the southeastern United States; however, its winter color is faded. The long-needled eastern white pine is also used there, though it is an unpopular Christmas tree in most parts of the country, owing also to its faded winter coloration and limp branches, making decorating difficult with all but the lightest ornaments. Norfolk Island pine is sometimes used, particularly in Oceania, and in Australia, some species of the genera Casuarina and Allocasuarina are also occasionally used as Christmas trees. But, by far, the most common tree is the Pinus radiata Monterey pine. Adenanthos sericeus or Albany woolly bush is commonly sold in southern Australia as a potted living Christmas tree. Hemlock species are generally considered unsuitable as Christmas trees due to their poor needle retention and inability to support the weight of lights and ornaments.
+
+Some trees, frequently referred to as "living Christmas trees", are sold live with roots and soil, often from a plant nursery, to be stored at nurseries in planters or planted later outdoors and enjoyed (and often decorated) for years or decades. Others are produced in a container and sometimes as topiary for a porch or patio. However, when done improperly, the combination of root loss caused by digging, and the indoor environment of high temperature and low humidity is very detrimental to the tree's health; additionally, the warmth of an indoor climate will bring the tree out of its natural winter dormancy, leaving it little protection when put back outside into a cold outdoor climate. Often Christmas trees are a large attraction for living animals, including mice and spiders. Thus, the survival rate of these trees is low.[97] However, when done properly, replanting provides higher survival rates.[98]
+
+European tradition prefers the open aspect of naturally grown, unsheared trees, while in North America (outside western areas where trees are often wild-harvested on public lands)[99] there is a preference for close-sheared trees with denser foliage, but less space to hang decorations.
+
+In the past, Christmas trees were often harvested from wild forests, but now almost all are commercially grown on tree farms. Almost all Christmas trees in the United States are grown on Christmas tree farms where they are cut after about ten years of growth and new trees planted. According to the United States Department of Agriculture's agriculture census for 2007, 21,537 farms were producing conifers for the cut Christmas tree market in America, 5,717.09 square kilometres (1,412,724 acres) were planted in Christmas trees.[100]
+
+The life cycle of a Christmas tree from the seed to a 2-metre (7 ft) tree takes, depending on species and treatment in cultivation, between eight and twelve years. First, the seed is extracted from cones harvested from older trees. These seeds are then usually grown in nurseries and then sold to Christmas tree farms at an age of three to four years. The remaining development of the tree greatly depends on the climate, soil quality, as well as the cultivation and how the trees are tended by the Christmas tree farmer.[101]
+
+The first artificial Christmas trees were developed in Germany during the 19th century,[102][103][self-published source?] though earlier examples exist.[104] These "trees" were made using goose feathers that were dyed green,[102] as one response by Germans to continued deforestation.[103] Feather Christmas trees ranged widely in size, from a small 2-inch (51 mm) tree to a large 98-inch (2,500 mm) tree sold in department stores during the 1920s.[105] Often, the tree branches were tipped with artificial red berries which acted as candle holders.[106]
+
+Over the years, other styles of artificial Christmas trees have evolved and become popular. In 1930, the U.S.-based Addis Brush Company created the first artificial Christmas tree made from brush bristles.[107] Another type of artificial tree is the aluminum Christmas tree,[103] first manufactured in Chicago in 1958,[108] and later in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, where the majority of the trees were produced.[109] Most modern artificial Christmas trees are made from plastic recycled from used packaging materials, such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC).[103] Approximately 10% of artificial Christmas trees are using virgin suspension PVC resin; despite being plastic most artificial trees are not recyclable or biodegradable.[110]
+
+Other trends have developed in the early 2000s as well. Optical fiber Christmas trees come in two major varieties; one resembles a traditional Christmas tree.[111] One Dallas-based company offers "holographic mylar" trees in many hues.[104] Tree-shaped objects made from such materials as cardboard,[112] glass,[113] ceramic or other materials can be found in use as tabletop decorations. Upside-down artificial Christmas trees became popular for a short time and were originally introduced as a marketing gimmick; they allowed consumers to get closer to ornaments for sale in retail stores and opened up floor space for more products.[114]
+Artificial trees became increasingly popular during the late 20th century.[103] Users of artificial Christmas trees assert that they are more convenient, and, because they are reusable, much cheaper than their natural alternative.[103] They are also considered much safer[115] as natural trees can be a significant fire hazard. Between 2001 and 2007 artificial Christmas tree sales in the U.S. jumped from 7.3 million to 17.4 million.[116] Currently it is estimated that around 58% of Christmas trees used in the United States are artificial while numbers in the United Kingdom are indicated to be around 66%.[117]
+
+A tree with fibre optic lights
+
+White Christmas tree
+
+Spanish artificial Christmas tree
+
+A chrismon tree (St. Alban's Anglican Cathedral, Oviedo, Florida)
+
+An artificial Aluminum Christmas tree
+
+Artificial tree
+
+The debate about the environmental impact of artificial trees is ongoing. Generally, natural tree growers contend that artificial trees are more environmentally harmful than their natural counterparts.[116] However, trade groups such as the American Christmas Tree Association, continue to refute that artificial trees are more harmful to the environment, and maintain that the PVC used in Christmas trees has excellent recyclable properties.[118]
+
+Live trees are typically grown as a crop and replanted in rotation after cutting, often providing suitable habitat for wildlife.[citation needed] Alternately, live trees can be donated to livestock farmers who find that such trees uncontaminated by chemical additives are excellent fodder.[119] In some cases management of Christmas tree crops can result in poor habitat since it sometimes involves heavy input of pesticides.[120]
+Concerns have been raised[by whom?] about people cutting down old and rare conifers, such as the Keteleeria evelyniana and Abies fraseri, for Christmas trees.[citation needed]
+
+Real or cut trees are used only for a short time, but can be recycled and used as mulch, wildlife habitat, or used to prevent erosion.[121][122][123] Real trees are carbon-neutral, they emit no more carbon dioxide by being cut down and disposed of than they absorb while growing.[124] However, emissions can occur from farming activities and transportation. An independent life-cycle assessment study, conducted by a firm of experts in sustainable development, states that a natural tree will generate 3.1 kg (6.8 lb) of greenhouse gases every year (based on purchasing 5 km (3.1 miles) from home) whereas the artificial tree will produce 48.3 kg (106 lb) over its lifetime.[125] Some people use living Christmas or potted trees for several seasons, providing a longer life cycle for each tree. Living Christmas trees can be purchased or rented from local market growers. Rentals are picked up after the holidays, while purchased trees can be planted by the owner after use or donated to local tree adoption or urban reforestation services.[126] Smaller and younger trees may be replanted after each season, with the following year running up to the next Christmas allowing the tree to carry out further growth.
+
+Most artificial trees are made of recycled PVC rigid sheets using tin stabilizer in the recent years. In the past, lead was often used as a stabilizer in PVC, but is now banned by Chinese laws.[citation needed]
+The use of lead stabilizer in Chinese imported trees has been an issue of concern among politicians and scientists over recent years. A 2004 study found that while in general artificial trees pose little health risk from lead contamination, there do exist "worst-case scenarios" where major health risks to young children exist.[127] A 2008 United States Environmental Protection Agency report found that as the PVC in artificial Christmas trees aged it began to degrade.[128] The report determined that of the fifty million artificial trees in the United States approximately twenty million were nine or more years old, the point where dangerous lead contamination levels are reached.[128] A professional study on the life-cycle assessment of both real and artificial Christmas trees revealed that one must use an artificial Christmas tree at least twenty years to leave an environmental footprint as small as the natural Christmas tree.[125]
+
+The earliest legend of the origin of the Christmas tree dates back to 723, involving Saint Boniface[129] as he was evangelizing Germany. According to a story not mentioned in his biographies (vitae), he stumbled upon a pagan gathering where a group of people dancing under a decorated oak tree were about to sacrifice a baby in the name of Thor. Boniface took an axe and called on the name of Jesus. In one swipe, he managed to take down the entire tree, to the crowd's astonishment. Behind the fallen tree was a baby fir. Boniface said, "let this tree be the symbol of the true God, its leaves are ever green and will not die." The tree's needles pointed to heaven. Tradition holds that trees were used in formerly pagan homes from that moment forth, but decorated in the name of Jesus.[130]
+
+The Christmas tree was first recorded to be used by German Lutherans in the 16th century, with records indicating that a Christmas tree was placed in the Cathedral of Strasbourg in 1539, under the leadership of the Protestant Reformer, Martin Bucer.[131][132] In the United States, these "German Lutherans brought the decorated Christmas tree with them; the Moravians put lighted candles on those trees."[133][134] When decorating the Christmas tree, many individuals place a star at the top of the tree symbolizing the Star of Bethlehem, a fact recorded by The School Journal in 1897.[6][135] Professor David Albert Jones of the University of Oxford writes that in the 19th century, it became popular for people to also use an angel to top the Christmas tree in order to symbolize the angels mentioned in the accounts of the Nativity of Jesus.[7]
+
+Under the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union, after its foundation in 1917, Christmas celebrations—along with other religious holidays—were prohibited as a result of the Soviet anti-religious campaign.[136][137][138] The League of Militant Atheists encouraged school pupils to campaign against Christmas traditions, among them being the Christmas tree, as well as other Christian holidays, including Easter; the League established an anti-religious holiday to be the 31st of each month as a replacement.[139] With the Christmas tree being prohibited in accordance with Soviet anti-religious legislation, people supplanted the former Christmas custom with New Year's trees.[138][140] In 1935 the tree was brought back as New Year tree and became a secular, not a religious holiday.
+
+Pope John Paul II introduced the Christmas tree custom to the Vatican in 1982. Although at first disapproved of by some as out of place at the centre of the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican Christmas Tree has become an integral part of the Vatican Christmas celebrations,[141] and in 2005 Pope Benedict XVI spoke of it as part of the normal Christmas decorations in Catholic homes.[142] In 2004, Pope John Paul called the Christmas tree a symbol of Christ. This very ancient custom, he said, exalts the value of life, as in winter what is evergreen becomes a sign of undying life, and it reminds Christians of the "tree of life" of Genesis 2:9, an image of Christ, the supreme gift of God to humanity.[143] In the previous year he said: "Beside the crib, the Christmas tree, with its twinkling lights, reminds us that with the birth of Jesus the tree of life has blossomed anew in the desert of humanity. The crib and the tree: precious symbols, which hand down in time the true meaning of Christmas."[144] The Catholic Church's official Book of Blessings has a service for the blessing of the Christmas tree in a home.[145] The Episcopal Church in The Anglican Family Prayer Book, which has the imprimatur of The Rt. Rev. Catherine S. Roskam of the Anglican Communion, has long had a ritual titled Blessing of a Christmas Tree, as well as Blessing of a Crèche, for use in the church and the home.[146]
+
+Chrismon trees are a variety developed in 1957 by a Lutheran laywoman in Virginia, as a specifically religious version appropriate for a church's Christmas celebrations, although most Christian churches continue to display the traditional Christmas tree in their sanctuaries during Christmastide.[147]
+
+In 2005, the city of Boston renamed the spruce tree used to decorate the Boston Common a "Holiday Tree" rather than a "Christmas Tree".[148] The name change was reversed after the city was threatened with several lawsuits.[149]

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+
+Sarah Bernhardt (French: [saʁa bɛʁnɑʁt];[note 1] born Henriette-Rosine Bernard; 22 or 23 October 1844 – 26 March 1923) was a French stage actress who starred in some of the most popular French plays of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including La Dame Aux Camelias by Alexandre Dumas, fils; Ruy Blas by Victor Hugo; Fédora and La Tosca by Victorien Sardou; and L'Aiglon by Edmond Rostand. She also played male roles, including Shakespeare's Hamlet. Rostand called her "the queen of the pose and the princess of the gesture", while Hugo praised her "golden voice". She made several theatrical tours around the world, and was one of the first prominent actresses to make sound recordings and to act in motion pictures.
+
+Henriette-Rosine Bernard[1] was born at 5 rue de L'École-de-Médicine in the Latin Quarter of Paris on 22 or 23 October 1844.[note 2][2] She was the illegitimate daughter of Judith Bernard (also known as Julie and in France as Youle), a Dutch Jewish courtesan with a wealthy or upper-class clientele.[3][4][5][6] The name of her father is not recorded. According to some sources, he was probably the son of a wealthy merchant from Le Havre.[7] Bernhardt later wrote that her father's family paid for her education, insisted she be baptized as a Catholic, and left a large sum to be paid when she came of age.[7] Her mother traveled frequently, and saw little of her daughter. She placed Bernhardt with a nurse in Brittany, then in a cottage in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine.[8]
+
+When Bernhardt was seven, her mother sent her to a boarding school for young ladies in the Paris suburb of Auteuil, paid with funds from her father's family. There, she acted in her first theatrical performance in the play Clothilde, where she held the role of the Queen of the Fairies, and performed her first of many dramatic death scenes.[8] While she was in the boarding school, her mother rose to the top ranks of Parisian courtesans, consorting with politicians, bankers, generals, and writers. Her patrons and friends included Charles de Morny, Duke of Morny, the half-brother of Emperor Napoleon III and President of the French legislature.[9] At the age of 10, with the sponsorship of Morny, Bernhardt was admitted to Grandchamp, an exclusive Augustine convent school near Versailles.[10] At the convent, she performed the part of the Archangel Raphael in the story of Tobias and the Angel.[11] She declared her intention to become a nun, but did not always follow convent rules; she was accused of sacrilege when she arranged a Christian burial, with a procession and ceremony, for her pet lizard.[12] She received her first communion as a Roman Catholic in 1856, and thereafter she was fervently religious. However, she never forgot her Jewish heritage. When asked years later by a reporter if she were a Christian, she replied: "No, I'm a Roman Catholic, and a member of the great Jewish race. I'm waiting until Christians become better."[13] She accepted the last rites shortly before her death.[14]
+
+In 1859, Bernhardt learned that her father had died overseas.[15] Her mother summoned a family council, including Morny, to decide what to do with her. Morny proposed that Bernhardt should become an actress, an idea that horrified Bernhardt, as she had never been inside a theater. [16] Morny arranged for her to attend her first theater performance at the Comedie Française in a party which included her mother, Morny, and his friend Alexandre Dumas père. The play they attended was Brittanicus, by Jean Racine, followed by the classical comedy Amphitryon by Plautus. Bernhardt was so moved by the emotion of the play, she began to sob loudly, disturbing the rest of the audience.[16] Morny and others in their party were angry at her and left, but Dumas comforted her, and later told Morny that he believed that she was destined for the stage. After the performance, Dumas called her "my little star".[17]
+
+Morny used his influence with the composer Daniel Auber, the head of the Paris Conservatory, to arrange for Bernhardt to audition. She began preparing, as she described it in her memoirs, "with that vivid exaggeration with which I embrace any new enterprise."[18] Dumas coached her. The jury was composed of Auber and five leading actors and actresses from the Comédie Française. She was supposed to recite verses from Racine, but no one had told her that she needed someone to give her cues as she recited. Bernhardt told the jury she would instead recite the fable of the Two Pigeons by La Fontaine. The jurors were skeptical, but the fervor and pathos of her recitation won them over, and she was invited to become a student.[19]
+
+Debut of Bernhardt in Les Femmes Savantes at the Comédie Française (1862)
+
+Sarah Bernhardt in 1864; age 20, by photographer Félix Nadar
+
+Bernhardt photographed by Nadar (1865)
+
+Bernhardt studied acting at the Conservatory from January 1860 until 1862 under two prominent actors of the Comédie Française, Joseph-Isidore Samson and Jean-Baptiste Provost. She wrote in her memoirs that Provost taught her diction and grand gestures, while Samson taught her the power of simplicity.[20] For the stage, she changed her name from "Bernard" to "Bernhardt". While studying, she also received her first marriage proposal, from a wealthy businessman who offered her 500 thousand francs. He wept when she refused. Bernhardt wrote that she was "confused, sorry, and delighted—because he loved me the way people love in plays at the theater."[21]
+
+Before the first examination for her tragedy class, she tried to straighten her abundance of frizzy hair, which made it even more uncontrollable, and came down with a bad cold, which made her voice so nasal that she hardly recognized it. Furthermore, the parts assigned for her performance were classical and required carefully stylized emotions, while she preferred romanticism and fully and naturally expressing her emotions. The teachers ranked her 14th in tragedy and second in comedy.[22] Once again, Morny came to her rescue. He put in a good word for her with the National Minister of the Arts, Camille Doucet. Doucet recommended her to Edouard Thierry, the chief administrator of the Théâtre Français,[22] who offered Bernhardt a place as a pensionnaire at the theater, at a minimum salary.[23]
+
+Bernhardt made her debut with the company on 31 August 1862 in the title role of Racine's Iphigénie.[24][note 3] Her premiere was not a success. She experienced stage fright and rushed her lines. Some audience members made fun of her thin figure. When the performance ended, Provost was waiting in the wings, and she asked his forgiveness. He told her, "I can forgive you, and you'll eventually forgive yourself, but Racine in his grave never will."[25] Francisque Sarcey, the influential theater critic of L'Opinion Nationale and Le Temps, wrote: "she carries herself well and pronounces with perfect precision. That is all that can be said about her at the moment."[25]
+
+Bernhardt did not remain long with the Comédie-Française. She played Henrietta in Molière's Les Femmes Savantes and Hippolyte in L'Étourdi, and the title role in Scribe's Valérie, but did not impress the critics, or the other members of the company, who had resented her rapid rise. The weeks passed, but she was given no further roles.[26] Her hot temper also got her into trouble; when a theater doorkeeper addressed her as "Little Bernhardt", she broke her umbrella over his head. She apologized profusely, and when the doorkeeper retired 20 years later, she bought a cottage for him in Normandy.[27] At a ceremony honoring the birthday of Molière on 15 January 1863, Bernhardt invited her younger sister, Regina, to accompany her. Regina accidentally stood on the train of the gown of a leading actress of the company, Zaire-Nathalie Martel (1816–1885), known as Madame Nathalie.[28] Madame Nathalie pushed Regina off the gown, causing her to strike a stone column and gash her forehead. Regina and Madame Nathalie began shouting at one another, and Bernhardt stepped forward and slapped Madame Nathalie on the cheek. The older actress fell onto another actor. Thierry asked that Bernhardt apologize to Madame Nathalie. Bernhardt refused to do so until Madame Nathalie apologized to Regina. Bernhardt had already been scheduled for a new role with the theater, and had begun rehearsals. Madame Nathalie demanded that Bernhardt be dropped from the role unless she apologized. Since neither would yield, and Madame Nathalie was a senior member of the company, Thierry was forced to ask Bernhardt to leave.[29]
+
+Her family could not understand her departure from the theater; it was inconceivable to them that anyone would walk away from the most prestigious theater in Paris at the age of 18.[30] Instead, she went to a popular theater, the Gymnase, where she became an understudy to two of the leading actresses. She almost immediately caused another offstage scandal, when she was invited to recite poetry at a reception at the Tuileries Palace hosted by Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie, along with other actors of the Gymnase. She chose to recite two romantic poems by Victor Hugo, unaware that Hugo was a bitter critic of the emperor. Following the first poem, the Emperor and Empress rose and walked out, followed by the court and the other guests.[31] Her next role at the Gymnase, as a foolish Russian princess, was entirely unsuited for her; her mother told her that her performance was "ridiculous".[30] She decided abruptly to quit the theater to travel, and like her mother, to take on lovers. She went briefly to Spain, then, at the suggestion of Alexandre Dumas, to Belgium.[32]
+
+She carried to Brussels letters of introduction from Dumas, and was admitted to the highest levels of society. According to some later accounts, she attended a masked ball in Brussels where she met the Belgian aristocrat Henri, Hereditary Prince de Ligne, and had an affair with him.[33] Other accounts say that they met in Paris, where the Prince came often to attend the theater.[34] The affair was cut short when she learned that her mother had suffered a heart attack. She returned to Paris, where she found that her mother was better, but that she herself was pregnant from her affair with the Prince. She did not notify the Prince. Her mother did not want the fatherless child born under her roof, so she moved to a small apartment on rue Duphot, and on 22 December 1864, the 20-year-old actress gave birth to her only child, Maurice Bernhardt.[35]
+
+Some accounts say that Prince Henri had not forgotten her. According to these versions, he learned her address from the theater, arrived in Paris, and moved into the apartment with Bernhardt. After a month, he returned to Brussels and told his family that he wanted to marry the actress. The family of the Prince sent his uncle, General de Ligne, to break up the romance, threatening to disinherit him if he married Bernhardt.[36] According to other accounts, the Prince denied any responsibility for the child.[34] She later called the affair "her abiding wound", but she never discussed Maurice's parentage with anyone. When asked who his father was, she sometimes answered, "I could never make up my mind whether his father was Gambetta, Victor Hugo, or General Boulanger."[37] Many years later, in January 1885, when Bernhardt was famous, the Prince came to Paris and offered to formally recognize Maurice as his son, but Maurice politely declined, explaining he was entirely satisfied to be the son of Sarah Bernhardt.[38]
+
+To support herself after the birth of Maurice, Bernhardt played minor roles and understudies at the Port-Saint-Martin, a popular melodrama theater. In early 1866, she obtained a reading with Felix Duquesnel, director of the Théâtre de L’Odéon on the Left Bank. Duquesnel described the reading years later, saying, "I had before me a creature who was marvelous gifted, intelligent to the point of genius, with enormous energy under an appearance frail and delicate, and a savage will." The co-director of the theater for finance, Charles de Chilly, wanted to reject her as unreliable and too thin, but Duquesnel was enchanted; he hired her for the theater at a modest salary of 150 francs a month, which he paid out of his own pocket.[39] The Odéon was second in prestige only to the Comédie Française, and unlike that very traditional theater, specialized in more modern productions. The Odéon was popular with the students of the Left Bank. Her first performances with the theater were not successful. She was cast in highly stylized and frivolous 18th-century comedies, whereas her strong point on stage was her complete sincerity.[40] Her thin figure also made her look ridiculous in the ornate costumes. Dumas, her strongest supporter, commented after one performance, "she has the head of a virgin and the body of a broomstick."[41] Soon, however, with different plays and more experience, her performances improved; she was praised for her performance of Cordelia in King Lear.[citation needed] In June 1867, she played two roles in Athalie by Jean Racine; the part of a young woman and a young boy, Zacharie, the first of many male parts she played in her career. The influential critic Sarcey wrote "... she charmed her audience like a little Orpheus."[41]
+
+Her breakthrough performance was in the 1868 revival of Kean by Alexandre Dumas, in which she played the female lead part of Anna Danby. The play was interrupted in the beginning by disturbances in the audience by young spectators who called out, "Down with Dumas! Give us Hugo!". Bernhardt addressed the audience directly: "Friends, you wish to defend the cause of justice. Are you doing it by making Monsieur Dumas responsible for the banishment of Monsieur Hugo?".[42] With this the audience laughed and applauded and fell silent. At the final curtain, she received an enormous ovation, and Dumas hurried backstage to congratulate her. When she exited the theater, a crowd had gathered at the stage door and tossed flowers at her. Her salary was immediately raised to 250 francs a month.[43]
+
+Her next success was her performance in François Coppée's Le Passant, which premiered at the Odeon on 14 January 1868,[44] playing the part of the boy troubadour, Zanetto, in a romantic renaissance tale.[45] Critic Theophile Gautier described the "delicate and tender charm" of her performance. It played for 150 performances, plus a command performance at the Tuileries Palace for Napoleon III and his court. Afterwards, the Emperor sent her a brooch with his initials written in diamonds.[46]
+
+In her memoirs, she wrote of her time at the Odéon: "It was the theater that I loved the most, and that I only left with regret. We all loved each other. Everyone was gay. The theater was a like a continuation of school. All the young came there... I remember my few months at the Comédie Française. That little world was stiff, gossipy, jealous. I remember my few months at the Gymnase. There they talked only about dresses and hats, and chattered about a hundred things that had nothing to do with art. At the Odéon, I was happy. We thought only of putting on plays. We rehearsed mornings, afternoons, all the time. I adored that." Bernhardt lived with her longtime friend and assistant Madame Guerard and her son in a small cottage in the suburb of Auteuil, and drove herself to the theater in a small carriage. She developed a close friendship with the writer George Sand, and performed in two plays that she authored.[47] She received celebrities in her dressing room, including Gustave Flaubert and Leon Gambetta. In 1869, as she became more prosperous, she moved to a larger seven-room apartment at 16 rue Auber in the center of Paris. Her mother began to visit her for the first time in years, and her grandmother, a strict Orthodox Jew, moved into the apartment to take care of Maurice. Bernhardt added a maid and a cook to her household, as well as the beginning of a collection of animals; she had one or two dogs with her at all times, and two turtles moved freely around the apartment.[48]
+
+In 1868, a fire completely destroyed her apartment, along with all of her belongings. She had neglected to purchase insurance. The brooch presented to her by the Emperor and her pearls melted, as did the tiara presented by one of her lovers, Khalid Bey. She found the diamonds in the ashes, and the managers of the Odeon organized a benefit performance. The most famous soprano of the time, Adelina Patti, performed for free. In addition, the grandmother of her father donated 120,000 francs. Bernhardt was able to buy an even larger residence, with two salons and a large dining room, at 4 rue de Rome.[49]
+
+The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War abruptly interrupted her theatrical career. The news of the defeat of the French Army, the surrender of Napoleon III at Sedan, and the proclamation of the Third French Republic on 4 September 1870 was followed by a siege of the city by the Prussian Army. Paris was cut off from news and from its food supply, and the theaters were closed. Bernhardt took charge of converting the Odéon into a hospital for soldiers wounded in the battles outside the city.[50] She organized the placement of 32 beds in the lobby and the foyers, brought in her personal chef to prepare soup for the patients, and persuaded her wealthy friends and admirers to donate supplies for the hospital. Besides organizing the hospital, she worked as a nurse, assisting the chief surgeon with amputations and operations.[51] When the coal supply of the city ran out, Bernhardt used old scenery, benches, and stage props for fuel to heat the theater.[52] In early January 1871, after 16 weeks of the siege, the Germans began to bombard the city with long-range cannons. The patients had to be moved to the cellar, and before long, the hospital was forced to close. Bernhardt arranged for serious cases to be transferred to another military hospital, and she rented an apartment on rue de Provence to house the remaining 20 patients. By the end of the siege, Bernhardt's hospital had cared for more than 150 wounded soldiers, including a young undergraduate from the École Polytechnique, Ferdinand Foch, who later commanded the Allied armies in the First World War.[53]
+
+The French government signed an armistice on 19 January 1871, and Bernhardt learned that her son and family had been moved to Hamburg. She went to the new chief executive of the French Republic, Adolphe Thiers, and obtained a pass to go to Germany to return them. When she returned to Paris several weeks later, the city was under the rule of the Paris Commune. She moved again, taking her family to Saint-Germain-en-Laye. She later returned to her apartment on the rue de Rome in May, after the Commune was defeated by the French Army.
+
+Bernhardt as the Queen of Spain in Ruy Blas (1872)
+
+Phèdre by Racine at the Comédie française, (1873)
+
+Bernhardt in her famous coffin, in which she sometimes slept or studied her roles (c. 1873)
+
+Portrait by Georges Clairin (1876)
+
+Bernhardt as Doña Sol in Hernani (1878)
+
+The Tuileries Palace, city hall of Paris, and many other public buildings had been burned by the Commune or damaged in the fighting, but the Odéon was still intact. Charles-Marie Chilly, the co-director of the Odéon, came to her apartment, where Bernhardt received him reclining on a sofa. He announced that the theater would reopen in October 1871, and he asked her to play the lead in a new play, Jean-Marie by André Theuriet. Bernhardt replied that she was finished with the theater and was going to move to Brittany and start a farm. Chilly, who knew Bernhardt's moods well, told her that he understood and accepted her decision, and would give the role to Jane Essler, a rival actress. According to Chilly, Bernhardt immediately jumped up from the sofa and asked when the rehearsals would begin.[53]
+
+Jean-Marie, about a young Breton woman forced by her father to marry an old man she did not love, was another critical and popular success for Bernhardt. The critic Sarcey wrote, "She has the sovereign grace, the penetrating charm, the I don't know what. She is a natural artist, an incomparable artist."[54] The directors of the Odéon next decided to stage Ruy Blas, a play written by Victor Hugo in 1838, with Bernhardt playing the role of the Queen of Spain. Hugo himself attended all the rehearsals. At first, Bernhardt pretended to be indifferent to him, but he gradually won her over and she became a fervent admirer. The play premiered on 16 January 1872. The opening night was attended by the Prince of Wales and by Hugo himself; after the performance, Hugo approached Bernhardt, dropped to one knee, and kissed her hand.[55]
+
+Ruy Blas played to packed houses. A few months after it opened, Bernhardt received an invitation from Emile Perrin, Director of the Comédie Française, asking if she would return, and offering her 12,000 francs a year, compared with less than 10,000 at the Odéon.[56] Bernhardt asked Chilly if he would match the offer, but he refused. Always pressed by her growing expenses and growing household to earn more money, she announced her departure from the Odéon when she finished the run of Ruy Blas. Chilly responded with a lawsuit, and she was forced to pay 6,000 francs of damages. After the 100th performance of Ruy Blas, Hugo gave a dinner for Bernhardt and her friends, toasting "His adorable Queen and her Golden Voice."[55]
+
+She formally returned to the Comédie Francaise on 1 October 1872, and quickly took on some of the most famous and demanding roles in French theater. She played Junie in Britannicus by Jean Racine, the male role of Cherubin in The Marriage of Figaro by Pierre Beaumarchais, and the lead in Voltaire's five-act tragedy Zaïre.[57] In 1873, with just 74 hours to learn the lines and practice the part, she played the lead in Racine's Phédre, playing opposite the celebrated tragedian, Jean Mounet-Sully, who soon became her lover. The leading French critic Sarcey wrote, "This is nature itself served by marvelous intelligence, by a soul of fire, by the most melodious voice that ever enchanted human ears. This woman plays with her heart, with her entrails."[58] Phédre became her most famous classical role, performed over the years around the world, often for audiences who knew little or no French; she made them understand by her voice and gestures.[59]
+
+In 1877, she had another success as Dona Sol in Hernani, a tragedy written 47 years earlier by Victor Hugo. Her lover in the play was her lover off-stage, as well, Mounet-Sully. Hugo himself was in the audience. The next day, he sent her a note: "Madame, you were great and charming; you moved me, me the old warrior, and, at a certain moment when the public, touched and enchanted by you, applauded, I wept. The tear which you caused me to shed is yours. I place it at your feet." The note was accompanied by a tear-shaped pearl on a gold bracelet.[60]
+
+She maintained a highly theatrical lifestyle in her house on the rue de Rome. She kept a satin-lined coffin in her bedroom, and occasionally slept in it or lay in it to study her roles, though, contrary to the popular stories, she never took it with her on her travels. She cared for her younger sister who was ill with tuberculosis, and allowed her to sleep in her own bed, while she slept in the coffin. She posed in it for photographs, adding to the legends she created about herself.[61]
+
+Bernhardt repaired her old relationships with the other members of the Comédie Française; she participated in a benefit for Madame Nathalie, the actress she had once slapped. However, she was frequently in conflict with Perrin, the director of the theater. In 1878, during the Paris Universal Exposition, she took a flight over Paris with balloonist Pierre Giffard and painter George Clairin, in a balloon decorated with the name of her current character, Dona Sol. An unexpected storm carried the balloon far outside of Paris to a small town. When she returned by train to the city, Perrin was furious; he fined Bernhardt a thousand francs, citing a theater rule which required actors to request permission before they left Paris. Bernhardt refused to pay, and threatened to resign from the Comédie. Perrin recognized that he could not afford to let her go. Perrin and the Minister of Fine Arts arranged a compromise; she withdrew her resignation, and in return was raised to a societaire, the highest rank of the theater.[62]
+
+Bernhardt was earning a substantial amount at the theater, but her expenses were even greater. By this time she had eight servants, and she built her first house, an imposing mansion on rue Fortuny, not far from the Parc Monceau. She looked for additional ways to earn money. In June 1879, while the theater of the Comédie Française in Paris was being remodeled, Perrin took the company on tour to London. Shortly before the tour began, a British theater impresario named Edward Jarrett traveled to Paris and proposed that she give private performances in the homes of wealthy Londoners; the fee she would receive for each performance was greater than her monthly salary with the Comédie.[63] When Perrin read in the press about the private performances, he was furious. Furthermore, the Gaiety Theater in London demanded that Bernhardt star in the opening performance, contrary to the traditions of Comédie Française, where roles were assigned by seniority, and the idea of stardom was scorned. When Perrin protested, saying that Bernhardt was only 10th or 11th in seniority, the Gaiety manager threatened to cancel the performance; Perrin had to give in. He scheduled Bernhardt to perform one act of Phèdre on the opening night, between two traditional French comedies, Le Misanthrope and Les Précieuses.[64]
+
+On 4 June 1879, just before the opening curtain of her premiere in Phèdre, she suffered an attack of stage fright. She wrote later that she also pitched her voice too high, and was unable to lower it.[65] Nonetheless, the performance was a triumph. Though a majority of the audience could not understand Racine's classical French, she captivated them with her voice and gestures; one member of the audience, Sir George Arthur, wrote that "she set every nerve and fiber in their bodies throbbing and held them spellbound."[66] In addition to her performances of Zaire, Phèdre, Hernani, and other plays with her troupe, she gave the private recitals in the homes of British aristocrats arranged by Jarrett, who also arranged an exhibition of her sculptures and paintings in Piccadilly, which was attended by both the prince of Wales and Prime Minister Gladstone. While in London, she added to her personal menagerie of animals. In London, she purchased three dogs, a parrot, and a monkey, and made a side trip to Liverpool, where she purchased a cheetah, a parrot, and a wolfhound and received a gift of six chameleons, which she kept in her rented house on Chester Square, and then took back to Paris.[67]
+
+Back in Paris, she was increasingly discontented with Perrin and the management of the Comédie Française. He insisted that she perform the lead in a new play, L'Aventurière by Emile Augier, a play which she thought was mediocre. When she rehearsed the play without enthusiasm, and frequently forgot her lines, she was criticized by the playwright. She responded, "I know I'm bad, but not as bad as your lines." The play went ahead, but was a failure. She wrote immediately to Perrin, "You forced me to play when I was not ready... what I foresaw came to pass... this is my first failure at the Comédie and my last." She sent a resignation letter to Perrin, made copies, and sent them to the major newspapers. Perrin sued her for breach of contract; the court ordered her to pay 100,000 francs, plus interest, and she lost her accrued pension of 43,000 francs.[68] She did not settle the debt until 1900. Later, however, when the Comédie Française theater was nearly destroyed by fire, she allowed her old troupe to use her own theater.[69]
+
+In April 1880, as soon as he learned Bernhardt had resigned from the Comédie Française, the impresario Edward Jarrett hurried to Paris and proposed that she make a theatrical tour of England and then the United States. She could select her repertoire and the cast. She would receive 5,000 francs per performance, plus 15% of any earnings over 15,0000 franca, plus all of her expenses, plus an account in her name for 100,000 francs, the amount she owed to the Comédie Française. She accepted immediately.[70]
+
+Now on her own, Bernhardt first assembled and tried out her new troupe at the Théâtre de la Gaîté-Lyrique in Paris. She performed for the first time La Dame aux Camélias, by Alexandre Dumas, fils. She did not create the role; the play had first been performed by Eugénie Dochein in 1852, but it quickly became her most performed and most famous role. She played the role more than a thousand times, and acted regularly and successfully in it until the end of her life. Audiences were often in tears during her famous death scene at the end.[71]
+
+She could not perform La Dame aux Camélias on a London stage because of British censorship laws; instead, she put on four of her proven successes, including Hernani and Phèdre, plus four new roles, including Adrienne Lecouvreur by Eugène Scribe and the drawing-room comedy Frou-frou by Meilhac-Halévy, both of which were highly successful on the London stage.[72] In six of the eight plays in her repertoire, she died dramatically in the final act. When she returned to Paris from London, the Comédie Française asked her to come back, but she refused their offer, explaining that she was making far more money on her own. Instead, she took her new company and new plays on tour to Brussels and Copenhagen, and then on a tour of French provincial cities.[73]
+
+She and her troupe departed from Le Havre for America on 15 October 1880, arriving in New York on 27 October. On 8 November, she performed Scribe's Adrienne Lecouvreur at Booth's Theater before an audience which had paid a top price of $40 for a ticket, an enormous sum at the time. Few in the audience understood French, but it was not necessary; her gestures and voice captivated the audience, and she received a thunderous ovation. She thanked the audience with her distinctive curtain call; she did not bow, but stood perfectly still, with her hands clasped under her chin, or with her palms on her cheeks, and then suddenly stretched them out to the audience. After her first performance in New York, she made 27 curtain calls. Although she was welcomed by theater-goers, she was entirely ignored by New York high society, who considered her personal life scandalous.[74]
+
+Bernhardt's first American tour carried her to 157 performances in 51 cities.[75] She traveled on a special train with her own luxurious palace car, which carried her two maids, two cooks, a waiter, her maitre d'hôtel, and her personal assistant, Madame Guérard. It also carried an actor named Édouard Angelo whom she had selected to serve as her leading man, and, according to most accounts, her lover during the tour.[76][77] From New York, she made a side trip to Menlo Park, where she met Thomas Edison, who made a brief recording of her reciting a verse from Phèdre, which has not survived.[78] She crisscrossed the United States and Canada from Montreal and Toronto to Saint Louis and New Orleans, usually performing each evening, and departing immediately after the performance. She gave countless press interviews and in Boston posed for photos on the back of a dead whale. She was condemned as immoral by the Bishop of Montreal and by the Methodist press, which only increased ticket sales.[78] She performed Phèdre six times and La Dame Aux Camélias 65 times (which Jarrett had renamed "Camille" to make it easier for Americans to pronounce, despite the fact that no character in the play has that name). On 3 May 1881, she gave her final performance of Camélias in New York. Throughout her life, she always insisted on being paid in cash. When Bernhardt returned to France, she brought with her a chest filled with $194,000 in gold coins.[79] She described the result of her trip to her friends: "I crossed the oceans, carrying my dream of art in myself, and the genius of my nation triumphed. I planted the French verb in the heart of a foreign literature, and it is that of which I am most proud."[80]
+
+No crowd greeted Bernhardt when she returned to Paris on 5 May 1881, and theater managers offered no new roles; the Paris press ignored her tour, and much of the Paris theater world resented her leaving the most prestigious national theater to earn a fortune abroad.[81] When no new plays or offers appeared, she went to London for a successful three-week run at the Gaiety Theater. This London tour included the first British performance of La Dame aux Camelias at the Shaftesbury Theater; her friend, the Prince of Wales, persuaded Queen Victoria to authorize the performance.[82] Many years later, she gave a private performance of the play for the Queen while she was on holiday in Nice.[83] When she returned to Paris, Bernhardt contrived to make a surprise performance at the annual 14 July patriotic spectacle at the Paris Opera, which was attended by the President of France, and a houseful of dignitaries and celebrities. She recited the Marseillaise, dressed in a white robe with a tricolor banner, and at the end dramatically waved the French flag. The audience gave her a standing ovation, showered her with flowers, and demanded that she recite the song two more times.[84]
+
+With her place in the French theater world restored, Bernhardt negotiated a contract to perform at the Vaudeville Theater in Paris for 1500 francs per performance, as well as 25 percent of the net profit. She also announced that she would not be available to begin until 1882. She departed on a tour of theaters in the French provinces, and then to Italy, Greece, Hungary, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Austria, and Russia. In Kiev and Odessa, she encountered anti-Semitic crowds who threw stones at her; pogroms were being conducted, forcing the Jewish population to leave.[85] However, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, she performed before Czar Alexander III, who broke court protocol and bowed to her. During her tour, she also gave performances for King Alfonso XII of Spain, and the Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. The only European country where she refused to play was Germany, due to the German annexation of French territory after the 1870–71 Franco-Prussian War.[86] Just before the tour began, she met Jacques Damala, who went with her as leading man and then, for eight months, became her first and only husband. (see Personal life)
+
+When she returned to Paris, she was offered a new role in Fédora, a melodrama written for her by Victorien Sardou. It opened on 12 December 1882, with her husband Damala as the male lead, and received good reviews. Critic Maurice Baring wrote, "a secret atmosphere emanated from her, an aroma, an attraction, which was at once exotic and cerebral ... She literally hypnotized her audience."[87] Another journalist wrote, "She is incomparable ... The extreme love, the extreme agony, the extreme suffering."[88] However, the abrupt end of her marriage shortly after the premiere put her back into financial distress. She had leased and refurbished a theater, the Ambigu, specifically to give her husband leading roles, and made her 18-year-old son Maurice, who had no business experience, the manager. Fédora ran for just 50 performances and lost 400,000 francs. She was forced to give up the Ambigu, and then, in February 1883, to sell her jewelry, her carriages, and her horses at an auction.[89]
+
+When Damala left, she took on a new leading man and lover, the poet and playwright Jean Richepin, who accompanied her on a quick tour of European cities to help pay off her debts.[90] She renewed her relationship with the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII.[91] When they returned to Paris, Bernhardt leased the theater of Porte Saint-Martin and starred in a new play by Richepin, Nana-Sahib, a costume drama about love in British India in 1857. The play and Richepin's acting were poor, and it quickly closed.[92] Richepin then wrote an adaptation of Macbeth in French, with Bernhardt as Lady Macbeth, but it was also a failure. The only person who praised the play was Oscar Wilde, who was then living in Paris. He began writing a play, Salomé, in French, especially for Bernhardt, though it was quickly banned by British censors and she never performed it.[93]
+
+Bernhardt then performed a new play by Sardou, Theodora (1884), a melodrama set in sixth-century Byzantium. Sardou wrote a nonhistoric but dramatic new death scene for Bernhardt; in his version, the empress was publicly strangled, whereas the historical empress died of cancer. Bernhardt travelled to Ravenna, Italy, to study and sketch the costumes seen in Byzantine mosaic murals, and had them reproduced for her own costumes. The play opened on 26 December 1884 and ran for 300 performances in Paris, and 100 in London, and was a financial success. She was able to pay off most of her debts, and bought a lion cub, which she named Justinian, for her home menagerie.[94] She also renewed her love affair with her former lead actor, Philippe Garnier.[95]
+
+Theodora was followed by two failures. In 1885, in homage to Victor Hugo, who had died a few months earlier, she staged one of his older plays, Marion Delorme, written in 1831, but the play was outdated and her role did not give her a chance to show her talents.[96] She next put on Hamlet, with her lover Philippe Garnier in the leading role and Bernhardt in the relatively minor role of Ophelia. The critics and audiences were not impressed, and the play was unsuccessful.[96] Bernhardt had built up large expenses, which included a 10,000 francs a month allowance paid to her son Maurice, a passionate gambler. Bernhardt was forced to sell her chalet in Saint-Addresse and her mansion on rue Fortuny, and part of her collection of animals. Her impresario, Edouard Jarrett, immediately proposed she make another world tour, this time to Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Panama, Cuba, and Mexico, then on to Texas, New York, England, Ireland, and Scotland. She was on tour for 15 months, from early 1886 until late 1887. On the eve of departure, she told a French reporter: "I passionately love this life of adventures. I detest knowing in advance what they are going to serve at my dinner, and I detest a hundred thousand times more knowing what will happen to me, for better or worse. I adore the unexpected."[94]
+
+In every city she visited, she was feted and cheered by audiences. The actors Edouard Angelo and Philippe Garnier were her leading men. Emperor Pedro II of Brazil attended all of her performances in Rio de Janeiro, and presented her with a gold bracelet with diamonds, which was almost immediately stolen from her hotel. The two leading actors both fell ill with yellow fever, and her long-time manager, Edward Jarrett, died of a heart attack. Bernhardt was undaunted, however, and went crocodile hunting at Guayaquil, and also bought more animals for her menagerie. Her performances in every city were sold out, and by the end of the tour, she had earned more than a million francs. The tour allowed her to purchase her final home, which she filled with her paintings, plants, souvenirs, and animals.[97]
+
+From then on, whenever she ran short of money (which generally happened every three or four years), she went on tour, performing both her classics and new plays. In 1888, she toured Italy, Egypt, Turkey, Sweden, Norway, and Russia. She returned to Paris in early 1889 with an enormous owl given to her by the Grand Duke Alexis Alexandrovich, the brother of the Czar.[98] Her 1891–92 tour was her most extensive, including much of Europe, Russia, North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and Samoa. Her personal luggage consisted of 45 costume crates for her 15 different productions, and 75 crates for her off-stage clothing, including her 250 pairs of shoes. She carried a trunk for her perfumes, cosmetics and makeup, and another for her sheets and tablecloths and her five pillows. After the tour, she brought back a trunk filled with 3,500,000 francs, but she also suffered a painful injury to her knee when she leaped off the parapet of the Castello Sant' Angelo in La Tosca. The mattress on which she was supposed to land was misplaced, and she landed on the boards.[99]
+
+Bernhardt in La Tosca by Victorien Sardou (1887), photo by Nadar
+
+Playing Joan of Arc in Jeanne d'Arc by Jules Barbier (1890)
+
+Bernhardt in Cleopatra (1891)
+
+Bernhardt in Cleopatra by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1896)
+
+When Bernhardt returned from her 1886–87 tour, she received a new invitation to return to the Comédie Française. The theater management was willing to forget the conflict of her two previous periods there, and offered a payment of 150,000 francs a year. The money appealed to her, and she began negotiations. However, the senior members of the company protested the high salary offered, and conservative defenders of the more traditional theater also complained; one anti-Bernhardt critic, Albert Delpit of Le Gaulois, wrote, "Madame Sarah Bernhardt is forty-three; she can no longer be useful to the Comédie. Moreover, what roles could she have? I can only imagine that she could play mothers..." Bernhardt was deeply offended and immediately broke off negotiations.[100] She turned once again to Sardou, who had written a new play for her, La Tosca, which featured a prolonged and extremely dramatic death scene at the end. The play was staged at the Porte Saint-Martin Theater, opening on 24 November 1887. It was extremely popular, and critically acclaimed. Bernhardt played the role for 29 consecutive sold-out performances. The success of the play allowed Bernhardt to buy a new pet lion for her household menagerie. She named him Scarpia, after the villain of La Tosca.[100] The play inspired Giacomo Puccini to write one of his most famous operas, Tosca (1900).[101]
+
+Following this success, she acted in several revivals and classics, and many French writers offered her new plays. In 1887, she acted in a stage version of the controversial drama Thérèse Raquin by Emile Zola. Zola had previously been attacked due to the book's confronting content. Asked why she chose this play, she declared to reporters, "My true country is the free air, and my vocation is art without constraints."[98] The play was unsuccessful; it ran for just 38 performances.[102] She then performed another traditional melodrama, Francillon by Alexandre Dumas, fils in 1888. A short drama she wrote herself, L'Aveu, disappointed both critics and the audience and lasted only 12 performances. She had considerably more success with Jeanne d'Arc by the poet Jules Barbier, in which the 45-year-old actress played Joan of Arc, a 19-year-old martyr.[103] Barbier had previously written the librettos for some of the most famous French operas of the period, including Faust by Charles Gounod and The Tales of Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach. Her next success was another melodrama by Sardou and Moreau, Cleopatra, which allowed her to wear elaborate costumes and finished with a memorable death scene. For this scene, she kept two live garter snakes, which played the role of the poisonous asp which bites Cleopatra. For realism, she painted the palms of her hands red, though they could hardly be seen from the audience. "I shall see them," she explained. "If I catch sight of my hand, it will be the hand of Cleopatra."[104]
+
+Bernhardt's violent portrayal of Cleopatra led to the theatrical story of a matron in the audience exclaiming to her companion "How unlike, how very unlike, the home life of our own dear Queen!"[105]
+
+Bernhardt in Gismonda by Victorien Sardou (1894)
+
+Poster for Gismonda by Alphonse Mucha (1894)
+
+As Melissande in La Princesse Lointaine by Edmond Rostand (1897)
+
+Bernhardt in Cleopatra by Sardou (1899)
+
+Bernhardt made a two-year world tour (1891–1893) to replenish her finances. Upon returning to Paris, she paid 700,000 francs for the Théâtre de la Renaissance, and from 1893 until 1899, was its artistic director and lead actress. She managed every aspect of the theater, from the finances to the lighting, sets, and costumes, as well as appearing in eight performances a week.[106] She imposed a rule that women in the audience, no matter how wealthy or famous, had to take off their hats during performances, so the rest of the audience could see, and eliminated the prompter's box from the stage, declaring that actors should know their lines. She abolished in her theater the common practice of hiring claqueurs in the audience to applaud stars.[107] She used the new technology of lithography to produce vivid color posters, and in 1894, she hired Czech artist Alphonse Mucha to design the first of a series of posters for her play Gismonda. He continued to make posters of her for six years.[108]
+
+In five years, Bernhardt produced nine plays, three of which were financially successful. The first was a revival of her performance as Phédre, which she took on tour around the world. In 1898, she had another success, in the play Lorenzaccio, playing the male lead role in a Renaissance revenge drama written in 1834 by Alfred de Musset, but never before actually staged. As her biographer Cornelia Otis Skinner wrote, she did not try to be overly masculine when she performed male roles: "Her male impersonations had the sexless grace of the voices of choirboys, or the not quite real pathos of Pierrot."[109] Anatole France wrote of her performance in Lorenzaccio: "She formed out of her own self a young man melancholic, full of poetry and of truth."[110] This was followed by another successful melodrama by Sardou, Gismonda, one of Bernhardt's few plays not finishing with a dramatic death scene. Her co-star was Lucien Guitry, who also acted as her leading man until the end of her career. Besides Guitry, she shared the stage with Edouard de Max, her leading man in 20 productions, and Constant Coquelin, who frequently toured with her.[111]
+
+In April 1895, she played the lead role in a romantic and poetic fantasy, Princess Lointaine, by little-known 27-year-old poet Edmond Rostand. It was not a monetary success and lost 200,000 francs, but it began a long theatrical relationship between Bernhardt and Rostand. Rostand went on to write Cyrano de Bergerac and became one of the most popular French playwrights of the period.[112]
+
+In 1898, she performed the female lead in the controversial play La Ville Morte by the Italian poet and playwright Gabriele D'Annunzio; the play was fiercely attacked by critics because of its theme of incest between brother and sister. Along with Emile Zola and Victorien Sardou, Bernhardt also became an outspoken defender of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer falsely accused of betraying France. The issue divided Parisian society; a conservative newspaper ran the headline, "Sarah Bernhardt has joined the Jews against the Army", and Bernhardt's own son Maurice condemned Dreyfus; he refused to speak to her for a year.[113]
+
+At the Théâtre de la Renaissance, Bernhardt staged and performed in several modern plays, but she was not a follower of the more natural school of acting that was coming into fashion at the end of the 19th century, preferring a more dramatic expression of emotions. "In the theater," she declared, "the natural is good, but the sublime is even better."[114]
+
+The Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt (now the Théâtre de la Ville)(c. 1905)
+
+Bernhardt in Hamlet (1899)
+
+Poster by Mucha for Hamlet (1899)
+
+Bernhardt in L'Aiglon (1900)
+
+Despite her successes, her debts continued to mount, reaching two million gold francs by the end of 1898. Bernhardt was forced to give up the Renaissance, and was preparing to go on another world tour when she learned that a much larger Paris theater, the Théâtre des Nations on Place du Châtelet, was for lease. The theater had 1,700 seats, twice the size of the Renaissance, enabling her to pay off the cost of performances more quickly; it had an enormous stage and backstage, allowing her to present several different plays a week; and since it was originally designed as a concert hall, it had excellent acoustics. On 1 January 1899, she signed a 25-year lease with the City of Paris, though she was already 55 years old.[115]
+
+She renamed it the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, and began to renovate it to suit her needs. The facade was lit by 5,700 electric bulbs, 17 arc lights, and 11 projectors.[116] She completely redecorated the interior, replacing the red plush and gilt with yellow velvet, brocade, and white woodwork. The lobby was decorated with life-sized portraits of her in her most famous roles, painted by Mucha, Louise Abbéma, and Georges Clairin. Her dressing room was a five-room suite, which, after the success of her Napoleonic play L'Aiglon, was decorated in Empire Style, featuring a marble fireplace with a fire Bernhardt kept burning year round, a huge bathtub that was filled with the flowers she received after each performance, and a dining room fitting 12 people, where she entertained guests after the final curtain.[117]
+
+Bernhardt opened the theater on 21 January 1899 with a revival of Sardou's La Tosca, which she had first performed in 1887. This was followed by revivals of her other major successes, including Phédre, Theodora, Gismonda, and La Dame aux Camélias, plus Octave Feuillet's Dalila, Gaston de Wailly's Patron Bénic, and Rostand's La Samaritaine, a poetic retelling of the story of the Samaritan woman at the well from the Gospel of St. John. On 20 May, she premiered one of her most famous roles, playing the titular character of Hamlet in a prose adaptation which she had commissioned from Eugène Morand and Marcel Schwob.[118] She played Hamlet in a manner which was direct, natural, and very feminine.[119] Her performance received largely positive reviews in Paris, but mixed reviews in London. The British critic Max Beerbohm wrote, "the only compliment one can conscientiously pay her is that her Hamlet was, from first to last, a truly grand dame."[120]
+
+In 1900, Bernhardt presented L'Aiglon, a new play by Rostand. She played the Duc de Reichstadt, the son of Napoleon Bonaparte, imprisoned by his unloving mother and family until his melancholy death in the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna. L'Aiglon was a verse drama, six acts long. The 56-year-old actress studied the walk and posture of young cavalry officers and had her hair cut short to impersonate the young Duke. The Duke's stage mother, Marie-Louise of Austria, was played by Maria Legault, an actress 14 years younger than Berhnardt. The play ended with a memorable death scene; according to one critic, she died "as dying angels would die if they were allowed to."[121] The play was extremely successful; it was especially popular with visitors to the 1900 Paris International Exposition, and ran for nearly a year, with standing-room places selling for as much as 600 gold francs. The play inspired the creation of Bernhardt souvenirs, including statuettes, medallions, fans, perfumes, postcards of her in the role, uniforms and cardboard swords for children, and pastries and cakes; the famed chef Escoffier added Peach Aiglon with Chantilly Cream to his repertoire of desserts.[122]
+
+Bernhardt continued to employ Mucha to design her posters, and expanded his work to include theatrical sets, programs, costumes, and jewelry props. His posters became icons of the Art Nouveau style. To earn more money, Bernhardt set aside a certain number of printed posters of each play to sell to collectors.[108][123]
+
+Bernhardt as Zoraya in La Sorcière by Sardou (1903)
+
+Playing Pelléas in Pelléas and Mélisande (1905)
+
+Bernhardt in the role of Phedre at the Hearst Greek Theatre at the University of California, Berkeley (1906)
+
+Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt in 1910 by Henry Walter Barnett
+
+After her season in Paris, Bernhardt performed L'Aiglon in London, and then made her sixth tour to the United States. On this tour, she traveled with Constant Coquelin, then the most popular leading man in France. Bernhardt played the secondary role of Roxanne to his Cyrano de Bergerac, a role which he had premiered, and he co-starred with her as Flambeau in L'Aiglon and as the first grave-digger in Hamlet.[124]
+
+She also changed, for the first time, her resolution not to perform in Germany or the "occupied territories" of Alsace and Lorraine. In 1902, at the invitation of the French ministry of culture, she took part in the first cultural exchange between Germany and France since the 1870 war. She performed L'Aiglon 14 times in Germany; Kaiser William II of Germany attended two performances and hosted a dinner in her honor in Potsdam.[125]
+
+During her German tour, she began to suffer agonizing pain in her right knee, probably connected with a fall she had suffered on stage during her tour in South America. She was forced to reduce her movements in L'Aiglon. A German doctor recommended that she halt the tour immediately and have surgery, followed by six months of complete immobilization of her leg. Bernhardt promised to see a doctor when she returned to Paris, but continued the tour.[126]
+
+In 1903, she had another unsuccessful role playing another masculine character in the opera Werther, a gloomy adaptation of the story by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. However, she quickly came back with another hit, La Sorcière by Sardou. She played a Moorish sorceress in love with a Christian Spaniard, leading to her persecution by the church. This story of tolerance, coming soon after the Dreyfus affair, was financially successful, with Bernhardt often giving both a matinee and evening performance.[126]
+
+Between 1904 and 1906, she appeared in a wide range of parts, including in Francesca di Rimini by Francis Marion Crawford, the role of Fanny in Sappho by Alphonse Daudet, the magician Circe in a play by Charles Richet, the part of Marie Antoinette in the historic drama Varennes by Lavedan and Lenôtre, the part of the prince-poet Landry in a version of Sleeping Beauty by Richepin and Henri Cain, and a new version of the play Pelléas and Mélisande by symbolist poet Maurice Maeterlinck, in which she played the male role of Pelléas with the British actress Mrs Patrick Campbell as Melissande.[127] She also starred in a new version of Adrienne Lecouvreur, which she wrote herself, different from the earlier version which had been written for her by Scribe. During this time, she wrote a drama, Un Coeur d'Homme, in which she had no part, which was performed at the Théâtre des Arts, but lasted only three performances.[128] She also taught acting briefly at the Conservatory, but found the system there too rigid and traditional. Instead, she took aspiring actresses and actors into her company, trained them, and used them as unpaid extras and bit players.[129]
+
+Bernhardt made her first American Farewell Tour in 1905–1906, the first of four farewell tours she made to the US, Canada, and Latin America, with her new managers, the Shubert brothers. She attracted controversy and press attention when, during her 1905 visit to Montreal, the Roman Catholic bishop encouraged his followers to throw eggs at Bernhardt, because she portrayed prostitutes as sympathetic characters. The US portion of the tour was complicated due to the Shuberts' competition with the powerful syndicate of theater owners which controlled nearly all the major theaters and opera houses in the United States. The syndicate did not allow outside producers to use their stages. As a result, in Texas and Kansas City, Bernhardt and her company performed under an enormous circus tent, seating 4,500 spectators, and in skating rinks in Atlanta, Savannah, Tampa, and other cities. Her private train took her to Knoxville, Dallas, Denver, Tampa, Chattanooga, and Salt Lake City, then on to the West Coast. She could not play in San Francisco because of the recent 1906 San Francisco earthquake, but she performed across the bay in the Hearst Greek Theatre at the University of California at Berkeley, and gave a recital, titled A Christmas Night during the Terror, for inmates at San Quentin penitentiary.[130]
+
+Her tour continued into South America, where it was marred by a more serious event: at the conclusion of La Tosca in Rio de Janeiro, she leaped, as always, from the wall of the fortress to plunge to her death in the Tiber. This time, however, the mattress on which she was supposed to land had been positioned incorrectly. She landed on her right knee, which had already been damaged in earlier tours. She fainted and was taken from the theater on a stretcher, but refused to be treated in a local hospital. She later sailed the few hours by ship from Rio to New York. When she arrived, her leg had swollen, and she was immobilized in her hotel for 15 days before returning to France.[131]
+
+In 1906–1907, the French government finally awarded Bernhardt the Legion of Honor, but only in her role as a theater director, not as an actress. However, the award at that time required a review of the recipients' moral standards, and Bernhardt's behavior was still considered scandalous. Bernhardt ignored the snub and continued to play both inoffensive and controversial characters. In November 1906, she starred in La Vierge d'Avila, ou La Courtisan de Dieu, by Catulle Mendes, playing Saint Theresa, followed on 27 January 1907 by Les Bouffons, by Miguel Zamocois, in which she played a young and amorous medieval lord.[132] In 1909, she again played the 19-year-old Joan of Arc in Le Procès de Jeanne d'Arc by Émile Moreau. French newspapers encouraged schoolchildren to view her personification of French patriotism.[133]
+
+Despite the injury to her leg, she continued to go on tour every summer, when her own theater in Paris was closed. In June 1908, she made a 20-day tour of Britain and Ireland, performing in 16 different cities.[134] In 1908–1909, she toured Russia and Poland. Her second American farewell tour (her eighth tour in America) began in late 1910. She took along a new leading man, the Dutch-born Lou Tellegen, a very handsome actor who had served as a model for the sculpture Eternal Springtime by Auguste Rodin, and who became her co-star for the next two years, as well as her escort to all events, functions, and parties. He was not a particularly good actor, and had a strong Dutch accent, but he was successful in roles such as Hippolyte in Phedre, where he could take off his shirt and show off his physique. In New York, she created yet another scandal when she appeared in the role of Judas Iscariot in Judas by the American playwright John Wesley De Kay. It was performed in New York's Globe Theater for only one night in December 1910 before it was banned by local authorities. It was also banned in Boston and Philadelphia.[135] The tour took her from Boston to Jacksonville, through Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, to Canada and Minnesota, usually one new city and one performance every day.[136]
+
+In April 1912, Bernhardt presented a new production in her theater, Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth, a romantic costume drama by Émile Moreau about Queen Elizabeth's romances with Robert Dudley and Robert Devereux. It was lavish and expensive, but was a monetary failure, lasting only 12 performances. Fortunately for Bernhardt, she was able to pay off her debt with the money she received from the American producer Adolph Zukor for a film version of the play.[137] (see Motion pictures)
+
+She departed on her third farewell tour of the United States in 1913–1914, when she was 69. Her leg had not yet fully healed, and she was unable to perform an entire play, only selected acts. She also separated from her co-star and lover of the time, Lou Tellegen. When the tour ended, he remained in the United States, where he briefly became a silent movie star, while she returned to France in May 1913.[138]
+
+In December 1913, Bernhardt performed another success with the drama Jeanne Doré. On 16 March, she was made a Chevalier of the Legion d'Honneur. Despite her successes, she was still short of money. She had made her son Maurice the director of her new theater, and permitted him to use the receipts of the theater to pay his gambling debts, eventually forcing her to pawn some of her jewels to pay her bills.[139]
+
+In 1914, she went as usual to her holiday home on Belle-Île with her family and close friends. There, she received the news of the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and the beginning of the First World War. She hurried back to Paris, which was threatened by an approaching German army. In September, Bernhardt was asked by the Minister of War to move to a safer place. She departed for a villa on the Bay of Arcachon, where her physician discovered that gangrene had developed on her injured leg. She was transported to Bordeaux, where on 22 February 1915, a surgeon amputated her leg almost to the hip. She refused the idea of an artificial leg, crutches, or a wheelchair, and instead was usually carried in a palanquin she designed, supported by two long shafts and carried by two men. She had the chair decorated in the Louis XV style, with white sides and gilded trim.[140]
+
+She returned to Paris on 15 October, and, despite the loss of her leg, continued to go on stage at her theater; scenes were arranged so she could be seated, or supported by a prop with her leg hidden. She took part in a patriotic "scenic poem" by Eugène Morand, Les Cathédrales, playing the part of Strasbourg Cathedral; first, while seated, she recited a poem; then she hoisted herself up on her one leg, leaned against the arm of the chair, and declared "Weep, weep, Germany! The German eagle has fallen into the Rhine!"[141]
+
+Bernhardt joined a troupe of famous French actors and traveled to the Battle of Verdun and the Battle of the Argonne, where she performed for soldiers who were just returned or about to go into battle. Propped on pillows in an armchair, she recited her patriotic speech at Strasbourg Cathedral. Another actress present at the event, Beatrix Dussanne, described her performance: "The miracle again took place; Sarah, old, mutilated, once more illuminated a crowd by the rays of her genius. This fragile creature, ill, wounded and a immobile, could still, through the magic of the spoken word, re-instill heroism in those soldiers weary from battle."[142]
+
+She returned to Paris in 1916 and made two short films on patriotic themes, one based on the story of Joan of Arc, the other called Mothers of France. Then she embarked on her final American farewell tour. Despite the threat of German submarines, she crossed the Atlantic and toured the United States, performing in major cities including New York and San Francisco. Bernhardt was diagnosed with uremia, and had to have an emergency kidney operation. She recuperated in Long Beach, California, for several months, writing short stories and novellas for publication in French magazines. In 1918, she returned to New York and boarded a ship to France, landing in Bordeaux on 11 November 1918, the day that the armistice was signed ending the First World War.[143]
+
+In 1920, she resumed acting in her theater, usually performing single acts of classics such as Racine's Athelee, which did not require much movement. For her curtain calls, she stood, balancing on one leg and gesturing with one arm. She also starred in a new play, Daniel, written by her grandson-in-law, playwright Louis Verneuil. She played the male lead role, but appeared in just two acts. She took the play and other famous scenes from her repertory on a European tour and then for her last tour of England, where she gave a special command performance for Queen Mary, followed by a tour of the British provinces.[144]
+
+In 1921, Bernhardt made her last tour of the French provinces, lecturing about theater and reciting the poetry of Rostand. Later that year, she produced a new play by Rostand, La Gloire, and another play by Verneuil, Régine Arnaud in 1922. She continued to entertain guests at her home. One such guest, French author Colette, described being served coffee by Bernhardt: "The delicate and withered hand offering the brimming cup, the flowery azure of the eyes, so young still in their network of fine lines, the questioning and mocking coquetry of the tilted head, and that indescribable desire to charm, to charm still, to charm right up to the gates of death itself."[145]
+
+In 1922, she began rehearsing a new play by Sacha Guitry, called Un Sujet de Roman. On the night of the dress rehearsal, she collapsed, going into a coma for an hour, then awakened with the words, "when do I go on?" She recuperated for several months, with her condition improving; she began preparing for a new role as Cleopatra in Rodogune by Corneille, and agreed to make a new film by Sasha Guitry called La Voyante, for a payment of 10,000 francs a day. She was too weak to travel, so a room in her house on Boulevard Pereire was set up as a film studio, with scenery, lights, and cameras. However, on 21 March 1923, she collapsed again, and never recovered. She died from uremia on the evening of 26 March 1923. Newspaper reports stated she died "peacefully, without suffering, in the arms of her son".[146] At her request, her Funeral Mass was celebrated at the church of Saint-François-de-Sales, which she attended when she was in Paris.[147] The following day, 30,000 people attended her funeral to pay their respects, and an enormous crowd followed her casket from the Church of Saint-Francoise-de-Sales to Pere Lachaise Cemetery, pausing for a moment of silence outside her theater.[148] The inscription on her tombstone is the name "Bernhardt".[149]
+
+Bernhardt in the film Camille (La Dame aux camélias) with André Calmettes (1911)
+
+As Queen Elizabeth in the film Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth (The Loves of Queen Elizabeth) with Lou Tellegen (1912)
+
+Bernhardt was one of the first actresses to star in moving pictures. The first projected film was shown by the Lumiere brothers at the Grand Café in Paris on 28 December 1895. In 1900, the cameraman who had shot the first films for the Lumiere brothers, Clément Maurice, approached Bernhardt and asked her to make a film out of a scene from her stage production of Hamlet. The scene was Prince Hamlet's duel with Laertes, with Bernhardt in the role of Hamlet. Maurice made a phonograph recording at the same time, so the film could be accompanied by sound. The sound of the clashing wooden prop swords was not loud and realistic enough, so Maurice had a stage hand bang pieces of metal together in sync with the sword fight. Maurice's finished two-minute film, Le Duel d'Hamlet, was presented to the public at the 1900 Paris Universal Exposition between 14 April and 12 November 1900 in Paul Decauville's program, Phono-Cinéma-Théâtre. This program contained short films of many other famous French theatre stars of the day.[150] The sound quality on the disks and the synchronization were very poor, so the system never became a commercial success. Nonetheless, her film is cited as one of the first examples of a sound film.[151]
+
+Eight years later, in 1908, Bernhardt made a second motion picture, La Tosca. This was produced by Le Film d’Art and directed by André Calmettes from the play by Victorien Sardou. The film has been lost. Her next film, with her co-star and lover Lou Tellegen, was La Dame aux Camelias, called "Camille". When she performed on this film, Bernhardt changed both the fashion in which she performed, significantly accelerating the speed of her gestural action.[152] The film was a success in the United States, and in France, the young French artist and later screenwriter Jean Cocteau wrote, "What actress can play a lover better than she does in this film? No one!"[153] Bernhardt received $30,000 for her performance.
+
+Shortly afterwards, she made another film of a scene from her play Adrienne Levouvreur with Tellegen, in the role of Maurice de Saxe. Then, in 1912, the pioneer American producer Adolph Zukor came to London and filmed her performing scenes from her stage play Queen Elizabeth with her lover Tellegen, with Bernhardt in the role of Lord Essex.[154] To make the film more appealing, Zukor had the film print hand-tinted, making it one of the first color films. The Loves of Queen Elizabeth premiered at the Lyceum Theater in New York City on 12 July 1912, and was a financial success; Zukor invested $18,000 in the film and earned $80,000, enabling him to found the Famous Players Film Company, which later became Paramount Pictures.[155] The use of the visual arts–specifically famous c.19 painting–to frame scenes and elaborate narrative action is significant in the work.[152]
+
+Bernhardt was also the subject and star of two documentaries, including Sarah Bernhardt à Belle-Isle (1915), a film about her daily life at home. This was one of the earliest films by a celebrity inviting us into the home, and is again significant for the use it makes of contemporary art references in the mis-en-scene of the film.[152] She also made Jeanne Doré in 1916. This was produced by Eclipse and directed by Louis Mercanton and René Hervil from the play by Tristan Bernard. In 1917 she made a film called Mothers of France (Mères Françaises). Produced by Eclipse it was directed by Louis Mercanton and René Hervil with a screenplay by Jean Richepin. As Victoria Duckett explains in her book Seeing Sarah Bernhardt: Performance and Silent Film, this film was a propaganda film shot on the front line with the intent to urge America to join the War.[152]
+
+In the weeks before her death in 1923, she was preparing to make another motion picture from her own home, La Voyante, directed by Sacha Guitry. She told journalists, "They're paying me ten thousand francs a day, and plan to film for seven days. Make the calculation. These are American rates, and I don't have to cross the Atlantic! At those rates, I'm ready to appear in any films they make."[156] However, she died just before the filming began.[157]
+
+Bernhardt began painting while she was at the Comédie-Française; since she rarely performed more than twice a week, she wanted a new activity to fill her time. Her paintings were mostly landscapes and seascapes, with many painted at Belle-Île. Her painting teachers were close and lifelong friends Georges Clairin and Louise Abbéma. She exhibited a 2-m-tall canvas, The Young Woman and Death, at the 1878 Paris Salon.[158]
+
+Her passion for sculpture was more serious. Her sculpture teacher was Mathieu-Meusnier, an academic sculptor who specialized in public monuments and sentimental storytelling pieces.[159] She quickly picked up the techniques; she exhibited and sold a high-relief plaque of the death of Ophelia and, for the architect Charles Garnier, she created the allegorical figure of Song for the group Music on the facade of the Opera House of Monte Carlo.[160] She also exhibited a group of figures, called Après la Tempête (After the Storm), at the 1876 Paris Salon, receiving an honorable mention. Bernhardt sold the original work, the molds, and signed plaster miniatures, earning more than 10,000 francs.[160] The original is now displayed the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. Fifty works by Bernhardt have been documented, of which 25 are known to still exist.[161] Several of her works were also shown in the 1893 Columbia Exposition in Chicago and at the 1900 Exposition Universelle.[162] While on tour in New York, she hosted a private viewing of her paintings and sculptures for 500 guests.[163] In 1880, she made an Art Nouveau decorative bronze inkwell, a self-portrait with bat wings and a fish tail,[164] possibly inspired by her 1874 performance in Le Sphinx.[165] She set up a studio at 11 boulevard de Clichy in Montmartre, where she frequently entertained her guests dressed in her sculptor's outfit, including white satin blouse and white silk trousers. Rodin dismissed her sculptures as "old-fashioned tripe", and she was attacked in the press for pursuing an activity inappropriate for an actress. She was defended by Emile Zola, who wrote, "How droll! Not content with finding her thin, or declaring her mad, they want to regulate her daily activities, ... Let a law be passed immediately to prevent the accumulation of talent!"[166]
+
+In her final years, Bernhardt wrote a textbook on the art of acting. She wrote whenever she had time, usually between productions, and when she was on vacation at Belle-Île. After her death, the writer Marcel Berger, her close friend, found the unfinished manuscript among her belongings in her house on boulevard Pereire. He edited the book, and it was published as L'Art du Théâtre in 1923. An English translation was published in 1925.[167]
+
+She paid particular attention to the use of the voice, "the instrument the most necessary to the dramatic artist." It was the element, she wrote, which connected the artist with the audience. "The voice must have all the harmonies, ... serious, plaintive, vibrant and metallic." For a voice to be fully complete, she wrote, "It is necessary that it be very slightly nasal. An artist who has a dry voice can never touch the public." She also stressed the importance for artists to train their breathing for long passages. She suggested that an actress should be able to recite the following passage from Phédre in a single breath:
+
+She noted that "the art of our art is not to have it noticed by the public... We must create an atmosphere by our sincerity, so that public, gasping, distracted, should not regain its equilibrium and free will until the fall of the curtain. That which is called the work, in our art, should only be the search for the truth."[169]
+
+She also insisted that artists should express their emotions clearly without words, using "their eye, their hand, the position of the chest, the tilting of the head... The exterior form of the art is often the entire art; at least, it is that which strikes the audience the most effectively." She encouraged actors to "Work, overexcite your emotional expression, become accustomed to varying your psychological states and translating them... The diction, the way of standing, the look, the gesture are predominant in the development of the career of an artist."[170]
+
+She explained why she liked to perform male roles: "The roles of men are in general more intellectual than the roles of women... Only the role of Phédre gives me the charm of digging into a heart that is truly anguished... Always, in the theater, the parts played by the men are the best parts. And yet theater is the sole art where women can sometimes be superior to men."[171]
+
+Bernhardt had a remarkable ability to memorize a role quickly. She recounted in L'Art du Théâtre that "I only have to read a role two or three times and I know it completely; but the day that I stop playing the piece the role escapes me entirely... My memory can't contain several parts at the same time, and it's impossible for me to recite off-hand a tirade from Phèdre or Hamlet. And yet I can remember the smallest events from my childhood."[172] She also suffered, particularly early in her career, bouts of memory loss and stage fright. Once, she was seriously ill before a performance of L'Etrangére at the Gaiety Theater in London, and the doctor gave her a dose of painkiller, either opium or morphine. During the performance, she went on stage, but could not remember what she was supposed to say. She turned to another actress, and announced, "If I made you come here, Madame, it is because I wanted to instruct you in what I want done... I have thought about it, and I do not want to tell you today", then walked offstage. The other actors, astonished, quickly improvised an ending to the scene. After a brief rest, her memory came back, and Bernhardt went back on stage, and completed the play.[172]
+
+During another performance on her world tour, a backstage door was opened during a performance of Phèdre, and a cold wind blew across the stage as Bernhardt was reciting. Without interrupting her speech, she added "If someone doesn't close that door I will catch pneumonia." The door was closed, and no one in the audience seemed to notice the addition.[172]
+
+French drama critics praised Bernhardt's performances; Francisque Sarcey, an influential Paris critic, wrote of her 1871 performance in Marie, "She has a sovereign grace, a penetrating charm, and I don't know what. She is a natural and an incomparable artist."[54] Reviewing her performance of Ruy Blas in 1872, the critic Théodore de Banville wrote that Bernhardt "declaimed like a bluebird sings, like the wind sighs, like the water murmurs."[173] Of the same performance, Sarcey wrote: "She added the music of her voice to the music of the verse. She sang, yes, sang with her melodious voice..."[173]
+
+Victor Hugo was a fervent admirer of Bernhardt, praising her "golden voice". Describing her performance in his play, Ruy Blas in 1872, he wrote in his Carnets, "It is the first time this play has really been played! She is better than an actress, she is a woman. She is adorable; she is better than beautiful, she has the harmonious movements and looks of irresistible seduction."[173]
+
+Her 1882 performance of Fédora was described by the French critic Maurice Baring: "A secret atmosphere emanated from her, an aroma, an attraction which was at once exotic and cerebral... She literally hypnotized the audience", and played "with such tigerish passion and feline seduction which, whether it be good or bad art, nobody has been able to match since."[174]
+
+In 1884, Sigmund Freud saw Bernhardt perform Theodora, writing:
+
+"I cannot say much for the play, but this Sarah, how she played! From the moment I heard her first lines, pronounced in her vibrant and adorable voice, I had the feeling I had known her for years. None of the lines that she spoke could surprise me; I believed immediately everything that she said. The smallest centimeter of this character was alive and enchanted you. And then, there was the manner she had to flatter, to implore, to embrace. Her incredible positions, the manner in which she keeps silent, but each of her limbs and each of her movements play the role for her! Strange creature! It is easy for me to imagine that she has no need to be any different on the street than she is on the stage!"[175]
+
+She also had her critics, particularly in her later years among the new generation of playwrights who advocated a more naturalistic style of acting. George Bernard Shaw wrote of the "childishly egotistical character of her acting, which is not the art of making you think more highly or feel more deeply but the art of making you admire her, pity her, champion her, weep with her, laugh at her jokes, follow her fortunes breathlessly and applaud her wildly when the curtain falls... It is the art of fooling you."[176] Ivan Turgenev wrote: "All she has is a marvelous voice. The rest is cold, false, and affected; the worst kind of repulsive chic Parisienne!"[177][178][179] Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov, then a young medical student, was paying for his studies by writing reviews for a Moscow newspaper. He stated that "We are far from admiring the talent of Sarah Bernhardt. She is a woman who is very intelligent and knows how to produce an effect, who has immense taste, who understands the human heart, but she wanted too much to astonish and overwhelm her audience."[177] He wrote that in her roles, "enchantment is smothered in artifice."[178]
+
+Sarah Bernhardt's performances were seen and appraised by many of the leading literary and cultural figures of the late 19th century. Mark Twain wrote, "There are five kinds of actresses. Bad actresses, fair actresses, good actresses, great actresses, and then there is Sarah Bernhardt." Oscar Wilde called her "the Incomparable One", scattered lilies in her path, and wrote a play in French, Salomé, especially for her; it was banned by British censors before it could be performed.[180] Shortly before he died, Wilde wrote: "The three women I have most admired in my life are Sarah Bernhardt, Lily Langtry, and Queen Victoria. I would have married any one of them with pleasure."[181]
+
+After seeing a performance by Bernhardt in 1903, the British actress Ellen Terry wrote, "How marvelous Sarah Bernhardt was! She had the transparence of an azalea with even more delicacy, the lightness of a cloud with less thickness. Smoke from a burning paper describes her more nearly."[182]
+
+British author D.H. Lawrence saw Bernhardt perform La Dame aux Camelias in 1908. Afterward, he wrote to a friend:
+
+"Sarah was wonderful and terrible. Oh, to see her, and to hear her, a wild creature, a gazelle with a beautiful panther's fascination and fury, laughing in musical French, screaming with true panther cry, sobbing and sighing like a deer sobs, wounded to the death... She is not pretty, her voice is not sweet, but there is the incarnation of wild emotion that we share with all living things..."[183]
+
+The identity of Bernhardt's father is not known for certain. Her original birth certificate was destroyed when the Paris Commune burned the Hotel de Ville and city archives in May 1871. In her autobiography, Ma Double Vie,[184] she describes meeting her father several times, and writes that his family provided funding for her education, and left a sum of 100,000 francs for her when she came of age.[185] She said he frequently travelled overseas, and that when she was still a child, he died in Pisa "in unexplained circumstances which remain mysterious."[186] In February 1914, she presented a reconstituted birth certificate, which stated that her legitimate father was one Édouard Bernhardt.[187] On 21 May 1856, when she was baptized, she was registered as the daughter of "Edouard Bernhardt residing in Le Havre and Judith Van Hard, residing in Paris."[188]
+
+A more recent biography by Helene Tierchant (2009) suggests her father may have been a young man named De Morel, whose family members were notable shipowners and merchants in Le Havre. According to Bernhardt's autobiography, her grandmother and uncle in Le Havre provided financial support for her education when she was young, took part in family councils about her future, and later gave her money when her apartment in Paris was destroyed by fire.[185]
+
+Her date of birth is also uncertain due to the destruction of her birth certificate. She usually gave her birthday as 23 October 1844, and celebrated it on that day. However, the reconstituted birth certificate she presented in 1914 gave the date as 25 October.[189][190] Other sources give the date 22 October,[191] or either 22 or 23 October.[2]
+
+Bernhardt's mother Judith, or Julie, was born in the early 1820s. She was one of six children, five daughters and one son, of a Dutch-Jewish itinerant eyeglass merchant, Moritz Baruch Bernardt, and a German laundress,[192] Sara Hirsch (later known as Janetta Hartog or Jeanne Hard). Judith's mother died in 1829, and five weeks later, her father remarried.[193] His new wife did not get along with the children from his earlier marriage. Judith and two of her sisters, Henriette and Rosine, left home, moved to London briefly, and then settled in Le Havre, on the French coast.[192] Henriette married a local in Le Havre, but Julie and Rosine became courtesans, and Julie took the new, more French name of Youle and the more aristocratic-sounding last name of Van Hard. In April 1843, she gave birth to twin girls to a "father unknown." Both girls died in the hospice in Le Havre a month later. The following year, Youle was pregnant again, this time with Sarah. She moved to Paris, to 5 rue de l'École-de-Médicine, where in October 1844, Sarah was born.[194]
+
+Early in Bernhardt's career, she had an affair with a Belgian nobleman, Charles-Joseph Eugène Henri Georges Lamoral de Ligne (1837–1914), son of Eugène, 8th Prince of Ligne, with whom she bore her only child, Maurice Bernhardt (1864–1928). Maurice did not become an actor, but worked for most of his life as a manager and agent for various theaters and performers, frequently managing his mother's career in her later years, but rarely with great success. Maurice and his family were usually financially dependent, in full or in part, on his mother until her death. Maurice married a Polish princess, Maria Jablonowska, of the House of Jablonowski, with whom he had two daughters: Simone, who married Edgar Gross, son of a wealthy Philadelphia soap manufacturer; and Lysiana, who married the playwright Louis Verneuil.
+
+From 1864 to 1866, after Bernhardt left the Comédie-Française, and after Maurice was born, she frequently had trouble finding roles. She often worked as a courtesan, taking wealthy and influential lovers. The French police of the Second Empire kept files on high-level courtesans, including Bernhardt; her file recorded the wide variety of names and titles of her patrons; they included Alexandre Aguado, the son of Spanish banker and Marquis Alejandro María Aguado; the industrialist Robert de Brimont; the banker Jacques Stern; and the wealthy Louis-Roger de Cahuzac.[195] The list also included Khalil Bey, the Ambassador of the Ottoman Empire to the Second Empire, best known today as the man who commissioned Gustave Courbet to paint L'Origine du monde, a detailed painting of a woman's anatomy that was banned until 1995, but now on display at the Musee d'Orsay. Bernhardt received from him a diadem of pearls and diamonds. She also had affairs with many of her leading men, and with other men more directly useful to her career, including Arsène Houssaye, director of the Théâtre-Lyrique, and the editors of several major newspapers. Many of her early lovers continued to be her friends after the affairs ended.[196]
+
+During her time at the Odeon, she continued to see her old lovers, as well as new ones including French marshals François-Certain Canrobert and Achille Bazaine, the latter a commander of the French army in the Crimean War and in Mexico; and Prince Napoleon, son of Joseph Bonaparte and cousin of French Emperor Louis-Napoleon. She also had a two-year-long affair with Charles Haas, son of a banker and one of the most celebrated Paris dandies in the Empire, the model for the character of Swann in the novels by Marcel Proust.[197]
+
+Bernhardt took as lovers many of the male leads of her plays, including Mounet-Sully and Lou Tellegen. She possibly had an affair with the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, who frequently attended her London and Paris performances and once, as a prank, played the part of a cadaver in one of her plays.[198] When he was King, he travelled on the royal yacht to visit her at her summer home on Belle-Île.[199]
+
+Her last serious love affair was with the Dutch-born actor Lou Tellegen, 37 years her junior, who became her co-star during her second American farewell tour (and eighth American tour) in 1910. He was a very handsome actor who had served as a model for sculpture Eternal Springtime by Rodin. He had little acting experience, but Bernhardt signed him as a leading man just before she departed on the tour, assigned him a compartment in her private railway car, and took him as her escort to all events, functions, and parties. He was not a particularly good actor, and had a strong Dutch accent, but he was successful in roles, such as Hippolyte in Phedre, where he could take off his shirt. At the end of the American tour they had a dispute and he remained in the United States while she returned to France. At first, he had a successful career in the United States, and married film actress Geraldine Farrar, but when they split up his career plummeted. He committed suicide in 1934.[200]
+
+Bernhardt's broad circle of friends included the writers Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, his son Alexandre Dumas, fils, Emile Zola, and the artist Gustave Doré. Her close friends included the painters Georges Clairin and Louise Abbéma (1853–1927), a French impressionist painter, some nine years her junior. This relationship was so close, the two women were rumored to be lovers. In 1990, a painting by Abbéma, depicting the two on a boat ride on the lake in the bois de Boulogne, was donated to the Comédie-Française. The accompanying letter stated that the painting was "Peint par Louise Abbéma, le jour anniversaire de leur liaison amoureuse"[201] (loosely translated: "Painted by Louise Abbéma on the anniversary of their love affair") Clairin and Abbéma spent their holidays with Bernhardt and her family at her summer residence at Belle-Île, and remained close with Bernhardt until her death.[202]
+
+In 1882, in Paris, Bernhardt met a Greek diplomat, Aristide Damala (known in France by his stage name Jacques Damala), who was 11 years her junior, and notorious for his romantic affairs. Bernhardt's biographer described him as "handsome as Adonis, insolent, vain, and altogether despicable."[203] His affairs with married women had already led to one suicide and two divorces, and the French government had asked him to leave Paris, transferring him to the Greek Embassy in St. Petersburg. She already had a lover at the time, Philippe Garnier, her leading man, but when she met Damala, she fell in love with him, and insisted that her tour be modified to include a stop in St. Petersburg. Garnier politely stepped aside and let her go to St. Petersburg without him. Arriving in St. Petersburg, Bernhardt invited Damala to give up his diplomatic post to become an actor in her company, as well as her lover, and before long, they decided to marry. During a break in the tour, they were married on 4 April 1882 in London. She told her friends that she married because marriage was the only thing she had never experienced.[204] Upon returning to Paris, she found a minor role for Damala in La Dame aux Camelias and a leading role in another play without her, Les Meres Ennemies by Catulle Mendés. Critics dismissed him as handsome, but without noticeable talent. Damala began taking large quantities of morphine, and following Bernhardt's great success in Fedora, Damala took every opportunity to criticize and humiliate her. She later discovered that he was using the money she gave him to buy presents for other women. In early December 1882, when she confronted him, he declared that he was going to North Africa to join the Foreign Legion, and disappeared.[205]
+
+In early 1889, Damala reappeared at Bernhardt's door haggard, ill, and penniless. Bernhardt instantly forgave him, and offered him the role of Armand Duval in a new production of Dame aux Camélias at the Variétés. They performed together from 18 May until 30 June. He looked exhausted and old, confused his diction, and forgot his lines. The critic for Le Rappel wrote: "Where is, alas, the handsome Armand Duval who was presented to us for the first time a few years ago at the Gaiéte?" The critic Francisque Sarcey wrote simply, "he makes us feel sick." When his contract ended, he was able to get another contract as an actor at a different theater, and continued to harass Bernhardt. He attended one of her performances sitting in the first row, and made faces at her. Her current lover, Philippe Garnier, saw him and beat him. Later, he entered her house and ravaged the furniture. Bernhardt was a Roman Catholic, and did not want to divorce him.[206] He continued to act, sometimes with success, particularly in a play by Georges Ohnet, Le Maître des Forges, in 1883. However, his morphine addiction continued to worsen. In August 1889, Bernhardt learned that he had taken an overdose of morphine in Marseille. She hurried to his bedside and nursed him until he died on 18 August 1889, at the age of 34. He was buried in Athens. Bernhardt sent a bust she had made of him to be placed on his tomb, and when she toured in the Balkans, always made a detour to visit his grave. Until the end of her life, she continued to sign official documents as "Sarah Bernhardt, widow of Damala".[92]
+
+After her 1886–87 tour, Bernhardt recuperated on Belle-Île, a small island off the coast of Brittany, 10 miles south of the Quiberon peninsula. She purchased a ruined 17th-century fortress, located at the end of the island and approached by a drawbridge, and turned it into her vacation retreat. Between 1886 and 1922, she spent nearly every summer, the season when her theater was closed, on Belle-Île. She built bungalows for her son Maurice and her grandchildren, and bungalows with studios for her close friends, the painters Georges Clairin and Louise Abbéma. She also took with her large collection of animals, including several dogs, two horses, a donkey, a hawk given to her by the Russian Grand Duke Alexis, an Andean wildcat, and a boa constrictor she had brought back from her tour of South America. She entertained many visitors at Belle-Île, including King Edward VII, who stopped by the island on a cruise aboard the royal yacht. Always wrapped in white scarves, she played tennis (under house rules that required that she be the winner) and cards, read plays, and created sculptures and ornaments in her studio. When the fishermen of the island suffered a bad season, she organized a benefit performance with leading actors to raise funds for them. She gradually enlarged the estate, purchasing a neighboring hotel and all the land with a view of the property, but in 1922, as her health declined, she abruptly sold it and never returned.[207] During the Second World War, the Germans occupied the island, and in October 1944, before leaving the island, they dynamited most of the compound. All that remains is the original old fort, and a seat cut into the rock where Bernhardt awaited the boat that took her to the mainland.[208]
+
+Bernhardt was described as a strict vegetarian (what would later be termed vegan), as she avoided dairy, eggs and meat.[209][210] Her diet consisted of cereal, fruit, nuts and vegetables.[210] In 1913, The Literary Digest reported that she became vegetarian to lose weight and regain her figure.[209][210] However, a 1923 biography of Bernhardt noted that she consumed fish and in her older years favoured Gruyère or Pont-l'Évêque cheese.[211]
+
+Mexican actress Virginia Fábregas (1871–1950) was nicknamed "The Mexican Sarah Bernhardt."[212]
+
+After Bernhardt's death, her theater was managed by her son Maurice until his death in 1928. It kept its name until the occupation of Paris by the Germans in World War II,[213] when, because of Bernhardt's Jewish ancestry, the name was changed to Théâtre de la Cité. The name was changed back to the Théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt in 1947, then in 1957 became the Théâtre des Nations. In 1968, it was renamed the Théâtre de la Ville, which is the name it has today.
+
+In 1876, Bernhardt constructed a large townhouse at 35 rue Fortuny in the 17th arrondissement, not far from Parc Monceau, for her family, servants, and animals. In 1885, when her debts mounted, she sold the house. Once her fortune was replenished by her tours abroad, she bought an even larger house at 56 avenue Pereire in the 17th arrondissement, where she died in 1923. The house was demolished in the 1960s and replaced by a modern apartment building. A plaque on the facade commemorates Bernhardt's earlier residence.[214]
+
+In 1960, Bernhardt was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame with a motion pictures star located at 1751 Vine Street. To date, she is the earliest born person on the Walk (born in 1844), followed by Thomas Edison and Siegmund Lubin.[215][216]
+
+In 2018 Roundabout Theatre Company produced Theresa Rebeck's play Bernhardt/Hamlet. In the play, Rebeck explores the controversy surrounding Bernhardt's decision to play Hamlet. The play opened on Broadway in September at the American Airlines Theater for a limited run. It starred Janet McTeer as Bernhardt and it was directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel.[217] McTeer received a Tony Award nomination for portraying Bernhardt.[218]

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+Sarajevo (/ˌsærəˈjeɪvoʊ/ SARR-ə-YAY-voh; Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic: Сарајево, pronounced [sǎrajeʋo] (listen); see names in other languages) is the capital[5] and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its administrative limits.[4][6] The Sarajevo metropolitan area, including Sarajevo Canton, East Sarajevo and nearby municipalities, is home to 555,210 inhabitants.[a][7] Nestled within the greater Sarajevo valley of Bosnia, it is surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of the Balkans.
+
+Sarajevo is the political, financial, social and cultural center of Bosnia and Herzegovina and a prominent center of culture in the Balkans, with region-wide influence in entertainment, media, fashion and the arts.[8][9]
+
+Due to its long history of religious and cultural diversity, Sarajevo is sometimes called the "Jerusalem of Europe"[1] or "Jerusalem of the Balkans".[2] It is one of only a few major European cities to have a mosque, Catholic church, Orthodox church and synagogue within the same neighborhood.[10] A regional center in education, the city is home to the Balkans'[11] first institution of tertiary education in the form of an Islamic madrasa, today part of the University of Sarajevo.[12]
+
+Although settlement in the area stretches back to prehistoric times, the modern city arose as an Ottoman stronghold in the 15th century.[13] Sarajevo has attracted international attention several times throughout its history. In 1885, Sarajevo was the first city in Europe and the second city in the world to have a full-time electric tram network running through the city, following San Francisco.[14] In 1914, it was the site of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by local Young Bosnia activist Gavrilo Princip that sparked World War I, which also ended Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and resulted in the creation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Later, after World War II, the establishment of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina within the Second Yugoslavia led to a massive expansion of Sarajevo, then the constituent republic's capital, which culminated with the hosting of the 1984 Winter Olympics marking a prosperous era for the city. However, after the start of the Yugoslav Wars, for 1,425 days, from April 1992 to February 1996, the city suffered the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare, during the Bosnian War and the breakup of Yugoslavia.[15]
+
+Sarajevo has been undergoing post-war reconstruction, and is the fastest growing city in Bosnia and Herzegovina.[16] The travel guide series Lonely Planet has named Sarajevo as the 43rd best city in the world,[17] and in December 2009 listed Sarajevo as one of the top ten cities to visit in 2010.[18] In 2011, Sarajevo was nominated to be the 2014 European Capital of Culture and in 2019, it hosted the European Youth Olympic Festival.[19][20] In October 2019, Sarajevo was designated as a UNESCO Creative City for placing culture at the center of its development strategies,[21][22] and is one of the world's eighteen Cities of Film. However, the UNESCO activity doesn't stop here; there is a UNESCO tentative monument, the Old Jewish Cemetery, almost 500 years old site that is the second-largest Jewish sepulchral complex in Europe, the one in Prague being the largest. It is also one of the most significant memorial complexes in the world. It represents the eternal proof of coexistence of two or more different confessions under different administrations and rules, and the proof of mutual respect and tolerance.[23]
+
+The earliest known name for the small central Bosnian region of today's Sarajevo is Vrhbosna.[3]
+
+The name Sarajevo derives from the Turkish noun saray, meaning "palace" or "mansion" (from the Persian  سرای  sarāy, "house, palace"). The letter "j" in the Bosnian language is equivalent soundwise to the English letter "y" as in "boy" and "yet".[24] The evo portion may come from the term saray ovası first recorded in 1455,[25] meaning "the plains around the palace" or simply "palace plains".[26]
+However, in his Dictionary of Turkish loanwords, Abdulah Škaljić maintains that the "evo" ending is more likely to have come from the widespread Slavic suffix "evo" used to indicate place names, than from the Turkish ending "ova", as proposed by some.[27] The first mention of name Sarajevo was in 1507 letter written by Feriz Beg.[28] The official name during the 400-year Ottoman period was Saraybosna (Palace of Bosnia), and it is still known by that name in modern Turkish.
+
+Sarajevo has had many nicknames. The earliest is Šeher, which is the term Isa-Beg Ishaković used to describe the town he was going to build. It is a Turkish word meaning an advanced city of key importance (şehir) which in turn comes from Persian: شهر‎ shahr (city). As Sarajevo developed, numerous nicknames came from comparisons to other cities in the Islamic world, i.e. "Damascus of the North". The most popular of these was "European Jerusalem".
+
+Sarajevo is near the geometric center of the triangular-shaped Bosnia-Herzegovina and within the historical region of Bosnia proper. It is situated 518 meters (1,699 ft) above sea level and lies in the Sarajevo valley, in the middle of the Dinaric Alps.[29] The valley itself once formed a vast expanse of greenery, but gave way to urban expansion and development in the post-World War II era. The city is surrounded by heavily forested hills and five major mountains. The highest of the surrounding peaks is Treskavica at 2,088 meters (6,850 ft), then Bjelašnica mountain at 2,067 meters (6,781 ft), Jahorina at 1,913 meters (6,276 ft), Trebević at 1,627 meters (5,338 ft), with 1,502 meters (4,928 ft) Igman being the shortest. The last four are also known as the Olympic Mountains of Sarajevo (see also 1984 Winter Olympics). The city itself has its fair share of hilly terrain, as evidenced by the many steeply inclined streets and residences seemingly perched on the hillsides.
+
+The Miljacka river is one of the city's chief geographic features. It flows through the city from east through the center of Sarajevo to west part of city where eventually meets up with the Bosna river. Miljacka river is "The Sarajevo River", with its source (Vrelo Miljacke) 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) south of the town of Pale[30] at the foothills of Mount Jahorina, several kilometers to the east of Sarajevo center. The Bosna's source, Vrelo Bosne near Ilidža (west Sarajevo), is another notable natural landmark and a popular destination for Sarajevans and other tourists. Several smaller rivers and streams such as Koševski Potok also run through the city and its vicinity.
+
+Sarajevo is close to the center of the triangular shape of Bosnia and Herzegovina in southeastern Europe. Sarajevo city proper consists of four municipalities (or "in Bosnian and Croatian: općina, in Serbian: opština"): Centar (Center), Novi Grad (New City), Novo Sarajevo (New Sarajevo), and Stari Grad (Old City), while Metropolitan area of Sarajevo (Greater Sarajevo area) includes these and the neighbouring municipalities of Ilidža, Hadžići, Vogošća and Ilijaš.
+
+The Metropolitan area was reduced in the 1990s after the war and the Dayton-imposed administrative division of the country, with several municipalities partitioned along the border of the newly recognised Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and Republica Srpska (RS), creating several new municipalities which together form the city of Istočno Sarajevo in the Republica Srpska: Istočna Ilidza, Istočno Novo Sarajevo, Istočni Stari Grad, Lukavica, Pale (RS-section), and Trnovo (RS-section), along with the municipality of Sokolac (which was not traditionally part of the Sarajevo area and was not partitioned)
+
+The city has an urban area of 1,041.5 square kilometres (402.1 sq mi). Veliki Park (Great park) is the largest green area in the center of Sarajevo. It's nestled between Titova, Koševo, Džidžikovac, Tina Ujevića and Trampina Streets and in the lower part there is a monument dedicated to the Children of Sarajevo.
+
+Sarajevo has either a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification: Dfb), or an oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification: Cfb), depending on if either the 0 °C or the -3 °C isotherms are used. Sarajevo's climate exhibits four seasons and uniformly spread precipitation, typical of both Cfb and Dfb climates. The proximity of the Adriatic Sea moderates Sarajevo's climate somewhat, although the mountains to the south of the city greatly reduce this maritime influence.[31] The average yearly temperature is 10 °C (50 °F), with January (−0.5 °C (31.1 °F) on average) being the coldest month of the year and July (19.7 °C (67.5 °F) on average) the warmest.
+
+The highest recorded temperature was 40.7 °C (105 °F) on 19 August 1946, and on 23 August 2008 (41.0) while the lowest recorded temperature was −26.2 °C (−15.2 °F) on 25 January 1942. On average, Sarajevo has 7 days where the temperature exceeds 32 °C (89.6 °F) and 4 days where the temperature drops below −15 °C (5 °F) per year.[32] The city typically experiences mildly cloudy skies, with an average yearly cloud cover of 45%.
+
+The cloudiest month is December (75% average cloud cover) while the clearest is August (37%). Moderate precipitation occurs fairly consistently throughout the year, with an average 75 days of rainfall. Suitable climatic conditions have allowed winter sports to flourish in the region, as exemplified by the Winter Olympics in 1984 that were celebrated in Sarajevo. Average winds are 28–48 km/h (17–30 mph) and the city has 1,769 hours of sunshine.
+
+Air pollution is a major issue in Sarajevo.[35][36] According to the 2016 World Health Organization's Ambient Air Pollution Database,[37] the annual average PM2.5 concentration in 2010 was estimated to be 30 μg/m3 based on PM10 measurement, which is 3 times higher than recommended by WHO Air Quality Guidelines[38] for annual average PM2.5. There are no recent direct long-term PM2.5 measurements available in Sarajevo and only estimates can be made from PM10, which is the less health-relevant than PM2.5.[39] Real-time air quality data in the form of PM10, ozone, NO2, CO and SO2 by the Federal Hydrometeorological Institute.[40]
+
+Principality of Serbia 9th–10century
+ Byzantine Empire 10th century–1154
+ Banate of Bosnia 1154–1377
+ Kingdom of Bosnia 1377–1461
+ Ottoman Empire 1461–1878
+ Austro-Hungarian Empire 1878–1918
+ State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs 1918
+ Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes 1918–1929
+ Kingdom of Yugoslavia 1929–1941
+ Independent State of Croatia 1941–1945
+ SFR Yugoslavia 1945–1992
+ Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina 1992–1997
+
+One of the earliest findings of settlement in the Sarajevo area is that of the Neolithic Butmir culture. The discoveries at Butmir were made on the grounds of the modern-day Sarajevo suburb Ilidža in 1893 by Austro-Hungarian authorities during the construction of an agricultural school. The area's richness in flint was attractive to Neolithic humans, and the settlement flourished. The settlement developed unique ceramics and pottery designs, which characterize the Butmir people as a unique culture, as described at the International Congress of Archaeologists and Anthropologists meeting in Sarajevo in 1894.[41]
+
+The next prominent culture in Sarajevo were the Illyrians. The ancient people, who considered most of the West Balkans as their homeland, had several key settlements in the region, mostly around the river Miljacka and the Sarajevo valley. The Illyrians in the Sarajevo region belonged to the Daesitiates, the last Illyrian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina to resist Roman occupation. Their defeat by the Roman emperor Tiberius in 9 AD marks the start of Roman rule in the region. The Romans never built up the region of modern-day Bosnia, but the Roman colony of Aquae Sulphurae was near the top of present-day Ilidža, and was the most important settlement of the time.[42] After the Romans, the Goths settled the area, followed by the Slavs in the 7th century.[43]
+
+During the Middle Ages Sarajevo was part of the Bosnian province of Vrhbosna near the traditional center of the Kingdom of Bosnia. Though a city named Vrhbosna existed, the exact settlement in Sarajevo at this time is debated. Various documents note a place called Tornik in the region, most likely in the area of Marijin Dvor neighborhood. By all indications, Tornik was a very small marketplace surrounded by a proportionally small village, and was not considered very important by Ragusan merchants.
+
+Other scholars say that Vrhbosna was a major town in the wider area of modern-day Sarajevo. Papal documents say that in 1238, a cathedral dedicated to Saint Paul was built in the area. Disciples of the notable saints Cyril and Methodius stopped in the region, founding a church near Vrelo Bosna. Whether or not the town was somewhere in the area of modern-day Sarajevo, the documents attest to its and the region's importance. There was also a citadel Hodidjed north-east to Old City, dating from around 1263 until it was occupied by the Ottoman Empire in 1429.[44]
+
+Sarajevo was founded by the Ottoman Empire in the 1450s upon its conquest of the region, with 1461 used as the city's founding date. The first Ottoman governor of Bosnia, Isa-Beg Ishaković, transformed the cluster of villages into a city and state capital by building a number of key structures, including a mosque, a closed marketplace, a public bath, a hostel, and of course the governor's castle ("Saray") which gave the city its present name. The mosque was named "Careva Džamija" (the Tsar's Mosque) in honor of the Sultan Mehmed II. With the improvements Sarajevo quickly grew into the largest city in the region. By the 15th Century the settlement was established as a city, named Bosna-Saraj, around the citadel in 1461.
+
+Following the expulsion of Jews from Spain at the end of the 15th century, and the invitation from the Ottoman Empire to resettle their population, Sephardic Jews arrived in Sarajevo, which over time would become a leading center of Sephardic culture and the Ladino language. Though relatively small in size, a Jewish quarter would develop over several blocks in Baščaršija.
+
+Many local Christians converted to Islam at this time. To accommodate the new pilgrims on the road to Mecca, in 1541 Gazi Husrev-Bey’s quartermaster Vekil-Harrach built a Pilgrim's mosque for which it is still known to this day Hadžijska mosque.
+
+Under leaders such as the second governor Gazi Husrev-beg, Sarajevo grew at a rapid rate. Husrev-beg greatly shaped the physical city, as most of what is now the Old Town was built during his reign. Sarajevo became known for its large marketplace and numerous mosques, which by the middle of the 16th century numbered more than 100. At the peak of the empire, Sarajevo was the biggest and most important Ottoman city in the Balkans after Istanbul.[citation needed] By 1660, the population of Sarajevo was estimated to be over 80,000.[citation needed] By contrast, Belgrade in 1683 had 100.000,[45] and Zagreb as late as 1851 had 14,000 people. As political conditions changed, Sarajevo became the site of warfare.
+
+In 1697, during the Great Turkish War, a raid was led by Prince Eugene of Savoy of the Habsburg Monarchy against the Ottoman Empire, which conquered Sarajevo and left it plague-infected and burned to the ground. After his men had looted thoroughly, they set the city on fire and destroyed nearly all of it in one day. Only a handful of neighborhoods, some mosques, and an Orthodox church, were left standing. Numerous other fires weakened the city, which was later rebuilt but never fully recovered from the destruction. By 1807, it had only some 60,000 residents.[citation needed]
+
+In the 1830s, several battles of the Bosnian uprising had taken place around the city. These had been led by Husein Gradaščević. Today, a major city street is named Zmaj od Bosne (Dragon of Bosnia) in his honor. The rebellion failed and for several more decades the Ottoman state remained in control of Bosnia.
+
+The Ottoman Empire made Sarajevo an important administrative centre by 1850. Baščaršija became the central commercial district and cultural center of the city in the 15th century when Isa-Beg Isaković founded the town.[46] The toponym Baščaršija derives from the Turkish language.
+
+Gazi Husrev-beg's Mosque and Sarajevo Clock Tower
+
+Mosque courtyard
+
+Gazi Husrev-beg Library - Baščaršija Islamic School (Kurumlija Medresa)
+
+The Gazi-Husrev-Beg-Bazaar
+
+Pigeon Square
+
+Old Town
+
+Austria-Hungary's occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina came in 1878 as part of the Treaty of Berlin, and complete annexation followed in 1908, angering the Serbs. Sarajevo was industrialized by Austria-Hungary, who used the city as a testing area for new inventions such as tramways, which were established in 1885 before they were later installed in Vienna. Architects and engineers wanting to help rebuild Sarajevo as a modern European capital rushed to the city. A fire that burned down a large part of the central city area (čaršija) left more room for redevelopment. As a result, the city has a unique blend of the remaining Ottoman city market and contemporary western architecture. Sarajevo also has some examples of Secession- and Pseudo-Moorish styles that date from this period.
+
+The Austro-Hungarian period was one of great development for the city, as the Western power brought its new acquisition up to the standards of the Victorian age. Various factories and other buildings were built at this time,[47] and a large number of institutions were both Westernized and modernized. For the first time in history, Sarajevo's population began writing in Latin script.[43][48]
+For the first time in centuries, the city significantly expanded outside its traditional borders. Much of the city's contemporary central municipality (Centar) was constructed during this period.
+
+Architecture in Sarajevo quickly developed into a wide range of styles and buildings. The Cathedral of Sacred Heart, for example, was constructed using elements of neo-gothic and Romanesque architecture. The National Museum, Sarajevo brewery, and City Hall were also constructed during this period. Additionally, Austrian officials made Sarajevo the first city in this part of Europe to have a tramway.
+
+Although the Bosnia Vilayet de jure remained part of the Ottoman Empire, it was de facto governed as an integral part of Austria-Hungary with the Ottomans having no say in its day-to-day governance. This lasted until 1908 when the territory was formally annexed and turned into a condominium, jointly controlled by both Austrian Cisleithania and Hungarian Transleithania.
+
+In the event that triggered World War I, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated, along with his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian and self-declared Yugoslav, and member of Young Bosnia.[49] This was followed by the Anti-Serb riots in Sarajevo, which resulted in two deaths and destruction of property.
+
+In the ensuing war, however, most of the Balkan offensives occurred near Belgrade, and Sarajevo largely escaped damage and destruction. Following the war, Bosnia was annexed into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and Sarajevo became the capital of the Drina Province.
+
+Sarajevo Main Post office
+
+Sarajevo National Theatre design by Karel Pařík
+
+The Academy of Fine Arts was originally built to serve as an Evangelical Church in 1899.
+
+Privredna banka Sarajevo
+
+National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina established in 1896
+
+After World War I and pressure from the Royal Serbian Army, alongside rebelling Slavic nations in Austria-Hungary, Sarajevo became part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Though it held some political significance as the center of first the Bosnian region and then the Drinska Banovina, the city was no longer a national capital and saw a decline in global influence.[50]
+
+During World War II the Kingdom of Yugoslavia's army was overrun by German and Italian forces. Following a German bombing campaign, Sarajevo was captured on 15 April 1941 by the 16th Motorized infantry Division. The Axis powers created the Independent State of Croatia and included Sarajevo in its territory.
+
+Immediately following the occupation, the main Sephardi Jewish synagogue, Il Kal Grande, was looted, burned, and destroyed by the Nazis. Within a matter of months, the centuries-old Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jewish communities of Sarajevo, comprising the vast majority of Bosnian Jewry, would be rounded up in the Old Synagogue (Stari hram) and deported to their deaths in Croatian concentration camps. Roughly 85% of Bosnia's Jewish population would perish at the hands of the Nazis and the Ustaše during the Holocaust. The Sarajevo Haggadah was the most important artifact which survived this period, smuggled out of Sarajevo and saved from the Nazis and Ustaše by the chief librarian of the National Museum, Derviš Korkut.
+
+On 12 October 1941, a group of 108 notable Bosniak citizens of Sarajevo signed the Resolution of Sarajevo Muslims by which they condemned the Genocide of Serbs organized by the Ustaše, made a distinction between the Bosniaks who participated in such persecutions and the rest of the Bosniak population, presented information about the persecutions of Bosniaks by Serbs, and requested security for all citizens of the country, regardless of their identity.[51] During the summer of 1941, Ustashe militia periodically interned and executed groups of Sarajevo Serbs.[52] In August 1941, they arrested about one hundred Serbs suspected of ties to the resistance armies, mostly church officials and members of the intelligentsia, and executed them or deported the to concentration camps.[52] By mid-summer 1942, around 20,000 Serbs found refuge in Sarajevo from Ustaše terror.[53]
+
+The city was bombed by the Allies from 1943 to 1944.[54] The Yugoslav Partisan movement was represented in the city. In period February–May 1945 Maks Luburić set up Ustaše headquarters in a building known as Villa Luburić and used it as torture and execution place whose 323 victims were identified after the war. Resistance was led by Vladimir "Walter" Perić, who died while leading the liberation of the city on 6 April 1945.
+
+After the war, Sarajevo was the capital of the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Republic Government invested heavily in Sarajevo, building many new residential blocks in Novi Grad Municipality and Novo Sarajevo Municipality, while simultaneously developing the city's industry and transforming Sarajevo into a modern city. Sarajevo grew rapidly as it became an important regional industrial center in Yugoslavia. Between the end of the war and the end of Yugoslavia, the city grew from a population of 115,000 to more than 600,000 people. The Vraca Memorial Park, a monument for victims of World War II, was dedicated on 25 November, the "Day of Statehood of Bosnia and Herzegovina" when the ZAVNOBIH held their first meeting in 1943.[55]
+
+A crowning moment of Sarajevo's time in Socialist Yugoslavia was the 1984 Winter Olympics. Sarajevo beat out Sapporo, Japan; and Falun/Göteborg, Sweden to host the Olympic games. The games were followed by a tourism boom, making the 1980s one of the city's most prosperous decades.[56]
+
+Health Institute in Sarajevo
+
+Markale market
+
+View west toward parts of Novo Sarajevo
+
+Residential buildings
+
+Eternal flame
+
+The Bosnian War for independence resulted in large-scale destruction and dramatic population shifts during the Siege of Sarajevo between 1992 and 1996. Thousands of Sarajevans lost their lives under the constant bombardment and sniper shooting at civilians by the Serb forces during the siege,[59] the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare.[60] Bosnian Serb forces of the Republika Srpska and the Yugoslav People's Army besieged Sarajevo from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996.
+
+When Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia and achieved United Nations recognition, Serbian leaders declared a new Serbian national state Republika Srpska (RS) which was carved out from the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina.[61] The Army of Republika Srpska encircled Sarajevo with a siege force of 18,000[62] stationed in the surrounding hills, from which they assaulted the city with artillery, mortars, tanks, anti-aircraft guns, heavy machine-guns, multiple rocket launchers, rocket-launched aircraft bombs, and sniper rifles.[62] From 2 May 1992, the Serbs blockaded the city. The Bosnian government defence forces inside the besieged city were poorly equipped and unable to break the siege.
+
+During the siege, 11,541 people lost their lives, including over 1,500 children. An additional 56,000 people were wounded, including nearly 15,000 children.[59] The 1991 census indicates that before the siege the city and its surrounding areas had a population of 525,980.
+
+When the siege ended, the concrete scars caused by mortar shell explosions left marks that were filled with red resin. After the red resin was placed, it left floral patterns which led to them being dubbed Sarajevo Roses. Division of the territory according to the Dayton Agreement resulted in a mass exodus in early 1996 of some 62,000 Sarajevo Serbs from the city and its suburbs, creating today's more monoethnic postwar city.[63]
+
+Various modern buildings now occupy Sarajevo's skyline, most significantly the Bosmal City Center, BBI Centar, Sarajevo City Center and the Avaz Twist Tower, which at the time of its building was the tallest skyscraper in former Yugoslavia.
+
+Recent years have seen population growth as well as increases in tourism.[64] In 2014 the city saw anti-government protests and riots and record rainfall that caused historic flooding.
+
+Bosmal City Center Towers, erected 2001
+
+King Fahd Mosque
+
+Avaz Twist Tower, erected 2008
+
+BBI Centar, erected 2009
+
+Sarajevo City Center, erected 2014
+
+Sarajevo cable car reopened in 2018
+
+Sarajevo is the capital[65] of the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its sub-entity, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as of the Sarajevo Canton. It is also the de jure capital of another entity, Republika Srpska.[66] Each of these levels of government has its parliament or council, as well as judicial courts, in the city. All national institutions and foreign embassies are in Sarajevo.
+
+Sarajevo is home to the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the operational command of the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina.[67]
+
+Bosnia and Herzegovina's Parliament office in Sarajevo was damaged heavily in the Bosnian War. Due to damage the staff and documents were moved to a nearby ground level office to resume the work. In late 2006, reconstruction work started on the Parliament and was finished in 2007. The cost of reconstruction is supported 80% by the Greek Government through the Hellenic Program of Balkans Reconstruction (ESOAV) and 20% by Bosnia-Herzegovina.
+
+The city comprises four municipalities Centar, Novi Grad, Novo Sarajevo, and Stari Grad. Each operate their own municipal government, united they form one city government with its own constitution. The executive branch (Bosnian: Gradska Uprava) consists of a mayor, with two deputies and a cabinet. The legislative branch consists of the City Council, or Gradsko Vijeće. The council has 28 members, including a council speaker, two deputies, and a secretary. Councilors are elected by the municipality in numbers roughly proportional to their population. The city government also has a judicial branch based on the post-transitional judicial system as outlined by the High Representative's "High Judicial and Prosecutorial Councils".[68]
+
+Sarajevo's Municipalities are further split into "local communities" (Bosnian, Mjesne zajednice). Local communities have a small role in city government and are intended as a way for ordinary citizens to get involved in city government. They are based on key neighborhoods in the city.
+
+Sarajevo's large manufacturing, administrative, and tourism sectors make it the strongest economic region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Indeed, Sarajevo Canton generates almost 25% of the country's GDP.[69] After years of war, Sarajevo's economy saw reconstruction and rehabilitation programs.[70] The Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina opened in Sarajevo in 1997 and the Sarajevo Stock Exchange began trading in 2002.
+
+While Sarajevo had a large industrial base during its communist period, only a few pre-existing businesses have successfully adapted to the market economy. Sarajevo industries now include tobacco products, furniture, hosiery, automobiles, and communication equipment.[43] Companies based in Sarajevo include BH Telecom, Bosnalijek, Energopetrol, Sarajevo Tobacco Factory, and Sarajevska Pivara (Sarajevo Brewery).
+
+In 2019 the total export for the Sarajevo canton was worth about 1,427,496,000KM. Most of Sarajevo's exports (20.55%) head to Germany, with Serbia and Croatia following behind at 12% respectively. The largest amount of imported goods come from Croatia, at 20.95%. With a worth of total import at about 4,872,213,000KM, the total import is almost 3.4 times the total export.[71]
+
+In 1981 Sarajevo's GDP per capita was 133% of the Yugoslav average.[72] Gross pay in Sarajevo in 2019 was KM 1,741 or €889, while net salary was KM 1,200 or €613.[73]
+
+Sarajevo has a wide tourist industry and a fast expanding service sector thanks to the strong annual growth in tourist arrivals. Sarajevo also benefits from being both a summer and winter destination with continuity in its tourism throughout the year. The travel guide series, Lonely Planet named Sarajevo as the 43rd best city in the world,[17] and in December 2009 listed Sarajevo as one of the top ten cities to visit in 2010.[18]
+
+In 2019, 733.259 tourists visited Sarajevo, giving 1.667.545 overnight stays, which is more than 20% more than in 2018.[74][75]
+
+Sports-related tourism uses the legacy facilities of the 1984 Winter Olympics, especially the skiing facilities on the nearby mountains of Bjelašnica, Igman, Jahorina, Trebević, and Treskavica. Sarajevo's 600 years of history, influenced by both Western and Eastern empires, makes it a tourist attraction with splendid variations.
+Sarajevo has hosted travellers for centuries, because it was an important trading center during the Ottoman and Austria-Hungarian empires and because was a natural stop for many routes between East and West. Examples of popular destinations in Sarajevo include the Vrelo Bosne park, the Sarajevo cathedral, and the Gazi Husrev-beg's Mosque. Tourism in Sarajevo is chiefly focused on historical, religious, cultural sites and winter sports.
+
+Sarajevo is host to many parks throughout the city and on the outskirts of city. A popular activity among Sarajevo citizens is street chess, usually played at Trg oslobođenja Alija Izetbegović. Veliki Park is the largest green area in the center of Sarajevo. It's nestled between Titova, Koševo, Džidžikovac, Tina Ujevića and Trampina Streets and in the lower part there is a monument dedicated to the Children of Sarajevo. Hastahana is a popular place to relax in the Austro-Hungarian neighborhood of Marijin Dvor.[76] Goat's Bridge, locally known as Kozija Ćuprija, in the Miljacka Canyon is also a popular park destination along the Dariva walkway and river Miljacka.[77][78] On December 24 of 2012, a park hosting two brass sculptures resembling two mourning mothers was dedicated as the Friendship Park, commemorating over 45 years of friendship between Sarajevo and Baku.
+
+Sarajevo is also famous for its city lookouts; including an observation deck on Avaz Twist Tower, Park Prinčeva restaurant, Vidikovac lookout (Mt. Trebević), Zmajevac lookout and Yellow/White fortresses lookouts (in Vratnik) as well as numerous other rooftops throughout the city (i.e. Alta Shopping Center, BBI Center, Hotel Hecco Deluxe). A symbol of Sarajevo is the Trebevic cable car which was reconstructed in 2018, also it is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the city taking visitors from the city center to mount Trebevic.
+
+There is also a UNESCO tentative monument, the Old Jewish Cemetery, almost 500 years old site that is the second-largest Jewish sepulchral complex in Europe, the one in Prague being the largest. It is also one of the most significant memorial complexes in the world. It represents the eternal proof of coexistence of two or more different confessions under different administrations and rules, and the proof of mutual respect and tolerance.[79]
+
+Great Park (Veliki Park)
+
+Koševo Park
+
+Vilsonovo Šetalište (Wilson's Promenade) along the Miljacka
+
+Great Lane (Velika aleja), Ilidža
+
+The source of the Bosna river is in Sarajevo.
+
+Miljacka river
+
+Emperor's Mosque
+
+Serbian Orthodox Cathedral in Sarajevo
+
+Catholic Cathedral Sacred Heart
+
+Sarajevo Synagogue
+
+Thanks to steady but constant and stable growth after the war, today's built-up area that includes not only previously mentioned urban municipalities but the urban part of Hadžići that is uninterruptedly connected to Ilidža, the weternmost part of the Sarajevo urban settlement, is inhabited by more than 419,000 people, while the metro area including 8 additional municipalities, 14 in total goes up to 555,210 inhabitants.[81] It is noticeable that the fastest-growing municipalities are Novi Grad, one of the main ones and the most inhabited one where the population has increased by almost 4,000 people or 2.95% since the 2013 Census, and Ilidža that has recorded an increase of almost 7% since 2013.[82]
+
+In June 2016, the final results of the 2013 census were published. According to the census, the population of the Sarajevo Canton was 413,593, with 55,181 residents in Centar Sarajevo, 118,553 in Novi Grad, 64,814 in Novo Sarajevo and 36,976 in Stari Grad.[83]
+
+The last official Yugoslav census took place 1991 and recorded 527,049 people living in the city of Sarajevo (ten municipalities). In the settlement of Sarajevo proper, there were 454,319 inhabitants.[84] The war displaced hundreds of thousands of people, a large majority of whom have not returned.
+
+The war changed the ethnic and religious profile of the city. It had long been a multicultural city,[85] and often went by the nickname of "Europe's Jerusalem".[1] At the time of the 1991 census, 49.2 per cent of the city's population of 527,049 were Bosniaks, 29.8 percent Serbs, 10.7 percent Yugoslavs, 6.6 percent Croats and 3.6 percent other ethnicities (Jews, Romas, etc.).
+
+According to academic Fran Markowitz there are a number of "administrative apparatuses and public pressures that push people who might prefer to identify as flexible, multiply constituted hybrids or with one of the now unnamed minority groups into one of the three Bosniac-Croat-Serb constituent nations".[86] These include respondents being encouraged by census interviewers to identity as belonging to one of the three constituent peoples.[87] Her analysis of marriage registration data shows, for instance, that 67 per cent of people marrying in 2003 identified as Bosniak or Muslim, which is significantly lower than the 79.6 per cent census figure from 2002 (unlike the census, where people respond to an interviewer, applicants to the marriage registry fill in the form themselves).
+
+Sarajevo's location in a valley between mountains makes it a compact city. Narrow city streets and a lack of parking areas restrict automobile traffic but allow better pedestrian and cyclist mobility. The two main roads are Titova Ulica (Street of Marshal Tito) and the east-west Zmaj od Bosne (Dragon of Bosnia) highway (E761).
+Located roughly at the center of the country, Sarajevo is Bosnia's main intersection. The city is connected to all the other major cities by highway or national road like Zenica, Banja Luka, Tuzla, Mostar, Goražde and Foča.
+
+Tourists from Central Europe and elsewhere visiting Dalmatia driving via Budapest through Sarajevo also contribute to the traffic congestion in and around Sarajevo.
+The trans-European highway, Corridor 5C, runs through Sarajevo connecting it to Budapest in the north, and Ploče at the Adriatic sea in the south.[88] The highway is built by the government and should cost 3.5 billion Euro. Up until March 2012, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina invested around 600 million Euro in the A1. In 2014 the sections Sarajevo-Zenica and Sarajevo-Tarcin were completed including the Sarajevo Beltway ring road.
+
+Sarajevo's electric tramways, in operation since 1885, are the oldest form of public transportation in the city.[89]
+Sarajevo had the first full-time (dawn to dusk) tram line in Europe, and the second in the world.[14] Opened on New Year's Day in 1885, it was the testing line for the tram in Vienna and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and operated by horses. Originally built to 760 mm (2 ft 5 15⁄16 in) Bosnian gauge, the present system in 1960 was upgraded to 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge. The trams played a pivotal role in the growth of the city in the 20th century.
+
+There are seven tramway lines supplemented by five trolleybus lines and numerous bus routes. The main railroad station in Sarajevo is in the north-central area of the city. From there, the tracks head west before branching off in different directions, including to industrial zones in the city. Sarajevo is undergoing a major infrastructure renewal; many highways and streets are being repaved, the tram system is undergoing modernization, and new bridges and roads are under construction.
+
+To solve traffic congestion in the city, Sarajevo-based architect Muzafer Osmanagić has proposed a study called "Eco Energy 2010–2015", idealizing a subway system underneath the bed of the river Miljacka. The first line of Metro Sarajevo would connect Baščaršija with Otoka. This line would cost some 150 million KM and be financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.[90]
+
+Sarajevo has daily international connections which twice a day connect the city with Zagreb and Ploče. There are also connections between Sarajevo and all major cities within Bosnia and Herzegovina. Once, the East Bosnian railway connected Sarajevo to Belgrade.
+
+Trebević Cable Car, Sarajevo's key landmark during 1984 Winter Olympic Games, was rebuilt by JKP GRAS Sarajevo and Sarajevo Canton as one of the new transportation systems in 2017 and it reopened on 6 April 2018 at 11:00 AM. The cable car runs from Sarajevo at Bistrik station to the slopes of Trebević at Vidikovac station.[91]
+
+Sarajevo International Airport (IATA: SJJ), also called Butmir, is just a few kilometers southwest of the city and was voted Best European Airport With Under 1,000,000 Passengers at the 15th Annual ACI-Europe in Munich in 2005.
+
+First regular flights to Sarajevo using an airfield in the suburb of Butmir begin in 1930 when the domestic airliner Aeroput opened a regular route linking Belgrade to Podgorica through Sarajevo.[92] Later, Aeroput opened routed which linked Sarajevo with Split, Rijeka and Dubrovnik, and in 1938 first international flights were introduced when Aeroput extended the route Dubrovnik – Sarajevo – Zagreb to Vienna, Brno and Prague.[92][93] The airfield in Butmir remained in use all the way until 1969. The need for a new airport in Sarajevo, with an asphalt-concrete runway, was acknowledged in the mid-1960s when JAT, Yugoslav national carrier at that time, began acquiring jet planes. The construction of the airport began in 1966 at its present location, not far from the old one.[citation needed]
+
+Sarajevo Airport opened on 2 June 1969 for domestic traffic. In 1970 Frankfurt became the first international destination served. Most of the time the airport was a 'feeder' airport where passengers embarked for flights to Zagreb and Belgrade on their way to international destinations. Over time the traffic volume steadily grew from 70,000 to 600,000 passengers a year. Later, during the Bosnian war, the airport was used for UN flights and humanitarian relief. Since the Dayton Accord in 1996, the airport retook its role as main air gate to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
+
+In 2017, 957,971 passengers traveled through the airport, which was 61,4% of the total airport traffic in Bosnia-Herzegovina.[94][95]
+
+Plans for extension of the passenger terminal, together with upgrading and expanding the taxiway and apron, are planned to start in fall 2012. The existing terminal will be expanded by approximately 7,000 square metres (75,347 square feet).[96] The upgraded airport will also be directly linked to the commercial retail center Sarajevo Airport Center, making it easier for tourists and travellers to spend their time before flight boarding shopping and enjoying the many amenities that will be offered.[97]
+Between 2015 and 2018 the airport will be upgraded for more than 25 million euros.
+
+Sarajevo is twinned with:[98]
+
+Sarajevo is befriended with:[98][99][100]
+
+As the largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo is the main center of the country's media. Most of the communications and media infrastructure was destroyed during the war but reconstruction monitored by the Office of the High Representative has helped to modernize the industry as a whole.[101] For example, internet was first made available to the city in 1995.[102]
+
+Oslobođenje (Liberation), founded in 1943, is Sarajevo's longest running continuously circulating newspaper and the only one to survive the war. However, this long running and trusted newspaper has fallen behind Dnevni Avaz (Daily Voice), founded in 1995, and Jutarnje Novine (Morning News) in circulation in Sarajevo.[103] Other local periodicals include the Croatian newspaper Hrvatska riječ and the Bosnian magazine Start, as well as weekly newspapers Slobodna Bosna (Free Bosnia) and BH Dani (BH Days). Novi Plamen, a monthly magazine, is the most left-wing publication.
+
+The Radiotelevision of Bosnia-Herzegovina is Sarajevo's public television station and was created in 1945 under the umbrella of the Yugoslav Radio Television. It had its first television program aired in 1961, while continuous programming started in 1969. It is one of three main TV stations in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Other stations based in the city include NRTV "Studio 99", NTV Hayat, TV 1, Open Broadcast Network, TV Kantona Sarajevo and Televizija Alfa.
+
+The headquarters of Al Jazeera Balkans are also in Sarajevo, with a broadcasting studio at the top of the BBI Center. The news channel covers Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro and the surrounding Balkan states.[104]
+
+Many small independent radio stations exist, including established stations such as Radio M, Radio Stari Grad (Radio Old Town), Studentski eFM Radio,[105] Radio 202, Radio BIR,[106] and RSG. Radio Free Europe, as well as several American and Western European stations are available.
+
+Higher Education
+
+Higher education has a long and rich tradition in Sarajevo. The first institution that can be classified as a tertiary educational institution was a school of Sufi philosophy established by Gazi Husrev-beg in 1537; numerous other religious schools have been established over time. In 1887, under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a Sharia Law School began a five-year program.[107] In the 1940s the University of Sarajevo became the city's first secular higher education institute, effectively building upon the foundations established by the Saraybosna Hanıka in 1537. In the 1950s, post-bachelor graduate degrees became available.[108] Severely damaged during the war, it was recently rebuilt in partnership with more than 40 other universities.
+
+There are also several universities in Sarajevo, including:
+
+Primary and Secondary Education
+
+As of 2005[update], in Sarajevo there are 46 elementary schools (Grades 1–9) and 33 high schools (Grades 10–13), including three schools for children with special needs,[109]
+
+There are also several international schools in Sarajevo, catering to the expatriate community; some of which are Sarajevo International School and the French International School[110] of Sarajevo, established in 1998.
+
+Sarajevo has been home to many different religions for centuries, giving the city a range of diverse cultures. In the time of Ottoman occupation of Bosnia, Muslims, Bosnian Serbs, Roman Catholics, and Sephardi Jews all shared the city while maintaining distinctive identities. They were joined during the brief occupation by Austria-Hungary by a smaller number of Germans, Hungarians, Slovaks, Czechs and Ashkenazi Jews. By 1909, about 50% of the city's inhabitants were Muslim, 25% were Catholic, 15% were Orthodox, and 10% were Jewish.[111]
+
+Historically, Sarajevo has been home to several prominent Bosnian poets, scholars, philosophers and writers. To list only a very few; Nobel Prize-winner Vladimir Prelog is from the city, as are the writer Zlatko Topčić and the poet Abdulah Sidran. Nobel Prize-winner Ivo Andrić attended high school in Sarajevo for two years. Academy Award-winning director Danis Tanović live in the city.
+
+The Sarajevo National Theatre is the oldest professional theater in Bosnia and Herzegovina, having been established in 1921.
+
+The city is rich in museums, including the Museum of Sarajevo, the Ars Aevi Museum of Contemporary Art, Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, The Museum of Literature and Theatre Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina (established in 1888) home to the Sarajevo Haggadah,[112] an illuminated manuscript and the oldest Sephardic Jewish document in the world[113] issued in Barcelona around 1350, containing the traditional Jewish Haggadah, is on permanent display at the museum. It is the only remaining illustrated Sephardic Haggadah in the world.[114] The National Museum also hosts year-round exhibitions pertaining to local, regional and international culture and history, and exhibits over 5,000 artefacts from Bosnia's history.
+
+The Alija Izetbegović Museum was opened on 19 October 2007 and is in the old town fort, more specifically in the Vratnik Kapija towers Ploča and Širokac. The museum is a commemoration to the influence and body of work of Alija Izetbegović, the first president of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
+
+The city also hosts the Sarajevo National Theater, established in 1921, and the Sarajevo Youth Theatre. Some other cultural institutions include the Center for Sarajevo Culture, Sarajevo City Library, Art Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Bosniak Institute, a privately owned library and art collection focusing on Bosniak history.
+
+Demolitions associated with the war, as well as reconstruction, destroyed several institutions and cultural or religious symbols including the Gazi Husrev-beg library, the national library, the Sarajevo Oriental Institute, and a museum dedicated to the 1984 Winter Olympics. Consequently, the different levels of government established strong cultural protection laws and institutions.[115] Bodies charged with cultural preservation in Sarajevo include the Institute for the Protection of the Cultural, Historical and Natural Heritage of Bosnia and Herzegovina (and their Sarajevo Canton counterpart), and the Bosnia and Herzegovina Commission to Preserve National Monuments.
+
+Bosniak Institute, containing collections of the history of Bosnia and Bosniaks
+
+Museum "Sarajevo 1878–1918"
+
+Alija Izetbegović museum
+
+Medieval tombstones around National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina
+
+Sarajevo Tunnel Museum.
+
+Sarajevo is and has historically been one of the most important musical enclaves in the region. The Sarajevo school of pop rock developed in the city between 1961 and 1991. This type of music began with bands like Indexi, Pro Arte, and singer-songwriter Kemal Monteno. It continued into the 1980s, with bands such as Plavi Orkestar, Crvena Jabuka, and Divlje Jagode, by most accounts, pioneering the regional rock and roll movement. Sarajevo was also the home and birthplace of arguably the most popular and influential Yugoslav rock band of all time, Bijelo Dugme, somewhat of a Bosnian parallel to the Rolling Stones, in both popularity and influence.
+
+Sarajevo was also the home of a very notable post-punk urban subculture known as the New Primitives, which began during the early 1980s with the Baglama Band which was banned shortly after first LP and was brought into the mainstream through bands such as Zabranjeno Pušenje and Elvis J. Kurtović & His Meteors, as well as the Top Lista Nadrealista radio, and later television show. Other notable bands considered to be part of this subculture are Bombaj Štampa. Besides and separately from the New Primitives, Sarajevo is the hometown to one of the most significant ex-Yugoslavian alternative industrial-noise bands, SCH (1983–current).
+
+Perhaps more importantly, Sarajevo in the late 19th and throughout the 20th century was home to a burgeoning and large center of Sevdalinka record-making and contributed greatly to bringing this historical genre of music to the mainstream, which had for many centuries been a staple of Bosnian culture. Songwriters and musicians such as Himzo Polovina, Safet Isović, Zaim Imamović, Zehra Deović, Halid Bešlić, Hanka Paldum, Nada Mamula, Meho Puzić and many more composed and wrote some of their most important pieces in the city.
+
+Sarajevo also greatly influenced the pop scene of Yugoslavia with musicians like Zdravko Čolić, Kemal Monteno, Dino Merlin, Seid Memić Vajta, Hari Mata Hari,  Mladen Vojičić "Tifa",  Željko Bebek, and many more.
+
+Many newer Sarajevo-based bands have also found a name and established themselves in Sarajevo, such as Regina who also had two albums out in Yugoslavia and Letu Štuke, who actually formed their band in Yugoslavia with the famous Bosnian-American writer Aleksandar Hemon and got their real breakthrough later in the 2000s. Sarajevo is now home to an important and eclectic mix of new bands and independent musicians, which continue to thrive with the ever-increasing number of festivals, creative showcases and concerts around the country. The city is also home to the region's largest jazz festival, the Sarajevo Jazz Festival (see "Festival" section below this).
+
+American heavy metal band Savatage, released a song entitled "Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)" on their 1995 album Dead Winter Dead, which was about a cello player playing a forgotten Christmas carol in war-torn Sarajevo. The song was later re-released by the same band under the name Trans-Siberian Orchestra on their 1996 debut album Christmas Eve and Other Stories, which the song gave them instant success.
+
+Sarajevo is internationally renowned for its eclectic and diverse selection of over 50 annual festivals. The Sarajevo Film Festival was established in 1995 during the Bosnian War and has become the premier and largest film festival in South-East Europe.[116] It has been hosted at the National Theater, with screenings at the Open-air theater Metalac and the Bosnian Cultural Center, all in downtown Sarajevo. The MESS International Festival is an experimental theatre festival and the oldest living theatre festival in the Balkans.[117] The annual Sarajevo Youth Film Festival showcases feature, animated and short films from around the world and is the premier student film festival in the Balkans.[118] The Sarajevo Winter Festival, Sarajevo Jazz Festival and Sarajevo International Music Festival are well-known, as is the Baščaršija Nights festival, a month-long showcase of local culture, music, and dance.[citation needed]
+
+The first incarnation of the Sarajevo Film Festival was hosted in still-warring Sarajevo in 1995, and has now progressed into being the biggest and most significant festival in south-eastern Europe.[116] A talent campus is also held during the duration of the festival, with lecturers speaking on behalf of world cinematography and holding workshops for film students from across South-Eastern Europe.[119]
+
+The Sarajevo Jazz Festival is the region's largest and most diverse of its kind. The festival takes place at the Bosnian Cultural Center (aka "Main Stage"), just down the street from the SFF, at the Sarajevo Youth Stage Theater (aka "Strange Fruits Stage"), at the Dom Vojske Federacije (aka "Solo Stage"), and at the CDA (aka "Groove Stage").
+
+The city hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics. Yugoslavia won one medal, a silver in men's giant slalom awarded to Jure Franko.[123] Many of the Olympic facilities survived the war or were reconstructed, including Olympic Hall Zetra and Asim Ferhatović Stadion. In an attempt to bring back some of Sarajevo's Olympic glory,[124] the original Olympic luge and bobsled tracks are being repaired, due to the efforts of both the Olympic Committee of Bosnia and Herzegovina[125] and local sports enthusiasts.[126] After co-hosting the Southeast Europe Friendship games, Sarajevo was awarded the 2009 Special Olympic winter games,[127] but cancelled these plans.[128][129] The ice arena for the 1984 Olympics, Zetra Stadium, was used during the war as a temporary hospital and, later, for housing NATO troops of the IFOR.
+
+In 2011 Sarajevo was the host city of the 51st World Military Skiing Championship with over 350 participants from 23 different nations. This was the first international event of such standing since the 1984 Olympics.[130]
+Football (soccer) is popular in Sarajevo; the city hosts FK Sarajevo and FK Željezničar, which both compete in European and international cups and tournaments and have a very large trophy cabinet in the former Yugoslavia as well as independent Bosnia and Herzegovina. Other notable soccer clubs are FK Olimpik, SAŠK and Slavija.
+
+One of only two stadiums in Bosnia and Herzegovina that has the UEFA category 3 is the Stadion Grbavica, the home stadium of FK Željezničar.
+
+Another popular sport is basketball; the basketball club KK Bosna Sarajevo won the European Championship in 1979 as well as many Yugoslav and Bosnian national championships making it one of the greatest basketball clubs in the former Yugoslavia. The chess club, Bosna Sarajevo, has been a championship team since the 1980s and is the third ranked chess club in Europe, having won four consecutive European championships in the nineties. RK Bosna also competes in the European Champions League and is considered one of the most well organised handball clubs in South-Eastern Europe with a very large fan base and excellent national, as well as international results.
+Sarajevo often holds international events and competitions in sports such as tennis and kickboxing.
+
+The popularity of tennis has been picking up in recent years. Since 2003, BH Telecom Indoors is an annual tennis tournament in Sarajevo.
+
+Since 2007, the Sarajevo Marathon is being organized in late September. Giro di Sarajevo is also run in the city with over 2,200 cyclists taking part in 2015.[131]
+
+In February 2019, Sarajevo and East Sarajevo hosted the European Youth Olympic Winter Festival (EYOWF).
+
+Sarajevo in 1697 had 120 mosques
+
+Latin bridge in Sarajevo 1883
+
+Sarajevo in 1897
+
+Sarajevo 1900.
+
+Sarajevo Catholic Church 1900
+
+Sarajevo Tram in 1901
+
+Miljacka River Sarajevo in 1914
+
+Sarajevo in 1914
+
+Memorial of Franz Ferdinand.
+
+Vladimir "Valter" Perić plaque 1945
+
+Alipašina Mosque in the 60s
+
+Tito's Street 1960s.
+
+Baščaršija Market 1960s.
+
+New Railway Station - Sarajevo Novo 1960s.
+
+Music pavilion 1910.
+
+Inside BBI Center
+
+Sarajevo City Center
+
+Hotel Europe next to medieval ruins
+
+Bosmal City Center
+
+UNITIC twin towers
+
+Hum hill with Hum Tower (foreground) and Žuč hill (background), to North-NW.
+
+Biosko hill (foreground) and Bukovik Mt. (background), to North-NE.
+
+Trebević Mt., to SE.
+
+Mt. Igman Mt. (foreground, dark-green) with Bjelašnica Mt. (snow peaks, background, left), to SW.
+
+View of Sarajevo from an old Jewish Cemetery (est 1550)
+
+Una-Sana  Central Bosnia
+
+Posavina  Herzegovina-Neretva
+
+Tuzla  West Herzegovina
+
+Zenica-Doboj  Sarajevo
+
+Bosnian Podrinje
+ Canton 10

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@@ -0,0 +1,232 @@
+
+
+Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (/sɑːrˈkoʊzi/; French: [nikɔla pɔl stefan saʁkɔzi də naʒi bɔksa] (listen); born 28 January 1955) is a retired French politician who served as President of France and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra from 16 May 2007 until 15 May 2012.
+
+Born in Paris, he is of 1/2 Hungarian Protestant, 1/4 Greek Jewish, and 1/4 French Catholic origin. Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine from 1983 to 2002, he was Minister of the Budget under Prime Minister Édouard Balladur (1993–1995) during François Mitterrand's second term. During Jacques Chirac's second presidential term he served as Minister of the Interior and as Minister of Finances. He was the leader of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party from 2004 to 2007.
+
+He won the 2007 French presidential election by a 53.1% to 46.9% margin to Socialist Ségolène Royal. During his term, he faced the late-2000s financial crisis (causing a recession, the European sovereign debt crisis), the Russo-Georgian War (for which he negotiated a ceasefire) and the Arab Spring (especially in Tunisia, Libya, and Syria). He initiated the reform of French universities (2007) and the pension reform (2010). He married Italian-French singer-songwriter Carla Bruni in 2008 at the Élysée Palace in Paris.
+
+In the 2012 election, François Hollande, candidate of the Socialist Party, defeated Sarkozy by a 3.2% margin. After leaving the presidential office, Sarkozy vowed to retire from public life before coming back in 2014, being subsequently reelected as UMP leader (renamed The Republicans in 2015). Being defeated at the Republican presidential primary in 2016, he retired from public life. He has been charged with corruption by French prosecutors in two cases, notably concerning the alleged Libyan interference in the 2007 French elections.
+
+Sarkozy was born in Paris, and is the son of Pál István Ernő Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa[note 1] (Hungarian: nagybócsai Sárközy Pál; [ˈnɒɟboːt͡ʃɒi ˈʃaːrkøzi ˈpaːl] (listen)—in some sources Nagy-Bócsay Sárközy Pál István Ernő),[1] (born 5 May 1928), a Protestant Hungarian aristocrat, and Andrée Jeanne "Dadu" Mallah (12 October 1925 – 12 December 2017),[2] whose Greek Jewish father converted to Catholicism to marry Sarkozy's French Catholic maternal grandmother.[3][4] They were married in the Saint-François-de-Sales church, 17th arrondissement of Paris, on 8 February 1950, and divorced in 1959.[5]
+
+During Sarkozy's childhood, his father founded his own advertising agency and became wealthy. The family lived in a mansion owned by Sarkozy's maternal grandfather, Benedict Mallah, in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. The family later moved to Neuilly-sur-Seine, one of the wealthiest communes of the Île-de-France région immediately west of Paris. According to Sarkozy, his staunchly Gaullist grandfather was more of an influence on him than his father, whom he rarely saw. Sarkozy was raised Catholic.[3]
+
+Sarkozy said that being abandoned by his father shaped much of who he is today. He also has said that, in his early years, he felt inferior in relation to his wealthier and taller classmates.[6] "What made me who I am now is the sum of all the humiliations suffered during childhood", he said later.[7]
+
+Sarkozy was enrolled in the Lycée Chaptal, a well regarded public middle and high school in Paris' 8th arrondissement, where he failed his sixième. His family then sent him to the Cours Saint-Louis de Monceau, a private Catholic school in the 17th arrondissement, where he was reportedly a mediocre student,[8] but where he nonetheless obtained his baccalauréat in 1973.
+
+Sarkozy enrolled at the Université Paris X Nanterre, where he graduated with an M.A. in private law and, later, with a D.E.A. degree in business law. Paris X Nanterre had been the starting place for the May '68 student movement and was still a stronghold of leftist students. Described as a quiet student, Sarkozy soon joined the right-wing student organization, in which he was very active.[citation needed] He completed his military service as a part-time Air Force cleaner.[9]
+
+After graduating from university, Sarkozy entered Sciences Po, where he studied between 1979 and 1981, but failed to graduate[10] due to an insufficient command of the English language.[11]
+
+After passing the bar, Sarkozy became a lawyer specializing in business and family law[11] and was one of Silvio Berlusconi's French lawyers.[12][13][14]
+
+Sarkozy married his first wife, Marie-Dominique Culioli, on 23 September 1982; her father was a pharmacist from Vico (a village north of Ajaccio, Corsica), her uncle was Achille Peretti, the mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine from 1947–1983 and Sarkozy's political mentor. They had two sons, Pierre (born in 1985), now a hip-hop producer,[15] and Jean (born in 1986) now a local politician in the city of Neuilly-sur-Seine where Sarkozy started his own political career. Sarkozy's best man was the prominent right-wing politician Charles Pasqua, later to become a political opponent.[16] Sarkozy divorced Culioli in 1996, after they had been separated for several years.
+
+As mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, Sarkozy met former fashion model and public relations executive Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz (great-granddaughter of composer Isaac Albéniz and daughter of a Moldovan father), when he officiated at her wedding[17] to television host Jacques Martin. In 1988, she left her husband for Sarkozy, and divorced one year later. She and Sarkozy married in October 1996, with witnesses Martin Bouygues and Bernard Arnault.[18] They have one son, Louis, born 23 April 1997.
+
+Between 2002 and 2005, the couple often appeared together on public occasions, with Cécilia Sarkozy acting as the chief aide for her husband.[19] On 25 May 2005, however, the Swiss newspaper Le Matin revealed that she had left Sarkozy for French-Moroccan national Richard Attias, head of Publicis in New York.[20] There were other accusations of a private nature in Le Matin, which led to Sarkozy suing the paper.[21] In the meantime, he was said to have had an affair with a journalist of Le Figaro, Anne Fulda.[22]
+
+Sarkozy and Cécilia ultimately divorced on 15 October 2007, soon after his election as president.[23]
+
+Less than a month after separating from Cécilia, Sarkozy met Italian-born singer, songwriter and former fashion model Carla Bruni at a dinner party, and soon entered a relationship with her.[24] They married on 2 February 2008 at the Élysée Palace in Paris.[25]
+
+The couple have a daughter, Giulia, born on 19 October 2011.[26] It was the first time a French president has publicly had a child while in office.[27]
+
+Sarkozy declared to the Constitutional Council a net worth of €2 million, most of the assets being in the form of life insurance policies.[28] As the French President, one of his first actions was to give himself a pay raise: his yearly salary went from €101,000 to €240,000 to match his European counterparts[clarification needed].[29] He is also entitled to a mayoral, parliamentarian and presidential pension as a former Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, member of the National Assembly and President of France.
+
+Sarkozy is recognized by French parties on both the Right and Left as a skilled politician and striking orator.[30] His supporters within France emphasize his charisma, political innovation and willingness to "make a dramatic break" amid mounting disaffection against "politics as usual". Overall, he is considered more pro-American and pro-Israeli than most French politicians.
+
+From 2004 to 2007, Sarkozy was president of the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP), France's major right-wing political party, and he was Minister of the Interior in the government of Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, with the honorific title of Minister of State, making him effectively the number three official in the French State after President Jacques Chirac and Villepin. His ministerial responsibilities included law enforcement and working to co-ordinate relationships between the national and local governments, as well as Minister of Worship (in this role he created the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM). Previously, he was a deputy to the French National Assembly. He was forced to resign this position in order to accept his ministerial appointment. He previously also held several ministerial posts, including Finance Minister.
+
+Sarkozy's political career began when he was 23, when he became a city councillor in Neuilly-sur-Seine. A member of the Neo-Gaullist party RPR, he went on to be elected mayor of that town, after the death of the incumbent mayor Achille Peretti. Sarkozy had been close to Peretti, as his mother was Peretti's secretary. A more senior RPR councillor, Charles Pasqua, wanted to become mayor, and asked Sarkozy to organize his campaign. Instead Sarkozy took that opportunity to propel himself into the office of mayor.[31] He was the youngest mayor of any town in France with a population of over 50,000. He served from 1983 to 2002. In 1988, he became a deputy in the National Assembly.
+
+In 1993, Sarkozy was in the national news for personally negotiating with the "Human Bomb", a man who had taken small children hostage in a kindergarten in Neuilly.[32] The "Human Bomb" was killed after two days of talks by policemen of the RAID, who entered the school stealthily while the attacker was resting.
+
+At the same time, from 1993 to 1995, he was Minister for the Budget and spokesman for the executive in the cabinet of Prime Minister Édouard Balladur. Throughout most of his early career, Sarkozy had been seen as a protégé of Jacques Chirac. During his tenure, he increased France's public debt more than any other French Budget Minister, by the equivalent of €200 billion (US$260 billion) (FY 1994–1996). The first two budgets he submitted to the parliament (budgets for FY1994 and FY1995) assumed a yearly budget deficit equivalent to six percent of GDP.[note 2] According to the Maastricht Treaty, the French yearly budget deficit may not exceed three percent of France's GDP.
+
+In 1995, he spurned Chirac and backed Édouard Balladur for President of France. After Chirac won the election, Sarkozy lost his position as Minister for the Budget, and found himself outside the circles of power.
+
+However, he returned after the right-wing defeat at the 1997 parliamentary election, as the number two candidate of the RPR. When the party leader Philippe Séguin resigned, in 1999, he took the leadership of the Neo-Gaullist party. But it obtained its worst result at the 1999 European Parliament election, winning 12.7% of the votes, less than the dissident Rally for France of Charles Pasqua. Sarkozy lost the RPR leadership.
+
+In 2002, however, after his re-election as President of the French Republic (see 2002 French presidential election), Chirac appointed Sarkozy as French Minister of the Interior in the cabinet of Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, despite Sarkozy's support of Edouard Balladur for French President in 1995.[33] Following Chirac's 14 July keynote speech on road safety, Sarkozy as interior minister pushed through new legislation leading to the mass purchase of speed cameras and a campaign to increase the awareness of dangers on the roads.
+
+In the cabinet reshuffle of 30 April 2004, Sarkozy became Finance Minister. Tensions continued to build between Sarkozy and Chirac and within the UMP party, as Sarkozy's intentions of becoming head of the party after the resignation of Alain Juppé became clear.
+
+In party elections of 10 November 2004, Sarkozy became leader of the UMP with 85% of the vote. In accordance with an agreement with Chirac, he resigned as Finance Minister. Sarkozy's ascent was marked by the division of UMP between sarkozystes, such as Sarkozy's "first lieutenant", Brice Hortefeux, and Chirac loyalists, such as Jean-Louis Debré.
+
+Sarkozy was made Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) by President Chirac in February 2005. He was re-elected on 13 March 2005 to the National Assembly. (As required by the constitution,[34] he had to resign as a deputy when he became minister in 2002.)
+
+On 31 May 2005 the main French news radio station France Info reported a rumour that Sarkozy was to be reappointed Minister of the Interior in the government of Dominique de Villepin without resigning from the UMP leadership. This was confirmed on 2 June 2005, when the members of the government were officially announced.
+
+Towards the end of his first term as Minister of the Interior, in 2004, Sarkozy was the most divisive conservative politician in France, according to polls conducted at the beginning of 2004.
+
+Sarkozy has sought to ease the sometimes tense relationships between the general French population and the Muslim community. Unlike the Catholic Church in France with their official leaders or Protestants with their umbrella organisations, the French Muslim community had a lack of structure with no group that could legitimately deal with the French government on their behalf. Sarkozy supported the foundation in May 2003 of the private non-profit Conseil français du culte musulman ("French Council of the Muslim Faith"), an organisation meant to be representative of French Muslims.[35] In addition, Sarkozy has suggested amending the 1905 law on the separation of Church and State, mostly in order to be able to finance mosques and other Muslim institutions with public funds[36] so that they are less reliant on money from outside France. It was not followed by any concrete measure.
+
+During his short appointment as Minister of Finance, Sarkozy was responsible for introducing a number of policies. The degree to which this reflected libéralisme (a hands-off approach to running the economy) or more traditional French state dirigisme (intervention) is controversial. He resigned the day following his election as president of the UMP.
+
+During his second term at the Ministry of the Interior, Sarkozy was initially more discreet about his ministerial activities: instead of focusing on his own topic of law and order, many of his declarations addressed wider issues, since he was expressing his opinions as head of the UMP party.
+
+However, the civil unrest in autumn 2005 put law enforcement in the spotlight again. Sarkozy was accused of having provoked the unrest by calling young delinquents from housing projects a "rabble" ("racaille") in Argenteuil near Paris, and controversially suggested cleansing the minority suburbs with a Kärcher. After the accidental death of two youths, which sparked the riots, Sarkozy first blamed it on "hoodlums" and gangsters. These remarks were sharply criticised by many on the left wing and by a member of his own government, Delegate Minister for Equal Opportunities Azouz Begag.[41]
+
+After the rioting, he made a number of announcements on future policy: selection of immigrants,  greater tracking of immigrants, and a reform on the 1945 ordinance government justice measures for young delinquents.
+
+Before he was elected President of France, Sarkozy was president of UMP, the French conservative party, elected with 85 percent of the vote. During his presidency, the number of members has significantly increased. In 2005, he supported a "yes" vote in the French referendum on the European Constitution, but the "No" vote won.
+
+Throughout 2005, Sarkozy called for radical changes in France's economic and social policies. These calls culminated in an interview with Le Monde on 8 September 2005, during which he claimed that the French had been misled for 30 years by false promises.[42] Among other issues:
+
+Such policies are what are called in France libéral (that is, in favour of laissez-faire economic policies) or, with a pejorative undertone, ultra-libéral. Sarkozy rejects this label of libéral and prefers to call himself a pragmatist.
+
+Sarkozy opened another avenue of controversy by declaring that he wanted a reform of the immigration system, with quotas designed to admit the skilled workers needed by the French economy. He also wants to reform the current French system for foreign students, saying that it enables foreign students to take open-ended curricula in order to obtain residency in France; instead, he wants to select the best students to the best curricula in France.
+
+In early 2006, the French parliament adopted a controversial bill known as DADVSI, which reforms French copyright law. Since his party was divided on the issue, Sarkozy stepped in and organised meetings between various parties involved. Later, groups such as the Odebi League and EUCD.info alleged that Sarkozy personally and unofficially supported certain amendments to the law, which enacted strong penalties against designers of peer-to-peer systems.
+
+Sarkozy was a likely candidate for the presidency in 2007; in an oft-repeated comment made on television channel France 2, when asked by a journalist whether he thought about the presidential election when he shaved in the morning, Sarkozy commented, "Not just when I shave".[43]
+
+On 14 January 2007, Sarkozy was chosen by the UMP to be its candidate in the 2007 presidential election. Sarkozy, who was running unopposed, won 98 percent of the votes. Of the 327,000 UMP members who could vote, 69 percent participated in the online ballot.[44]
+
+In February 2007, Sarkozy appeared on a televised debate on TF1 where he expressed his support for affirmative action and the freedom to work overtime. Despite his opposition to same-sex marriage, he advocated civil unions and the possibility for same-sex partners to inherit under the same regime as married couples. The law was voted in July 2007.[note 3]
+
+On 7 February, Sarkozy decided in favour of a projected second, non-nuclear, aircraft carrier for the national Navy (adding to the nuclear Charles de Gaulle), during an official visit in Toulon with Defence Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie. "This would allow permanently having an operational ship, taking into account the constraints of maintenance", he explained.[45]
+
+On 21 March, President Jacques Chirac announced his support for Sarkozy. Chirac pointed out that Sarkozy had been chosen as presidential candidate for the ruling UMP party, and said: "So it is totally natural that I give him my vote and my support." To focus on his campaign, Sarkozy stepped down as interior minister on 26 March.[46]
+
+During the campaign, rival candidates had accused Sarkozy of being a "candidate for brutality" and of presenting hard-line views about France's future.[47] Opponents also accused him of courting conservative voters in policy-making in a bid to capitalise on right-wing sentiments among some communities. However, his popularity was sufficient to see him polling as the frontrunner throughout the later campaign period, consistently ahead of rival Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal.
+
+The first round of the presidential election was held on 22 April 2007. Sarkozy came in first with 31.18 percent of the votes, ahead of Ségolène Royal of the Socialists with 25.87 percent. In the second round, Sarkozy came out on top to win the election with 53.06 percent of the votes ahead of Ségolène Royal with 46.94 percent.[48] In his speech immediately following the announcement of the election results, Sarkozy stressed the need for France's modernisation, but also called for national unity, mentioning that Royal was in his thoughts. In that speech, he claimed "The French have chosen to break with the ideas, habits and behaviour of the past. I will restore the value of work, authority, merit and respect for the nation."
+
+On 6 May 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy became the sixth person to be elected President of the Fifth Republic (which was established in 1958), and the 23rd President in French history.
+
+The official transfer of power from Chirac to Sarkozy took place on 16 May at 11:00 am (9:00 UTC) at the Élysée Palace, where he was given the authorization codes of the French nuclear arsenal.[49] In the afternoon, the new President flew to Berlin to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
+
+Under Sarkozy's government, François Fillon replaced Dominique de Villepin as Prime Minister.[50] Sarkozy appointed Bernard Kouchner, the left-wing founder of Médecins Sans Frontières, as his Foreign Minister, leading to Kouchner's expulsion from the Socialist Party. In addition to Kouchner, three more Sarkozy ministers are from the left, including Éric Besson, who served as Ségolène Royal's economic adviser at the beginning of her campaign. Sarkozy also appointed seven women to form a total cabinet of 15; one, Justice Minister Rachida Dati, is the first woman of Northern African origin to serve in a French cabinet. Of the 15, two attended the elite École nationale d'administration (ENA).[51] The ministers were reorganised, with the controversial creation of a 'Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-Development'—given to his right-hand man Brice Hortefeux—and of a 'Ministry of Budget, Public Accounts and Civil Administration'—handed out to Éric Wœrth, supposed to prepare the replacement of only a third of all civil servants who retire. However, after 17 June parliamentary elections, the Cabinet was adjusted to 15 ministers and 16 deputy ministers, totalling 31 officials.
+
+Sarkozy broke with the custom of amnestying traffic tickets and of releasing thousands of prisoners from overcrowded jails on Bastille Day, a tradition that Napoleon had started in 1802 to commemorate the storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution.[52]
+
+In the 2007 and 2008, French President Nicolas Sarkozy,[53] Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Quebec Premier Jean Charest[54] all spoke in favour of a Canada – EU free trade agreement.  In October 2008, Sarkozy became the first French President to address the National Assembly of Quebec.  In his speech he spoke out against Quebec separatism, but recognized Quebec as a nation within Canada.  He said that, to France, Canada was a friend, and Quebec was family.[53]
+
+Shortly after taking office, Sarkozy began negotiations with Colombian president Álvaro Uribe and the left-wing guerrilla FARC, regarding the release of hostages held by the rebel group, especially Franco-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt. According to some sources, Sarkozy himself asked for Uribe to release FARC's "chancellor" Rodrigo Granda.[55]
+
+Furthermore, he announced on 24 July 2007, that French and European representatives had obtained the extradition of the Bulgarian nurses detained in Libya to their country. In exchange, he signed with Muammar Gaddafi security, health care and immigration pacts—and a $230 million (168 million euros) MILAN antitank missile sale.[52] The contract was the first made by Libya since 2004, and was negotiated with MBDA, a subsidiary of EADS. Another 128 million euro contract would have been signed, according to Tripoli, with EADS for a TETRA radio system. The Socialist Party (PS) and the Communist Party (PCF) criticised a "state affair" and a "barter" with a "Rogue state".[56] The leader of the PS, François Hollande, requested the opening of a parliamentary investigation.[57]
+
+On 8 June 2007, during the 33rd G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Sarkozy set a goal of reducing French CO2 emissions by 50 percent by 2050 in order to prevent global warming. He then pushed forward Socialist Dominique Strauss-Kahn as European nominee to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).[58] Critics alleged that Sarkozy proposed to nominate Strauss-Kahn as managing director of the IMF to deprive the Socialist Party of one of its more popular figures.[59]
+
+In 2010, a study of Yale and Columbia universities ranked France the most respectful country of the G20 concerning the environment.[60]
+
+The Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), Sarkozy's party, won a majority at the June 2007 legislative election, although by less than expected. In July, the UMP majority, seconded by the Nouveau Centre, ratified one of Sarkozy's electoral promises, which was to partially revoke the inheritance tax.[61][62] The inheritance tax formerly brought eight billion euros into state coffers.[63]
+
+Sarkozy's UMP majority prepared a budget that reduced taxes, in particular for upper middle-class people, allegedly in an effort to boost GDP growth, but did not reduce state expenditures. He was criticised by the European Commission for doing so.
+
+On 23 July 2008, parliament voted the "loi de modernisation de l'économie" (Modernization of the Economy Law) which loosened restrictions on retail prices and reduced limitations on the creation of businesses. The Government has also made changes to long-standing French work-hour regulations, allowing employers to negotiate overtime with employees and making all hours worked past the traditional French 35-hour week tax-free.[64]
+
+However, as a result of the global financial crisis that came to a head in September 2008, Sarkozy has returned to the state interventionism of his predecessors, declaring that "laissez-faire capitalism is over" and denouncing the "dictatorship of the market". Confronted with the suggestion that he had become a socialist, he responded: "Have I become socialist? Perhaps." He has also pledged to create 100,000 state-subsidised jobs.[65] This reversion to dirigisme is seen as an attempt to stem the growing popularity of revolutionary socialist leader Olivier Besancenot.[66]
+
+Sarkozy's government issued a decree on 7 August 2007 to generalise a voluntary biometric profiling program of travellers in airports. The program, called 'Parafes', was to use fingerprints. The new database would be interconnected with the Schengen Information System (SIS) as well as with a national database of wanted persons (FPR). The Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés (CNIL) protested against this new decree, opposing itself to the recording of fingerprints and to the interconnection between the SIS and the FPR.[67]
+
+On 21 July 2008, the French parliament passed constitutional reforms which Sarkozy had made one of the key pledges of his presidential campaign. The vote was 539 to 357, one vote over the three-fifths majority required; the changes are not yet finalized. They would introduce a two-term limit for the presidency, and end the president's right of collective pardon. They would allow the president to address parliament in-session, and parliament, to set its own agenda. They would give parliament a veto over some presidential appointments, while ending government control over parliament's committee system. He has claimed that these reforms strengthen parliament, while some opposition socialist lawmakers have described it as a "consolidation of a monocracy".[68]
+
+During his 2007 presidential campaign, Sarkozy promised a strengthening of the entente cordiale with the United Kingdom[69] and closer cooperation with the United States.[70]
+
+Sarkozy wielded special international power when France held the rotating EU Council Presidency from July 2008 through December 2008. Sarkozy has publicly stated his intention to attain EU approval of a progressive energy package before the end of his EU Presidency. This energy package would clearly define climate change objectives for the EU and hold members to specific reductions in emissions. In further support of his collaborative outlook on climate change, Sarkozy has led the EU into a partnership with China.[71] On 6 December 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy, as part of France's then presidency of the Council of the EU, met the Dalai Lama in Poland and outraged China, which has announced that it would postpone the China-EU summit indefinitely.[72]
+
+On 3 April 2009, at the NATO Summit in Strasbourg, Sarkozy announced that France would offer asylum to a former Guantanamo captive.[73][74]
+"We are on the path to failure if we continue to act as we have", French President Nicolas Sarkozy cautioned at the U.N. Climate Summit on 22 September 2009.[75]
+
+On 5 January 2009, Sarkozy called for a ceasefire plan for the Gaza Strip Conflict.[76] The plan, which was jointly proposed by Sarkozy and Egyptian ex-President Hosni Mubarak envisions the continuation of the delivery of aid to Gaza and talks with Israel on border security, a key issue for Israel as it says Hamas smuggles its rockets into Gaza through the Egyptian border. Welcoming the proposal, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for a "ceasefire that can endure and that can bring real security".[77]
+
+Muammar Gaddafi's official visit to Nicolas Sarkozy in December 2007 triggered a strong wave of protests against the President in France.[78]
+
+In March 2011, after having been criticized for his unwillingness to support the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions, and persuaded by the philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy to have France actively engage against the forces of the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, Nicolas Sarkozy was amongst the first Heads of State to demand the resignation of Gaddafi and his government, which was then fighting a civil war in Libya. On 10 March 2011, Nicolas Sarkozy welcomed to the Elysee Palace, three emissaries from the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC), brought to him by Bernard-Henri Levy who mediated at the meeting. Nicolas Sarkozy promised them a no-fly zone would be imposed on Gaddafi's aeroplanes. He also promised them French military assistance. On 17 March 2011, at the behest of France, resolution 1973 was adopted by the Security Council of the United Nations, permitting the creation of a "no fly" zone over Libya, and for the undertaking of "necessary measures" for the protection of the country's civilian population. On 19 March 2011, Nicolas Sarkozy officially announced the beginning of a military intervention in Libya, with France's participation. These actions of Nicolas Sarkozy were favorably received by the majority of the French political class and public opinion.[79][80][81]
+
+In 2016, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament published a report stating that the military intervention "was based on erroneous assumptions" that the threat of a massacre of civilian populations has been "overvalued" and that the coalition "Has not verified the real threat to civilians"; He also believes that the true motivations of Nicolas Sarkozy were to serve French interests and to "improve his political situation in France".[82]
+
+Sarkozy was one of ten candidates who qualified for the first round of voting.[83] François Hollande, the Socialist Party candidate, received the most votes in the first round held on 22 April election, with Sarkozy coming second, meaning that both progressed to the second round of voting on 5–6 May 2012.[84] Sarkozy lost in the runoff and conceded to Hollande. He received an estimated 48.38% compared to Hollande's 51.62%.[85]
+
+After his defeat at the 2012 election, Nicolas Sarkozy asked his supporters to respect Hollande's victory. He invited his successor to attend his last 8 May Victory in Europe Day commemoration in office. His last day as President of the French Republic was 15 May.
+
+Shortly after, Sarkozy briefly considered a career in private equity and secured a €250 million commitment from the Qatar Investment Authority to back his planned buyout firm. He abandoned his private equity plans when he decided to make a political comeback in 2014.[86][87]
+
+On 19 September 2014, Sarkozy announced that he was returning to politics and would run for chairman of the UMP party.[88] and was elected to the post on 29 November 2014.[89] Led by Sarkozy, UMP won over two-thirds of the 102 local departements in the nationwide elections on 29 March 2015.[90] On 13 December, the Republicans won the majority of regional office races, another set of national elections.[91] (On 30 May the UMP's name was changed to the Republicans.)
+
+In January 2016, Sarkozy published the book La France pour la vie. In August 2016, he announced his candidacy for 2016 Republican presidential primary in November 2016, but only came in third place behind François Fillon and Alain Juppé. He decided to endorse Fillon and to retire from politics.[92]
+
+Sarkozy was named the 68th best-dressed person in the world by Vanity Fair, alongside David Beckham and Brad Pitt.[99] However, Sarkozy has also been named as the third worst-dressed person in the world by GQ,[100] a listing that has been disputed.[101] Beside publicising, at times, and at others, refusing to publicise his ex-wife Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz's image,[102] Sarkozy takes care of his own personal image, sometimes to the point of censorship—such as in the Paris Match affair, when he allegedly forced its director to resign following an article on his ex-wife and her affair with Publicis executive Richard Attias, or pressures exercised on the Journal du dimanche, which was preparing to publish an article concerning Ciganer-Albéniz's decision not to vote in the second round of the 2007 presidential election.[103] In its edition of 9 August 2007, Paris Match retouched a photo of Sarkozy in order to erase a love handle.[104][105][106] His official portrait destined for all French town halls was done by Sipa Press photographer Philippe Warrin, better known for his paparazzi work.[107]
+
+Former Daily Telegraph journalist Colin Randall has highlighted Sarkozy's tighter control of his image and frequent interventions in the media: "he censors a book, or fires the chief editor of a weekly."[107] Sarkozy is reported by Reuters to be sensitive about his height (believed to be 165 cm (5 ft 5 in)).[108] The French media have pointed out that Carla Bruni frequently wears flats when in public with him. In 2009, a worker at a factory where Sarkozy gave a speech said she was asked to stand next to him because she was of a similar height to Sarkozy. (This story was corroborated by some trade union officials.) This was the subject of a political row: the president's office called the accusation "completely absurd and grotesque", while the Socialist Party mocked his fastidious preparation.[109]
+
+Sarkozy lost a suit against a manufacturer of Sarkozy voodoo dolls, in which he claimed that he had a right to his own image.[110]
+
+Sarkozy was nicknamed as Hyper-president or hyperpresident  by some French media[111] after his 2007 election as president. It is a portmanteau of hyper and president to insist on the desire of Sarkozy to control everything.[112] Whereas in the history of the Fifth Republic, the successive presidents were traditionally focused on the foreign policy of the country and on international relations, leaving the Prime Minister and the government to determine the domestic policy, as the Constitution states it,[113] Nicolas Sarkozy appeared to determine both the foreign and domestic policy.[citation needed] Some compared Nicolas Sarkozy to Napoléon Bonaparte and Louis XIV.[114] Indeed, he appointed a very close friend of his, François Fillon, as a Prime Minister.[115] François Fillon was accused of being an instrument of the President's power.[citation needed]
+
+The biopic The Conquest is a 2011 film that dramatizes Sarkozy's rise to power, with candid portrayals of Sarkozy himself, Chirac and Villepin.[116] It was shown at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.[117]
+
+Sarkozy is generally disliked by the left and has been criticised by some on the right, most vocally by moderate Gaullist supporters of Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin.[118][119] The communist-leaning magazine L'Humanité accused Sarkozy of populism.[120]
+
+In 2004 Sarkozy co-authored a book, La République, les religions, l'espérance (The Republic, Religions, and Hope),[121] in which he argued that the young should not be brought up solely on secular or republican values. He advocated reducing the separation of church and state, arguing for the government subsidies for mosques to encourage Islamic integration into French society.[122] He has opposed financing of religious institutions with funds from outside France. After meeting with Tom Cruise, Sarkozy was criticized by some for meeting with a member of the Church of Scientology, which has been seen by some as a cult.[123] Sarkozy was criticized by some Christians after he claimed "the roots of France are essentially Christian" at a December 2007 speech in Rome. Similarly, he drew criticism from Christians after he called Islam "one of the greatest and most beautiful civilizations the world has known" at a speech in Riyadh in January 2008.[124]
+
+In the midst of a tense period and following the accidental death of an 11-year-old boy in the Paris suburb of La Courneuve in June 2005, Sarkozy quoted a local resident and vowed to clean the area out "with a Kärcher" (a high-pressure hose). Two days before the 2005 Paris riots he referred to young criminals of nearby housing projects as "voyous" ("thugs") and "racaille", a slang term which can be translated into English as "rabble", "scum" or "riff-raff", in answer to resident who addressed Sarkozy with "Quand nous débarrassez-vous de cette racaille?" ("When will you rid us of these dregs?")[125] The French Communist Party publication, L'Humanité, branded this language as inappropriate.[126] Following Sarkozy's use of the word racaille many people in the banlieues identified him as a politician of the far right. His period as Interior Minister saw the use of police as shock troops in the "banlieues", and a police "raid" on the suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois in October 2005 led to two boys being electrocuted in a power sub-station. The riots began that night.[127]
+
+In September 2005 Sarkozy was accused of pushing for a hasty inquiry into an arson attack on a police station in Pau, of which the alleged perpetrators were acquitted for lack of proof.[128] On 22 June 2005 Sarkozy told law enforcement officials that he had questioned the Minister of Justice about the future of "the judge" who had freed a man on parole who had later committed a murder.[129]
+
+A few weeks before the first round of the 2007 presidential elections, Sarkozy had an interview with philosopher Michel Onfray.[130] Sarkozy stated that disorders such as paedophilia and depression have a genetic as well as social basis, saying "... I'd be inclined to think that one is born a paedophile, and it is actually a problem that we do not know how to cure this disease"; he claimed that suicides among youth were linked to genetic predispositions by stating, "I don't want to give parents a complex. It's not exclusively the parents' fault every time a youngster commits suicide." These statements were criticised by some scientists, including geneticist Axel Kahn.[131][132] Sarkozy later added, "What part is innate and what part is acquired? At least let's debate it, let's not close the door to all debate."[133]
+
+On 27 July 2007, Sarkozy delivered a speech in Dakar, Senegal, written by Henri Guaino, in which he claimed that "the African has never really entered into history".[134][135] The controversial remarks were widely condemned by Africans, with some viewing them as racist.[135][136] South African president Thabo Mbeki praised Sarkozy's speech, which raised criticism by some in the South African media.[135]
+
+On 30 July 2010, Sarkozy suggested a new policy of security, and he proposed "stripping foreign-born French citizens who opted to acquire their nationality at their majority of their citizenship if they are convicted of threatening the life of a police officer or other serious crimes".[137] This policy has been criticized for example by the US newspaper The New York Times,[137] by Sarkozy's political opponents, including the Socialist Party leader Martine Aubry,[138] and by experts of French law, including the  ex-member of the Constitutional Council of France, Robert Badinter, who said that such action would be unconstitutional.[139]
+
+He called for coercive methods to promote "métissage," cultural mixing (which can sometimes include genetic mixing), which he called an "obligation" during a press conference on 17 December 2008.[140]
+
+On 23 February 2008, Sarkozy was filmed by a reporter for French newspaper Le Parisien having the following exchange while visiting the Paris International Agricultural Show:[141]
+
+While quickly crossing the hall Saturday morning, in the middle of the crowd, Sarkozy encounters a recalcitrant visitor who refuses to shake his hand. "Ah no, don't touch me!", said the man. The president retorted immediately: "Get lost, then." "You're making me dirty", yelled the man. With a frozen smile, Sarkozy says, his teeth glistening, a refined "Get lost, then, poor dumb-ass, go."[note 4]
+
+A precise translation into English has many possible variations.[142][143][144]
+
+On 28 August 2008, Hervé Eon, from Laval came to an anti-Sarkozy demonstration with a sign bearing the words Casse-toi pov' con, the exact words Sarkozy had uttered. Eon was arrested for causing offence to the presidential function and the prosecutor, who in France indirectly reports to the president, requested a fine of €1000.[145][146] The court eventually imposed a symbolic €30 suspended fine, which has generally been interpreted as a defeat for the prosecution side.[147] This incident was widely reported on, in particular as Sarkozy, as president of the Republic, is immune from prosecution, notably restricting Eon's rights to sue Sarkozy for defamation.[148]
+
+Sarkozy opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. However, he was critical of the way Chirac and his foreign minister Dominique de Villepin expressed France's opposition to the war. Talking at the French-American Foundation in Washington, D.C. on 12 September 2006, he denounced what he called the "French arrogance" and said: "It is bad manners to embarrass one's allies or sound like one is taking delight in their troubles."[149] He added: "We must never again turn our disagreements into a crisis." Chirac reportedly said in private that Sarkozy's speech was "appalling" and "a shameful act".[149]
+
+In October 2009, Sarkozy was accused of nepotism for helping his son, Jean, try to become head of the public body running France's biggest business district EPAD.[150][151][152] On 3 July 2012, French police raided Sarkozy's residence and office as part of a probe into claims that Sarkozy was involved in illegal political campaign financing.[153]
+
+On 5 July 2010, following its investigations on the Bettencourt affair, online newspaper Mediapart ran an article in which Claire Thibout, a former accountant of billionairess Liliane Bettencourt, accused Sarkozy and Eric Woerth of receiving illegal campaign donations in 2007, in cash.[154][155]
+
+On 1 July 2014 Sarkozy was detained for questioning by police over claims he had promised a prestigious role in Monaco to a high-ranking judge, Gilbert Azibert, in exchange for information about the investigation into alleged illegal campaign funding.  Mr Azibert, one of the most senior judges at the Court of Appeal, was called in for questioning on 30 June 2014.[156]  It is believed to be the first time a former French president has been held in police custody, although his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, was found guilty of embezzlement and breach of trust while he was mayor of Paris and given a suspended prison sentence in 2011.[157] After 15 hours in police custody, Sarkozy was put under official investigation for "active corruption", "misuse of influence" and "obtained through a breach of professional secrecy" on 2 July 2014.[158] Mr Azibert and Sarkozy's lawyer, Thierry Herzog, are also now under official investigation. The two accusations carry sentences of up to 10 years in prison.[159] The developments were seen as a blow to Sarkozy's attempts to challenge for the presidency in 2017.[160][161] Nevertheless, he later stood as a candidate for the Republican party nomination,[162] but was eliminated from the contest in November 2016.[163]
+
+On 16 February 2016, Sarkozy was indicted on "illegal financing of political campaign" charges related to overspending in his 2012 presidential campaign and retained as witness in connection with the Bygmalion scandal.[164][165][166][167]
+
+In April 2016, Arnaud Claude, former law partner of Sarkozy, was named in the Panama Papers.[168]
+
+Shortly after Sarkozy's inauguration as President of France in 2007, he invited Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to France over the objections of both the political opposition, and members of his own government.[169] The visit marked the first time Gaddafi had been to France in more than 35 years and, during it, France agreed to sell Libya 21 Airbus aircraft and signed a nuclear cooperation agreement.[169] Negotiations for the purchase of more than a dozen Dassault Rafale fighter jets, plus military helicopters, were also initiated during the trip.[170]
+
+During the 2011 Libyan Civil War – a conflict in which France intervened – Saif-al-Islam Gaddafi said in an interview with euronews that the Libyan state had donated €50 million to Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign in exchange for access and favors by Sarkozy.[171][172]
+
+We funded it and we have all the details and are ready to reveal everything. The first thing we want this clown to do is to give the money back to the Libyan people. He was given assistance so that he could help them. But he’s disappointed us: give us back our money.[173]
+
+Saif al-Islam Gaddafi's claim was later repeated by former Libyan prime minister Baghdadi Mahmudi in October of that year, though Sarkozy denied its veracity.[171] Investigative website Mediapart subsequently published several documents appearing to prove a payment of €50 million, and also published a claim by Ziad Takieddine that he had personally handed three briefcases stuffed with cash to Sarkozy.[171][174] French magistrates later acquired diaries of former Libyan oil minister Shukri Ghanem in which payments to Sarkozy were mentioned.[175] Shortly thereafter, however, Ghanem was found dead, floating in the Danube in Austria and thereby preventing his corroboration of the diaries.[172][175]
+
+A judicial investigation against then-unidentified persons was initiated in April 2013 in Paris.[171]
+
+In January 2018, British police arrested Alexandre Djouhri on a European Arrest Warrant.[176] Djouhri was an associate of Sarkozy and had refused to respond to a French judicial summons for questioning over allegations he had helped launder Libyan funds on behalf of Sarkozy.[176] The following month, Asharq Al-Awsat quoted a source who alleged Sarkozy had promised Libyan representatives improved relations between France and Libya should he be elected president, and that he would wrap-up the matter of the bombing of UTA Flight 772.[177]
+
+On 20 March, Sarkozy was arrested by French police and held for questioning concerning the various allegations about a Libyan connection, the first time he had been interrogated in relation to the matter.[178][179] Brice Hortefeux was also brought in by police for questioning.[174]
+
+Following Sarkozy's arrest, Saif al-Islam expressed a willingness to testify in any future trial.[180] He also claimed that a former officer of the Libyan intelligence service was in possession of a recording of a meeting between his father and Sarkozy in Tripoli in 2007 at which payments were discussed.[180] The Republicans, meanwhile, issued a statement in which the party said the former president had their full support.[181] Spokesman Christian Jacob later suggested that the accusations against Sarkozy were politically motivated.[181]
+
+On 20 and 21 March 2018, Sarkozy was put into police custody and held for questioning concerning the Libyan connection.[182] He was formally charged with bribery and accepting illegal campaign contributions  at the issue of this custody.[183]
+
+Governmental functions
+
+Electoral mandates
+
+European Parliament
+
+National Assembly of France
+
+Regional Council
+
+General Council
+
+Municipal Council
+
+Political functions

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+
+
+Saskatchewan (/səˈskætʃəwən, sæ-, -wɒn/ (listen); Canadian French: [saskatʃəwan]) is a prairie and boreal province in western Canada, the only province without a natural border. It has an area of 651,900 square kilometres (251,700 sq mi), nearly 10 percent of which (59,366 square kilometres (22,900 sq mi)) is fresh water, composed mostly of rivers, reservoirs, and the province's 100,000 lakes.
+
+Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota. As of Q1 2020, Saskatchewan's population was estimated at 1,181,987.[7] Residents primarily live in the southern prairie half of the province, while the northern boreal half is mostly forested and sparsely populated. Of the total population, roughly half live in the province's largest city Saskatoon, or the provincial capital Regina. Other notable cities include Prince Albert, Moose Jaw, Yorkton, Swift Current, North Battleford, Melfort, and the border city Lloydminster (partially within Alberta).[8]
+
+Saskatchewan is a landlocked province with large distances to moderating bodies of waters. As a result, its climate is extremely continental, rendering severe winters throughout the province. Southern areas have very warm or hot summers. Midale and Yellow Grass (both near the U.S. border) are tied for the highest ever recorded temperatures in Canada, with 45 °C (113 °F) observed at both locations on July 5, 1937.[9][10] In winter, temperatures below −45 °C (−49 °F) are possible even in the south during extreme cold snaps.
+
+Saskatchewan has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups. Europeans first explored the area in 1690 and first settled in the area in 1774. It became a province in 1905, carved out from the vast North-West Territories, which had until then included most of the Canadian Prairies. In the early 20th century the province became known as a stronghold for Canadian social democracy; North America's first social-democratic government was elected in 1944. The province's economy is based on agriculture, mining, and energy.
+
+The former Lieutenant Governor, Thomas Molloy, died in office on July 2, 2019.[11] On July 17, 2019, the federal government announced the appointment of Russell Mirasty, former Assistant Commissioner with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as the new Lieutenant Governor.[12] The current premier is Scott Moe.
+
+In 1992, the federal and provincial governments signed a historic land claim agreement with First Nations in Saskatchewan.[13] The First Nations received compensation and were permitted to buy land on the open market for the bands; they have acquired about 3,079 square kilometres (761,000 acres; 1,189 sq mi), now reserve lands. Some First Nations have used their settlement to invest in urban areas, including Saskatoon.[13]
+
+Its name derived from the Saskatchewan River. The river was known as kisiskāciwani-sīpiy ("swift flowing river") in the Cree language.[14]  Henday's spelling was Keiskatchewan, with the modern rendering, Saskatchewan, being officially adopted in 1882 when a portion of the present-day province was designated a provisional district of the North West Territories.  Achieved provincial status in 1905.[15]
+
+As Saskatchewan's borders largely follow the geographic coordinates of longitude and latitude, the province is roughly a quadrilateral, or a shape with four sides. However, the 49th parallel boundary and the 60th northern border appear curved on globes and many maps. Additionally, the eastern boundary of the province is partially crooked rather than following a line of longitude, as correction lines were devised by surveyors prior to the homestead program (1880–1928).
+
+Saskatchewan is part of the Western Provinces and is bounded on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the north-east by Nunavut, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota. Saskatchewan has the distinction of being the only Canadian province for which no borders correspond to physical geographic features (i.e. they are all parallels and meridians). Along with Alberta, Saskatchewan is one of only two land-locked provinces.
+
+The overwhelming majority of Saskatchewan's population is located in the southern third of the province, south of the 53rd parallel.
+
+Saskatchewan contains two major natural regions: the Boreal Forest in the north and the Prairies in the south. They are separated by an aspen parkland transition zone near the North Saskatchewan River on the western side of the province, and near to south of the Saskatchewan River on the eastern side. Northern Saskatchewan is mostly covered by forest except for the Lake Athabasca Sand Dunes, the largest active sand dunes in the world north of 58°, and adjacent to the southern shore of Lake Athabasca. Southern Saskatchewan contains another area with sand dunes known as the "Great Sand Hills" covering over 300 square kilometres (120 sq mi). The Cypress Hills, located in the southwestern corner of Saskatchewan and Killdeer Badlands (Grasslands National Park), are areas of the province that were unglaciated during the last glaciation period, the Wisconsin glaciation.
+
+The province's highest point, at 1,392 metres (4,567 ft), is located in the Cypress Hills less than 2 km from the provincial boundary with Alberta.[16] The lowest point is the shore of Lake Athabasca, at 213 metres (699 ft). The province has 14 major drainage basins made up of various rivers and watersheds draining into the Arctic Ocean, Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.[17]
+
+Saskatchewan receives more hours of sunshine than any other Canadian province.[18] The province lies far from any significant body of water. This fact, combined with its northerly latitude, gives it a warm summer, corresponding to its humid continental climate (Köppen type Dfb) in the central and most of the eastern parts of the province, as well as the Cypress Hills; drying off to a semi-arid steppe climate (Köppen type BSk) in the southwestern part of the province. Drought can affect agricultural areas during long periods with little or no precipitation at all. The northern parts of Saskatchewan – from about La Ronge northward – have a subarctic climate (Köppen Dfc) with a shorter summer season. Summers can get very hot, sometimes above 38 °C (100 °F) during the day, and with humidity decreasing from northeast to southwest. Warm southern winds blow from the plains and intermontane regions of the Western United States during much of July and August, very cool or hot but changeable air masses often occur during spring and in September. Winters are usually bitterly cold, with frequent Arctic air descending from the north.[19] with high temperatures not breaking −17 °C (1 °F) for weeks at a time. Warm chinook winds often blow from the west, bringing periods of mild weather. Annual precipitation averages 30 to 45 centimetres (12 to 18 inches) across the province, with the bulk of rain falling in June, July, and August.[20]
+
+Saskatchewan is one of the most tornado-active parts of Canada, averaging roughly 12 to 18 tornadoes per year, some violent. In 2012, 33 tornadoes were reported in the province. The Regina Cyclone took place in June 1912 when 28 people died in an F4 Fujita scale tornado. Severe and non-severe thunderstorm events occur in Saskatchewan, usually from early spring to late summer. Hail, strong winds and isolated tornadoes are a common occurrence.
+
+The hottest temperature ever recorded anywhere in Canada happened in Saskatchewan. The temperature rose to 45 °C (113 °F) in Midale and Yellow Grass. The coldest ever recorded in the province was −56.7 °C (−70.1 °F) in Prince Albert, which is north of Saskatoon.
+
+The effects of climate change in Saskatchewan are now being observed in parts of the province. There is evidence of reduction of biomass in Saskatchewan's boreal forests[citation needed] (as with those of other Canadian prairie provinces) is linked by researchers to drought-related water stress, stemming from global warming, most likely caused by greenhouse gas emissions. While studies, as early as 1988 (Williams, et al., 1988) have shown climate change will affect agriculture,[21] whether the effects can be mitigated through adaptations of cultivars, or crops, is less clear. Resiliency of ecosystems may decline with large changes in temperature.[22] The provincial government has responded to the threat of climate change by introducing a plan to reduce carbon emissions, "The Saskatchewan Energy and Climate Change Plan", in June 2007.
+
+Saskatchewan has been populated by various indigenous peoples of North America, including members of the Sarcee, Niitsitapi, Atsina, Cree, Saulteaux, Assiniboine (Nakoda), Lakota and Sioux. The first known European to enter Saskatchewan was Henry Kelsey in 1690, who travelled up the Saskatchewan River in hopes of trading fur with the region's indigenous peoples. The first permanent European settlement was a Hudson's Bay Company post at Cumberland House, founded in 1774 by Samuel Hearne.[24] In 1762 the south of the province was part of the Spanish Louisiana until 1802.[25]
+
+In 1803 the Louisiana Purchase transferred from France to the United States part of what is now Alberta and Saskatchewan. In 1818 the U.S. ceded the area to Britain. Most of what is now Saskatchewan was part of Rupert's Land and controlled by the Hudson's Bay Company, which claimed rights to all watersheds flowing into Hudson Bay, including the Saskatchewan River, Churchill, Assiniboine, Souris, and Qu'Appelle River systems.
+
+In the late 1850s and early 1860s, scientific expeditions led by John Palliser and Henry Youle Hind explored the prairie region of the province.
+
+In 1870, Canada acquired the Hudson's Bay Company's territories and formed the North-West Territories to administer the vast territory between British Columbia and Manitoba. The Crown also entered into a series of numbered treaties with the indigenous peoples of the area, which serve as the basis of the relationship between First Nations, as they are called today, and the Crown. Since the late twentieth century, land losses and inequities as a result of those treaties have been subject to negotiation for settlement between the First Nations in Saskatchewan and the federal government, in collaboration with provincial governments.
+
+In 1876, following their defeat of United States Army forces at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana Territory in the United States, the Lakota Chief Sitting Bull led several thousand of his people to Wood Mountain. Survivors and descendants founded Wood Mountain Reserve in 1914.
+
+The North-West Mounted Police set up several posts and forts across Saskatchewan, including Fort Walsh in the Cypress Hills, and Wood Mountain Post in south-central Saskatchewan near the United States border.
+
+Many Métis people, who had not been signatories to a treaty, had moved to the Southbranch Settlement and Prince Albert district north of present-day Saskatoon following the Red River Rebellion in Manitoba in 1870. In the early 1880s, the Canadian government refused to hear the Métis' grievances, which stemmed from land-use issues. Finally, in 1885, the Métis, led by Louis Riel, staged the North-West Rebellion and declared a provisional government. They were defeated by a Canadian militia brought to the Canadian prairies by the new Canadian Pacific Railway. Riel, who surrendered and was convicted of treason in a packed Regina courtroom, was hanged on November 16, 1885. Since then, the government has recognized the Métis as an aboriginal people with status rights and provided them with various benefits.
+
+The national policy set by the federal government, the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Hudson's Bay Company and associated land companies encouraged immigration. The Dominion Lands Act of 1872 permitted settlers to acquire one quarter of a square mile of land to homestead and offered an additional quarter upon establishing a homestead. In 1874, the North-West Mounted Police began providing police services. In 1876, the North-West Territories Act provided for appointment, by the Ottawa, of a Lieutenant Governor and a Council to assist him.[26]
+
+Highly optimistic advertising campaigns promoted the benefits of prairie living. Potential immigrants read leaflets information painted Canada as a veritable garden of Eden and downplayed the need for agricultural expertise. Ads in The Nor'-West Farmer by the Commissioner of Immigration implied that western land was blessed with water, wood, gold, silver, iron, copper, and cheap coal for fuel, all of which were readily at hand. Reality was far harsher, especially for the first arrivals who lived in sod houses. However eastern money poured in and by 1913, long term mortgage loans to Saskatchewan farmers had reached $65 million.[27]
+
+The dominant groups comprised British settlers from eastern Canada and Britain, who comprised about half of the population during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They played the leading role in establishing the basic institutions of plains society, economy and government.[28]
+
+Gender roles were sharply defined. Men were primarily responsible for breaking the land; planting and harvesting; building the house; buying, operating and repairing machinery; and handling finances. At first, there were many single men on the prairie, or husbands whose wives were still back east, but they had a hard time. They realized the need for a wife. In 1901, there were 19,200 families, but this surged to 150,300 families only 15 years later. Wives played a central role in settlement of the prairie region. Their labor, skills, and ability to adapt to the harsh environment proved decisive in meeting the challenges. They prepared bannock, beans and bacon, mended clothes, raised children, cleaned, tended the garden, helped at harvest time and nursed everyone back to health.  While prevailing patriarchal attitudes, legislation, and economic principles obscured women's contributions, the flexibility exhibited by farm women in performing productive and nonproductive labor was critical to the survival of family farms, and thus to the success of the wheat economy.[29][30]
+
+On September 1, 1905, Saskatchewan became a province, with inauguration day held September 4. Its political leaders at the time proclaimed its destiny was to become Canada's most powerful province. Saskatchewan embarked on an ambitious province-building program based on its Anglo-Canadian culture and wheat production for the export market.  Population quintupled from 91,000 in 1901 to 492,000 to 1911, thanks to heavy immigration of farmers from the Ukraine, U.S., Germany and Scandinavia. Efforts were made to assimilate the newcomers to British Canadian culture and values.[31]
+
+In the 1905 provincial elections, Liberals won 16 of 25 seats in Saskatchewan. The Saskatchewan government bought out Bell Telephone Company in 1909, with the government owning the long-distance lines and left local service to small companies organized at the municipal level.[32] Premier Walter Scott preferred government assistance to outright ownership because he thought enterprises worked better if citizens had a stake in running them; he set up the Saskatchewan Cooperative Elevator Company in 1911. Despite pressure from farm groups for direct government involvement in the grain handling business, the Scott government opted to loan money to a farmer-owned elevator company. Saskatchewan in 1909 provided bond guarantees to railway companies for the construction of branch lines, alleviating the concerns of farmers who had trouble getting their wheat to market by wagon.[33] The Saskatchewan Grain Growers Association, was the dominant political force in the province until the 1920s; it had close ties with the governing Liberal party. In 1913, the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association was established with three goals: to watch over legislation; to forward the interests of the stock growers in every honourable and legitimate way; and to suggest to parliament legislation to meet changing conditions and requirements.[34]
+
+Immigration peaked in 1910, and in spite of the initial difficulties of frontier life – distance from towns, sod homes, and backbreaking labour – new settlers established a European-Canadian style of prosperous agrarian society. The long-term prosperity of the province depended on the world price of grain, which headed steadily upward from the 1880s to 1920, then plunged down. Wheat output was increased by new strains, such as the "Marquis wheat" strain which matured 8 days sooner and yielded 7 more bushels per acre (0.72 m3/ha) than the previous standard, "Red Fife". The national output of wheat soared from 8 million imperial bushels (290,000 m3) in 1896, to 26 million imperial bushels (950,000 m3) in 1901, reaching 151 million imperial bushels (5,500,000 m3) by 1921.[35]
+
+Urban reform movements in Regina were based on support from business and professional groups. City planning, reform of local government, and municipal ownership of utilities were more widely supported by these two groups, often through such organizations as the Board of Trade. Church-related and other altruistic organizations generally supported social welfare and housing reforms; these groups were generally less successful in getting their own reforms enacted.[36]
+
+The province responded to the First World War in 1914 with patriotic enthusiasm and enjoyed the resultant economic boom for farms and cities alike.  Emotional and intellectual support for the war emerged from the politics of Canadian national identity, the rural myth, and social gospel progressivism  The Church of England was especially supportive. However, there was strong hostility toward German-Canadian farmers.[37] Recent Ukrainian immigrants were enemy aliens because of their citizenship in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A small fraction were taken to internment camps. Most of the internees were unskilled unemployed labourers who were imprisoned "because they were destitute, not because they were disloyal".[38][39]
+
+The price of wheat tripled and acreage seeded doubled. The wartime spirit of sacrifice intensified social reform movements that had predated the war and now came to fruition. Saskatchewan gave women the right to vote in 1916 and at the end of 1916 passed a referendum to prohibit the sale of alcohol.
+
+In the late 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan, imported from the United States and Ontario, gained brief popularity in nativist circles in Saskatchewan and Alberta. The Klan, briefly allied with the provincial Conservative party because of their mutual dislike for Premier James G. "Jimmy" Gardiner and his Liberals (who ferociously fought the Klan), enjoyed about two years of prominence. It declined and disappeared, subject to widespread political and media opposition, plus internal scandals involving the use of the organization's funds.
+
+In 1970, the first annual Canadian Western Agribition was held in Regina. This farm-industry trade show, with its strong emphasis on livestock, is rated as one of the five top livestock shows in North America, along with those in Houston, Denver, Louisville and Toronto.
+
+The province celebrated the 75th anniversary of its establishment in 1980, with Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, presiding over the official ceremonies.[40][41] In 2005, 25 years later, her sister, Queen Elizabeth II, attended the events held to mark Saskatchewan's centennial.[42]
+
+Since the late 20th century, First Nations have become more politically active in seeking justice for past inequities, especially related to the taking of indigenous lands by various governments. The federal and provincial governments have negotiated on numerous land claims, and developed a program of "Treaty Land Entitlement", enabling First Nations to buy land to be taken into reserves with money from settlements of claims.
+
+"In 1992, the federal and provincial governments signed a historic land claim agreement with Saskatchewan First Nations. Under the Agreement, the First Nations received money to buy land on the open market. As a result, about 761,000 acres have been turned into reserve land and many First Nations continue to invest their settlement dollars in urban areas", including Saskatoon. The money from such settlements has enabled First Nations to invest in businesses and other economic infrastructure.[13]
+
+According to the Canada 2011 Census, the largest ethnic group in Saskatchewan is German (28.6%), followed by English (24.9%), Scottish (18.9%), Canadian (18.8%), Irish (15.5%), Ukrainian (13.5%), French (Fransaskois) (12.2%), First Nations (12.1%), Norwegian (6.9%), and Polish (5.8%).[43]
+
+Languages of Saskatchewan (2016):[44]
+
+Indigenous and visible minority identity (2016):[45][46]
+
+Historically, Saskatchewan's economy was primarily associated with agriculture, with wheat being the precious symbol on the province's flag. Increasing diversification has resulted in agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting only making up 8.9% of the province's GDP in 2018. Saskatchewan grows a large portion of Canada's grain.[49] In 2017, the production of canola surpassed the production of wheat, which is Saskatchewan's most familiar crop and the one most often associated with the province. Total net income from farming was $3.3 billion in 2017, which was $0.9 billion less than the income in 2016.[47] Other grains such as flax, rye, oats, peas, lentils, canary seed, and barley are also produced in the province. Saskatchewan is the world's largest exporter of mustard seed.[50] Beef cattle production by a Canadian province is only exceeded by Alberta. In the northern part of the province, forestry is also a significant industry.[48]
+
+Mining is a major industry in the province, with Saskatchewan being the world's largest exporter of potash and uranium.[51] Oil and natural gas production is also a very important part of Saskatchewan's economy, although the oil industry is larger. Among Canadian provinces, only Alberta exceeds Saskatchewan in overall oil production.[52] Heavy crude is extracted in the Lloydminster-Kerrobert-Kindersley areas. Light crude is found in the Kindersley-Swift Current areas as well as the Weyburn-Estevan fields. Natural gas is found almost entirely in the western part of Saskatchewan, from the Primrose Lake area through Lloydminster, Unity, Kindersley, Leader, and around Maple Creek areas.[53]
+
+A list of the companies includes The Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan (defunct in December 2017), Federated Cooperatives Ltd. and IPSCO.[54]
+
+Major Saskatchewan-based Crown corporations are Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI), SaskTel, SaskEnergy (the province's main supplier of natural gas), and SaskPower. Bombardier runs the NATO Flying Training Centre at 15 Wing, near Moose Jaw. Bombardier was awarded a long-term contract in the late 1990s for $2.8 billion from the federal government for the purchase of military aircraft and the running of the training facility. SaskPower since 1929 has been the principal supplier of electricity in Saskatchewan, serving more than 451,000 customers and managing $4.5 billion in assets. SaskPower is a major employer in the province with almost 2,500 permanent full-time staff located in 71 communities.
+
+The Tabulated Data covers each fiscal year (e.g. 2015–2016 covers April 1, 2015 – March 31, 2016). All data is in $1,000s.
+
+1 These values reflect the estimated population at the beginning of the fiscal year.
+
+2 These values reflect the debt of the General Revenue Fund alone at the end of the fiscal year.
+
+3 These values reflect the combined debt of the three major Government Service Enterprises (Crown Corporations) at the end of the fiscal year. As of March 31, 2016, SaskPower, SaskEnergy, and SaskTel accounted for 88.4% of Crown Debt.
+
+4 The highest rate of provincial corporate income tax was reduced from 17% to 14% on July 1, 2006. It was further reduced to 13% on July 1, 2007, and finally to 12% on July 1, 2008. The tax on paid-up capital was reduced from 0.6% to 0.3% on July 1, 2006, to 0.15% on July 1, 2007, and abolished altogether on July 1, 2008. These displayed values were obtained by adding the corporate income tax for each year with the corporate capital tax.
+
+5 The Provincial Sales Tax (PST) rate was reduced from 7% to 5% on October 28, 2006.
+
+6 These values are the credit ratings from Standard & Poor's as of the end of the Fiscal Year.
+
+Source: Government of Saskatchewan.[55]
+
+Publicly funded elementary and secondary schools in the province are administered by the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education. Public elementary and secondary schools either operate as secular or as a separate schools. Nearly all school divisions, except one operate as an English first language school board. The Division scolaire francophone No. 310 is the only school division that operates French first language schools. In addition to elementary and secondary schools, the province is also home to several post-secondary institutions.
+
+The first education on the prairies took place within the family groups of the First Nation and early fur trading settlers. There were only a few missionary or trading post schools established in Rupert's Land – later known as the North West Territories. The first 76 North-West Territories school districts and the first Board of Education meeting formed in 1886. The pioneering boom formed ethnic bloc settlements. Communities were seeking education for their children similar to the schools of their home land. Log cabins, and dwellings were constructed for the assembly of the community, school, church, dances and meetings.
+
+The prosperity of the Roaring Twenties and the success of farmers in proving up on their homesteads helped provide funding to standardize education.[citation needed] Textbooks, normal schools for educating teachers, formal school curricula and state of the art school house architectural plans provided continuity throughout the province. English as the school language helped to provide economic stability because one community could communicate with another and goods could be traded and sold in a common language. The number of one-room schoolhouse districts across Saskatchewan totalled approximately 5,000 at the height of this system of education in the late 1940s.[56]
+
+Following World War II, the transition from many one-room schoolhouses to fewer and larger consolidated modern technological town and city schools occurred as a means of ensuring technical education. School buses, highways, and family vehicles create ease and accessibility of a population shift to larger towns and cities. Combines and tractors mean the farmer could manage more than a quarter section of land, so there was a shift from family farms and subsistence crops to cash crops grown on many sections of land. School vouchers have been newly proposed as a means of allowing competition between rural schools and making the operation of co-operative schools practicable in rural areas.
+
+Saskatchewan's Ministry of Health is responsible for policy direction, sets and monitors standards, and provides funding for regional health authorities and provincial health services. Saskatchewan's medical health system is widely and inaccurately characterized as "socialized medicine": medical practitioners in Saskatchewan, as in other Canadian provinces, are not civil servants but remit their accounts to the publicly funded Saskatchewan Medical Care Insurance Plan rather than to patients (i.e. a single-payer system).[57]
+
+Saskatchewan medical health system has faced criticism due to a lack of accessibility to the midwifery program. According to Leanne Smith, the director for maternal services in the Saskatoon Health Region declared half of the women who apply for the midwifery program are turned away.[58] Ministry of Health data shows midwives saw 1,233 clients in the 2012–13 fiscal year (which runs April to March). But in that fourth quarter, 359 women were still on waiting lists for immediate or future care.[58] The provincial Health Ministry received 47 letters about midwifery services in 2012, most of which asked for more midwives.[58] As a continuing problem in the Saskatchewan health care system, more pressure has been placed to recruit more midwives for the province.
+
+Saskatchewan has the same form of government[59] as the other Canadian provinces with a lieutenant-governor (who is the representative of the Queen in Right of Saskatchewan), premier, and a unicameral legislature.
+
+During the 20th century, Saskatchewan was one of Canada's more left-wing provinces, reflecting the slant of its many rural citizens which distrusted the distant capital government and which favored a strong local government to attend to their issues. In 1944 Tommy Douglas became premier of the first avowedly socialist regional government in North America. Most of his Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) represented rural and small-town ridings. Under his Cooperative Commonwealth Federation government, Saskatchewan became the first province to have Medicare. In 1961, Douglas left provincial politics to become the first leader of the federal New Democratic Party. In the 21st century, Saskatchewan began to drift to the right-wing, generally attributed to the province's economy shifting toward oil and gas production.  In the 2015 federal election, the Conservative Party of Canada won ten of the province's fourteen seats, followed by the New Democratic Party with three and the Liberal Party of Canada with one; in the 2019 election, the Conservatives won in all of Saskatchewan's 14 seats, sweeping their competition.
+
+Provincial politics in Saskatchewan is dominated by the social-democratic Saskatchewan New Democratic Party and the centre-right Saskatchewan Party, with the latter holding the majority in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan since 2007. The current Premier of Saskatchewan is Scott Moe, who took over the leadership of the Saskatchewan Party in 2018 following the resignation of Brad Wall. Numerous smaller political parties also run candidates in provincial elections, including the Green Party of Saskatchewan, Liberal Party of Saskatchewan, and the Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan, but none is currently represented in the Legislative Assembly (federal Conservatives and Liberals generally favour the Saskatchewan Party in provincial elections).
+
+No Prime Minister of Canada has been born in Saskatchewan, but two (William Lyon Mackenzie King and John Diefenbaker) represented the province in the House of Commons of Canada during their tenures as head of government.
+
+Transportation in Saskatchewan includes an infrastructure system of roads, highways, freeways, airports, ferries, pipelines, trails, waterways and railway systems serving a population of approximately 1,003,299 (according to 2007 estimates) inhabitants year-round. It is funded primarily with local and federal government funds. The Saskatchewan Department of Highways and Transportation estimates 80% of traffic is carried on the 5,031-kilometre principal system of highways.[60]
+
+The Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure operates over 26,000 kilometres (16,000 mi) of highways and divided highways. There are also municipal roads which comprise different surfaces. Asphalt concrete pavements comprise almost 9,000 kilometres (5,600 mi), granular pavement almost 5,000 kilometres (3,100 mi), non structural or thin membrane surface TMS are close to 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) and finally gravel highways make up over 5,600 kilometres (3,500 mi) through the province. In the northern sector, ice roads which can only be navigated in the winter months comprise another approximately 150 kilometres (93 mi) of travel.[61]
+
+Saskatchewan has over 250,000 kilometres (150,000 mi) of roads and highways, the highest length of road surface of any Canadian province.[62] The major highways in Saskatchewan are the Trans Canada expressway, Yellowhead Highway northern Trans Canada route, Louis Riel Trail, CanAm Highway, Red Coat Trail, Northern Woods and Water route, and Saskota travel route.
+
+The first Canadian transcontinental railway was constructed by the Canadian Pacific Railway between 1881 and 1885.[63] After the great east-west transcontinental railway was built, north-south connector branch lines were established. The 1920s saw the largest rise in rail line track as the CPR and CNR fell into competition to provide rail service within ten kilometres. In the 1960s there were applications for abandonment of branch lines.[64] Today the only two passenger rail services in the province are The Canadian and Winnipeg–Churchill train, both operated by Via Rail. The Canadian is a transcontinental service linking Toronto with Vancouver.
+
+The main Saskatchewan waterways are the North Saskatchewan River or South Saskatchewan River routes. In total, there are 3,050 bridges maintained by the Department of Highways in Saskatchewan.[65] There are currently twelve ferry services operating in the province, all under the jurisdiction of the Department of Highways.
+
+The Saskatoon Airport (YXE) was initially established as part of the Royal Canadian Air Force training program during World War II. It was renamed the John G. Diefenbaker Airport in the official ceremony, June 23, 1993.[67] Roland J. Groome Airfield is the official designation for the Regina International Airport (YQR) as of August 3, 2005; the airport was established in 1930. Under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP),[68] twenty Service Flying Training Schools (RAF) were established at various Saskatchewan locations in World War II.[69] 15 Wing Moose Jaw is home to the Canadian Forces formation aerobatics team, the Snowbirds.[68]
+
+Airlines offering service to Saskatchewan are Air Canada, WestJet Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Transwest Air, Sunwing Airlines, Norcanair Airlines, La Ronge Aviation Services Ltd, La Loche Airways, Osprey Wings Ltd, Buffalo Narrows Airways Ltd, Île-à-la-Crosse Airways Ltd, Voyage Air, Pronto Airways, Venture Air Ltd, Pelican Narrows Air Service, Jackson Air Services Ltd, and Northern Dene Airways Ltd.[70]
+
+The Government of Canada has agreed to contribute $20 million for two new interchanges in Saskatoon. One of them being at the Sk Hwy 219/Lorne Ave intersection with Circle Drive, the other at the Senator Sid Buckwold Bridge (Idylwyld Freeway) and Circle Drive. This is part of the Asia-Pacific Gateway and Corridor Initiative to improve access to the Canadian National Railway's intermodal freight terminal thereby increasing Asia-Pacific trade. Also, the Government of Canada will contribute $27 million to Regina to construct a Canadian Pacific Railway CPR intermodal facility and improve infrastructure transportation to the facility from both national highway networks, Sk Hwy 1, the TransCanada Highway and Sk Hwy 11, Louis Riel Trail. This also is part of the Asia-Pacific Gateway and Corridor Initiative to improve access to the CPR terminal and increase Asia-Pacific trade.[71]
+
+Saskatchewan is home to a number of museums. The Royal Saskatchewan Museum serves as the provincial museum of the province. Other museums include Diefenbaker House, Evolution of Education Museum, Museum of Antiquities, the RCMP Heritage Centre, Rotary Museum of Police and Corrections, Saskatchewan Science Centre, Saskatchewan Western Development Museum, and the T.rex Discovery Centre.
+
+The province is home to several art galleries, including MacKenzie Art Gallery, and Remai Modern. The province is also home to several performing arts centres including the Conexus Arts Centre in Regina, and TCU Place in Saskatoon. PAVED Arts, a new media artist-run space, is also located in Saskatoon. The province is presently home to several concert orchestras, the Regina Symphony Orchestra, the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra, and the Saskatoon Youth Orchestra. The Regina Symphony Orchestra is at the Conexus Arts Centre, while the Saskatoon perform at TCU Place.
+
+The Saskatchewan Roughriders Canadian football team is the province's professional football franchise (playing in the Canadian Football League), and are extremely popular across Saskatchewan. The team's fans are also found to congregate on game days throughout Canada, and collectively they are known as "Rider Nation". The province's other major sport franchise is the Saskatchewan Rush of the National Lacrosse League. In their first year of competition, 2016, the Rush won both their Division Title and the League Championship.
+
+Hockey is the most popular sport in the province. More than 490 NHL players[72] have been born in Saskatchewan, the highest per capita output of any Canadian province, U.S. state, or European country.[73] Notable NHL figures born in Saskatchewan include Keith Allen, Gordie Howe, Bryan Trottier, Bernie Federko, Clark Gillies, Fern Flaman, Bert Olmstead, Harry Watson, Elmer Lach, Max Bentley, Sid Abel, Doug Bentley, Eddie Shore, Clint Smith, Bryan Hextall, Johnny Bower, Emile Francis, Glenn Hall, Chuck Rayner, Brad McCrimmon, Patrick Marleau, Dave Manson, Theo Fleury, Terry Harper, Wade Redden, Brian Propp, Scott Hartnell, Ryan Getzlaf, and Chris Kunitz. Saskatchewan does not have an NHL or minor professional franchise, but five teams in the junior Western Hockey League are located in the province: the Moose Jaw Warriors, Prince Albert Raiders, Regina Pats, Saskatoon Blades and Swift Current Broncos.
+
+In 2015, Budweiser honoured Saskatchewan for their abundance of hockey players by sculpting a 12-foot-tall hockey player monument in ice for Saskatchewan's capital city of Regina.[74] The company then filmed this frozen monument for a national television commercial, thanking the province for creating so many goal scorers throughout hockey's history. Budweiser also gifted the “hockey player” province a trophy made of white birch—Saskatchewan's provincial tree—which bears the name of every pro player in history. Sitting atop the trophy was a golden Budweiser Red Light, synched to every current Saskatchewan player in the pros. This trophy can currently be seen at Victoria Bar in Regina.
+
+Historically, Saskatchewan has been one of the strongest curling provinces.  Teams from Saskatchewan have finished in the top three places at 38 briers and Saskatchewan has more women's championships than any other province with 11.  Notable curlers from Saskatchewan include Sandra Schmirler, Ernie Richardson, and Vera Pezer.  In a 2019 TSN poll, experts ranked Schmirler's Saskatchewan team, which won a gold medal at the 1998 Olympics, as the greatest women's team in Canada's history.[75]
+
+The flag of Saskatchewan was officially adopted on September 22, 1969.[76] The flag features the provincial shield in the upper quarter nearest the staff, with the floral emblem, the Prairie Lily, in the fly. The upper green (in forest green) half of the flag represents the northern Saskatchewan forest lands, while the golden lower half of the flag symbolizes the southern wheat fields and prairies. A province-wide competition was held to design the flag, and drew over 4,000 entries. The winning design was by Anthony Drake, then living in Hodgeville.[77]
+
+In 2005, Saskatchewan Environment held a province-wide vote to recognize Saskatchewan's centennial year, receiving more than 10,000 online and mail-in votes from the public. The walleye was the overwhelming favourite of the six native fish species nominated for the designation, receiving more than half the votes cast.[78] Other species in the running were the lake sturgeon, lake trout, lake whitefish, northern pike and yellow perch.
+
+Saskatchewan's other symbols include the tartan, the license plate, and the provincial flower. Saskatchewan's official tartan was registered with the Court of Lord Lyon King of Arms in Scotland in 1961. It has seven colours: gold, brown, green, red, yellow, white and black. The provincial licence plates display the slogan "Land of Living Skies". The provincial flower of Saskatchewan is the Western Red Lily.
+
+In 2005, Saskatchewan celebrated its centennial. To honour it, the Royal Canadian Mint issued a commemorative five-dollar coin depicting Canada's wheat fields as well as a circulation 25-cent coin of a similar design. Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visited Regina, Saskatoon, and Lumsden, and the Saskatchewan-reared Joni Mitchell issued an album in Saskatchewan's honour.
+
+Saskatchewan travel guide from Wikivoyage

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+Satan,[a] also known as the Devil,[b] is an entity in the Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin or falsehood. In Christianity and Islam, he is usually seen as either a fallen angel or a genie, who used to possess great piety and beauty, but rebelled against God, who nevertheless allows him temporary power over the fallen world and a host of demons. In Judaism, Satan is typically regarded as a metaphor for the yetzer hara, or "evil inclination", or as an agent subservient to God.
+
+A figure known as "the satan" first appears in the Tanakh as a heavenly prosecutor, a member of the sons of God subordinate to Yahweh, who prosecutes the nation of Judah in the heavenly court and tests the loyalty of Yahweh's followers by forcing them to suffer. During the intertestamental period, possibly due to influence from the Zoroastrian figure of Angra Mainyu, the satan developed into a malevolent entity with abhorrent qualities in dualistic opposition to God. In the apocryphal Book of Jubilees, Yahweh grants the satan (referred to as Mastema) authority over a group of fallen angels, or their offspring, to tempt humans to sin and punish them. In the Synoptic Gospels, Satan tempts Jesus in the desert and is identified as the cause of illness and temptation. In the Book of Revelation, Satan appears as a Great Red Dragon, who is defeated by Michael the Archangel and cast down from Heaven. He is later bound for one thousand years, but is briefly set free before being ultimately defeated and cast into the Lake of Fire.
+
+In Christianity, Satan is known as the Devil and is sometimes also called Lucifer. Although the Book of Genesis does not mention him, he is often identified as the serpent in the Garden of Eden. In the Middle Ages, Satan played a minimal role in Christian theology and was used as a comic relief figure in mystery plays. During the early modern period, Satan's significance greatly increased as beliefs such as demonic possession and witchcraft became more prevalent. During the Age of Enlightenment, belief in the existence of Satan became harshly criticized. Nonetheless, belief in Satan has persisted, particularly in the Americas. In the Quran, Shaitan, also known as Iblis, is an entity made of fire who was cast out of Heaven because he refused to bow before the newly-created Adam and incites humans to sin by infecting their minds with waswās ("evil suggestions"). Although Satan is generally viewed as evil, some groups have very different beliefs.
+
+In Theistic Satanism, Satan is considered a deity who is either worshipped or revered. In LaVeyan Satanism, Satan is a symbol of virtuous characteristics and liberty. Satan's appearance is never described in the Bible, but, since the ninth century, he has often been shown in Christian art with horns, cloven hooves, unusually hairy legs, and a tail, often naked and holding a pitchfork. These are an amalgam of traits derived from various pagan deities, including Pan, Poseidon, and Bes. Satan appears frequently in Christian literature, most notably in Dante Alighieri's Inferno, variants of the Faust legend, John Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, and the poems of William Blake. He continues to appear in film, television, and music.
+
+The original Hebrew term sâtan (Hebrew: שָּׂטָן‎) is a generic noun meaning "accuser" or "adversary",[7][8] which is used throughout the Hebrew Bible to refer to ordinary human adversaries,[9][8] as well as a specific supernatural entity.[9][8] The word is derived from a verb meaning primarily "to obstruct, oppose".[10] When it is used without the definite article (simply satan), the word can refer to any accuser,[9] but when it is used with the definite article (ha-satan), it usually refers specifically to the heavenly accuser: the satan.[9]
+
+Ha-Satan with the definite article occurs 13 times in the Masoretic Text, in two books of the Hebrew Bible: Job ch. 1–2 (10×)[11] and Zechariah 3:1–2 (3×).[12] Satan without the definite article is used in 10 instances, of which two are translated diabolos in the Septuagint and "Satan" in the King James Version (KJV):
+
+The word "satan" does not occur in the Book of Genesis, which mentions only a talking serpent and does not identify the serpent with any supernatural entity.[15] The first occurrence of the word "satan" in the Hebrew Bible in reference to a supernatural figure comes from Numbers 22:22,[16] which describes the Angel of Yahweh confronting Balaam on his donkey:[6] "Balaam's departure aroused the wrath of Elohim, and the Angel of Yahweh stood in the road as a satan against him."[16] In 2 Samuel 24, Yahweh sends the "Angel of Yahweh" to inflict a plague against Israel for three days, killing 70,000 people as punishment for David having taken a census without his approval.[17] 1 Chronicles 21:1 repeats this story,[17] but replaces the "Angel of Yahweh" with an entity referred to as "a satan".[17]
+
+Some passages clearly refer to the satan, without using the word itself.[18] 1 Samuel 2:12 describes the sons of Eli as "sons of Belial";[19] the later usage of this word makes it clearly a synonym for "satan".[19] In 1 Samuel 16:14–23 Yahweh sends a "troubling spirit" to torment King Saul as a mechanism to ingratiate David with the king.[20] In 1 Kings 22:19–25, the prophet Micaiah describes to King Ahab a vision of Yahweh sitting on his throne surrounded by the Host of Heaven.[19] Yahweh asks the Host which of them will lead Ahab astray.[19] A "spirit", whose name is not specified, but who is analogous to the satan, volunteers to be "a Lying Spirit in the mouth of all his Prophets".[19]
+
+The satan appears in the Book of Job, a poetic dialogue set within a prose framework,[21] which may have been written around the time of the Babylonian captivity.[21] In the text, Job is a righteous man favored by Yahweh.[21] Job 1:6–8 describes the "sons of God" (bənê hāʼĕlōhîm) presenting themselves before Yahweh.[21] Yahweh asks one of them, "the satan", where he has been, to which he replies that he has been roaming around the earth.[21] Yahweh asks, "Have you considered My servant Job?"[21] The satan replies by urging Yahweh to let him torture Job, promising that Job will abandon his faith at the first tribulation.[22] Yahweh consents; the satan destroys Job's servants and flocks, yet Job refuses to condemn Yahweh.[22] The first scene repeats itself, with the satan presenting himself to Yahweh alongside the other "sons of God".[23] Yahweh points out Job's continued faithfulness, to which the satan insists that more testing is necessary;[23] Yahweh once again gives him permission to test Job.[23] In the end, Job remains faithful and righteous, and it is implied that the satan is shamed in his defeat.[24]
+
+Zechariah 3:1–7 contains a description of a vision dated to the middle of February of 519 BC,[25] in which an angel shows Zechariah a scene of Joshua the High Priest dressed in filthy rags, representing the nation of Judah and its sins,[26] on trial with Yahweh as the judge and the satan standing as the prosecutor.[26] Yahweh rebukes the satan[26] and orders for Joshua to be given clean clothes, representing Yahweh's forgiveness of Judah's sins.[26]
+
+During the Second Temple Period, when Jews were living in the Achaemenid Empire, Judaism was heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Achaemenids.[27][8][28] Jewish conceptions of Satan were impacted by Angra Mainyu,[8][29] the Zoroastrian god of evil, darkness, and ignorance.[8] In the Septuagint, the Hebrew ha-Satan in Job and Zechariah is translated by the Greek word diabolos (slanderer), the same word in the Greek New Testament from which the English word "devil" is derived.[30] Where satan is used to refer to human enemies in the Hebrew Bible, such as Hadad the Edomite and Rezon the Syrian, the word is left untranslated but transliterated in the Greek as satan, a neologism in Greek.[30]
+
+The idea of Satan as an opponent of God and a purely evil figure seems to have taken root in Jewish pseudepigrapha during the Second Temple Period,[31] particularly in the apocalypses.[32] The Book of Enoch, which the Dead Sea Scrolls have revealed to have been nearly as popular as the Torah,[33] describes a group of 200 angels known as the "Watchers", who are assigned to supervise the earth, but instead abandon their duties and have sexual intercourse with human women.[34] The leader of the Watchers is Semjâzâ[35] and another member of the group, known as Azazel, spreads sin and corruption among humankind.[35] The Watchers are ultimately sequestered in isolated caves across the earth[35] and are condemned to face judgement at the end of time.[35] The Book of Jubilees, written in around 150 BC,[36] retells the story of the Watchers' defeat,[37] but, in deviation from the Book of Enoch, Mastema, the "Chief of Spirits", intervenes before all of their demon offspring are sealed away, requesting for Yahweh to let him keep some of them to become his workers.[38] Yahweh acquiesces this request[38] and Mastema uses them to tempt humans into committing more sins, so that he may punish them for their wickedness.[39] Later, Mastema induces Yahweh to test Abraham by ordering him to sacrifice Isaac.[39][40]
+
+The Second Book of Enoch, also called the Slavonic Book of Enoch, contains references to a Watcher called Satanael.[41] It is a pseudepigraphic text of an uncertain date and unknown authorship. The text describes Satanael as being the prince of the Grigori who was cast out of heaven[42] and an evil spirit who knew the difference between what was "righteous" and "sinful".[43] In the Book of Wisdom, the devil is taken to be the being who brought death into the world, but originally the culprit was recognized as Cain.[44][45][46] The name Samael, which is used in reference to one of the fallen angels, later became a common name for Satan in Jewish Midrash and Kabbalah.[47]
+
+Most Jews do not believe in the existence of a supernatural omnimalevolent figure.[48] Traditionalists and philosophers in medieval Judaism adhered to rational theology, rejecting any belief in rebel or fallen angels, and viewing evil as abstract.[49] The rabbis usually interpreted the word satan as it is used in the Tanakh as referring strictly to human adversaries[50] and rejected all of the Enochian writings mentioning Satan as a literal, heavenly figure from the biblical canon, making every attempt to root them out.[31] Nonetheless, the word satan has occasionally been metaphorically applied to evil influences,[51] such as the Jewish exegesis of the yetzer hara ("evil inclination") mentioned in Genesis 6:5.[52]
+
+Rabbinical scholarship on the Book of Job generally follows the Talmud and Maimonides in identifying "the satan" from the prologue as a metaphor for the yetzer hara and not an actual entity.[53] Satan is rarely mentioned in Tannaitic literature, but is found in Babylonian aggadah.[32] According to a narration, the sound of the shofar, which is primarily intended to remind Jews of the importance of teshuva, is also intended symbolically to "confuse the accuser" (Satan) and prevent him from rendering any litigation to God against the Jews.[54] Kabbalah presents Satan as an agent of God whose function is to tempt humans into sinning so that he may accuse them in the heavenly court.[55] The Hasidic Jews of the eighteenth century associated ha-Satan with Baal Davar.[56]
+
+Each modern sect of Judaism has its own interpretation of Satan's identity. Conservative Judaism generally rejects the Talmudic interpretation of Satan as a metaphor for the yetzer hara, and regard him as a literal agent of God.[57] Orthodox Judaism, on the other hand, outwardly embraces Talmudic teachings on Satan, and involves Satan in religious life far more inclusively than other sects. Satan is mentioned explicitly in some daily prayers, including during Shacharit and certain post-meal benedictions, as described in Talmud[58] and the Jewish Code of Law.[59] In Reform Judaism, Satan is generally seen in his Talmudic role as a metaphor for the yetzer hara and the symbolic representation of innate human qualities such as selfishness.[60]
+
+The most common English synonym for "Satan" is "devil", which descends from Middle English devel, from Old English dēofol, that in turn represents an early Germanic borrowing of Latin diabolus (also the source of "diabolical"). This in turn was borrowed from Greek diabolos "slanderer", from diaballein "to slander": dia- "across, through" + ballein "to hurl".[61] In the New Testament, the words Satan and diabolos are used interchangeably as synonyms.[62][63] Beelzebub, meaning "Lord of Flies", is the contemptuous name given in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament to a Philistine god whose original name has been reconstructed as most probably "Ba'al Zabul", meaning "Baal the Prince".[64] The Synoptic Gospels identify Satan and Beelzebub as the same.[62] The name Abaddon (meaning "place of destruction") is used six times in the Old Testament, mainly as a name for one the regions of Sheol.[65] Revelation 9:11 describes Abaddon, whose name is translated into Greek as Apollyon, meaning "the destroyer", as an angel who rules the Abyss.[66] In modern usage, Abaddon is sometimes equated with Satan.[65]
+
+The three Synoptic Gospels all describe the temptation of Christ by Satan in the desert (Matthew 4:1–11, Mark 1:12–13, and Luke 4:1–13).[67] Satan first shows Jesus a stone and tells him to turn it into bread.[67] He also takes him to the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem and commands Jesus to throw himself down so that the angels will catch him.[67] Satan takes Jesus to the top of a tall mountain as well; there, he shows him the kingdoms of the earth and promises to give them all to him if he will bow down and worship him.[67] Each time Jesus rebukes Satan[67] and, after the third temptation, he is administered by the angels.[67] Satan's promise in Matthew 4:8–9 and Luke 4:6–7 to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth implies that all those kingdoms belong to him.[68] The fact that Jesus does not dispute Satan's promise indicates that the authors of those gospels believed this to be true.[68]
+
+Satan plays a role in some of the parables of Jesus, namely the Parable of the Sower, the Parable of the Weeds, Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, and the Parable of the Strong Man.[69] According to the Parable of the Sower, Satan "profoundly influences" those who fail to understand the gospel.[70] The latter two parables say that Satan's followers will be punished on Judgement Day, with the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats stating that the Devil, his angels, and the people who follow him will be consigned to "eternal fire".[71] When the Pharisees accused Jesus of exorcising demons through the power of Beelzebub, Jesus responds by telling the Parable of the Strong Man, saying: "how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house" (Matthew 12:29).[72] The strong man in this parable represents Satan.[73]
+
+The Synoptic Gospels identify Satan and his demons as the causes of illness,[68] including fever (Luke 4:39), leprosy (Luke 5:13), and arthritis (Luke 13:11–16),[68] while the Epistle to the Hebrews describes the Devil as "him who holds the power of death" (Hebrews 2:14).[74] The author of Luke-Acts attributes more power to Satan than both Matthew and Mark.[75] In Luke 22:31, Jesus grants Satan the authority to test Peter and the other apostles.[76] Luke 22:3–6 states that Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus because "Satan entered" him[75] and, in Acts 5:3, Peter describes Satan as "filling" Ananias's heart and causing him to sin.[77] The Gospel of John only uses the name Satan three times.[78] In John 8:44, Jesus says that his Jewish or Judean enemies are the children of the Devil rather than the children of Abraham.[78] The same verse describes the Devil as "a man-killer from the beginning"[78] and "a liar and the father of lying."[78][79] John 13:2 describes the Devil as inspiring Judas to betray Jesus[80] and John 12:31–32 identifies Satan as "the Archon of this Cosmos", who is destined to be overthrown through Jesus's death and resurrection.[81] John 16:7–8 promises that the Holy Spirit will "accuse the World concerning sin, justice, and judgement", a role resembling that of the satan in the Old Testament.[82]
+
+Jude 9 refers to a dispute between Michael the Archangel and the Devil over the body of Moses.[83][84][85] Some interpreters understand this reference to be an allusion to the events described in Zechariah 3:1–2.[84][85] The classical theologian Origen attributes this reference to the non-canonical Assumption of Moses.[86][87] According to James H. Charlesworth, there is no evidence the surviving book of this name ever contained any such content.[88] Others believe it to be in the lost ending of the book.[88][89] The second chapter of the Second Epistle of Peter, a pseudepigraphical letter which falsely claims to have been written by Peter,[90] copies much of the content of the Epistle of Jude,[90] but omits the specifics of the example regarding Michael and Satan, with 2 Peter 2:10–11 instead mentioning only an ambiguous dispute between "Angels" and "Glories".[90] Throughout the New Testament, Satan is referred to as a "tempter" (Matthew 4:3),[8] "the ruler of the demons" (Matthew 12:24),[91][8] "the God of this Age" (2 Corinthians 4:4),[92] "the evil one" (1 John 5:18),[8] and "a roaring lion" (1 Peter 5:8).[91]
+
+The Book of Revelation represents Satan as the supernatural ruler of the Roman Empire and the ultimate cause of all evil in the world.[93] In Revelation 2:9–10, as part of the letter to the church at Smyrna, John of Patmos refers to the Jews of Smyrna as "a synagogue of Satan"[94] and warns that "the Devil is about to cast some of you into prison as a test [peirasmos], and for ten days you will have affliction."[94] In Revelation 2:13–14, in the letter to the church of Pergamum, John warns that Satan lives among the members of the congregation[95] and declares that "Satan's throne" is in their midst.[95] Pergamum was the capital of the Roman Province of Asia[95] and "Satan's throne" may be referring to the monumental Pergamon Altar in the city, which was dedicated to the Greek god Zeus,[95] or to a temple dedicated to the Roman emperor Augustus.[95]
+
+Revelation 12:3 describes a vision of a Great Red Dragon with seven heads, ten horns, seven crowns, and a massive tail,[96] an image which is clearly inspired by the vision of the four beasts from the sea in the Book of Daniel[97] and the Leviathan described in various Old Testament passages.[98] The Great Red Dragon knocks "a third of the sun... a third of the moon, and a third of the stars" out the sky[99] and pursues the Woman of the Apocalypse.[99] Revelation 12:7–9 declares: "And war broke out in Heaven. Michael and his angels fought against Dragon. Dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in Heaven. Dragon the Great was thrown down, that ancient serpent who is called Devil and Satan, the one deceiving the whole inhabited World – he was thrown down to earth and his angels were thrown down with him."[100] Then a voice booms down from Heaven heralding the defeat of "the Accuser" (ho Kantegor), identifying the Satan of Revelation with the satan of the Old Testament.[101]
+
+In Revelation 20:1–3, Satan is bound with a chain and hurled into the Abyss,[102] where he is imprisoned for one thousand years.[102] In Revelation 20:7–10, he is set free and gathers his armies along with Gog and Magog to wage war against the righteous,[102] but is defeated with fire from Heaven, and cast into the lake of fire.[102] Some Christians associate Satan with the number 666, which Revelation 13:18 describes as the Number of the Beast.[103] However, the beast mentioned in Revelation 13 is not Satan,[104] and the use of 666 in the Book of Revelation has been interpreted as a reference to the Roman Emperor Nero, as 666 is the numeric value of his name in Hebrew.[103]
+
+Despite the fact that the Book of Genesis never mentions Satan,[15] Christians have traditionally interpreted the serpent in the Garden of Eden as Satan due to Revelation 12:7, which calls Satan "that ancient serpent".[101][8] This verse, however, is probably intended to identify Satan with the Leviathan,[101] a monstrous sea-serpent whose destruction by Yahweh is prophesied in Isaiah 27:1.[98] The first recorded individual to identify Satan with the serpent from the Garden of Eden was the second-century AD Christian apologist Justin Martyr,[105][106] in chapters 45 and 79 of his Dialogue with Trypho.[106] Other early church fathers to mention this identification include Theophilus and Tertullian.[107] The early Christian Church, however, encountered opposition from pagans such as Celsus, who claimed in his treatise The True Word that "it is blasphemy... to say that the greatest God... has an adversary who constrains his capacity to do good" and said that Christians "impiously divide the kingdom of God, creating a rebellion in it, as if there were opposing factions within the divine, including one that is hostile to God".[108]
+
+The name Heylel, meaning "morning star" (or, in Latin, Lucifer),[c] was a name for Attar, the god of the planet Venus in Canaanite mythology,[111][112] who attempted to scale the walls of the heavenly city,[113][111] but was vanquished by the god of the sun.[113] The name is used in Isaiah 14:12 in metaphorical reference to the king of Babylon.[113] Ezekiel 28:12–15 uses a description of a cherub in Eden as a polemic against Ithobaal II, the king of Tyre.[114] The Church Father Origen of Alexandria (c. 184 – c. 253), who was only aware of the actual text of these passages and not the original myths to which they refer, concluded in his treatise On the First Principles, which is preserved in a Latin translation by Tyrannius Rufinus, that neither of these verses could literally refer to a human being[115] and must therefore be alluding to "a certain Angel who had received the office of governing the nation of the Tyrians," but was hurled down to Earth after he was found to be corrupt.[116][117]
+
+In his apologetic treatise Contra Celsum, however, Origen changed his interpretations of Isaiah 14:12 and Ezekiel 28:12–15, now interpreting both of them as referring to Satan.[118] According to Henry Ansgar Kelly, Origen seems to have adopted this new interpretation to refute unnamed persons who, perhaps under the influence of Zoroastrian radical dualism, believed "that Satan's original nature was Darkness."[119] The later Church Father Jerome (c. 347 – 420), translator of the Latin Vulgate, accepted Origen's theory of Satan as a fallen angel[120] and wrote about it in his commentary on the Book of Isaiah.[120] In Christian tradition ever since, both Isaiah 14:12[121][122] and Ezekiel 28:12–15 have been understood as allegorically referring to Satan.[123][124] For most Christians, Satan has been regarded as an angel who rebelled against God.[125][122]
+
+According to the ransom theory of atonement, which was popular among early Christian theologians,[126][127] Satan gained power over humanity through Adam and Eve's sin[126][128] and Christ's death on the cross was a ransom to Satan in exchange for humanity's liberation.[126][129] This theory holds that Satan was tricked by God[126][130] because Christ was not only free of sin, but also the incarnate Deity, whom Satan lacked the ability to enslave.[130] Irenaeus of Lyons described a prototypical form of the ransom theory,[126] but Origen was the first to propose it in its fully developed form.[126] The theory was later expanded by theologians such as Gregory of Nyssa and Rufinus of Aquileia.[126] In the eleventh century, Anselm of Canterbury criticized the ransom theory, along with the associated Christus Victor theory,[126][131] resulting in the theory's decline in western Europe.[126][131] The theory has nonetheless retained some of its popularity in the Eastern Orthodox Church.[126]
+
+Most early Christians firmly believed that Satan and his demons had the power to possess humans[132] and exorcisms were widely practiced by Jews, Christians, and pagans alike.[132] Belief in demonic possession continued through the Middle Ages into the early modern period.[133][134] Exorcisms were seen as a display of God's power over Satan.[135] The vast majority of people who thought they were possessed by the Devil did not suffer from hallucinations or other "spectacular symptoms", but "complained of anxiety, religious fears, and evil thoughts."[136]
+
+Satan had minimal role in medieval Christian theology,[137] but he frequently appeared as a recurring comedic stock character in late medieval mystery plays, in which he was portrayed as a comic relief figure who "frolicked, fell, and farted in the background".[137] Jeffrey Burton Russell describes the medieval conception of Satan as "more pathetic and repulsive than terrifying"[137][138] and he was seen as little more than a nuisance to God's overarching plan.[137] The Golden Legend, a collection of saints' lives compiled in around 1260 by the Dominican Friar Jacobus da Varagine, contains numerous stories about encounters between saints and Satan,[139] in which Satan is constantly duped by the saints' cleverness and by the power of God.[139] Henry Ansgar Kelly remarks that Satan "comes across as the opposite of fearsome."[140] The Golden Legend was the most popular book during the High and Late Middle Ages[141] and more manuscripts of it have survived from the period than for any other book, including even the Bible itself.[141]
+
+The Canon Episcopi, written in the eleventh century AD, condemns belief in witchcraft as heretical,[142] but also documents that many people at the time apparently believed in it.[142] Witches were believed to fly through the air on broomsticks,[142] consort with demons,[142] perform in "lurid sexual rituals" in the forests,[142] murder human infants and eat them as part of Satanic rites,[143] and engage in conjugal relations with demons.[144][143] In 1326, Pope John XXII issued the papal bull Super illius Specula,[145] which condemned folk divination practices as consultation with Satan.[145] By the 1430s, the Catholic Church began to regard witchcraft as part of a vast conspiracy led by Satan himself.[146]
+
+During the Early Modern Period, Christians gradually began to regard Satan as increasingly powerful[144] and the fear of Satan's power became a dominant aspect of the worldview of Christians across Europe.[135][137] During the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther taught that, rather than trying to argue with Satan, Christians should avoid temptation altogether by seeking out pleasant company;[147] Luther especially recommended music as a safeguard against temptation, since the Devil "cannot endure gaiety."[147] John Calvin repeated a maxim from Saint Augustine that "Man is like a horse, with either God or the devil as rider."[148]
+
+In the late fifteenth century, a series of witchcraft panics erupted in France and Germany.[145][146] The German Inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger argued in their book Malleus Maleficarum, published in 1487, that all maleficia ("sorcery") was rooted in the work of Satan.[149] In the mid-sixteenth century, the panic spread to England and Switzerland.[145] Both Protestants and Catholics alike firmly believed in witchcraft as a real phenomenon and supported its prosecution.[150][151] In the late 1500s, the Dutch demonologist Johann Weyer argued in his treatise De praestigiis daemonum that witchcraft did not exist,[152] but that Satan promoted belief in it to lead Christians astray.[152] The panic over witchcraft intensified in the 1620s and continued until the end of the 1600s.[145] Brian Levack estimates that around 60,000 people were executed for witchcraft during the entire span of the witchcraft hysteria.[145]
+
+The early English settlers of North America, especially the Puritans of New England, believed that Satan "visibly and palpably" reigned in the New World.[153] John Winthrop claimed that the Devil made rebellious Puritan women give birth to stillborn monsters with claws, sharp horns, and "on each foot three claws, like a young fowl."[154] Cotton Mather wrote that devils swarmed around Puritan settlements "like the frogs of Egypt".[155] The Puritans believed that the Native Americans were worshippers of Satan[156] and described them as "children of the Devil".[153] Some settlers claimed to have seen Satan himself appear in the flesh at native ceremonies.[155] During the First Great Awakening, the "new light" preachers portrayed their "old light" critics as ministers of Satan.[157] By the time of the Second Great Awakening, Satan's primary role in American evangelicalism was as the opponent of the evangelical movement itself, who spent most of his time trying to hinder the ministries of evangelical preachers,[158] a role he has largely retained among present-day American fundamentalists.[159]
+
+By the early 1600s, skeptics in Europe, including the English author Reginald Scot and the Anglican bishop John Bancroft, had begun to criticize the belief that demons still had the power to possess people.[160] This skepticism was bolstered by the belief that miracles only occurred during the Apostolic Age, which had long since ended.[161] Later, Enlightenment thinkers, such as David Hume, Denis Diderot, and Voltaire, attacked the notion of Satan's existence altogether.[162] Voltaire labelled John Milton's Paradise Lost a "disgusting fantasy"[162] and declared that belief in Hell and Satan were among the many lies propagated by the Catholic Church to keep humanity enslaved.[162] By the eighteenth century, trials for witchcraft had ceased in most western countries, with the notable exceptions of Poland and Hungary, where they continued.[163] Belief in the power of Satan, however, remained strong among traditional Christians.[163]
+
+Mormonism developed its own views on Satan. According to the Book of Moses, the Devil offered to be the redeemer of mankind for the sake of his own glory. Conversely, Jesus offered to be the redeemer of mankind so that his father's will would be done. After his offer was rejected, Satan became rebellious and was subsequently cast out of heaven.[164] In the Book of Moses, Cain is said to have "loved Satan more than God"[165] and conspired with Satan to kill Abel. It was through this pact that Cain became a Master Mahan.[166] The Book of Moses also says that Moses was tempted by Satan before calling upon the name of the "Only Begotten", which caused Satan to depart. Douglas Davies asserts that this text "reflects" the temptation of Jesus in the Bible.[167]
+
+Belief in Satan and demonic possession remains strong among Christians in the United States[168][169][170] and Latin America.[171] According to a 2013 poll conducted by YouGov, fifty-seven percent of people in the United States believe in a literal Devil,[168] compared to eighteen percent of people in Britain.[168] Fifty-one percent of Americans believe that Satan has the power to possess people.[168] W. Scott Poole, author of Satan in America: The Devil We Know, has opined that "In the United States over the last forty to fifty years, a composite image of Satan has emerged that borrows from both popular culture and theological sources" and that most American Christians do not "separate what they know [about Satan] from the movies from what they know from various ecclesiastical and theological traditions."[154] The Catholic Church generally played down Satan and exorcism during late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries,[171] but Pope Francis brought renewed focus on the Devil in the early 2010s, stating, among many other pronouncements, that "The devil is intelligent, he knows more theology than all the theologians together."[171][172] According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, liberal Christianity tends to view Satan "as a [figurative] mythological attempt to express the reality and extent of evil in the universe, existing outside and apart from humanity but profoundly influencing the human sphere."[173]
+
+Bernard McGinn describes multiple traditions detailing the relationship between the Antichrist and Satan.[174] In the dualist approach, Satan will become incarnate in the Antichrist, just as God became incarnate in Jesus.[174] However, in Orthodox Christian thought, this view is problematic because it is too similar to Christ's incarnation.[174] Instead, the "indwelling" view has become more accepted,[174] which stipulates that the Antichrist is a human figure inhabited by Satan,[174] since the latter's power is not to be seen as equivalent to God's.[174]
+
+The Arabic equivalent of the word Satan is Shaitan (شيطان, from the root šṭn شطن). The word itself is an adjective (meaning "astray" or "distant", sometimes translated as "devil") that can be applied to both man ("al-ins", الإنس) and al-jinn (الجن), but it is also used in reference to Satan in particular. In the Quran, Satan's name is Iblis (Arabic pronunciation: [ˈibliːs]), probably a derivative of the Greek word diabolos.[175] Muslims do not regard Satan as the cause of evil, but as a tempter, who takes advantage of humans' inclinations toward self-centeredness.[176]
+
+Seven suras in the Quran describe how God ordered all the angels and Iblis to bow before the newly-created Adam.[8][177][175] All the angels bowed, but Iblis refused,[8][177][175] claiming to be superior to Adam because he was made from fire; whereas Adam was made from clay (7:12).[175] Consequently, God expelled him from Paradise[8][175] and condemned him to Jahannam.[178][175] Iblis thereafter became a kafir, "an ungrateful disbeliever",[8] whose sole mission is to lead humanity astray.[8][179] God allows Iblis to do this,[8][180] because he knows that the righteous will be able to resist Iblis's attempts to misguide them.[8] On Judgement Day, while the lot of Satan remains in question,[181] those who followed him will be thrown into the fires of Jahannam.[178][175] After his banishment from Paradise, Iblis, who thereafter became known as Al-Shaitan ("the Demon"),[178] lured Adam and Eve into eating the fruit from the forbidden tree.[178][175][182]
+
+The primary characteristic of Satan, aside from his hubris and despair, is his ability to cast evil suggestions (waswās) into men and women.[183] 15:45 states that Satan has no influence over the righteous,[184] but that those who fall in error are under his power.[184] 7:156 implies that those who obey God's laws are immune to the temptations of Satan.[184] 56:79 warns that Satan tries to keep Muslims from reading the Quran[185] and 16:98–100 recommends reciting the Quran as an antidote against Satan.[185] 35:6 refers to Satan as the enemy of humanity[185] and 36:60 forbids humans from worshipping him.[185] In the Quranic retelling of the story of Job, Job knows that Satan is the one tormenting him.[185]
+
+In the Quran, Satan is apparently an angel,[175] but, in 18:50, he is described as "from the jinns".[175] This, combined with the fact that he describes himself as having been made from fire, posed a major problem for Muslims exegetes of the Quran,[175] who disagree on whether Satan is a fallen angel or the leader of a group of evil jinn.[186] According to a hadith from Ibn Abbas, Iblis was actually an angel whom God created out of fire. Ibn Abbas asserts that the word jinn could be applied to earthly jinn, but also to "fiery angels" like Satan.[187]
+
+Hasan of Basra, an eminent Muslim theologian who lived in the seventh century AD, was quoted as saying: "Iblis was not an angel even for the time of an eye wink. He is the origin of Jinn as Adam is of Mankind."[188] The medieval Persian scholar Abu Al-Zamakhshari states that the words angels and jinn are synonyms.[189] Another Persian scholar, Al-Baydawi, instead argues that Satan hoped to be an angel,[189] but that his actions made him a jinn.[189] Other Islamic scholars argue that Satan was a jinn who was admitted into Paradise as a reward for his righteousness and, unlike the angels, was given the choice to obey or disobey God. When he was expelled from Paradise, Satan blamed humanity for his punishment.[190] Concerning the fiery origin of Iblis, Zakariya al-Qazwini and Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Ibshīhī[191] state that all supernatural creatures originated from fire but the angels from its light and the jinn from its blaze, thus fire denotes a disembodiment origin of all spiritual entities.[192] Abd al-Ghani al-Maqdisi argued that only the angels of mercy are created from light, but angels of punishment have been created from fire.[193]
+
+The Muslim historian Al-Tabari, who died in around 923 AD,[175] writes that, before Adam was created, earthly jinn made of smokeless fire roamed the earth and spread corruption.[194] He further relates that Iblis was originally an angel named Azazil or Al-Harith,[195] from a group of angels, in contrast to the jinn, created from the fires of simoom,[196] who was sent by God to confront the earthly jinn.[197][175] Azazil defeated the jinn in battle and drove them into the mountains,[197] but he became convinced that he was superior to humans and all the other angels, leading to his downfall.[197] In this account, Azazil's group of angels were called jinn because they guarded Jannah (Paradise).[198] In another tradition recorded by Al-Tabari, Satan was one of the earthly jinn, who was taken captive by the angels[184][175] and brought to Heaven as a prisoner.[184][175] God appointed him as judge over the other jinn and he became known as Al-Hakam.[184] He fulfilled his duty for a thousand years before growing negligent,[175] but was rehabilitated again and resumed his position until his refusal to bow before Adam.[175]
+
+During the first two centuries of Islam, Muslims almost unanimously accepted the traditional story known as the Satanic Verses as true.[199] According to this narrative, Muhammad was told by Satan to add words to the Quran which would allow Muslims to pray for the intercession of pagan goddesses.[200] He mistook the words of Satan for divine inspiration.[199]  Modern Muslims almost universally reject this story as heretical, as it calls the integrity of the Quran into question.[201]
+
+On the third day of the Hajj, Muslim pilgrims to Mecca throw seven stones at a pillar known as the Jamrah al-’Aqabah, symbolizing the stoning of the Devil.[202] This ritual is based on the Islamic tradition that, when God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael, Satan tempted him three times not to do it, and, each time, Abraham responded by throwing seven stones at him.[202][203]
+
+The hadith teach that newborn babies cry because Satan touches them while they are being born, and that this touch causes people to have an aptitude for sin.[204] This doctrine bears some similarities to the doctrine of original sin.[204] Muslim tradition holds that only Jesus and Mary were not touched by Satan at birth.[204] However, when he was a boy, Muhammad's heart was literally opened by an angel, who removed a black clot that symbolized sin.[204]
+
+Muslim tradition preserves a number of stories involving dialogues between Jesus and Iblis,[197] all of which are intended to demonstrate Jesus's virtue and Satan's depravity.[205] Ahmad ibn Hanbal records an Islamic retelling of Jesus's temptation by Satan in the desert from the Synoptic Gospels.[197] Ahmad quotes Jesus as saying, "The greatest sin is love of the world. Women are the ropes of Satan. Wine is the key to every evil."[205] Abu Uthman al-Jahiz credits Jesus with saying, "The world is Satan's farm, and its people are his plowmen."[197] Al-Ghazali tells an anecdote about how Jesus went out one day and saw Satan carrying ashes and honey;[206] when he asked what they were for, Satan replied, "The honey I put on the lips of backbiters so that they achieve their aim. The ashes I put on the faces of orphans, so that people come to dislike them."[206] The thirteenth-century scholar Sibt ibn al-Jawzi states that, when Jesus asked him what truly broke his back, Satan replied, "The neighing of horses in the cause of Allah."[206]
+
+According to Sufi mysticism, Iblis refused to bow to Adam because he was fully devoted to God alone and refused to bow to anyone else.[207][189] For this reason, Sufi masters regard Satan and Muhammad as the two most perfect monotheists.[207] Sufis reject the concept of dualism[207][208] and instead believe in the unity of existence.[208] In the same way that Muhammad was the instrument of God's mercy,[207] Sufis regard Satan as the instrument of God's wrath.[207]
+
+Muslims believe that Satan is also the cause of deceptions originating from the mind and desires for evil. He is regarded as a cosmic force for separation, despair and spiritual envelopment. Muslims do distinguish between the satanic temptations and the murmurings of the bodily lower self (Nafs). The lower self commands the person to do a specific task or to fulfill a specific desire; whereas the inspirations of Satan tempt the person to do evil in general and, after a person successfully resists his first suggestion, Satan returns with new ones.[209] If a Muslim feels that Satan is inciting him to sin, he is advised to seek refuge with God by reciting: "In the name of Allah, I seek refuge in you, from Satan the outcast." Muslims are also obliged to "seek refuge" before reciting the Quran.[210]
+
+In the Bahá'í Faith, Satan is not regarded as an independent evil power as he is in some faiths,[211][212] but signifies the lower nature of humans.[211][212] `Abdu'l-Bahá explains: "This lower nature in man is symbolized as Satan — the evil ego within us, not an evil personality outside."[211][212] All other evil spirits described in various faith traditions—such as fallen angels, demons, and jinns—are also metaphors for the base character traits a human being may acquire and manifest when he turns away from God.[213] Actions, that are described as "satanic" in some Bahá'í writings, denote humans deeds caused by selfish desires.[214]
+
+Theistic Satanism, commonly referred to as "devil worship",[216] views  Satan as a deity, whom individuals may supplicate to.[217][218] It consists of loosely affiliated or independent groups and cabals, which all agree that Satan is a real entity.[219]
+
+Atheistic Satanism, as practiced by the Satanic Temple and by followers of LaVeyan Satanism, holds that Satan does not exist as a literal anthropomorphic entity, but rather as a symbol of a cosmos which Satanists perceive to be permeated and motivated by a force that has been given many names by humans over the course of time. In this religion, "Satan" is not viewed or depicted as a hubristic, irrational, and fraudulent creature, but rather is revered with Prometheus-like attributes, symbolizing liberty and individual empowerment. To adherents, he also serves as a conceptual framework and an external metaphorical projection of the Satanist's highest personal potential.[220] In his essay "Satanism: The Feared Religion", the current High Priest of the Church of Satan, Peter H. Gilmore, further expounds that "...Satan is a symbol of Man living as his prideful, carnal nature dictates. The reality behind Satan is simply the dark evolutionary force of entropy that permeates all of nature and provides the drive for survival and propagation inherent in all living things. Satan is not a conscious entity to be worshiped, rather a reservoir of power inside each human to be tapped at will".[221]
+
+LaVeyan Satanists embrace the original etymological meaning of the word "Satan" (Hebrew: שָּׂטָן satan, meaning "adversary"). According to Peter H. Gilmore, "The Church of Satan has chosen Satan as its primary symbol because in Hebrew it means adversary, opposer, one to accuse or question. We see ourselves as being these Satans; the adversaries, opposers and accusers of all spiritual belief systems that would try to hamper enjoyment of our life as a human being."[222]
+
+Post-LaVeyan Satanists, like the adherents of The Satanic Temple, argue that the human animal has a natural altruistic and communal tendency, and frame Satan as a figure of struggle against injustice and activism. They also believe in bodily autonomy, that personal beliefs should conform to science and inspire nobility, and that people should atone for their mistakes.[223]
+
+The main deity in the tentatively Indo-European pantheon of the Yazidis, Melek Taus, is similar to the devil in Christian and Islamic traditions, as he refused to bow down before humanity.[224][225] Therefore, Christians and Muslims often consider Melek Taus to be Satan.[224][225] However, rather than being Satanic, Yazidism can be understood as a remnant of a pre-Islamic Middle Eastern Indo-European religion, and/or a ghulat Sufi movement founded by Shaykh Adi. In fact, there is no entity in Yazidism which represents evil in opposition to God; such dualism is rejected by Yazidis.[226]
+
+In the Middle Ages, the Cathars, practitioners of a dualistic religion, were accused of worshipping Satan by the Catholic Church. Pope Gregory IX stated in his work Vox in Rama that the Cathars believed that God had erred in casting Lucifer out of heaven and that Lucifer would return to reward his faithful. On the other hand, according to Catharism, the creator god of the material world worshipped by the Catholic Church is actually Satan.[227]
+
+Wicca is a modern, syncretic Neopagan religion,[228] whose practitioners many Christians have incorrectly assumed to worship Satan.[228] In actuality, Wiccans do not believe in the existence of Satan or any analogous figure[228] and have repeatedly and emphatically rejected the notion that they venerate such an entity.[228] The cult of the skeletal figure of Santa Muerte, which has grown exponentially in Mexico,[229][230] has been denounced by the Catholic Church as Devil-worship.[231] However, devotees of Santa Muerte view her as an angel of death created by God,[232] and many of them identify as Catholic.[233]
+
+Much modern folklore about Satanism does not originate from the actual beliefs or practices of theistic or atheistic Satanists, but rather from a mixture of medieval Christian folk beliefs, political or sociological conspiracy theories, and contemporary urban legends.[234][235][236][237] An example is the Satanic ritual abuse scare of the 1980s — beginning with the memoir Michelle Remembers — which depicted Satanism as a vast conspiracy of elites with a predilection for child abuse and human sacrifice.[235][236] This genre frequently describes Satan as physically incarnating in order to receive worship.[237]
+
+If he was once as handsome as he now is ugly and, despite that, raised his brows against his Maker, one can understand,how every sorrow has its source in him!
+
+Here we may reign secure, and in my choiceto reign is worth ambition though in Hell:Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.
+
+In Dante Alighieri's Inferno, Satan appears as a giant demon, frozen mid-breast in ice at the center of the Ninth Circle of Hell.[238][239] Satan has three faces and a pair of bat-like wings affixed under each chin.[240] In his three mouths, Satan gnaws on Brutus, Judas Iscariot, and Cassius,[240] whom Dante regarded as having betrayed the "two greatest heroes of the human race":[241] Julius Caesar, the founder of the new order of government, and Jesus, the founder of the new order of religion.[241] As Satan beats his wings, he creates a cold wind that continues to freeze the ice surrounding him and the other sinners in the Ninth Circle.[240] Dante and Virgil climb up Satan's shaggy legs until gravity is reversed and they fall through the earth into the southern hemisphere.[241]
+
+Satan appears in several stories from The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer,[242] including "The Summoner's Prologue", in which a friar arrives in Hell and sees no other friars,[243] but is told there are millions.[243] Then Satan lifts his tail to reveal that all of the friars live inside his anus.[243] Chaucer's description of Satan's appearance is clearly based on Dante's.[243] The legend of Faust, recorded in the 1589 chapbook The History of the Damnable Life and the Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus,[244] concerns a pact allegedly made by the German scholar Johann Georg Faust with a demon named Mephistopheles agreeing to sell his soul to Satan in exchange for twenty-four years of earthly pleasure.[244] This chapbook became the source for Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus.[245]
+
+John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost features Satan as its main protagonist.[246][247] Milton portrays Satan as a tragic antihero destroyed by his own hubris.[247] The poem, which draws extensive inspiration from Greek tragedy,[248] recreates Satan as a complex literary character,[249] who dares to rebel against the "tyranny" of God,[250][251] in spite of God's own omnipotence.[250][252] The English poet and painter William Blake famously quipped that "The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true poet and of the Devils party without knowing it."[253] Paradise Regained, the sequel to Paradise Lost, is a retelling of Satan's temptation of Jesus in the desert.[254]
+
+William Blake regarded Satan as a model of rebellion against unjust authority[162] and features him in many of his poems and illustrations,[162] including his 1780 book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,[162] in which Satan is celebrated as the ultimate rebel, the incarnation of human emotion and the epitome of freedom from all forms of reason and orthodoxy.[162] Based on the Biblical passages portraying Satan as the accuser of sin,[255] Blake interpreted Satan as "a promulgator of moral laws."[255]
+
+Satan's appearance is never described in the Bible or any early Christian writings,[258][257] though Paul the Apostle does write that "Satan disguises himself as an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14).[259] The Devil was never shown in early Christian artwork[258][257] and may have first appeared in the sixth century in one of the mosaics of the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo. The mosaic "Christ the Good Sheppard" features a blue-violet angel at the left hand side of Christ behind three goats; opposite to a red angel on the right hand side and in front of sheep.[260] Depictions of the devil became more common in the ninth century,[261][262] where he is shown with cloven hooves, hairy legs, the tail of a goat, pointed ears, a beard, a flat nose, and a set of horns.[256][257][137] Satan may have first become associated with goats through the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, recorded in Matthew 25:31–46,[263] in which Jesus separates sheep (representing the saved) from goats (representing the damned); the damned are thrown into a hell along with "the devil and his angels."[71]
+
+Medieval Christians were known to adapt previously existing pagan iconography to suit depictions of Christian figures.[256][257] Much of Satan's traditional iconography in Christianity appears to be derived from Pan,[256][257] a rustic, goat-legged fertility god in ancient Greek religion.[256][257] Early Christian writers such as Saint Jerome equated the Greek satyrs and the Roman fauns, whom Pan resembled, with demons.[256][257] The Devil's pitchfork appears to have been adapted from the trident wielded by the Greek god Poseidon[257] and Satan's flame-like hair seems to have originated from the Egyptian god Bes.[257] By the High Middle Ages, Satan and devils appear in all works of Christian art: in paintings, sculptures, and on cathedrals.[264] Satan is usually depicted naked,[257] but his genitals are rarely shown and are often covered by animal furs.[257] The goat-like portrayal of Satan was especially closely associated with him in his role as the object of worship by sorcerers[265] and as the incubus, a demon believed to rape human women in their sleep.[265]
+
+Italian frescoes from the late Middle Ages onward frequently show Satan chained in Hell, feeding on the bodies of the perpetually damned.[266] These frescoes are early enough to have inspired Dante's portrayal in his Inferno.[266] As the serpent in the Garden of Eden, Satan is often shown as a snake with arms and legs as well the head and full-breasted upper torso of a woman.[267] Satan and his demons could take any form in medieval art,[268] but, when appearing in their true form, they were often shown as short, hairy, black-skinned humanoids with clawed and bird feet and extra faces on their chests, bellies, genitals, buttocks, and tails.[268] The modern popular culture image of Satan as a well-dressed gentleman with small horns and a tail originates from portrayals of Mephistopheles in the operas La damnation de Faust (1846) by Hector Berlioz, Mefistofele (1868) by Arrigo Boito, and Faust by Charles Gounod.[265]
+
+Detail of Satan from The Last Judgement (c. 1583) by Jacob de Backer
+
+Satan Summoning his Legions (1790) by Thomas Lawrence
+
+Satan and Death with Sin Intervening (c. 1792 or 1802) by Henry Fuseli
+
+The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun (c. 1805) by William Blake
+
+Satan Watching the Caresses of Adam and Eve (c. 1808) by William Blake, an illustration of John Milton's Paradise Lost
+
+Satan Arousing the Rebel Angels (c. 1808) by William Blake, an illustration of John Milton's Paradise Lost
+
+Job's Evil Dreams (1821) by William Blake
+
+The Temptation of Christ by the Devil (1860) by Félix-Joseph Barrias
+
+Depiction of Satan (c. 1866) by Gustave Doré
+
+Illustration (1866) for John Milton's Paradise Lost by Gustave Doré, showing Satan's fall from heaven
+
+Illustration (1866) by Gustave Doré showing Satan as the Prince of Hell, as portrayed in John Milton's Paradise Lost
+
+Illustration (1866) by Gustave Doré showing the angel Abdiel striking Satan upon his "impious crest", as described in John Milton's Paradise Lost, Book VI
+
+Satan (lower right) contends with Michael the Archangel over the body of Moses (Jude 9), Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1860.
+
+Jesus drives Satan (right) away in this 1860 woodcut by von Carolsfeld
+
+Satan afflicting Job from the Nuremberg Chronicle
+
+The Devil is depicted as a vampire bat in Georges Méliès' The Haunted Castle (1896),[269] which is often considered the first horror film.[270] So-called "Black Masses" have been portrayed in sensationalist B-movies since the 1960s.[271] One of the first films to portray such a ritual was the 1965 film Eye of the Devil, also known as 13. Alex Sanders, a former black magician, served as a consultant on the film to ensure that the rituals portrayed in it were depicted accurately.[272] Over the next thirty years, the novels of Dennis Wheatley and the films of Hammer Film Productions both played a major role in shaping the popular image of Satanism.[271]
+
+The film version of Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby established made Satanic themes a staple of mainstream horror fiction.[273] Later films such as The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976) and Angel Heart (1987) feature Satan as an antagonist.[274]
+
+References to Satan in music can be dated back to the Middle Ages. During the fifth century, a musical interval called the tritone became known as "the devil in Music" and was banned by the Catholic Church.[275] Giuseppe Tartini was inspired to write his most famous work, the Violin Sonata in G minor, also known as "The Devil's Trill", after dreaming of the Devil playing the violin. Tartini claimed that the sonata was a lesser imitation of what the Devil had played in his dream.[276] Niccolò Paganini was believed to have derived his musical talent from a deal with the Devil.[277] Charles Gounod's Faust features a narrative that involves Satan.[275]
+
+In the early 1900s, jazz and blues became known as the "Devil's Music" as they were considered "dangerous and unholy".[275] According to legend, blues musician Tommy Johnson was a terrible guitarist before exchanging his soul to the Devil for a guitar. Later, Robert Johnson claimed that he had sold his soul in return for becoming a great blues guitarist.[278] Satanic symbolism appears in rock music from the 1960s. Mick Jagger assumes the role of Lucifer in the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" (1968),[275] while Black Sabbath portrayed the Devil in numerous songs, including "War Pigs" (1970) and "N.I.B." (1970).[279]

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+Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine times that of Earth.[18][19] It only has one-eighth the average density of Earth; however, with its larger volume, Saturn is over 95 times more massive.[20][21][22] Saturn is named after the Roman god of wealth and agriculture; its astronomical symbol (♄) represents the god's sickle.
+
+Saturn's interior is most likely composed of a core of iron–nickel and rock (silicon and oxygen compounds). Its core is surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, an intermediate layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium, and finally a gaseous outer layer. Saturn has a pale yellow hue due to ammonia crystals in its upper atmosphere. An electrical current within the metallic hydrogen layer is thought to give rise to Saturn's planetary magnetic field, which is weaker than the Earth's, but has a magnetic moment 580 times that of Earth due to Saturn's larger size. Saturn's magnetic field strength is around one-twentieth of Jupiter's.[23] The outer atmosphere is generally bland and lacking in contrast, although long-lived features can appear. Wind speeds on Saturn can reach 1,800 km/h (1,100 mph; 500 m/s), higher than on Jupiter, but not as high as those on Neptune.[24] In January 2019, astronomers reported that a day on the planet Saturn has been determined to be 10h 33m 38s + 1m 52s− 1m 19s , based on studies of the planet's C Ring.[12][13]
+
+The planet's most famous feature is its prominent ring system, which is composed mostly of ice particles, with a smaller amount of rocky debris and dust. At least 82 moons[25] are known to orbit Saturn, of which 53 are officially named; this does not include the hundreds of moonlets in its rings. Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and the second-largest in the Solar System, is larger than the planet Mercury, although less massive, and is the only moon in the Solar System to have a substantial atmosphere.[26]
+
+Saturn is a gas giant because it is predominantly composed of hydrogen and helium. It lacks a definite surface, though it may have a solid core.[27] Saturn's rotation causes it to have the shape of an oblate spheroid; that is, it is flattened at the poles and bulges at its equator. Its equatorial and polar radii differ by almost 10%: 60,268 km versus 54,364 km.[9] Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune, the other giant planets in the Solar System, are also oblate but to a lesser extent. The combination of the bulge and rotation rate means that the effective surface gravity along the equator, 8.96 m/s2, is 74% that at the poles and is lower than the surface gravity of Earth. However, the equatorial escape velocity of nearly 36 km/s is much higher than that for Earth.[28]
+
+Saturn is the only planet of the Solar System that is less dense than water—about 30% less.[29] Although Saturn's core is considerably denser than water, the average specific density of the planet is 0.69 g/cm3 due to the atmosphere. Jupiter has 318 times Earth's mass,[30] and Saturn is 95 times Earth's mass.[9] Together, Jupiter and Saturn hold 92% of the total planetary mass in the Solar System.[31]
+
+Despite consisting mostly of hydrogen and helium, most of Saturn's mass is not in the gas phase, because hydrogen becomes a non-ideal liquid when the density is above 0.01 g/cm3, which is reached at a radius containing 99.9% of Saturn's mass. The temperature, pressure, and density inside Saturn all rise steadily toward the core, which causes hydrogen to be a metal in the deeper layers.[31]
+
+Standard planetary models suggest that the interior of Saturn is similar to that of Jupiter, having a small rocky core surrounded by hydrogen and helium, with trace amounts of various volatiles.[32] This core is similar in composition to Earth, but is more dense. The examination of Saturn's gravitational moment, in combination with physical models of the interior, has allowed constraints to be placed on the mass of Saturn's core. In 2004, scientists estimated that the core must be 9–22 times the mass of Earth,[33][34] which corresponds to a diameter of about 25,000 km.[35] This is surrounded by a thicker liquid metallic hydrogen layer, followed by a liquid layer of helium-saturated molecular hydrogen that gradually transitions to a gas with increasing altitude. The outermost layer spans 1,000 km and consists of gas.[36][37][38]
+
+Saturn has a hot interior, reaching 11,700 °C at its core, and it radiates 2.5 times more energy into space than it receives from the Sun. Jupiter's thermal energy is generated by the Kelvin–Helmholtz mechanism of slow gravitational compression, but such a process alone may not be sufficient to explain heat production for Saturn, because it is less massive. An alternative or additional mechanism may be generation of heat through the "raining out" of droplets of helium deep in Saturn's interior. As the droplets descend through the lower-density hydrogen, the process releases heat by friction and leaves Saturn's outer layers depleted of helium.[39][40] These descending droplets may have accumulated into a helium shell surrounding the core.[32] Rainfalls of diamonds have been suggested to occur within Saturn, as well as in Jupiter[41] and ice giants Uranus and Neptune.[42]
+
+The outer atmosphere of Saturn contains 96.3% molecular hydrogen and 3.25% helium by volume.[43] The proportion of helium is significantly deficient compared to the abundance of this element in the Sun.[32] The quantity of elements heavier than helium (metallicity) is not known precisely, but the proportions are assumed to match the primordial abundances from the formation of the Solar System. The total mass of these heavier elements is estimated to be 19–31 times the mass of the Earth, with a significant fraction located in Saturn's core region.[44]
+
+Trace amounts of ammonia, acetylene, ethane, propane, phosphine, and methane have been detected in Saturn's atmosphere.[45][46][47] The upper clouds are composed of ammonia crystals, while the lower level clouds appear to consist of either ammonium hydrosulfide (NH4SH) or water.[48] Ultraviolet radiation from the Sun causes methane photolysis in the upper atmosphere, leading to a series of hydrocarbon chemical reactions with the resulting products being carried downward by eddies and diffusion. This photochemical cycle is modulated by Saturn's annual seasonal cycle.[47]
+
+Saturn's atmosphere exhibits a banded pattern similar to Jupiter's, but Saturn's bands are much fainter and are much wider near the equator. The nomenclature used to describe these bands is the same as on Jupiter. Saturn's finer cloud patterns were not observed until the flybys of the Voyager spacecraft during the 1980s. Since then, Earth-based telescopy has improved to the point where regular observations can be made.[49]
+
+The composition of the clouds varies with depth and increasing pressure. In the upper cloud layers, with the temperature in the range 100–160 K and pressures extending between 0.5–2 bar, the clouds consist of ammonia ice. Water ice clouds begin at a level where the pressure is about 2.5 bar and extend down to 9.5 bar, where temperatures range from 185–270 K. Intermixed in this layer is a band of ammonium hydrosulfide ice, lying in the pressure range 3–6 bar with temperatures of 190–235 K. Finally, the lower layers, where pressures are between 10–20 bar and temperatures are 270–330 K, contains a region of water droplets with ammonia in aqueous solution.[50]
+
+Saturn's usually bland atmosphere occasionally exhibits long-lived ovals and other features common on Jupiter. In 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope imaged an enormous white cloud near Saturn's equator that was not present during the Voyager encounters, and in 1994 another smaller storm was observed. The 1990 storm was an example of a Great White Spot, a unique but short-lived phenomenon that occurs once every Saturnian year, roughly every 30 Earth years, around the time of the northern hemisphere's summer solstice.[51] Previous Great White Spots were observed in 1876, 1903, 1933 and 1960, with the 1933 storm being the most famous. If the periodicity is maintained, another storm will occur in about 2020.[52]
+
+The winds on Saturn are the second fastest among the Solar System's planets, after Neptune's. Voyager data indicate peak easterly winds of 500 m/s (1,800 km/h).[53] In images from the Cassini spacecraft during 2007, Saturn's northern hemisphere displayed a bright blue hue, similar to Uranus. The color was most likely caused by Rayleigh scattering.[54] Thermography has shown that Saturn's south pole has a warm polar vortex, the only known example of such a phenomenon in the Solar System.[55] Whereas temperatures on Saturn are normally −185 °C, temperatures on the vortex often reach as high as −122 °C, suspected to be the warmest spot on Saturn.[55]
+
+A persisting hexagonal wave pattern around the north polar vortex in the atmosphere at about 78°N was first noted in the Voyager images.[56][57][58] The sides of the hexagon are each about 13,800 km (8,600 mi) long, which is longer than the diameter of the Earth.[59] The entire structure rotates with a period of  10h 39m 24s (the same period as that of the planet's radio emissions) which is assumed to be equal to the period of rotation of Saturn's interior.[60] The hexagonal feature does not shift in longitude like the other clouds in the visible atmosphere.[61] The pattern's origin is a matter of much speculation. Most scientists think  it is a standing wave pattern in the atmosphere. Polygonal shapes have been replicated in the laboratory through differential rotation of fluids.[62][63]
+
+HST imaging of the south polar region indicates the presence of a jet stream, but no strong polar vortex nor any hexagonal standing wave.[64] NASA reported in November 2006 that Cassini had observed a "hurricane-like" storm locked to the south pole that had a clearly defined eyewall.[65][66] Eyewall clouds had not previously been seen on any planet other than Earth. For example, images from the Galileo spacecraft did not show an eyewall in the Great Red Spot of Jupiter.[67]
+
+The south pole storm may have been present for billions of years.[68] This vortex is comparable to the size of Earth, and it has winds of 550 km/h.[68]
+
+Cassini observed a series of cloud features nicknamed "String of Pearls" found in northern latitudes. These features are cloud clearings that reside in deeper cloud layers.[69]
+
+Saturn has an intrinsic magnetic field that has a simple, symmetric shape – a magnetic dipole. Its strength at the equator – 0.2 gauss (20 µT) – is approximately one twentieth of that of the field around Jupiter and slightly weaker than Earth's magnetic field.[23] As a result, Saturn's magnetosphere is much smaller than Jupiter's.[71] When Voyager 2 entered the magnetosphere, the solar wind pressure was high and the magnetosphere extended only 19 Saturn radii, or 1.1 million km (712,000 mi),[72] although it enlarged within several hours, and remained so for about three days.[73] Most probably, the magnetic field is generated similarly to that of Jupiter – by currents in the liquid metallic-hydrogen layer called a metallic-hydrogen dynamo.[71] This magnetosphere is efficient at deflecting the solar wind particles from the Sun. The moon Titan orbits within the outer part of Saturn's magnetosphere and contributes plasma from the ionized particles in Titan's outer atmosphere.[23] Saturn's magnetosphere, like Earth's, produces aurorae.[74]
+
+The average distance between Saturn and the Sun is over 1.4 billion kilometers (9 AU). With an average orbital speed of 9.68 km/s,[9] it takes Saturn 10,759 Earth days (or about ​29 1⁄2 years)[75] to finish one revolution around the Sun.[9] As a consequence, it forms a near 5:2 mean-motion resonance with Jupiter.[76] The elliptical orbit of Saturn is inclined 2.48° relative to the orbital plane of the Earth.[9] The perihelion and aphelion distances are, respectively, 9.195 and 9.957 AU, on average.[9][77] The visible features on Saturn rotate at different rates depending on latitude and multiple rotation periods have been assigned to various regions (as in Jupiter's case).
+
+Astronomers use three different systems for specifying the rotation rate of Saturn. System I has a period of  10h 14m 00s (844.3°/d) and encompasses the Equatorial Zone, the South Equatorial Belt, and the North Equatorial Belt. The polar regions are considered to have rotation rates similar to System I. All other Saturnian latitudes, excluding the north and south polar regions, are indicated as System II and have been assigned a rotation period of  10h 38m 25.4s (810.76°/d). System III refers to Saturn's internal rotation rate. Based on radio emissions from the planet detected by Voyager 1 and Voyager 2,[78] System III has a rotation period of  10h 39m 22.4s (810.8°/d). System III has largely superseded System II.[79]
+
+A precise value for the rotation period of the interior remains elusive. While approaching Saturn in 2004, Cassini found that the radio rotation period of Saturn had increased appreciably, to approximately  10h 45m 45s ± 36s.[80][81] The latest estimate of Saturn's rotation (as an indicated rotation rate for Saturn as a whole) based on a compilation of various measurements from the Cassini, Voyager and Pioneer probes was reported in September 2007 is  10h 32m 35s.[82]
+
+In March 2007, it was found that the variation of radio emissions from the planet did not match Saturn's rotation rate. This variance may be caused by geyser activity on Saturn's moon Enceladus. The water vapor emitted into Saturn's orbit by this activity becomes charged and creates a drag upon Saturn's magnetic field, slowing its rotation slightly relative to the rotation of the planet.[83][84][85]
+
+An apparent oddity for Saturn is that it does not have any known trojan asteroids. These are minor planets that orbit the Sun at the stable Lagrangian points, designated L4 and L5, located at 60° angles to the planet along its orbit. Trojan asteroids have been discovered for Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. Orbital resonance mechanisms, including secular resonance, are believed to be the cause of the missing Saturnian trojans.[86]
+
+Saturn has 82 known moons,[25] 53 of which have formal names.[87][88] In addition, there is evidence of dozens to hundreds of moonlets with diameters of 40–500 meters in Saturn's rings,[89] which are not considered to be true moons. Titan, the largest moon, comprises more than 90% of the mass in orbit around Saturn, including the rings.[90] Saturn's second-largest moon, Rhea, may have a tenuous ring system of its own,[91] along with a tenuous atmosphere.[92][93][94]
+
+Many of the other moons are small: 34 are less than 10 km in diameter and another 14 between 10 and 50 km in diameter.[95] Traditionally, most of Saturn's moons have been named after Titans of Greek mythology. Titan is the only satellite in the Solar System with a major atmosphere,[96][97] in which a complex organic chemistry occurs. It is the only satellite with hydrocarbon lakes.[98][99]
+
+On 6 June 2013, scientists at the IAA-CSIC reported the detection of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the upper atmosphere of Titan, a possible precursor for life.[100] On 23 June 2014, NASA claimed to have strong evidence that nitrogen in the atmosphere of Titan came from materials in the Oort cloud, associated with comets, and not from the materials that formed Saturn in earlier times.[101]
+
+Saturn's moon Enceladus, which seems similar in chemical makeup to comets,[102] has often been regarded as a potential habitat for microbial life.[103][104][105][106] Evidence of this possibility includes the satellite's salt-rich particles having an "ocean-like" composition that indicates most of Enceladus's expelled ice comes from the evaporation of liquid salt water.[107][108][109] A 2015 flyby by Cassini through a plume on Enceladus found most of the ingredients to sustain life forms that live by methanogenesis.[110]
+
+In April 2014, NASA scientists reported the possible beginning of a new moon within the A Ring, which was imaged by Cassini on 15 April 2013.[111]
+
+Saturn is probably best known for the system of planetary rings that makes it visually unique.[37] The rings extend from 6,630 to 120,700 kilometers (4,120 to 75,000 mi) outward from Saturn's equator and average approximately 20 meters (66 ft) in thickness. They are composed predominantly of water ice with trace amounts of tholin impurities, and a peppered coating of approximately 7% amorphous carbon.[112] The particles that make up the rings range in size from specks of dust up to 10 m.[113] While the other gas giants also have ring systems, Saturn's is the largest and most visible.
+
+There are two main hypotheses regarding the origin of the rings. One hypothesis is that the rings are remnants of a destroyed moon of Saturn. The second hypothesis is that the rings are left over from the original nebular material from which Saturn was formed. Some ice in the E ring comes from the moon Enceladus's geysers.[114][115][116][117] The water abundance of the rings varies radially, with the outermost ring A being the most pure in ice water. This abundance variance may be explained by meteor bombardment.[118]
+
+Beyond the main rings at a distance of 12 million km from the planet is the sparse Phoebe ring, which is tilted at an angle of 27° to the other rings and, like Phoebe, orbits in retrograde fashion.[119]
+
+Some of the moons of Saturn, including Pandora and Prometheus, act as shepherd moons to confine the rings and prevent them from spreading out.[120] Pan and Atlas cause weak, linear density waves in Saturn's rings that have yielded more reliable calculations of their masses.[121]
+
+The observation and exploration of Saturn can be divided into three phases. The first phase is ancient observations (such as with the naked eye), before the invention of modern telescopes.  The second phase began in the 17th century, with telescopic observations from Earth, which improved over time.  The third phase is visitation by space probes, in orbit or on flyby. In the 21st century, telescopic observations continue from Earth (including Earth-orbiting observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope) and, until its 2017 retirement, from the Cassini orbiter around Saturn.
+
+Saturn has been known since prehistoric times,[122] and in early recorded history it was a major character in various mythologies. Babylonian astronomers systematically observed and recorded the movements of Saturn.[123] In ancient Greek, the planet was known as Φαίνων Phainon,[124] and in Roman times it was known as the "star of Saturn".[125] In ancient Roman mythology, the planet Phainon was sacred to this agricultural god, from which the planet takes its modern name.[126] The Romans considered the god Saturnus the equivalent of the Greek god Cronus; in modern Greek, the planet retains the name Cronus—Κρόνος: Kronos.[127]
+
+The Greek scientist Ptolemy based his calculations of Saturn's orbit on observations he made while it was in opposition.[128] In Hindu astrology, there are nine astrological objects, known as Navagrahas. Saturn is known as "Shani" and judges everyone based on the good and bad deeds performed in life.[126][128] Ancient Chinese and Japanese culture designated the planet Saturn as the "earth star" (土星). This was based on Five Elements which were traditionally used to classify natural elements.[129][130][131]
+
+In ancient Hebrew, Saturn is called 'Shabbathai'.[132] Its angel is Cassiel. Its intelligence or beneficial spirit is 'Agȋȇl (Hebrew: אגיאל‎‎, romanized: ʿAgyal),[133] and its darker spirit (demon) is Zȃzȇl (Hebrew: זאזל‎, romanized: Zazl).[133][134][135] Zazel has been described as a great angel, invoked in Solomonic magic, who is "effective in love conjurations".[136][137] In Ottoman Turkish, Urdu and Malay, the name of Zazel is 'Zuhal', derived from the Arabic language (Arabic: زحل‎, romanized: Zuhal).[134]
+
+Saturn's rings require at least a 15-mm-diameter telescope[138] to resolve and thus were not known to exist until Christiaan Huygens saw them in 1659.  Galileo, with his primitive telescope in 1610,[139][140] incorrectly thought of Saturn's appearing not quite round as two moons on Saturn's sides.[141][142] It was not until Huygens used greater telescopic magnification that this notion was refuted, and the rings were truly seen for the first time. Huygens also discovered Saturn's moon Titan; Giovanni Domenico Cassini later discovered four other moons: Iapetus, Rhea, Tethys and Dione. In 1675, Cassini discovered the gap now known as the Cassini Division.[143]
+
+No further discoveries of significance were made until 1789 when William Herschel discovered two further moons, Mimas and Enceladus. The irregularly shaped satellite Hyperion, which has a resonance with Titan, was discovered in 1848 by a British team.[144]
+
+In 1899 William Henry Pickering discovered Phoebe, a highly irregular satellite that does not rotate synchronously with Saturn as the larger moons do.[144] Phoebe was the first such satellite found and it takes more than a year to orbit Saturn in a retrograde orbit. During the early 20th century, research on Titan led to the confirmation in 1944 that it had a thick atmosphere – a feature unique among the Solar System's moons.[145]
+
+Pioneer 11 made the first flyby of Saturn in September 1979, when it passed within 20,000 km of the planet's cloud tops. Images were taken of the planet and a few of its moons, although their resolution was too low to discern surface detail. The spacecraft also studied Saturn's rings, revealing the thin F-ring and the fact that dark gaps in the rings are bright when viewed at high phase angle (towards the Sun), meaning that they contain fine light-scattering material. In addition, Pioneer 11 measured the temperature of Titan.[146]
+
+In November 1980, the Voyager 1 probe visited the Saturn system. It sent back the first high-resolution images of the planet, its rings and satellites. Surface features of various moons were seen for the first time. Voyager 1 performed a close flyby of Titan, increasing knowledge of the atmosphere of the moon. It proved that Titan's atmosphere is impenetrable in visible wavelengths; therefore no surface details were seen. The flyby changed the spacecraft's trajectory out from the plane of the Solar System.[147]
+
+Almost a year later, in August 1981, Voyager 2 continued the study of the Saturn system. More close-up images of Saturn's moons were acquired, as well as evidence of changes in the atmosphere and the rings. Unfortunately, during the flyby, the probe's turnable camera platform stuck for a couple of days and some planned imaging was lost. Saturn's gravity was used to direct the spacecraft's trajectory towards Uranus.[147]
+
+The probes discovered and confirmed several new satellites orbiting near or within the planet's rings, as well as the small Maxwell Gap (a gap within the C Ring) and Keeler gap (a 42 km-wide gap in the A Ring).
+
+The Cassini–Huygens space probe entered orbit around Saturn on 1 July 2004. In June 2004, it conducted a close flyby of Phoebe, sending back high-resolution images and data. Cassini's flyby of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, captured radar images of large lakes and their coastlines with numerous islands and mountains. The orbiter completed two Titan flybys before releasing the Huygens probe on 25 December 2004. Huygens descended onto the surface of Titan on 14 January 2005.[148]
+
+Starting in early 2005, scientists used Cassini to track lightning on Saturn. The power of the lightning is approximately 1,000 times that of lightning on Earth.[149]
+
+In 2006, NASA reported that Cassini had found evidence of liquid water reservoirs no more than tens of meters below the surface that erupt in geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus. These jets of icy particles are emitted into orbit around Saturn from vents in the moon's south polar region.[151] Over 100 geysers have been identified on Enceladus.[150] In May 2011, NASA scientists reported that Enceladus "is emerging as the most habitable spot beyond Earth in the Solar System for life as we know it".[152][153]
+
+Cassini photographs have revealed a previously undiscovered planetary ring, outside the brighter main rings of Saturn and inside the G and E rings. The source of this ring is hypothesized to be the crashing of a meteoroid off Janus and Epimetheus.[154] In July 2006, images were returned of hydrocarbon lakes near Titan's north pole, the presence of which were confirmed in January 2007. In March 2007, hydrocarbon seas were found near the North pole, the largest of which is almost the size of the Caspian Sea.[155] In October 2006, the probe detected an 8,000 km diameter cyclone-like storm with an eyewall at Saturn's south pole.[156]
+
+From 2004 to 2 November 2009, the probe discovered and confirmed eight new satellites.[157] In April 2013 Cassini sent back images of a hurricane at the planet's north pole 20 times larger than those found on Earth, with winds faster than 530 km/h (330 mph).[158] On 15 September 2017, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft performed the "Grand Finale" of its mission: a number of passes through gaps between Saturn and Saturn's inner rings.[159][160] The atmospheric entry of Cassini ended the mission.
+
+The continued exploration of Saturn is still considered to be a viable option for NASA as part of their ongoing New Frontiers program of missions. NASA previously requested for plans to be put forward for a mission to Saturn that included the Saturn Atmospheric Entry Probe, and possible investigations into the habitability and possible discovery of life on Saturn's moons Titan and Enceladus by Dragonfly.[161][162]
+
+Saturn is the most distant of the five planets easily visible to the naked eye from Earth, the other four being Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter. (Uranus, and occasionally 4 Vesta, are visible to the naked eye in dark skies.) Saturn appears to the naked eye in the night sky as a bright, yellowish point of light. The mean apparent magnitude of Saturn is 0.46 with a standard deviation of 0.34.[16] Most of the magnitude variation is due to the inclination of the ring system relative to the Sun and Earth. The brightest magnitude, −0.55, occurs near in time to when the plane of the rings is inclined most highly, and the faintest magnitude, 1.17, occurs around the time when they are least inclined.[16] It takes approximately 29.5 years for the planet to complete an entire circuit of the ecliptic against the background constellations of the zodiac. Most people will require an optical aid (very large binoculars or a small telescope) that magnifies at least 30 times to achieve an image of Saturn's rings, in which clear resolution is present.[37][138] When Earth passes through the ring plane, which occurs twice every Saturnian year (roughly every 15 Earth years), the rings briefly disappear from view because they are so thin. Such a "disappearance" will next occur in 2025, but Saturn will be too close to the Sun for observations.[163]
+
+Saturn and its rings are best seen when the planet is at, or near, opposition, the configuration of a planet when it is at an elongation of 180°, and thus appears opposite the Sun in the sky. A Saturnian opposition occurs every year—approximately every 378 days—and results in the planet appearing at its brightest. Both the Earth and Saturn orbit the Sun on eccentric orbits, which means their distances from the Sun vary over time, and therefore so do their distances from each other, hence varying the brightness of Saturn from one opposition to the next.  Saturn also appears brighter when the rings are angled such that they are more visible.  For example, during the opposition of 17 December 2002, Saturn appeared at its brightest due to a favorable orientation of its rings relative to the Earth,[164] even though Saturn was closer to the Earth and Sun in late 2003.[164]
+
+From time to time, Saturn is occulted by the Moon (that is, the Moon covers up Saturn in the sky). As with all the planets in the Solar System, occultations of Saturn occur in "seasons". Saturnian occultations will take place monthly for about a 12-month period, followed by about a five-year period in which no such activity is registered. The Moon's orbit is inclined by several degrees relative to Saturn's, so occultations will only occur when Saturn is near one of the points in the sky where the two planes intersect (both the length of Saturn's year and the 18.6-Earth year nodal precession period of the Moon's orbit influence the periodicity).[165]
+
+Solar System → Local Interstellar Cloud → Local Bubble → Gould Belt → Orion Arm → Milky Way → Milky Way subgroup → Local Group → Local Sheet → Virgo Supercluster → Laniakea Supercluster → Observable universe → UniverseEach arrow (→) may be read as "within" or "part of".
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+Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine times that of Earth.[18][19] It only has one-eighth the average density of Earth; however, with its larger volume, Saturn is over 95 times more massive.[20][21][22] Saturn is named after the Roman god of wealth and agriculture; its astronomical symbol (♄) represents the god's sickle.
+
+Saturn's interior is most likely composed of a core of iron–nickel and rock (silicon and oxygen compounds). Its core is surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, an intermediate layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium, and finally a gaseous outer layer. Saturn has a pale yellow hue due to ammonia crystals in its upper atmosphere. An electrical current within the metallic hydrogen layer is thought to give rise to Saturn's planetary magnetic field, which is weaker than the Earth's, but has a magnetic moment 580 times that of Earth due to Saturn's larger size. Saturn's magnetic field strength is around one-twentieth of Jupiter's.[23] The outer atmosphere is generally bland and lacking in contrast, although long-lived features can appear. Wind speeds on Saturn can reach 1,800 km/h (1,100 mph; 500 m/s), higher than on Jupiter, but not as high as those on Neptune.[24] In January 2019, astronomers reported that a day on the planet Saturn has been determined to be 10h 33m 38s + 1m 52s− 1m 19s , based on studies of the planet's C Ring.[12][13]
+
+The planet's most famous feature is its prominent ring system, which is composed mostly of ice particles, with a smaller amount of rocky debris and dust. At least 82 moons[25] are known to orbit Saturn, of which 53 are officially named; this does not include the hundreds of moonlets in its rings. Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and the second-largest in the Solar System, is larger than the planet Mercury, although less massive, and is the only moon in the Solar System to have a substantial atmosphere.[26]
+
+Saturn is a gas giant because it is predominantly composed of hydrogen and helium. It lacks a definite surface, though it may have a solid core.[27] Saturn's rotation causes it to have the shape of an oblate spheroid; that is, it is flattened at the poles and bulges at its equator. Its equatorial and polar radii differ by almost 10%: 60,268 km versus 54,364 km.[9] Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune, the other giant planets in the Solar System, are also oblate but to a lesser extent. The combination of the bulge and rotation rate means that the effective surface gravity along the equator, 8.96 m/s2, is 74% that at the poles and is lower than the surface gravity of Earth. However, the equatorial escape velocity of nearly 36 km/s is much higher than that for Earth.[28]
+
+Saturn is the only planet of the Solar System that is less dense than water—about 30% less.[29] Although Saturn's core is considerably denser than water, the average specific density of the planet is 0.69 g/cm3 due to the atmosphere. Jupiter has 318 times Earth's mass,[30] and Saturn is 95 times Earth's mass.[9] Together, Jupiter and Saturn hold 92% of the total planetary mass in the Solar System.[31]
+
+Despite consisting mostly of hydrogen and helium, most of Saturn's mass is not in the gas phase, because hydrogen becomes a non-ideal liquid when the density is above 0.01 g/cm3, which is reached at a radius containing 99.9% of Saturn's mass. The temperature, pressure, and density inside Saturn all rise steadily toward the core, which causes hydrogen to be a metal in the deeper layers.[31]
+
+Standard planetary models suggest that the interior of Saturn is similar to that of Jupiter, having a small rocky core surrounded by hydrogen and helium, with trace amounts of various volatiles.[32] This core is similar in composition to Earth, but is more dense. The examination of Saturn's gravitational moment, in combination with physical models of the interior, has allowed constraints to be placed on the mass of Saturn's core. In 2004, scientists estimated that the core must be 9–22 times the mass of Earth,[33][34] which corresponds to a diameter of about 25,000 km.[35] This is surrounded by a thicker liquid metallic hydrogen layer, followed by a liquid layer of helium-saturated molecular hydrogen that gradually transitions to a gas with increasing altitude. The outermost layer spans 1,000 km and consists of gas.[36][37][38]
+
+Saturn has a hot interior, reaching 11,700 °C at its core, and it radiates 2.5 times more energy into space than it receives from the Sun. Jupiter's thermal energy is generated by the Kelvin–Helmholtz mechanism of slow gravitational compression, but such a process alone may not be sufficient to explain heat production for Saturn, because it is less massive. An alternative or additional mechanism may be generation of heat through the "raining out" of droplets of helium deep in Saturn's interior. As the droplets descend through the lower-density hydrogen, the process releases heat by friction and leaves Saturn's outer layers depleted of helium.[39][40] These descending droplets may have accumulated into a helium shell surrounding the core.[32] Rainfalls of diamonds have been suggested to occur within Saturn, as well as in Jupiter[41] and ice giants Uranus and Neptune.[42]
+
+The outer atmosphere of Saturn contains 96.3% molecular hydrogen and 3.25% helium by volume.[43] The proportion of helium is significantly deficient compared to the abundance of this element in the Sun.[32] The quantity of elements heavier than helium (metallicity) is not known precisely, but the proportions are assumed to match the primordial abundances from the formation of the Solar System. The total mass of these heavier elements is estimated to be 19–31 times the mass of the Earth, with a significant fraction located in Saturn's core region.[44]
+
+Trace amounts of ammonia, acetylene, ethane, propane, phosphine, and methane have been detected in Saturn's atmosphere.[45][46][47] The upper clouds are composed of ammonia crystals, while the lower level clouds appear to consist of either ammonium hydrosulfide (NH4SH) or water.[48] Ultraviolet radiation from the Sun causes methane photolysis in the upper atmosphere, leading to a series of hydrocarbon chemical reactions with the resulting products being carried downward by eddies and diffusion. This photochemical cycle is modulated by Saturn's annual seasonal cycle.[47]
+
+Saturn's atmosphere exhibits a banded pattern similar to Jupiter's, but Saturn's bands are much fainter and are much wider near the equator. The nomenclature used to describe these bands is the same as on Jupiter. Saturn's finer cloud patterns were not observed until the flybys of the Voyager spacecraft during the 1980s. Since then, Earth-based telescopy has improved to the point where regular observations can be made.[49]
+
+The composition of the clouds varies with depth and increasing pressure. In the upper cloud layers, with the temperature in the range 100–160 K and pressures extending between 0.5–2 bar, the clouds consist of ammonia ice. Water ice clouds begin at a level where the pressure is about 2.5 bar and extend down to 9.5 bar, where temperatures range from 185–270 K. Intermixed in this layer is a band of ammonium hydrosulfide ice, lying in the pressure range 3–6 bar with temperatures of 190–235 K. Finally, the lower layers, where pressures are between 10–20 bar and temperatures are 270–330 K, contains a region of water droplets with ammonia in aqueous solution.[50]
+
+Saturn's usually bland atmosphere occasionally exhibits long-lived ovals and other features common on Jupiter. In 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope imaged an enormous white cloud near Saturn's equator that was not present during the Voyager encounters, and in 1994 another smaller storm was observed. The 1990 storm was an example of a Great White Spot, a unique but short-lived phenomenon that occurs once every Saturnian year, roughly every 30 Earth years, around the time of the northern hemisphere's summer solstice.[51] Previous Great White Spots were observed in 1876, 1903, 1933 and 1960, with the 1933 storm being the most famous. If the periodicity is maintained, another storm will occur in about 2020.[52]
+
+The winds on Saturn are the second fastest among the Solar System's planets, after Neptune's. Voyager data indicate peak easterly winds of 500 m/s (1,800 km/h).[53] In images from the Cassini spacecraft during 2007, Saturn's northern hemisphere displayed a bright blue hue, similar to Uranus. The color was most likely caused by Rayleigh scattering.[54] Thermography has shown that Saturn's south pole has a warm polar vortex, the only known example of such a phenomenon in the Solar System.[55] Whereas temperatures on Saturn are normally −185 °C, temperatures on the vortex often reach as high as −122 °C, suspected to be the warmest spot on Saturn.[55]
+
+A persisting hexagonal wave pattern around the north polar vortex in the atmosphere at about 78°N was first noted in the Voyager images.[56][57][58] The sides of the hexagon are each about 13,800 km (8,600 mi) long, which is longer than the diameter of the Earth.[59] The entire structure rotates with a period of  10h 39m 24s (the same period as that of the planet's radio emissions) which is assumed to be equal to the period of rotation of Saturn's interior.[60] The hexagonal feature does not shift in longitude like the other clouds in the visible atmosphere.[61] The pattern's origin is a matter of much speculation. Most scientists think  it is a standing wave pattern in the atmosphere. Polygonal shapes have been replicated in the laboratory through differential rotation of fluids.[62][63]
+
+HST imaging of the south polar region indicates the presence of a jet stream, but no strong polar vortex nor any hexagonal standing wave.[64] NASA reported in November 2006 that Cassini had observed a "hurricane-like" storm locked to the south pole that had a clearly defined eyewall.[65][66] Eyewall clouds had not previously been seen on any planet other than Earth. For example, images from the Galileo spacecraft did not show an eyewall in the Great Red Spot of Jupiter.[67]
+
+The south pole storm may have been present for billions of years.[68] This vortex is comparable to the size of Earth, and it has winds of 550 km/h.[68]
+
+Cassini observed a series of cloud features nicknamed "String of Pearls" found in northern latitudes. These features are cloud clearings that reside in deeper cloud layers.[69]
+
+Saturn has an intrinsic magnetic field that has a simple, symmetric shape – a magnetic dipole. Its strength at the equator – 0.2 gauss (20 µT) – is approximately one twentieth of that of the field around Jupiter and slightly weaker than Earth's magnetic field.[23] As a result, Saturn's magnetosphere is much smaller than Jupiter's.[71] When Voyager 2 entered the magnetosphere, the solar wind pressure was high and the magnetosphere extended only 19 Saturn radii, or 1.1 million km (712,000 mi),[72] although it enlarged within several hours, and remained so for about three days.[73] Most probably, the magnetic field is generated similarly to that of Jupiter – by currents in the liquid metallic-hydrogen layer called a metallic-hydrogen dynamo.[71] This magnetosphere is efficient at deflecting the solar wind particles from the Sun. The moon Titan orbits within the outer part of Saturn's magnetosphere and contributes plasma from the ionized particles in Titan's outer atmosphere.[23] Saturn's magnetosphere, like Earth's, produces aurorae.[74]
+
+The average distance between Saturn and the Sun is over 1.4 billion kilometers (9 AU). With an average orbital speed of 9.68 km/s,[9] it takes Saturn 10,759 Earth days (or about ​29 1⁄2 years)[75] to finish one revolution around the Sun.[9] As a consequence, it forms a near 5:2 mean-motion resonance with Jupiter.[76] The elliptical orbit of Saturn is inclined 2.48° relative to the orbital plane of the Earth.[9] The perihelion and aphelion distances are, respectively, 9.195 and 9.957 AU, on average.[9][77] The visible features on Saturn rotate at different rates depending on latitude and multiple rotation periods have been assigned to various regions (as in Jupiter's case).
+
+Astronomers use three different systems for specifying the rotation rate of Saturn. System I has a period of  10h 14m 00s (844.3°/d) and encompasses the Equatorial Zone, the South Equatorial Belt, and the North Equatorial Belt. The polar regions are considered to have rotation rates similar to System I. All other Saturnian latitudes, excluding the north and south polar regions, are indicated as System II and have been assigned a rotation period of  10h 38m 25.4s (810.76°/d). System III refers to Saturn's internal rotation rate. Based on radio emissions from the planet detected by Voyager 1 and Voyager 2,[78] System III has a rotation period of  10h 39m 22.4s (810.8°/d). System III has largely superseded System II.[79]
+
+A precise value for the rotation period of the interior remains elusive. While approaching Saturn in 2004, Cassini found that the radio rotation period of Saturn had increased appreciably, to approximately  10h 45m 45s ± 36s.[80][81] The latest estimate of Saturn's rotation (as an indicated rotation rate for Saturn as a whole) based on a compilation of various measurements from the Cassini, Voyager and Pioneer probes was reported in September 2007 is  10h 32m 35s.[82]
+
+In March 2007, it was found that the variation of radio emissions from the planet did not match Saturn's rotation rate. This variance may be caused by geyser activity on Saturn's moon Enceladus. The water vapor emitted into Saturn's orbit by this activity becomes charged and creates a drag upon Saturn's magnetic field, slowing its rotation slightly relative to the rotation of the planet.[83][84][85]
+
+An apparent oddity for Saturn is that it does not have any known trojan asteroids. These are minor planets that orbit the Sun at the stable Lagrangian points, designated L4 and L5, located at 60° angles to the planet along its orbit. Trojan asteroids have been discovered for Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. Orbital resonance mechanisms, including secular resonance, are believed to be the cause of the missing Saturnian trojans.[86]
+
+Saturn has 82 known moons,[25] 53 of which have formal names.[87][88] In addition, there is evidence of dozens to hundreds of moonlets with diameters of 40–500 meters in Saturn's rings,[89] which are not considered to be true moons. Titan, the largest moon, comprises more than 90% of the mass in orbit around Saturn, including the rings.[90] Saturn's second-largest moon, Rhea, may have a tenuous ring system of its own,[91] along with a tenuous atmosphere.[92][93][94]
+
+Many of the other moons are small: 34 are less than 10 km in diameter and another 14 between 10 and 50 km in diameter.[95] Traditionally, most of Saturn's moons have been named after Titans of Greek mythology. Titan is the only satellite in the Solar System with a major atmosphere,[96][97] in which a complex organic chemistry occurs. It is the only satellite with hydrocarbon lakes.[98][99]
+
+On 6 June 2013, scientists at the IAA-CSIC reported the detection of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the upper atmosphere of Titan, a possible precursor for life.[100] On 23 June 2014, NASA claimed to have strong evidence that nitrogen in the atmosphere of Titan came from materials in the Oort cloud, associated with comets, and not from the materials that formed Saturn in earlier times.[101]
+
+Saturn's moon Enceladus, which seems similar in chemical makeup to comets,[102] has often been regarded as a potential habitat for microbial life.[103][104][105][106] Evidence of this possibility includes the satellite's salt-rich particles having an "ocean-like" composition that indicates most of Enceladus's expelled ice comes from the evaporation of liquid salt water.[107][108][109] A 2015 flyby by Cassini through a plume on Enceladus found most of the ingredients to sustain life forms that live by methanogenesis.[110]
+
+In April 2014, NASA scientists reported the possible beginning of a new moon within the A Ring, which was imaged by Cassini on 15 April 2013.[111]
+
+Saturn is probably best known for the system of planetary rings that makes it visually unique.[37] The rings extend from 6,630 to 120,700 kilometers (4,120 to 75,000 mi) outward from Saturn's equator and average approximately 20 meters (66 ft) in thickness. They are composed predominantly of water ice with trace amounts of tholin impurities, and a peppered coating of approximately 7% amorphous carbon.[112] The particles that make up the rings range in size from specks of dust up to 10 m.[113] While the other gas giants also have ring systems, Saturn's is the largest and most visible.
+
+There are two main hypotheses regarding the origin of the rings. One hypothesis is that the rings are remnants of a destroyed moon of Saturn. The second hypothesis is that the rings are left over from the original nebular material from which Saturn was formed. Some ice in the E ring comes from the moon Enceladus's geysers.[114][115][116][117] The water abundance of the rings varies radially, with the outermost ring A being the most pure in ice water. This abundance variance may be explained by meteor bombardment.[118]
+
+Beyond the main rings at a distance of 12 million km from the planet is the sparse Phoebe ring, which is tilted at an angle of 27° to the other rings and, like Phoebe, orbits in retrograde fashion.[119]
+
+Some of the moons of Saturn, including Pandora and Prometheus, act as shepherd moons to confine the rings and prevent them from spreading out.[120] Pan and Atlas cause weak, linear density waves in Saturn's rings that have yielded more reliable calculations of their masses.[121]
+
+The observation and exploration of Saturn can be divided into three phases. The first phase is ancient observations (such as with the naked eye), before the invention of modern telescopes.  The second phase began in the 17th century, with telescopic observations from Earth, which improved over time.  The third phase is visitation by space probes, in orbit or on flyby. In the 21st century, telescopic observations continue from Earth (including Earth-orbiting observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope) and, until its 2017 retirement, from the Cassini orbiter around Saturn.
+
+Saturn has been known since prehistoric times,[122] and in early recorded history it was a major character in various mythologies. Babylonian astronomers systematically observed and recorded the movements of Saturn.[123] In ancient Greek, the planet was known as Φαίνων Phainon,[124] and in Roman times it was known as the "star of Saturn".[125] In ancient Roman mythology, the planet Phainon was sacred to this agricultural god, from which the planet takes its modern name.[126] The Romans considered the god Saturnus the equivalent of the Greek god Cronus; in modern Greek, the planet retains the name Cronus—Κρόνος: Kronos.[127]
+
+The Greek scientist Ptolemy based his calculations of Saturn's orbit on observations he made while it was in opposition.[128] In Hindu astrology, there are nine astrological objects, known as Navagrahas. Saturn is known as "Shani" and judges everyone based on the good and bad deeds performed in life.[126][128] Ancient Chinese and Japanese culture designated the planet Saturn as the "earth star" (土星). This was based on Five Elements which were traditionally used to classify natural elements.[129][130][131]
+
+In ancient Hebrew, Saturn is called 'Shabbathai'.[132] Its angel is Cassiel. Its intelligence or beneficial spirit is 'Agȋȇl (Hebrew: אגיאל‎‎, romanized: ʿAgyal),[133] and its darker spirit (demon) is Zȃzȇl (Hebrew: זאזל‎, romanized: Zazl).[133][134][135] Zazel has been described as a great angel, invoked in Solomonic magic, who is "effective in love conjurations".[136][137] In Ottoman Turkish, Urdu and Malay, the name of Zazel is 'Zuhal', derived from the Arabic language (Arabic: زحل‎, romanized: Zuhal).[134]
+
+Saturn's rings require at least a 15-mm-diameter telescope[138] to resolve and thus were not known to exist until Christiaan Huygens saw them in 1659.  Galileo, with his primitive telescope in 1610,[139][140] incorrectly thought of Saturn's appearing not quite round as two moons on Saturn's sides.[141][142] It was not until Huygens used greater telescopic magnification that this notion was refuted, and the rings were truly seen for the first time. Huygens also discovered Saturn's moon Titan; Giovanni Domenico Cassini later discovered four other moons: Iapetus, Rhea, Tethys and Dione. In 1675, Cassini discovered the gap now known as the Cassini Division.[143]
+
+No further discoveries of significance were made until 1789 when William Herschel discovered two further moons, Mimas and Enceladus. The irregularly shaped satellite Hyperion, which has a resonance with Titan, was discovered in 1848 by a British team.[144]
+
+In 1899 William Henry Pickering discovered Phoebe, a highly irregular satellite that does not rotate synchronously with Saturn as the larger moons do.[144] Phoebe was the first such satellite found and it takes more than a year to orbit Saturn in a retrograde orbit. During the early 20th century, research on Titan led to the confirmation in 1944 that it had a thick atmosphere – a feature unique among the Solar System's moons.[145]
+
+Pioneer 11 made the first flyby of Saturn in September 1979, when it passed within 20,000 km of the planet's cloud tops. Images were taken of the planet and a few of its moons, although their resolution was too low to discern surface detail. The spacecraft also studied Saturn's rings, revealing the thin F-ring and the fact that dark gaps in the rings are bright when viewed at high phase angle (towards the Sun), meaning that they contain fine light-scattering material. In addition, Pioneer 11 measured the temperature of Titan.[146]
+
+In November 1980, the Voyager 1 probe visited the Saturn system. It sent back the first high-resolution images of the planet, its rings and satellites. Surface features of various moons were seen for the first time. Voyager 1 performed a close flyby of Titan, increasing knowledge of the atmosphere of the moon. It proved that Titan's atmosphere is impenetrable in visible wavelengths; therefore no surface details were seen. The flyby changed the spacecraft's trajectory out from the plane of the Solar System.[147]
+
+Almost a year later, in August 1981, Voyager 2 continued the study of the Saturn system. More close-up images of Saturn's moons were acquired, as well as evidence of changes in the atmosphere and the rings. Unfortunately, during the flyby, the probe's turnable camera platform stuck for a couple of days and some planned imaging was lost. Saturn's gravity was used to direct the spacecraft's trajectory towards Uranus.[147]
+
+The probes discovered and confirmed several new satellites orbiting near or within the planet's rings, as well as the small Maxwell Gap (a gap within the C Ring) and Keeler gap (a 42 km-wide gap in the A Ring).
+
+The Cassini–Huygens space probe entered orbit around Saturn on 1 July 2004. In June 2004, it conducted a close flyby of Phoebe, sending back high-resolution images and data. Cassini's flyby of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, captured radar images of large lakes and their coastlines with numerous islands and mountains. The orbiter completed two Titan flybys before releasing the Huygens probe on 25 December 2004. Huygens descended onto the surface of Titan on 14 January 2005.[148]
+
+Starting in early 2005, scientists used Cassini to track lightning on Saturn. The power of the lightning is approximately 1,000 times that of lightning on Earth.[149]
+
+In 2006, NASA reported that Cassini had found evidence of liquid water reservoirs no more than tens of meters below the surface that erupt in geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus. These jets of icy particles are emitted into orbit around Saturn from vents in the moon's south polar region.[151] Over 100 geysers have been identified on Enceladus.[150] In May 2011, NASA scientists reported that Enceladus "is emerging as the most habitable spot beyond Earth in the Solar System for life as we know it".[152][153]
+
+Cassini photographs have revealed a previously undiscovered planetary ring, outside the brighter main rings of Saturn and inside the G and E rings. The source of this ring is hypothesized to be the crashing of a meteoroid off Janus and Epimetheus.[154] In July 2006, images were returned of hydrocarbon lakes near Titan's north pole, the presence of which were confirmed in January 2007. In March 2007, hydrocarbon seas were found near the North pole, the largest of which is almost the size of the Caspian Sea.[155] In October 2006, the probe detected an 8,000 km diameter cyclone-like storm with an eyewall at Saturn's south pole.[156]
+
+From 2004 to 2 November 2009, the probe discovered and confirmed eight new satellites.[157] In April 2013 Cassini sent back images of a hurricane at the planet's north pole 20 times larger than those found on Earth, with winds faster than 530 km/h (330 mph).[158] On 15 September 2017, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft performed the "Grand Finale" of its mission: a number of passes through gaps between Saturn and Saturn's inner rings.[159][160] The atmospheric entry of Cassini ended the mission.
+
+The continued exploration of Saturn is still considered to be a viable option for NASA as part of their ongoing New Frontiers program of missions. NASA previously requested for plans to be put forward for a mission to Saturn that included the Saturn Atmospheric Entry Probe, and possible investigations into the habitability and possible discovery of life on Saturn's moons Titan and Enceladus by Dragonfly.[161][162]
+
+Saturn is the most distant of the five planets easily visible to the naked eye from Earth, the other four being Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter. (Uranus, and occasionally 4 Vesta, are visible to the naked eye in dark skies.) Saturn appears to the naked eye in the night sky as a bright, yellowish point of light. The mean apparent magnitude of Saturn is 0.46 with a standard deviation of 0.34.[16] Most of the magnitude variation is due to the inclination of the ring system relative to the Sun and Earth. The brightest magnitude, −0.55, occurs near in time to when the plane of the rings is inclined most highly, and the faintest magnitude, 1.17, occurs around the time when they are least inclined.[16] It takes approximately 29.5 years for the planet to complete an entire circuit of the ecliptic against the background constellations of the zodiac. Most people will require an optical aid (very large binoculars or a small telescope) that magnifies at least 30 times to achieve an image of Saturn's rings, in which clear resolution is present.[37][138] When Earth passes through the ring plane, which occurs twice every Saturnian year (roughly every 15 Earth years), the rings briefly disappear from view because they are so thin. Such a "disappearance" will next occur in 2025, but Saturn will be too close to the Sun for observations.[163]
+
+Saturn and its rings are best seen when the planet is at, or near, opposition, the configuration of a planet when it is at an elongation of 180°, and thus appears opposite the Sun in the sky. A Saturnian opposition occurs every year—approximately every 378 days—and results in the planet appearing at its brightest. Both the Earth and Saturn orbit the Sun on eccentric orbits, which means their distances from the Sun vary over time, and therefore so do their distances from each other, hence varying the brightness of Saturn from one opposition to the next.  Saturn also appears brighter when the rings are angled such that they are more visible.  For example, during the opposition of 17 December 2002, Saturn appeared at its brightest due to a favorable orientation of its rings relative to the Earth,[164] even though Saturn was closer to the Earth and Sun in late 2003.[164]
+
+From time to time, Saturn is occulted by the Moon (that is, the Moon covers up Saturn in the sky). As with all the planets in the Solar System, occultations of Saturn occur in "seasons". Saturnian occultations will take place monthly for about a 12-month period, followed by about a five-year period in which no such activity is registered. The Moon's orbit is inclined by several degrees relative to Saturn's, so occultations will only occur when Saturn is near one of the points in the sky where the two planes intersect (both the length of Saturn's year and the 18.6-Earth year nodal precession period of the Moon's orbit influence the periodicity).[165]
+
+Solar System → Local Interstellar Cloud → Local Bubble → Gould Belt → Orion Arm → Milky Way → Milky Way subgroup → Local Group → Local Sheet → Virgo Supercluster → Laniakea Supercluster → Observable universe → UniverseEach arrow (→) may be read as "within" or "part of".
+

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+
+
+About 400.[2] See List of Salix species
+
+Willows, also called sallows and osiers, form the genus Salix, around 400 species[2] of deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Most species are known as willow, but some narrow-leaved shrub species are called osier, and some broader-leaved species are referred to as sallow (from Old English sealh, related to the Latin word salix, willow). Some willows (particularly arctic and alpine species) are low-growing or creeping shrubs; for example, the dwarf willow (Salix herbacea) rarely exceeds 6 cm (2.4 in) in height, though it spreads widely across the ground.
+
+Willows all have abundant watery bark sap, which is heavily charged with salicylic acid, soft, usually pliant, tough wood, slender branches, and large, fibrous, often stoloniferous roots. The roots are remarkable for their toughness, size, and tenacity to live, and roots readily sprout from aerial parts of the plant.[3]
+
+The leaves are typically elongated, but may also be round to oval, frequently with serrated edges. Most species are deciduous; semievergreen willows with coriaceous leaves are rare, e.g. Salix micans and S. australior in the eastern Mediterranean. All the buds are lateral; no absolutely terminal bud is ever formed. The buds are covered by a single scale. Usually, the bud scale is fused into a cap-like shape, but in some species it wraps around and the edges overlap.[4] The leaves are simple, feather-veined, and typically linear-lanceolate. Usually they are serrate, rounded at base, acute or acuminate. The leaf petioles are short, the stipules often very conspicuous, resembling tiny, round leaves, and sometimes remaining for half the summer. On some species, however, they are small, inconspicuous, and caducous (soon falling). In color, the leaves show a great variety of greens, ranging from yellowish to bluish color. Willows are among the earliest woody plants to leaf out in spring and the last to drop their leaves in autumn. Leafout may occur as early as February depending on the climate and is stimulated by air temperature. If daytime highs reach 55 °F (10 °C) for a few consecutive days, a willow will attempt to put out leaves and flowers. Leaf drop in autumn occurs when day length shortens to approximately ten hours and 25 minutes, which varies by latitude (as early as the first week of October for boreal species such as S. alaxensis and as late as the third week of December for willows growing in far southern areas).
+
+Willows are dioecious, with male and female flowers appearing as catkins on separate plants; the catkins are produced early in the spring, often before the leaves.
+
+The staminate (male) flowers are without either calyx with corolla; they consist simply of stamens, varying in number from two to 10, accompanied by a nectariferous gland and inserted on the base of a scale which is itself borne on the rachis of a drooping raceme called a catkin, or ament. This scale is square, entire, and very hairy. The anthers are rose-colored in the bud, but orange or purple after the flower opens; they are two-celled and the cells open latitudinally. The filaments are threadlike, usually pale brown, and often bald.
+
+The pistillate (female) flowers are also without calyx or corolla, and consist of a single ovary accompanied by a small, flat nectar gland and inserted on the base of a scale which is likewise borne on the rachis of a catkin. The ovary is one-celled, the style two-lobed, and the ovules numerous.
+
+Almost all willows take root very readily from cuttings or where broken branches lie on the ground. The few exceptions include the goat willow (Salix caprea) and peachleaf willow (Salix amygdaloides). One famous example of such growth from cuttings involves the poet Alexander Pope, who begged a twig from a parcel tied with twigs sent from Spain to Lady Suffolk. This twig was planted and thrived, and legend has it that all of England's weeping willows are descended from this first one.[5][6]
+
+Willows are often planted on the borders of streams so their interlacing roots may protect the bank against the action of the water. Frequently, the roots are much larger than the stem which grows from them.
+
+Willows have a wide natural distribution from the tropics to the arctic zones and are extensively cultivated around the world.[7]
+
+Willows are very cross-compatible, and numerous hybrids occur, both naturally and in cultivation. A well-known ornamental example is the weeping willow (Salix × sepulcralis), which is a hybrid of Peking willow (Salix babylonica) from China and white willow (Salix alba) from Europe.
+
+The hybrid cultivar 'Boydii' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.[8]
+
+Numerous cultivars of Salix L. have been developed and named over the centuries. New selections of cultivars with superior technical and ornamental characteristics have been chosen deliberately and applied to various purposes. Most recently, Salix has become an important source for bioenergy production and for various ecosystem services.
+
+The first edition of the Checklist for Cultivars of Salix L. (willow) was compiled in 2015, which includes 854 cultivar epithets with accompanying information.
+
+The International Poplar Commission of the FAO UN holds the International Cultivar Registration Authority (ICRAs) for the genus Salix (willows). The ICRA for Salix produces and maintains The International Register of Cultivars of Salix L. (willow).
+
+Willows are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species, such as the mourning cloak butterfly.[9] Ants, such as wood ants, are common on willows inhabited by aphids, coming to collect aphid honeydew, as sometimes do wasps.
+
+A small number of willow species were widely planted in Australia, notably as erosion-control measures along watercourses. They are now regarded as invasive weeds which occupy extensive areas across southern Australia and are considered 'Weeds of National Significance'. Many catchment management authorities are removing and replacing them with native trees.[10][11]
+
+Willow roots spread widely and are very aggressive in seeking out moisture; for this reason, they can become problematic when planted in residential areas, where the roots are notorious for clogging French drains, drainage systems, weeping tiles, septic systems, storm drains, and sewer systems, particularly older, tile, concrete, or ceramic pipes. Newer, PVC sewer pipes are much less leaky at the joints, and are therefore less susceptible to problems from willow roots; the same is true of water supply piping.[12][13]
+
+Willow species are hosts to more than a hundred aphid species, belonging to Chaitophorus and other genera,[14] forming large colonies to feed on plant juices, on the underside of leaves in particular.[15] Corythucha elegans, the willow lace bug, is a bug species in the family Tingidae found on willows in North America.
+
+Rust, caused by fungi of genus Melampsora, is known to damage leaves of willows, covering them with orange spots.[16]
+
+The leaves and bark of the willow tree have been mentioned in ancient texts from Assyria, Sumer and Egypt[citation needed] as a remedy for aches and fever,[17] and in Ancient Greece the physician Hippocrates wrote about its medicinal properties in the fifth century BC. Native Americans across the Americas relied on it as a staple of their medical treatments. It provides temporary pain relief.
+Salicin is metabolized into salicylic acid in the human body, and is a precursor of aspirin.[18] In 1763, its medicinal properties were observed by the Reverend Edward Stone in England. He notified the Royal Society, which published his findings. The active extract of the bark, called salicin, was isolated to its crystalline form in 1828 by Henri Leroux, a French pharmacist, and Raffaele Piria, an Italian chemist, who then succeeded in separating out the compound in its pure state. In 1897, Felix Hoffmann created a synthetically altered version of salicin (in his case derived from the Spiraea plant), which caused less digestive upset than pure salicylic acid. The new drug, formally acetylsalicylic acid, was named Aspirin by Hoffmann's employer Bayer AG. This gave rise to the hugely important class of drugs known as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).
+
+Some of humans' earliest manufactured items may have been made from willow. A fishing net made from willow dates back to 8300 BC.[19] Basic crafts, such as baskets, fish traps, wattle fences and wattle and daub house walls, were often woven from osiers or withies (rod-like willow shoots, often grown in coppices). One of the forms of Welsh coracle boat traditionally uses willow in the framework. Thin or split willow rods can be woven into wicker, which also has a long history. The relatively pliable willow is less likely to split while being woven than many other woods, and can be bent around sharp corners in basketry. Willow wood is also used in the manufacture of boxes, brooms, cricket bats, cradle boards, chairmans and other furniture, dolls, flutes, poles, sweat lodges, toys, turnery, tool handles, veneer, wands and whistles. In addition, tannin, fibre, paper, rope and string can be produced from the wood. Willow is also used in the manufacture of double basses for backs, sides and linings, and in making splines and blocks for bass repair.
+
+The willow is one of the four species associated with the Jewish festival of Sukkot, or the Feast of Tabernacles, cited in Leviticus 23:40. Willow branches are also used during the synagogue service on Hoshana Rabbah, the seventh day of Sukkot.
+
+In China, some people carry willow branches with them on the day of their Tomb Sweeping or Qingming Festival. Willow branches are also put up on gates and/or front doors, which they believe help ward off the evil spirits that wander on Qingming. Legend states that on Qingming Festival, the ruler of the underworld allows the spirits of the dead to return to earth. Since their presence may not always be welcome, willow branches keep them away.[30] In traditional pictures of the Goddess of Mercy Guanyin, she is often shown seated on a rock with a willow branch in a vase of water at her side. The Goddess employs this mysterious water and the branch for putting demons to flight. Taoist witches also use a small carving made from willow wood for communicating with the spirits of the dead. The image is sent to the nether world, where the disembodied spirit is deemed to enter it, and give the desired information to surviving relatives on its return.[31] The willow is a famous subject in many East Asian nations' cultures, particularly in pen and ink paintings from China and Japan.
+
+A gisaeng (Korean geisha) named Hongrang, who lived in the middle of the Joseon Dynasty, wrote the poem "By the willow in the rain in the evening", which she gave to her parting lover (Choi Gyeong-chang).[32] Hongrang wrote:
+
+"... I will be the willow on your bedside."
+
+In Japanese tradition, the willow is associated with ghosts. It is popularly supposed that a ghost will appear where a willow grows. Willow trees are also quite prevalent in folklore and myths.[33][34]
+
+In English folklore, a willow tree is believed to be quite sinister, capable of uprooting itself and stalking travellers. The Viminal Hill, one of the Seven Hills of Rome, derives its name from the Latin word for osier, viminia (pl.).
+
+Hans Christian Andersen wrote a story called "Under the Willow Tree" (1853) in which children ask questions of a tree they call "willow-father", paired with another entity called "elder-mother".[35]
+
+"Green Willow" is a Japanese ghost story in which a young samurai falls in love with a woman called Green Willow who has a close spiritual connection with a willow tree.[36] "The Willow Wife" is another, not dissimilar tale.[37] "Wisdom of the Willow Tree" is an Osage Nation story in which a young man seeks answers from a willow tree, addressing the tree in conversation as 'Grandfather'.[38]
+
+The genus Salix is made up of around 400 species[2] of deciduous trees and shrubs:
+
+The recent name changes for well-known and economically important willows (Salix L.)[1]

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+
+
+Ballet (French: [balɛ]) is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread, highly technical form of dance with its own vocabulary based on French terminology. It has been globally influential and has defined the foundational techniques used in many other dance genres and cultures. Ballet has been taught in various schools around the world, which have historically incorporated their own cultures and as a result, the art has evolved in a number of distinct ways. See glossary of ballet.
+
+A ballet, a work, consists of the choreography and music for a ballet production. Ballets are choreographed and performed by trained ballet dancers. Traditional classical ballets are usually performed with classical music accompaniment and use elaborate costumes and staging, whereas modern ballets, such as the neoclassical works of American choreographer George Balanchine, are often performed in simple costumes (e.g., leotards and tights) and without the use of elaborate sets or scenery.
+
+Ballet is a French word which had its origin in Italian balletto, a diminutive of ballo (dance) which comes from Latin ballo, ballare, meaning "to dance",[1][2] which in turn comes from the Greek "βαλλίζω" (ballizo), "to dance, to jump about".[2][3] The word came into English usage from the French around 1630.
+
+Ballet originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Under Catherine de' Medici's influence as Queen, it spread to France, where it developed even further.[4] The dancers in these early court ballets were mostly noble amateurs.  Ornamented costumes were meant to impress viewers, but they restricted performers' freedom of movement.[5]
+
+The ballets were performed in large chambers with viewers on three sides.  The implementation of the proscenium arch from 1618 on distanced performers from audience members, who could then better view and appreciate the technical feats of the professional dancers in the productions.[citation needed]
+
+French court ballet reached its height under the reign of King Louis XIV. Louis founded the Académie Royale de Danse (Royal Dance Academy) in 1661 to establish standards and certify dance instructors.[6] In 1672, Louis XIV made Jean-Baptiste Lully the director of the Académie Royale de Musique (Paris Opera) from which the first professional ballet company, the Paris Opera Ballet, arose.[7] Pierre Beauchamp served as Lully's ballet-master. Together their partnership would drastically influence the development of ballet, as evidenced by the credit given to them for the creation of the five major positions of the feet.  By 1681, the first "ballerinas" took the stage following years of training at the Académie.[5]
+
+Ballet started to decline in France after 1830, but it continued to develop in Denmark, Italy, and Russia. The arrival in Europe of the Ballets Russes led by Sergei Diaghilev on the eve of the First World War revived interest in the ballet and started the modern era.[8]
+
+In the twentieth century, ballet had a wide influence on other dance genres,[9]  Also in the twentieth century, ballet took a turn dividing it from classical ballet to the introduction of modern dance, leading to modernist movements in several countries.[10]
+
+Famous dancers of the twentieth century include Anna Pavlova, Galina Ulanova, Rudolf Nureyev, Maya Plisetskaya, Margot Fonteyn, Rosella Hightower, Maria Tall Chief, Erik Bruhn, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Suzanne Farrell, Gelsey Kirkland, Natalia Makarova, and Arthur Mitchell.[11]
+
+Stylistic variations and subgenres have evolved over time. Early, classical variations are primarily associated with geographic origin. Examples of this are Russian ballet, French ballet, and Italian ballet. Later variations, such as contemporary ballet and neoclassical ballet, incorporate both classical ballet and non-traditional technique and movement. Perhaps the most widely known and performed ballet style is late Romantic ballet (or Ballet blanc).
+
+Classical ballet is based on traditional ballet technique and vocabulary.[12] Different styles have emerged in different countries, such as French ballet, Italian ballet, English ballet, and Russian ballet. Several of the classical ballet styles are associated with specific training methods, typically named after their creators (see below).  The Royal Academy of Dance method is a ballet technique and training system that was founded by a diverse group of ballet dancers. They merged their respective dance methods (Italian, French, Danish and Russian) to create a new style of ballet that is unique to the organization and is recognized internationally as the English style of ballet.[8] Some examples of classical ballet productions are: Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker.
+
+Romantic ballet was an artistic movement of classical ballet and several productions remain in the classical repertoire today. The Romantic era was marked by the emergence of pointe work, the dominance of female dancers, and longer, flowy tutus that attempt to exemplify softness and a delicate aura.[5] This movement occurred during the early to mid-nineteenth century (the Romantic era) and featured themes that emphasized intense emotion as a source of aesthetic experience. The plots of many romantic ballets revolved around spirit women (sylphs, wilis, and ghosts) who enslaved the hearts and senses of mortal men. The 1827 ballet La Sylphide is widely considered to be the first, and the 1870 ballet Coppélia is considered to be the last.[4] Famous ballet dancers of the Romantic era include Marie Taglioni, Fanny Elssler, and Jules Perrot. Jules Perrot is also known for his choreography, especially that of Giselle, often considered to be the most widely celebrated romantic ballet.[5]
+
+Neoclassical ballet is usually abstract, with no clear plot, costumes or scenery. Music choice can be diverse and will often include music that is also neoclassical (e.g. Stravinsky, Roussel). Tim Scholl, author of From Petipa to Balanchine, considers George Balanchine's Apollo in 1928 to be the first neoclassical ballet. Apollo represented a return to form in response to Sergei Diaghilev's abstract ballets. Balanchine worked with modern dance choreographer Martha Graham, and brought modern dancers into his company such as Paul Taylor, who in 1959 performed in Balanchine's Episodes.[13]
+
+While Balanchine is widely considered the face of neoclassical ballet, there were others who made significant contributions. Frederick Ashton’s Symphonic Variations (1946) is a seminal work for the choreographer. Set to César Franck’s score of the same title, it is a pure-dance interpretation of the score.[5]
+
+Another form, Modern Ballet, also emerged as an offshoot of neoclassicism. Among the innovators in this form were Glen Tetley, Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino. While difficult to parse modern ballet from neoclassicism, the work of these choreographers favored a greater athleticism that departed from the delicacy of ballet. The physicality was more daring, with mood, subject matter and music more intense. An example of this would be Joffrey's Astarte (1967), which featured a rock score and sexual overtones in the choreography.[8]
+
+This ballet style is often performed barefoot. Contemporary ballets may include mime and acting, and are usually set to music (typically orchestral but occasionally vocal). It can be difficult to differentiate this form from neoclassical or modern ballet. Contemporary ballet is also close to contemporary dance because many contemporary ballet concepts come from the ideas and innovations of twentieth-century modern dance, including floor work and turn-in of the legs. The main distinction is that ballet technique is essential to perform a contemporary ballet.
+
+George Balanchine is considered to have been a pioneer of contemporary ballet. Another early contemporary ballet choreographer, Twyla Tharp, choreographed Push Comes To Shove for the American Ballet Theatre in 1976, and in 1986 created In The Upper Room for her own company. Both of these pieces were considered innovative for their melding of distinctly modern movements with the use of pointe shoes and classically trained dancers.
+
+Today there are many contemporary ballet companies and choreographers. These include Alonzo King and his company LINES Ballet; Matthew Bourne and his company New Adventures; Complexions Contemporary Ballet; Nacho Duato and his Compañia Nacional de Danza; William Forsythe and The Forsythe Company; and Jiří Kylián of the Nederlands Dans Theater. Traditionally "classical" companies, such as the Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet and the Paris Opera Ballet, also regularly perform contemporary works.
+
+The term ballet has evolved to include all forms associated with it. Someone training as a ballet dancer will now be expected to perform neoclassical, modern and contemporary work. A ballet dancer is expected to be able to be stately and regal for classical work, free and lyrical in neoclassical work, and unassuming, harsh or pedestrian for modern and contemporary work. In addition, there are several modern varieties of dance that fuse classical ballet technique with contemporary dance, such as Hiplet, that require dancers to be practised in non-Western dance styles.[14]
+
+There are six widely used, internationally recognized methods to teach or study ballet. These methods are the French School, the Vaganova Method, the Cecchetti Method, the Bournonville method, the Royal Academy of Dance method (English style), and the Balanchine method (American style). Many more schools of technique exist in various countries.
+
+Although preschool-age children are a lucrative source of income for a ballet studio, ballet instruction is generally not an age-appropriate for young children.[15] The initial instruction requires standing still and concentrating on posture, rather than dancing. Because of this, many ballet programs have historically not accepted students until approximately age 8. Creative movement and non-demanding pre-ballet classes are recommended as alternatives for children.[16][17]
+
+The French method is the basis of all ballet training. When Louis XIV created the Académie Royale de Danse in 1661, he helped to create the codified technique still used today by those in the profession, regardless of what method of training they adhere to. The French school was particularly revitalized under Rudolf Nureyev, in the 1980s. His influence revitalized and renewed appreciation for this style, and has drastically shaped ballet as a whole.[18]  In fact, the French school is now sometimes referred to as Nureyev school. The French method is often characterized by technical precision, fluidity and gracefulness, and elegant, clean lines. For this style, fast footwork is often utilized in order to give the impression that the performers are drifting lightly across the stage.[19] Two important trademarks of this technique are the specific way in which the port de bras and the épaulement are performed, more rounded than when dancing in a Russian style, but not as rounded as the Danish style.[20]
+
+The Vaganova method is a style of ballet training that emerged from Russian ballet, created by Agrippina Vaganova. After retiring from dance in 1916, Vaganova turned to teaching at the Leningrad Choreographic School in 1921. Her training method is now internationally recognized and her book, The Fundamentals of Classical Dance (1934), is a classic reference. This method is marked by the fusion of the classical French style, specifically elements from the Romantic era, with the athleticism of the Italian method, and the soulful passion of Russian ballet.[19] She developed an extremely precise method of instruction in her book Basic Principles of Russian Classical dance (1948). This includes outlining when to teach technical components to students in their ballet careers, for how long to focus on it, and the right amount of focus at each stage of the student's career. These textbooks continue to be extremely important to the instruction of ballet today.
+
+The method emphasizes development of strength, flexibility, and endurance for the proper performance of ballet. She espoused the belief that equal importance should be placed on the arms and legs while performing ballet, as this will bring harmony and greater expression to the body as a whole.[21]
+
+Developed by Enrico Cecchetti (1850-1928), this method is one known internationally for its intense reliance of the understanding of anatomy as it relates to classical ballet. The goal of this method is to instill important characteristics for the performance of ballet into students so that they do not need to rely on imitations of teachers. Important components for this method is the emphasis of balance, elevations, ballon, poise, and strength.
+
+This method espouses the importance of recognizing that all parts of the body move together to  create beautiful, graceful lines, and as such cautions against thinking of ballet in terms of the arms, legs, and neck and torso as separate parts. This method is well known for eight port de bras that are utilized.[19]
+
+The Bournonville method is a Danish method first devised by August Bournonville. Bournonville was heavily influenced by the early French ballet method due to his training with his father, Antoine Bournonville and other important French ballet masters. This method has many style differences that differentiate it from other ballet methods taught today.[22] A key component is the use of diagonal  épaulements, with the upper body turning towards the working foot typically. This method also incorporates very basic use of arms, pirouettes from a low développé position into seconde, and use of fifth position bras en bas for the beginning and end of movements.
+
+The Bournonville method produces dancers who have beautiful ballon ("the illusion of imponderable lightness"[23]).
+
+The Royal Academy of Dance method, also referred to as the English style of ballet, was established in 1920 by Genee, Karsavina, Bedells, E Espinosa, and Richardson. The goal of this method is to promote academic training in classical ballet throughout Great Britain. This style also spread to the United States, and is widely utilized still today. There are specific grade levels which a student must move through in order to complete training in this method.[24] The key principle behind this method of instruction is that basic ballet technique must be taught at a slow pace, with difficulty progression often much slower than the rest of the methods. The idea behind this is if a student is to put in a large amount of effort into perfecting the basic steps, the technique learned in these steps allow a student to utilize harder ones at a much easier rate.[19]
+
+Developed by George Balanchine at the New York City Ballet. His method draws heavily on his own training as a dancer in Russia. The technique is known for extreme speed throughout routines, emphasis on lines, and deep pliés. Perhaps one of the most well known differences of this style is the unorthodox positioning of the body.[19] Dancers of this style often have flexed hands and even feet, and are placed in off-balance positions. Important ballet studios teaching this method are the Miami City Ballet, Ballet Chicago Studio company, and the School of American Ballet in New York.[25]
+
+Ballet costumes play an important role in the ballet community. They are often the only survival of a production, representing a living imaginary picture of the scene.[26]
+
+The roots of ballet go back to the Renaissance in France and Italy when court wear was the beginning of ballet costumes. Ballet costumes have been around since the early fifteenth century. Cotton and silk were mixed with flax, woven into semitransparent gauze[26] to create exquisite ballet costumes.
+
+During the seventeenth century, different types of fabrics and designs were used to make costumes more spectacular and eye catching. Court dress still remained for women during this century. Silks, satins and fabrics embroidered with real gold and precious stones increased the level of spectacular decoration associated with ballet costumes.[26] Women's costumes also consisted of heavy garments and knee-long skirts which made it difficult for them to create much movement and gesture.
+
+During the eighteenth century, stage costumes were still very similar to court wear but progressed over time, mostly due to the French dancer and ballet-master Jean-Georges Noverre (1727–1810) whose proposals to modernize ballet are contained in his revolutionary Lettres sur la danse et les ballets (1760). Noverre's book altered the emphasis in a production away from the costumes towards the physical movements and emotions of the dancers.
+
+European ballet was centered in the Paris Opera.[26] During this era, skirts were raised a few inches off the ground.  Flowers, flounces, ribbons, and lace emphasized this opulent feminine style, as soft pastel tones in citron, peach, pink and pistachio dominated the color range.[26]
+
+During the early nineteenth century, close-fitting body costumes, floral crowns, corsages and jewels were used. Ideals of Romanticism were reflected through female movements.[26]
+
+Costumes became much tighter as corsets started to come into use, to show off the curves on a ballerina. Jewels and bedazzled costumes became much more popular.
+
+During the twentieth century, ballet costumes transitioned back to the influence of Russian ballet. Ballerina skirts became knee-length tutus, later on in order to show off their precise pointe work. Colors used on stage costumes also became much more vibrant. Designers used colors such as red, orange, yellow, etc. to create visual expression when ballet dancers perform on stage.
+
+Professional dancers are generally not well paid.  As of 2017, American dancers (including ballet and other dance forms) were paid an average of US$14.25 per hour.[27] The job outlook is not strong, and the competition to get a job is intense, with the number of applicants vastly exceeding the number of job openings.[27] Some dancers earn money by participating in dancing competitions and are awarded with money or high paying contracts.[27] Choreographers were paid nearly twice the amount of dancers in 2017.[27]
+
+Teenage girl ballet dancers are prone to stress fractures in the first rib.[28] Eating disorders are a common stereotype associated with ballet. In addition, some researchers have noted that intensive training in ballet results in lower bone mineral density in the arms.[29]
+
+In the twenty-first century, ballet has been criticized[weasel words] for being anti-woman and ageist. The complaint about ageism is because most choreography is written so that it can only be performed by a relatively young dancer.[30]  The structure of ballet–in which a (usually) male choreographer or director uses (mostly) women's bodies to express his artistic vision, while ignoring, objectifying, or silencing the women involved – has been criticized for not respecting women.[30][31]

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+
+
+Parachuting is a method of transiting from a high point to Earth with the aid of gravity, involving the control of speed during the descent using a parachute or parachutes. It may involve more or less free-falling (the skydiving segment) which is a period when the parachute has not yet been deployed and the body gradually accelerates to terminal velocity.
+
+The first parachute jump in history was made by André-Jacques Garnerin, the inventor of the parachute, on 22 October 1797. Garnerin tested his contraption by leaping from a hydrogen balloon 3,200 feet (980 m) above Paris. Garnerin's parachute bore little resemblance to today's parachutes, however, as it was not packed into any sort of container and did not feature a ripcord.[1] The first intentional free-fall jump with a ripcord-operated deployment was not made until over a century later by Leslie Irvin in 1919.[2] While Georgia Broadwick made an earlier free-fall in 1914 when her static line became entangled with her jump aircraft's tail assembly, her free-fall descent was not planned. Broadwick cut her static line and deployed her parachute manually, only as a means of freeing herself from the aircraft to which she had become entangled.[3]
+
+The military developed parachuting as a way to save aircrew from emergencies aboard balloons[4] and aircraft in flight, and later, as a way of delivering soldiers to the battlefield. Competitions date back to the 1930s, and it became an international sport in 1952.[how?]
+
+In World War II, thousands of combatants across the globe experienced exiting an aircraft and parachuting to the ground, either as a paratrooper dropped into combat or as flight crew escaping a crippled aircraft. Some servicemen discovered that it was enjoyable, and after the war ended kept jumping. The National Parachute Jumpers and Riggers was born in 1947.[5] This group would later become the Parachute Club of America,[6] and finally its current iteration: the USPA (United States Parachute Association). Parachuting as a sport had begun to permeate the international community.[7]
+
+In the 1970s sports skydiving became very popular thanks to a quick-release system of the main parachute based on the three rings or rings, designed by engineer Bill Booth, that allowed anyone to use it.[citation needed]
+
+Parachuting is performed as a recreational activity and a competitive sport.  It's widely considered an extreme sport due to the risks involved. In 2018, there were 3.3 million jumps in the US.[8] Modern militaries utilise parachuting for the deployment of airborne forces and supplies. Special operations forces commonly employ parachuting, especially free-fall parachuting, as a method of insertion. Occasionally, forest firefighters, known as "smokejumpers" in the United States, use parachuting as a means of rapidly inserting themselves near forest fires in especially remote or otherwise inaccessible areas.
+
+Manually exiting an aircraft and parachuting to safety has been widely used by aviators (especially military aviators and aircrew) and passengers to escape an aircraft that could not otherwise land safely. While this method of escape is relatively rare in modern times, it was occasionally used in World War I by German military aviators, and utilized extensively throughout the air wars of World War II. In modern times, the most common means of escape from an aircraft in distress is via an ejection seat. Said system is usually operated by the pilot, aircrew member, or passenger by engaging an activation device manually. In most designs, this will lead to the seat being propelled out of and away from the aircraft, carrying the occupant with it, by means of either an explosive charge or a rocket propulsion system. Once clear of the aircraft, the ejection seat will deploy a parachute, although some older models entrusted this step to manual activation by the seat's occupant.
+
+In the U.S. during the 1970s, the sport averaged 42.5 fatalities annually. In the 80s, the average dropped to 34.1, and in the 90s, the average decreased to 32.3 deaths per year. Between 2000 and 2009, the average dropped to 25.8 and over the eight years after 2009, the annual average declined to 22.4 fatalities (roughly 7.5 fatalities per one million jumps). In 2017, members of one organization, the United States Parachute Association (USPA) reported 2,585 skydiving injuries sufficiently severe to require resort to a medical care facility.[9]
+
+In the US and in most of the western world, skydivers are required to wear two parachutes. The reserve parachute must be periodically inspected and re-packed (whether used or not) by a certified parachute rigger (in the US, an FAA certificated parachute rigger every 180 days). Many skydivers use an automatic activation device (AAD) that opens the reserve parachute at a pre-determined altitude if it detects that the skydiver is still in free fall. Depending on the country, AADs are often mandatory for new jumpers, and/or required for all jumpers regardless of their experience level.[10] Some skydivers wear a visual altimeter, and some use audible altimeters fitted to their helmets.
+
+Injuries and fatalities occurring under a fully functional parachute usually happen because the skydiver performed unsafe maneuvres or made an error in judgement while flying their canopy, typically resulting in a high-speed impact with the ground or other hazards on the ground.[11] One of the most common sources of injury is a low turn under a high-performance canopy and while swooping. Swooping is the advanced discipline of gliding at high-speed parallel to the ground during landing.
+
+Changing wind conditions are another risk factor. In conditions of strong winds and turbulence during hot days, the parachutist can be caught in downdrafts close to the ground. Shifting winds can cause a crosswind or downwind landing which have a higher potential for injury due to the wind speed adding to the landing speed.
+
+Another risk factor is that of "canopy collisions", or collisions between two or more skydivers under fully inflated parachutes. Canopy collisions can cause the jumpers' inflated parachutes to entangle with each other, often resulting in a sudden collapse (deflation) of one or more of the involved parachutes. When this occurs, the jumpers often must quickly perform emergency procedures (if there is sufficient altitude to do so) to "cut-away" (jettison) from their main canopies and deploy their reserve canopies. Canopy collisions are particularly dangerous when occurring at altitudes too low to allow the jumpers adequate time to safely jettison their main parachutes and fully deploy their reserve parachutes.
+
+Equipment failure causes fatalities and injuries. Approximately one in 750 deployments of a main parachute result in a malfunction.[12] Ram-air parachutes typically spin uncontrollably when malfunctioning, and must be jettisoned before deploying the reserve parachute.  Reserve parachutes are packed and deployed differently; they are also designed more conservatively and built and tested to more exacting standards so they are more reliable than main parachutes, but the real safety advantage comes from the probability of an unlikely main malfunction multiplied by the even less likely probability of a reserve malfunction. This yields an even smaller probability of a double malfunction although the possibility of a main malfunction that cannot be cutaway causing a reserve malfunction is a very real risk.
+
+Parachuting disciplines such as BASE jumping or those that involve equipment such as wingsuit flying and sky surfing have a higher risk factor due to the lower mobility of the jumper and the greater risk of entanglement. For this reason,[tone] these disciplines are generally practised by experienced jumpers.[citation needed]
+USPA member drop zones in the US and Canada are required to have an experienced jumper act as a "safety officer" (in Canada DSO – Drop Zone Safety Officer; in the U.S. S&TA – Safety and Training Advisor) who is responsible for dealing with jumpers who violate rules, regulations, or otherwise act in a fashion deemed unsafe by the appointed individual.
+
+In many countries, either the local regulations or the liability-conscious prudence of the drop zone owners require that parachutists must have attained the age of majority before engaging in the sport.
+
+The first skydive performed without a parachute was by stuntman Gary Connery on 23 May 2012 at 732 m.[13]
+
+Due to the hazardous nature of skydiving, precautions are taken to avoid parachuting injuries and death. For first time solo-parachutists, this includes anywhere from 4 to 8 hours of ground instruction.[14] Since the majority of parachute injuries occur upon landing (approximately 85%),[15] the greatest emphasis within ground training is usually on the proper parachute landing fall (PLF), which seeks to orient the body so as to evenly disperse the impact through flexion of several large, insulating muscles (such as the medial gastrocnemius, tibialis anterior, rectus femoris, vastus medialis, biceps femoris, and semitendinosus),[16] as opposed to individual bones, tendons, and ligaments which break and tear more easily.
+
+Parachutists, especially those flying smaller sport canopies, often land with dangerous amounts of kinetic energy, and for this reason, improper landings are the cause of more than 30% of all skydiving-related injuries and deaths.[15] Often, injuries sustained during parachute landing are caused when a single outstretched limb, such as a hand or foot, is extended separately from the rest of the body, causing it to sustain forces disproportional to the support structures within. This tendency is displayed in the accompanying chart, which shows the significantly higher proportion of wrist and ankle injuries among the 186 injured in a 110,000 parachute jump study.
+
+Due to the possibility of fractures (commonly occurring on the tibia and the ankle mortise), it is recommended that parachutists wear supportive footwear.[15] Supportive footwear prevents inward and outward ankle rolling, allowing the PLF to safely transfer impact energy through the true ankle joint, and dissipate it via the medial gastrocnemius and tibialis anterior muscles.
+
+Parachuting in poor weather, especially with thunderstorms, high winds, and dust devils can be a more dangerous activity. Reputable drop zones will suspend normal operations during inclement weather. In the United States, the USPA's Basic Safety Requirements prohibit solo student skydivers from jumping in winds exceeding 14 mph while using ram-air equipment. However, maximum ground winds are unlimited for licensed skydivers.[17]
+
+As parachuting is an aviation activity under the visual flight rules,[18] it is generally illegal to jump in or through clouds, according to the relevant rules governing the airspace, such as FAR105[19] in the US or Faldskærmsbestemmelser (Parachuting Ordinances)[20] in Denmark. Jumpers and pilots of the dropping aircraft similarly bear responsibility of following the other VFR elements,[18] in particular ensuring that the air traffic at the moment of jump does not create a hazard.
+
+A collision with another canopy is a statistical hazard, and may be avoided by observing simple principles, including knowing upper wind speeds, the number of party members and exit groups, and having sufficient exit separation between jumpers.[21] In 2013, 17% of all skydiving fatalities in the United States resulted from mid-air collisions.[22]
+
+
+
+Skydiving can be practised without jumping. Vertical wind tunnels are used to practise for free fall ("indoor skydiving" or "bodyflight"), while virtual reality parachute simulators are used to practise parachute control.
+
+Beginning skydivers seeking training have the following options:
+
+At a sport skydiver's deployment altitude, the individual manually deploys a small pilot-chute which acts as a drogue, catching air and pulling out the main parachute or the main canopy. There are two principal systems in use: the "throw-out", where the skydiver pulls a toggle attached to the top of the pilot-chute stowed in a small pocket outside the main container: and the "pull-out", where the skydiver pulls a small pad attached to the pilot-chute which is stowed inside the container.
+
+Throw-out pilot-chute pouches are usually positioned at the bottom of the container – the B.O.C. deployment system – but older harnesses often have leg-mounted pouches. The latter are safe for flat-flying, but often unsuitable for freestyle or head-down flying.
+
+In a typical civilian sport parachute system, the pilot-chute is connected to a line known as the "bridle", which in turn is attached to a small deployment bag that contains the folded parachute and the canopy suspension lines, which are stowed with rubber bands. At the bottom of the container that holds the deployment bag is a closing loop which, during packing, is fed through the grommets of the four flaps that are used to close the container. At that point, a curved pin that is attached to the bridle is inserted through the closing loop. The next step involves folding the pilot-chute and placing it in a pouch (e.g., B.O.C pouch).
+
+Activation begins when the pilot-chute is thrown out. It inflates and creates drag, pulling the pin out of the closing loop and allowing the pilot-chute to pull the deployment bag from the container. The parachute lines are pulled loose from the rubber bands and extend as the canopy starts to open. A rectangular piece of fabric called the "slider" (which separates the parachute lines into four main groups fed through grommets in the four respective corners of the slider) slows the opening of the parachute and works its way down until the canopy is fully open and the slider is just above the head of the skydiver. The slider slows and controls the deployment of the parachute. Without a slider, the parachute would inflate fast, potentially damaging the parachute fabric and/or suspension lines, as well as causing discomfort, injury or even death of the jumper.[23] During a normal deployment, a skydiver will generally experience a few seconds of intense deceleration, in the realm of 3 to 4 g, while the parachute slows the descent from 190 km/h (120 mph) to approximately 28 km/h (17 mph).
+
+If a skydiver experiences a malfunction of their main parachute which they cannot correct, they pull a "cut-away" handle on the front right-hand side of their harness (on the chest) which will release the main canopy from the harness/container. Once free from the malfunctioning main canopy, the reserve canopy can be activated manually by pulling a second handle on the front left harness. Some containers are fitted with a connecting line from the main to reserve parachutes – known as a reserve static line (RSL) – which pulls open the reserve container faster than a manual release could. Whichever method is used, a spring-loaded pilot-chute then extracts the reserve parachute from the upper half of the container.
+
+World Championships are held every two years both Indoor and Outdoor in the competition disciplines Artistic Events (Freestyle and Freefly, indoor and outdoor), Canopy Formation (outdoor only), Canopy Piloting (outdoor only), Dynamic (indoor only), Formation Skydiving (indoor and outdoor), Paraski (outdoor only), Style & Accuracy Landing (outdoor only) and Wingsuit Flying (outdoor only).  Continental Championships and World Cups can be held in alternate years.
+
+There are now two competitive Artistic Events, Freestyle and Freefly.  Freestyle teams consist of a performer and a videographer, Freefly teams have two performers and a videographer.  Skysurfing is no longer a competitive event after insufficient competitors entered in two successive World Championships.  The history of these events is on this Freeflying page.
+
+Often called "Classic accuracy", this is an individual or team contest performed under an open parachute. The aim is to touch down on a target whose center is 2 cm in diameter. The target can be a deep foam mattress or an air-filled landing pad. 
+An electronic recording pad of 32 cm in diameter is set in the middle. It measures score in 1 cm increments up to 16 cm and displays result just after landing.
+
+The first part of any competition take place over 8 rounds. Then in the individual competition, after this 8 selective rounds, the top 25% jump a semi-final round. After semi-final round, the top 50% are selected for the final round.
+The competitor with the lowest cumulative score is declared the winner.
+
+Competitors jump in teams of 5 maximum, exiting the aircraft at 1000 or 1200 meters and opening their parachutes sequentially to allow each competitor a clear approach to the target.
+
+This sport is unpredictable because weather conditions play a very important part. So classic accuracy requires high adaptability to aerology and excellent steering control.
+
+It is also the most interesting discipline for spectator due to the closeness of action (a few metres) and the possibility to be practised everywhere (sport ground, stadium, urban place...).
+Today, classic accuracy is the most practised (in competition) discipline of skydiving in the world.
+
+Previously called Canopy Relative Work, or CREW for short, is a skydive where the participants open their parachutes very quickly after leaving the aircraft with the intention of flying in close proximity to each other. The goal is to create various formations by "docking" with other parachutists on the jump. The dock is often accomplished by placing ones feet into the lines of another person's parachute. Formations require at least 2 people, but can have many more.
+
+Due to the close proximity of the canopies, care has to be taken by all participants to ensure the safety of the jump. It is common for a CREW jumper to carry a hook knife to use in case they become entangled in another jumpers lines.
+
+Formation Skydiving (FS) was born in California, USA during the 1960s. The first documented skydiving formation occurred over Arvin, California in March 1964 when Mitch Poteet, Don Henderson, Andy Keech and Lou Paproski successfully formed a 4-man star formation, photographed by Bob Buquor. This discipline was formerly referred to in the skydiving community as Relative Work, often abbreviated to RW, Relly or Rel.[24]
+
+Style can be considered as sprint of parachuting. This individual discipline is played in free fall.  The idea is to take maximum speed and complete a pre-designated series of maneuvers as fast and cleanly as possible (speed can exceed 400 km/h / 250 mph).  Jumps are filmed using a ground-based camera (with an exceptional lens to record the performance).
+
+Performance is timed (from the start of the manoeuvre until its completion) and then judged in public at the end of the jump.
+Competition includes 4 qualifying rounds and a final for the top 8. 
+Competitors jump from a height of 2200 m to 2500 m.  They rush into an acceleration stage for 15 to 20 seconds and then run their series of manoeuvres benefiting to the maximum of the stored speed.  Those series consist of Turns and Back-Loops to achieve in a pre-designated order. The incorrect performance of the manoeuvres gives rise to penalties that are added at run time.
+
+The performance of the athlete is defined in seconds and hundredths of a second.
+The competitor with the lowest cumulative time is declared the winner.
+
+Notice the complete sequence is performed by leading international experts in just over 6 seconds, penalties included.
+
+Using a vertical wind tunnel to simulate free fall has become a discipline of its own and is not only used for training but has its own competitions, teams, and figures.
+
+'Wingsuit flying' or 'wingsuiting' is the sport of flying through the air using a wingsuit, which adds surface area to the human body to enable a significant increase in lift. The common type of wingsuit creates an extra surface area with fabric between the legs and under the arms.
+
+Angle Flying was presented for the first time in 2000 at the World Freestyle Competitions, the European Espace Boogie, and the Eloy Freefly Festival.
+
+The technique consists of flying diagonally with a determinate relation between angle and trajectory speed of the body, to obtain an air stream that allows for control of flight. The aim is to fly in formation at the same level and angle, and to be able to perform different aerial games, such as freestyle, three-dimensional flight formation with grip, or acrobatic free-flying.[25]
+
+A cross-country jump is a skydive where the participants open their parachutes immediately after jumping, with the intention of covering as much ground under canopy as possible. Usual distance from jump run to the drop zone can be as much as several miles.
+
+There are two variations of a cross-country jump:
+
+The more popular one is to plan the exit point upwind of the drop zone. A map and information about the wind direction and velocity at different altitudes are used to determine the exit point. This is usually set at a distance from where all the participants should be able to fly back to the drop zone.
+
+The other variation is to jump out directly above the drop zone and fly down wind as far as possible. This increases the risks of the jump substantially, as the participants must be able to find a suitable landing area before they run out of altitude.
+
+Two-way radios and cell-phones are often used to make sure everyone has landed safely, and, in case of a landing off the drop zone, to find out where the parachutist is so that ground crew can pick them up.
+
+Parachuting is not always restricted to daytime hours; experienced skydivers sometimes perform night jumps. For safety reasons, this requires more equipment than a usual daytime jump and in most jurisdictions, it requires both an advanced skydiving license (at least a B-License in the U.S.) and a meeting with the local safety official covering who will be doing what on the load. A lit altimeter (preferably accompanied with an audible altimeter) is a must. Skydivers performing night jumps often take flashlights up with them so that they can check their canopies have properly deployed.
+
+Visibility to other skydivers and other aircraft is also a consideration; FAA regulations require skydivers jumping at night to be wearing a light visible for three miles (5 km) in every direction, and to turn it on once they are under canopy. A chem-light(glowstick) is a good idea on a night jump.
+
+Night jumpers should be made aware of the dark zone, when landing at night. Above 30 meters (100 feet) jumpers flying their canopy have a good view of the landing zone normally because of reflected ambient light/moon light. Once they get close to the ground, this ambient light source is lost, because of the low angle of reflection. The lower they get, the darker the ground looks. At about 100 feet and below it may seem that they are landing in a black hole. Suddenly it becomes very dark, and the jumper hits the ground soon after. This ground rush should be explained to, and anticipated by, the first time night jumper. Recommendations should be made to the jumper to utilize a canopy that is larger than they typically use on a day jump and to attempt to schedule their first night jump as close to a full moon as possible to make it easier to see the ground.
+
+In addition, in order to mitigate problems seeing the target, people on the ground often park their cars with their headlights on around the target circle facing toward the center.
+
+While more dangerous than regular skydiving and more difficult to schedule, two night jumps are required by the USPA for a jumper to obtain their D (expert) license.
+
+Pond swooping is a form of competitive parachuting wherein canopy pilots attempt to touch down and glide across a small body of water, and onto the shore. Events provide lighthearted competition, rating accuracy, speed, distance and style. Points and peer approval are reduced when a participant "chows", or fails to reach shore and sinks into the water. Swoop ponds are not deep enough to drown in under ordinary circumstances, their main danger being from the concussive force of an incorrectly executed maneuver. In order to gain distance, swoopers increase their speed by executing a "hook turn", wherein both speed and difficulty increase with the angle of the turn. Hook turns are most commonly measured in increments of 90 degrees. As the angle of the turn increases, both horizontal and vertical speed are increased, such that a misjudgement of altitude or imprecise manipulation of the canopy's control structures (front risers, rear risers, and toggles) can lead to a high speed impact with the pond or Earth. Prevention of injury is the main reason why a pond is used for swooping rather than a grass landing area.
+
+This is when skydivers have a ball which weighs 455–590 grams and release it in free fall. The ball maintains the same fall rate as the skydivers. The skydivers can pass the ball around to each other whilst in free fall. At a predetermined altitude, the "ball master" will catch the ball and hold on to it to ensure it does not impact the ground. Space balls are prohibited at many drop zones, due to risk to persons and property on the ground in the event that the ball is not caught or dropped during/after deployment
+
+Thanks to large unpopulated areas to jump over, 'stuff' jumps become possible. These jumps consist of skydivers leaving the aircraft with some object. Rubber raft jumps are popular; where the jumpers sit in a rubber raft. Cars, bicycles, motorcycles, vacuum cleaners, water tanks, and inflatable companions have also been thrown out the back of an aircraft. At a certain altitude, the jumpers break off from the object and deploy their parachutes, leaving it to smash into the ground at terminal velocity.
+
+A tradition at many drop zones is the swoop and chug. As parachutists land from the last load of the day, other skydivers often hand the landing skydivers a beer that is customarily chugged in the landing area. This is sometimes timed as a friendly competition but is usually an informal, untimed, kick-off for the night's festivities.[26]
+
+Another example of this is "Hit and Rock", a variant of accuracy landing devised to let people of varying skill levels compete for fun. "Hit and Rock" is originally from POPS (Parachutists Over Phorty Society). The object is to land as close as possible to the chair, remove the parachute harness, sprint to the chair, sit fully in the chair and rock back and forth at least one time. The contestant is timed from the moment that feet touch the ground until that first rock is completed.  This event is considered a race.
+
+Tracking is where skydivers take a body position to achieve a high forward speed, allowing them to cover a great distance over the ground. Tracking is also used at the end of group jumps to achieve separation from other jumpers before parachute deployment. The tracking position involves sweeping the arms out to the side of the body and straightening the legs with the toes pointed. Arms can be positioned further back to drop altitude faster. This is how a skydiver adjusts his or her elevation to match other jumpers in the formation in order to "dock" smoothly.
+
+This form of skydiving involves the skydivers flying in a feet to Earth position.  With less surface area being presented to the wind these skydivers can generate more free fall speed.
+
+This form of skydiving involves the skydivers flying in a head to Earth position.  Generally, the object is to fly together with other skydivers and perform maneuvers during the free fall, for the sheer enjoyment of it all.
+
+The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), Parachuting Commission (IPC) conducts FAI's parachuting activities, in particular World Records and International Competitions.  It sets globally recognised parachuting proficiency levels, international records requirements, international judging competencies and competition rules.
+
+National parachuting associations exist in many countries, many affiliated with the FAI, to promote their sport. In most cases, national representative bodies, as well as local drop zone operators, require that participants carry certification attesting to their training their level of experience in the sport, and their proven competence. Anyone who cannot produce such bona-fides is treated as a student, requiring close supervision.[citation needed]
+
+The sole organization in the United States is the United States Parachute Association (USPA), which issues licenses and ratings, governs skydiving, publishes Parachutist Magazine, and represents skydiving to government agencies. USPA publishes the Skydivers Information Manual (SIM) and many other resources. In Canada, the Canadian Sport Parachuting Association is the lead organization.  In South Africa, the sport is managed by the Parachute Association of South Africa, and in the United Kingdom by the British Parachute Association. In Brazil the Centro Nacional de Paraquedismo (CNP) sets in Boituva, where many records have been broken and where it is known for being the second largest center in the world and the largest in the Southern Hemisphere.[citation needed]
+
+Within the sport, associations promote safety, technical advances, training-and-certification, competition and other interests of their members. Outside their respective communities, they promote their sport to the public and often intercede with government regulators.
+
+Competitions are organized at regional, national and international levels in most these disciplines. Some of them offer amateur competition.
+
+Many of the more photogenic/videogenic variants also enjoy sponsored events with prize money for the winners.
+
+The majority of jumpers tend to be non-competitive, enjoying the opportunity to skydive with their friends on weekends and holidays. The atmosphere of their gatherings is relaxed, sociable and welcoming to newcomers.[citation needed] Skydiving events, called "boogies", are arranged at local, national and international scale each year, which attracting both young jumpers and their elders – Parachutists Over Phorty (POPs), Skydivers Over Sixty (SOS) and even older groups.
+
+In parachuting, a drop zone or DZ is most technically the area above and around a location where a parachutist freefalls and expects to land. In common use it often refers to the totality of a skydiving operation (a business). And the area wherein parachutists land will be referred to as the "landing area."  The drop zone is usually situated beside a small airport, often sharing the facility with other general aviation activities. Drop zone staff may include the DZO (drop zone operator or owner), manifest, pilots, instructors, coaches, cameramen, packers, riggers and other general staff.
+
+A parachutist's equipment consists of at least three, usually four components, a container/harness system, a main canopy, a reserve canopy and increasingly frequently an automated activation device (AAD) as well.  Other items may include a helmet, jumpsuit, altimeter, and gloves. Increasing number of skydivers wear cameras, like GoPros, to record their skydives.[citation needed]
+
+Costs in the sport are not trivial. The market is not large enough to permit the steady lowering of prices that is seen with some other equipment like computers. A new container/harness system can cost between US$1,500 and US$3,500,[27] main canopies for the experienced parachutist can cost between $2,000 and US$3,600,[28][29][30] reserve canopies cost between US$1,500 and US$2,500[31] and AADs US$1,000[32] cost.  Higher performance and Tandem Parachutes cost significantly more, whilst large docile student parachutes often cost less.
+
+Most parachuting equipment is ruggedly designed and is enjoyed by several owners before being retired. A rigger is trained to spot signs of damage or misuse. Riggers also keep track of industry product and safety bulletins, and can, therefore, determine if a piece of equipment is up-to-date and serviceable.
+
+In 1914, while doing demonstrations for the U.S. Army, a parachute pioneer named Tiny Broadwick deployed her chute manually, thus becoming the first person to jump free-fall.
+
+According to the Guinness Book of Records, Eugene Andreev (USSR) holds the official FAI record for the longest free-fall parachute jump after falling for 24,500 metres (80,400 ft) from an altitude of 25,458 metres (83,524 ft) near the city of Saratov, Russia, on 1 November 1962. Although later on jumpers would ascend higher altitudes, Andreev's record was set without the use of a drogue chute during the jump and therefore remains the longest genuine free fall record.[33]
+
+During the late 1950s, Captain Joseph Kittinger of the United States was assigned to the Aerospace Medical Research Laboratories at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. For Project Excelsior (meaning "ever upward", a name given to the project by Colonel John Stapp), as part of research into high altitude bailout, he made a series of three parachute jumps wearing a pressurized suit, from a helium balloon with an open gondola.
+
+The first, from 76,400 feet (23,290 m) in November 1959 was a near tragedy when an equipment malfunction caused him to lose consciousness, but the automatic parachute saved him (he went into a flat spin at a rotational velocity of 120 rpm; the g-force at his extremities was calculated to be over 22 times that of gravity, setting another record). Three weeks later he jumped again from 74,700 feet (22,770 m). For that return jump Kittinger was awarded the A. Leo Stevens parachute medal.
+
+On 16 August 1960 he made the final jump from the Excelsior III at 102,800 feet (31,330 m). Towing a small drogue chute for stabilization, he fell for 4 minutes and 36 seconds reaching a maximum speed of 614 mph (988 km/h)[34] before opening his parachute at 14,000 feet (4,270 m). Pressurization for his right glove malfunctioned during the ascent, and his right hand swelled to twice its normal size.[35] He set records for highest balloon ascent, highest parachute jump, longest drogue-fall (4 min), and fastest speed by a human through the atmosphere.[36]
+
+The jumps were made in a "rocking-chair" position, descending on his back, rather than the usual arch familiar to skydivers, because he was wearing a 60-pound (27 kg) "kit" on his behind and his pressure suit naturally formed that shape when inflated, a shape appropriate for sitting in an airplane cockpit.
+
+For the series of jumps, Kittinger was decorated with an oak leaf cluster to his Distinguished Flying Cross and awarded the Harmon Trophy by President Dwight Eisenhower.
+
+In 2012, the Red Bull Stratos mission took place. On 14 October 2012, Felix Baumgartner broke the records previously set by Kittinger for the highest free fall, the highest manned helium balloon flight, and the fastest free fall; he jumped from 128,100 feet (39,045 m), reaching 833.9 mph (1342 km/h) - Mach 1.24, faster than the speed of sound.[37] Kittinger was a member of the mission control and helped design the capsule and suit that Baumgartner ascended and jumped in.
+
+On 24 October 2014, Alan Eustace broke the record previously set by Baumgartner for the highest fall. He jumped from a height of 135,908 feet (41,425 m) and fell with a drogue chute for 4 and a half minutes.[38]
+
+A song with various versions of its lyrics, one of which uses as its first line "He jumped without a parachute from twenty thousand feet", and includes the line "They scraped him off the tarmac like a lump of strawberry jam", has been used as a campfire song by Scouts. It is sung to the tune Battle Hymn of the Republic, also known as John Brown's Body.[63]

en/5291.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+
+
+A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of grasses.[1][2][3]
+
+Savannas maintain an open canopy despite a high tree density.[4] It is often believed that savannas feature widely spaced, scattered trees. However, in many savannas, tree densities are higher and trees are more regularly spaced than in forests.[5][6][7][8] The South American savanna types cerrado sensu stricto and cerrado dense typically have densities of trees similar to or higher than that found in South American tropical forests,[5][7][8] with savanna ranging from 800–3300 trees per hectare (trees/ha) and adjacent forests with 800–2000 trees/ha. Similarly Guinean savanna has 129 trees/ha, compared to 103 for riparian forest,[6] while Eastern Australian sclerophyll forests have average tree densities of approximately 100 per hectare, comparable to savannas in the same region.[9]
+
+Savannas are also characterised by seasonal water availability, with the majority of rainfall confined to one season; they are associated with several types of biomes, and are frequently in a transitional zone between forest and desert or grassland. Savanna covers approximately 20% of the Earth's land area.[10]
+
+The word originally entered English in 1555[11] as the Latin Zauana,[13] equivalent in the orthography of the times to zavana (see history of V). Peter Martyr reported it as the local name for the plain around Comagre, the court of the cacique Carlos in present-day Panama. The accounts are inexact,[15] but this is usually placed in present-day Madugandí[16] or at points on the nearby Guna Yala coast opposite Ustupo[17] or on Point Mosquitos.[18] These areas are now either given over to modern cropland or jungle.[19]
+
+Many grassy landscapes and mixed communities of trees, shrubs, and grasses were described as savanna before the middle of the 19th century, when the concept of a tropical savanna climate became established. The Köppen climate classification system was strongly influenced by effects of temperature and precipitation upon tree growth, and his oversimplified assumptions resulted in a tropical savanna classification concept which resulted in it being considered as a "climatic climax" formation. The common usage meaning to describe vegetation now conflicts with a simplified yet widespread climatic concept meaning. The divergence has sometimes caused areas such as extensive savannas north and south of the Congo and Amazon Rivers to be excluded from mapped savanna categories.[20]
+
+"Barrens" has been used almost interchangeably with savanna in different parts of North America. Sometimes midwestern savanna were described as "grassland with trees". Different authors have defined the lower limits of savanna tree coverage as 5–10% and upper limits range as 25–80% of an area.[21]
+
+Two factors common to all savanna environments are rainfall variations from year to year, and dry season wildfires.[citation needed] In the Americas, e.g. in Belize, Central America, savanna vegetation is similar from Mexico to South America and to the Caribbean.[22]
+
+Over many large tropical areas, the dominant biome (forest, savanna or grassland) can not be predicted only by the climate, as historical events plays also a key role, for example, fire activity.[23] In some areas, indeed, it is possible for there to be multiple stable biomes.[24]
+
+Savannas are subject to regular wildfires and the ecosystem appears to be the result of human use of fire. For example, Native Americans created the Pre-Columbian savannas of North America by periodically burning where fire-resistant plants were the dominant species.[25] Pine barrens in scattered locations from New Jersey to coastal New England are remnants of these savannas. Aboriginal burning appears to have been responsible for the widespread occurrence of savanna in tropical Australia and New Guinea,[26] and savannas in India are a result of human fire use.[27] The maquis shrub savannas of the Mediterranean region were likewise created and maintained by anthropogenic fire.[28]
+
+These fires are usually confined to the herbaceous layer and do little long term damage to mature trees. However, these fires either kill or suppress tree seedlings, thus preventing the establishment of a continuous tree canopy which would prevent further grass growth. Prior to European settlement aboriginal land use practices, including fire, influenced vegetation[29] and may have maintained and modified savanna flora.[3][26] It has been suggested by many authors[29][30] that aboriginal burning created a structurally more open savanna landscape. Aboriginal burning certainly created a habitat mosaic that probably increased biodiversity and changed the structure of woodlands and geographic range of numerous woodland species.[26][29] It has been suggested by many authors[30][31] that with the removal or alteration of traditional burning regimes many savannas are being replaced by forest and shrub thickets with little herbaceous layer.
+
+The consumption of herbage by introduced grazers in savanna woodlands has led to a reduction in the amount of fuel available for burning and resulted in fewer and cooler fires.[32] The introduction of exotic pasture legumes has also led to a reduction in the need to burn to produce a flush of green growth because legumes retain high nutrient levels throughout the year, and because fires can have a negative impact on legume populations which causes a reluctance to burn.[33]
+
+The closed forest types such as broadleaf forests and rainforests are usually not grazed owing to the closed structure precluding grass growth, and hence offering little opportunity for grazing.[34] In contrast the open structure of savannas allows the growth of a herbaceous layer and are commonly used for grazing domestic livestock.[35] As a result, much of the world's savannas have undergone change as a result of grazing by sheep, goats and cattle, ranging from changes in pasture composition to woody weed encroachment.[36]
+
+The removal of grass by grazing affects the woody plant component of woodland systems in two major ways. Grasses compete with woody plants for water in the topsoil and removal by grazing reduces this competitive effect, potentially boosting tree growth.[37] In addition to this effect, the removal of fuel reduces both the intensity and the frequency of fires which may control woody plant species.[38] Grazing animals can have a more direct effect on woody plants by the browsing of palatable woody species. There is evidence that unpalatable woody plants have increased under grazing in savannas.[39] Grazing also promotes the spread of weeds in savannas by the removal or reduction of the plants which would normally compete with potential weeds and hinder establishment.[29] In addition to this, cattle and horses are implicated in the spread of the seeds of weed species such as Prickly Acacia (Acacia nilotica) and Stylo (Stylosanthes spp.).[32] Alterations in savanna species composition brought about by grazing can alter ecosystem function, and are exacerbated by overgrazing and poor land management practices.
+
+Introduced grazing animals can also affect soil condition through physical compaction and break-up of the soil caused by the hooves of animals and through the erosion effects caused by the removal of protective plant cover. Such effects are most likely to occur on land subjected to repeated and heavy grazing.[40] The effects of overstocking are often worst on soils of low fertility and in low rainfall areas below 500 mm, as most soil nutrients in these areas tend to be concentrated in the surface so any movement of soils can lead to severe degradation. Alteration in soil structure and nutrient levels affects the establishment, growth and survival of plant species and in turn can lead to a change in woodland structure and composition.
+
+Large areas of Australian and South American savannas have been cleared of trees, and this clearing is continuing today. For example, until recently 480,000 ha of savanna were cleared annually in Australia alone primarily to improve pasture production.[29] Substantial savanna areas have been cleared of woody vegetation and much of the area that remains today is vegetation that has been disturbed by either clearing or thinning at some point in the past.
+
+Clearing is carried out by the grazing industry in an attempt to increase the quality and quantity of feed available for stock and to improve the management of livestock. The removal of trees from savanna land removes the competition for water from the grasses present, and can lead to a two to fourfold increase in pasture production, as well as improving the quality of the feed available.[41] Since stock carrying capacity is strongly correlated with herbage yield, there can be major financial benefits from the removal of trees,[42] such as assisting with grazing management: regions of dense tree and shrub cover harbors predators, leading to increased stock losses, for example,[43] while woody plant cover hinders mustering in both sheep and cattle areas.[44]
+
+A number of techniques have been employed to clear or kill woody plants in savannas. Early pastoralists used felling and girdling, the removal of a ring of bark and sapwood, as a means of clearing land.[45] In the 1950s arboricides suitable for stem injection were developed. War-surplus heavy machinery was made available, and these were used for either pushing timber, or for pulling using a chain and ball strung between two machines. These two new methods of timber control, along with the introduction and widespread adoption of several new pasture grasses and legumes promoted a resurgence in tree clearing. The 1980s also saw the release of soil-applied arboricides, notably tebuthiuron, that could be utilised without cutting and injecting each individual tree.
+
+In many ways "artificial" clearing, particularly pulling, mimics the effects of fire and, in savannas adapted to regeneration after fire as most Queensland savannas are, there is a similar response to that after fire.[46] Tree clearing in many savanna communities, although causing a dramatic reduction in basal area and canopy cover, often leaves a high percentage of woody plants alive either as seedlings too small to be affected or as plants capable of re-sprouting from lignotubers and broken stumps. A population of woody plants equal to half or more of the original number often remains following pulling of eucalypt communities, even if all the trees over 5 metres are uprooted completely.
+
+A number of exotic plants species have been introduced to the savannas around the world. Amongst the woody plant species are serious environmental weeds such as Prickly Acacia (Acacia nilotica), Rubbervine (Cryptostegia grandiflora), Mesquite (Prosopis spp.), Lantana (Lantana camara and L. montevidensis) and Prickly Pear (Opuntia spp.) A range of herbaceous species have also been introduced to these woodlands, either deliberately or accidentally including Rhodes grass and other Chloris species, Buffel grass (Cenchrus ciliaris), Giant rat's tail grass (Sporobolus pyramidalis) parthenium (Parthenium hysterophorus) and stylos (Stylosanthes spp.) and other legumes. These introductions have the potential to significantly alter the structure and composition of savannas worldwide, and have already done so in many areas through a number of processes including altering the fire regime, increasing grazing pressure, competing with native vegetation and occupying previously vacant ecological niches.[46][47]
+Other plant species include: white sage, spotted cactus, cotton seed, rosemary.
+
+Human induced climate change resulting from the greenhouse effect may result in an alteration of the structure and function of savannas. Some authors[48] have suggested that savannas and grasslands may become even more susceptible to woody plant encroachment as a result of greenhouse induced climate change. However, a recent case described a savanna increasing its range at the expense of forest in response to climate variation, and potential exists for similar rapid, dramatic shifts in vegetation distribution as a result of global climate change, particularly at ecotones such as savannas so often represent.[49]
+
+Savanna ecoregions are of several different types:

en/5292.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+
+
+A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of grasses.[1][2][3]
+
+Savannas maintain an open canopy despite a high tree density.[4] It is often believed that savannas feature widely spaced, scattered trees. However, in many savannas, tree densities are higher and trees are more regularly spaced than in forests.[5][6][7][8] The South American savanna types cerrado sensu stricto and cerrado dense typically have densities of trees similar to or higher than that found in South American tropical forests,[5][7][8] with savanna ranging from 800–3300 trees per hectare (trees/ha) and adjacent forests with 800–2000 trees/ha. Similarly Guinean savanna has 129 trees/ha, compared to 103 for riparian forest,[6] while Eastern Australian sclerophyll forests have average tree densities of approximately 100 per hectare, comparable to savannas in the same region.[9]
+
+Savannas are also characterised by seasonal water availability, with the majority of rainfall confined to one season; they are associated with several types of biomes, and are frequently in a transitional zone between forest and desert or grassland. Savanna covers approximately 20% of the Earth's land area.[10]
+
+The word originally entered English in 1555[11] as the Latin Zauana,[13] equivalent in the orthography of the times to zavana (see history of V). Peter Martyr reported it as the local name for the plain around Comagre, the court of the cacique Carlos in present-day Panama. The accounts are inexact,[15] but this is usually placed in present-day Madugandí[16] or at points on the nearby Guna Yala coast opposite Ustupo[17] or on Point Mosquitos.[18] These areas are now either given over to modern cropland or jungle.[19]
+
+Many grassy landscapes and mixed communities of trees, shrubs, and grasses were described as savanna before the middle of the 19th century, when the concept of a tropical savanna climate became established. The Köppen climate classification system was strongly influenced by effects of temperature and precipitation upon tree growth, and his oversimplified assumptions resulted in a tropical savanna classification concept which resulted in it being considered as a "climatic climax" formation. The common usage meaning to describe vegetation now conflicts with a simplified yet widespread climatic concept meaning. The divergence has sometimes caused areas such as extensive savannas north and south of the Congo and Amazon Rivers to be excluded from mapped savanna categories.[20]
+
+"Barrens" has been used almost interchangeably with savanna in different parts of North America. Sometimes midwestern savanna were described as "grassland with trees". Different authors have defined the lower limits of savanna tree coverage as 5–10% and upper limits range as 25–80% of an area.[21]
+
+Two factors common to all savanna environments are rainfall variations from year to year, and dry season wildfires.[citation needed] In the Americas, e.g. in Belize, Central America, savanna vegetation is similar from Mexico to South America and to the Caribbean.[22]
+
+Over many large tropical areas, the dominant biome (forest, savanna or grassland) can not be predicted only by the climate, as historical events plays also a key role, for example, fire activity.[23] In some areas, indeed, it is possible for there to be multiple stable biomes.[24]
+
+Savannas are subject to regular wildfires and the ecosystem appears to be the result of human use of fire. For example, Native Americans created the Pre-Columbian savannas of North America by periodically burning where fire-resistant plants were the dominant species.[25] Pine barrens in scattered locations from New Jersey to coastal New England are remnants of these savannas. Aboriginal burning appears to have been responsible for the widespread occurrence of savanna in tropical Australia and New Guinea,[26] and savannas in India are a result of human fire use.[27] The maquis shrub savannas of the Mediterranean region were likewise created and maintained by anthropogenic fire.[28]
+
+These fires are usually confined to the herbaceous layer and do little long term damage to mature trees. However, these fires either kill or suppress tree seedlings, thus preventing the establishment of a continuous tree canopy which would prevent further grass growth. Prior to European settlement aboriginal land use practices, including fire, influenced vegetation[29] and may have maintained and modified savanna flora.[3][26] It has been suggested by many authors[29][30] that aboriginal burning created a structurally more open savanna landscape. Aboriginal burning certainly created a habitat mosaic that probably increased biodiversity and changed the structure of woodlands and geographic range of numerous woodland species.[26][29] It has been suggested by many authors[30][31] that with the removal or alteration of traditional burning regimes many savannas are being replaced by forest and shrub thickets with little herbaceous layer.
+
+The consumption of herbage by introduced grazers in savanna woodlands has led to a reduction in the amount of fuel available for burning and resulted in fewer and cooler fires.[32] The introduction of exotic pasture legumes has also led to a reduction in the need to burn to produce a flush of green growth because legumes retain high nutrient levels throughout the year, and because fires can have a negative impact on legume populations which causes a reluctance to burn.[33]
+
+The closed forest types such as broadleaf forests and rainforests are usually not grazed owing to the closed structure precluding grass growth, and hence offering little opportunity for grazing.[34] In contrast the open structure of savannas allows the growth of a herbaceous layer and are commonly used for grazing domestic livestock.[35] As a result, much of the world's savannas have undergone change as a result of grazing by sheep, goats and cattle, ranging from changes in pasture composition to woody weed encroachment.[36]
+
+The removal of grass by grazing affects the woody plant component of woodland systems in two major ways. Grasses compete with woody plants for water in the topsoil and removal by grazing reduces this competitive effect, potentially boosting tree growth.[37] In addition to this effect, the removal of fuel reduces both the intensity and the frequency of fires which may control woody plant species.[38] Grazing animals can have a more direct effect on woody plants by the browsing of palatable woody species. There is evidence that unpalatable woody plants have increased under grazing in savannas.[39] Grazing also promotes the spread of weeds in savannas by the removal or reduction of the plants which would normally compete with potential weeds and hinder establishment.[29] In addition to this, cattle and horses are implicated in the spread of the seeds of weed species such as Prickly Acacia (Acacia nilotica) and Stylo (Stylosanthes spp.).[32] Alterations in savanna species composition brought about by grazing can alter ecosystem function, and are exacerbated by overgrazing and poor land management practices.
+
+Introduced grazing animals can also affect soil condition through physical compaction and break-up of the soil caused by the hooves of animals and through the erosion effects caused by the removal of protective plant cover. Such effects are most likely to occur on land subjected to repeated and heavy grazing.[40] The effects of overstocking are often worst on soils of low fertility and in low rainfall areas below 500 mm, as most soil nutrients in these areas tend to be concentrated in the surface so any movement of soils can lead to severe degradation. Alteration in soil structure and nutrient levels affects the establishment, growth and survival of plant species and in turn can lead to a change in woodland structure and composition.
+
+Large areas of Australian and South American savannas have been cleared of trees, and this clearing is continuing today. For example, until recently 480,000 ha of savanna were cleared annually in Australia alone primarily to improve pasture production.[29] Substantial savanna areas have been cleared of woody vegetation and much of the area that remains today is vegetation that has been disturbed by either clearing or thinning at some point in the past.
+
+Clearing is carried out by the grazing industry in an attempt to increase the quality and quantity of feed available for stock and to improve the management of livestock. The removal of trees from savanna land removes the competition for water from the grasses present, and can lead to a two to fourfold increase in pasture production, as well as improving the quality of the feed available.[41] Since stock carrying capacity is strongly correlated with herbage yield, there can be major financial benefits from the removal of trees,[42] such as assisting with grazing management: regions of dense tree and shrub cover harbors predators, leading to increased stock losses, for example,[43] while woody plant cover hinders mustering in both sheep and cattle areas.[44]
+
+A number of techniques have been employed to clear or kill woody plants in savannas. Early pastoralists used felling and girdling, the removal of a ring of bark and sapwood, as a means of clearing land.[45] In the 1950s arboricides suitable for stem injection were developed. War-surplus heavy machinery was made available, and these were used for either pushing timber, or for pulling using a chain and ball strung between two machines. These two new methods of timber control, along with the introduction and widespread adoption of several new pasture grasses and legumes promoted a resurgence in tree clearing. The 1980s also saw the release of soil-applied arboricides, notably tebuthiuron, that could be utilised without cutting and injecting each individual tree.
+
+In many ways "artificial" clearing, particularly pulling, mimics the effects of fire and, in savannas adapted to regeneration after fire as most Queensland savannas are, there is a similar response to that after fire.[46] Tree clearing in many savanna communities, although causing a dramatic reduction in basal area and canopy cover, often leaves a high percentage of woody plants alive either as seedlings too small to be affected or as plants capable of re-sprouting from lignotubers and broken stumps. A population of woody plants equal to half or more of the original number often remains following pulling of eucalypt communities, even if all the trees over 5 metres are uprooted completely.
+
+A number of exotic plants species have been introduced to the savannas around the world. Amongst the woody plant species are serious environmental weeds such as Prickly Acacia (Acacia nilotica), Rubbervine (Cryptostegia grandiflora), Mesquite (Prosopis spp.), Lantana (Lantana camara and L. montevidensis) and Prickly Pear (Opuntia spp.) A range of herbaceous species have also been introduced to these woodlands, either deliberately or accidentally including Rhodes grass and other Chloris species, Buffel grass (Cenchrus ciliaris), Giant rat's tail grass (Sporobolus pyramidalis) parthenium (Parthenium hysterophorus) and stylos (Stylosanthes spp.) and other legumes. These introductions have the potential to significantly alter the structure and composition of savannas worldwide, and have already done so in many areas through a number of processes including altering the fire regime, increasing grazing pressure, competing with native vegetation and occupying previously vacant ecological niches.[46][47]
+Other plant species include: white sage, spotted cactus, cotton seed, rosemary.
+
+Human induced climate change resulting from the greenhouse effect may result in an alteration of the structure and function of savannas. Some authors[48] have suggested that savannas and grasslands may become even more susceptible to woody plant encroachment as a result of greenhouse induced climate change. However, a recent case described a savanna increasing its range at the expense of forest in response to climate variation, and potential exists for similar rapid, dramatic shifts in vegetation distribution as a result of global climate change, particularly at ecotones such as savannas so often represent.[49]
+
+Savanna ecoregions are of several different types:

en/5293.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+
+
+A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to support an unbroken herbaceous layer consisting primarily of grasses.[1][2][3]
+
+Savannas maintain an open canopy despite a high tree density.[4] It is often believed that savannas feature widely spaced, scattered trees. However, in many savannas, tree densities are higher and trees are more regularly spaced than in forests.[5][6][7][8] The South American savanna types cerrado sensu stricto and cerrado dense typically have densities of trees similar to or higher than that found in South American tropical forests,[5][7][8] with savanna ranging from 800–3300 trees per hectare (trees/ha) and adjacent forests with 800–2000 trees/ha. Similarly Guinean savanna has 129 trees/ha, compared to 103 for riparian forest,[6] while Eastern Australian sclerophyll forests have average tree densities of approximately 100 per hectare, comparable to savannas in the same region.[9]
+
+Savannas are also characterised by seasonal water availability, with the majority of rainfall confined to one season; they are associated with several types of biomes, and are frequently in a transitional zone between forest and desert or grassland. Savanna covers approximately 20% of the Earth's land area.[10]
+
+The word originally entered English in 1555[11] as the Latin Zauana,[13] equivalent in the orthography of the times to zavana (see history of V). Peter Martyr reported it as the local name for the plain around Comagre, the court of the cacique Carlos in present-day Panama. The accounts are inexact,[15] but this is usually placed in present-day Madugandí[16] or at points on the nearby Guna Yala coast opposite Ustupo[17] or on Point Mosquitos.[18] These areas are now either given over to modern cropland or jungle.[19]
+
+Many grassy landscapes and mixed communities of trees, shrubs, and grasses were described as savanna before the middle of the 19th century, when the concept of a tropical savanna climate became established. The Köppen climate classification system was strongly influenced by effects of temperature and precipitation upon tree growth, and his oversimplified assumptions resulted in a tropical savanna classification concept which resulted in it being considered as a "climatic climax" formation. The common usage meaning to describe vegetation now conflicts with a simplified yet widespread climatic concept meaning. The divergence has sometimes caused areas such as extensive savannas north and south of the Congo and Amazon Rivers to be excluded from mapped savanna categories.[20]
+
+"Barrens" has been used almost interchangeably with savanna in different parts of North America. Sometimes midwestern savanna were described as "grassland with trees". Different authors have defined the lower limits of savanna tree coverage as 5–10% and upper limits range as 25–80% of an area.[21]
+
+Two factors common to all savanna environments are rainfall variations from year to year, and dry season wildfires.[citation needed] In the Americas, e.g. in Belize, Central America, savanna vegetation is similar from Mexico to South America and to the Caribbean.[22]
+
+Over many large tropical areas, the dominant biome (forest, savanna or grassland) can not be predicted only by the climate, as historical events plays also a key role, for example, fire activity.[23] In some areas, indeed, it is possible for there to be multiple stable biomes.[24]
+
+Savannas are subject to regular wildfires and the ecosystem appears to be the result of human use of fire. For example, Native Americans created the Pre-Columbian savannas of North America by periodically burning where fire-resistant plants were the dominant species.[25] Pine barrens in scattered locations from New Jersey to coastal New England are remnants of these savannas. Aboriginal burning appears to have been responsible for the widespread occurrence of savanna in tropical Australia and New Guinea,[26] and savannas in India are a result of human fire use.[27] The maquis shrub savannas of the Mediterranean region were likewise created and maintained by anthropogenic fire.[28]
+
+These fires are usually confined to the herbaceous layer and do little long term damage to mature trees. However, these fires either kill or suppress tree seedlings, thus preventing the establishment of a continuous tree canopy which would prevent further grass growth. Prior to European settlement aboriginal land use practices, including fire, influenced vegetation[29] and may have maintained and modified savanna flora.[3][26] It has been suggested by many authors[29][30] that aboriginal burning created a structurally more open savanna landscape. Aboriginal burning certainly created a habitat mosaic that probably increased biodiversity and changed the structure of woodlands and geographic range of numerous woodland species.[26][29] It has been suggested by many authors[30][31] that with the removal or alteration of traditional burning regimes many savannas are being replaced by forest and shrub thickets with little herbaceous layer.
+
+The consumption of herbage by introduced grazers in savanna woodlands has led to a reduction in the amount of fuel available for burning and resulted in fewer and cooler fires.[32] The introduction of exotic pasture legumes has also led to a reduction in the need to burn to produce a flush of green growth because legumes retain high nutrient levels throughout the year, and because fires can have a negative impact on legume populations which causes a reluctance to burn.[33]
+
+The closed forest types such as broadleaf forests and rainforests are usually not grazed owing to the closed structure precluding grass growth, and hence offering little opportunity for grazing.[34] In contrast the open structure of savannas allows the growth of a herbaceous layer and are commonly used for grazing domestic livestock.[35] As a result, much of the world's savannas have undergone change as a result of grazing by sheep, goats and cattle, ranging from changes in pasture composition to woody weed encroachment.[36]
+
+The removal of grass by grazing affects the woody plant component of woodland systems in two major ways. Grasses compete with woody plants for water in the topsoil and removal by grazing reduces this competitive effect, potentially boosting tree growth.[37] In addition to this effect, the removal of fuel reduces both the intensity and the frequency of fires which may control woody plant species.[38] Grazing animals can have a more direct effect on woody plants by the browsing of palatable woody species. There is evidence that unpalatable woody plants have increased under grazing in savannas.[39] Grazing also promotes the spread of weeds in savannas by the removal or reduction of the plants which would normally compete with potential weeds and hinder establishment.[29] In addition to this, cattle and horses are implicated in the spread of the seeds of weed species such as Prickly Acacia (Acacia nilotica) and Stylo (Stylosanthes spp.).[32] Alterations in savanna species composition brought about by grazing can alter ecosystem function, and are exacerbated by overgrazing and poor land management practices.
+
+Introduced grazing animals can also affect soil condition through physical compaction and break-up of the soil caused by the hooves of animals and through the erosion effects caused by the removal of protective plant cover. Such effects are most likely to occur on land subjected to repeated and heavy grazing.[40] The effects of overstocking are often worst on soils of low fertility and in low rainfall areas below 500 mm, as most soil nutrients in these areas tend to be concentrated in the surface so any movement of soils can lead to severe degradation. Alteration in soil structure and nutrient levels affects the establishment, growth and survival of plant species and in turn can lead to a change in woodland structure and composition.
+
+Large areas of Australian and South American savannas have been cleared of trees, and this clearing is continuing today. For example, until recently 480,000 ha of savanna were cleared annually in Australia alone primarily to improve pasture production.[29] Substantial savanna areas have been cleared of woody vegetation and much of the area that remains today is vegetation that has been disturbed by either clearing or thinning at some point in the past.
+
+Clearing is carried out by the grazing industry in an attempt to increase the quality and quantity of feed available for stock and to improve the management of livestock. The removal of trees from savanna land removes the competition for water from the grasses present, and can lead to a two to fourfold increase in pasture production, as well as improving the quality of the feed available.[41] Since stock carrying capacity is strongly correlated with herbage yield, there can be major financial benefits from the removal of trees,[42] such as assisting with grazing management: regions of dense tree and shrub cover harbors predators, leading to increased stock losses, for example,[43] while woody plant cover hinders mustering in both sheep and cattle areas.[44]
+
+A number of techniques have been employed to clear or kill woody plants in savannas. Early pastoralists used felling and girdling, the removal of a ring of bark and sapwood, as a means of clearing land.[45] In the 1950s arboricides suitable for stem injection were developed. War-surplus heavy machinery was made available, and these were used for either pushing timber, or for pulling using a chain and ball strung between two machines. These two new methods of timber control, along with the introduction and widespread adoption of several new pasture grasses and legumes promoted a resurgence in tree clearing. The 1980s also saw the release of soil-applied arboricides, notably tebuthiuron, that could be utilised without cutting and injecting each individual tree.
+
+In many ways "artificial" clearing, particularly pulling, mimics the effects of fire and, in savannas adapted to regeneration after fire as most Queensland savannas are, there is a similar response to that after fire.[46] Tree clearing in many savanna communities, although causing a dramatic reduction in basal area and canopy cover, often leaves a high percentage of woody plants alive either as seedlings too small to be affected or as plants capable of re-sprouting from lignotubers and broken stumps. A population of woody plants equal to half or more of the original number often remains following pulling of eucalypt communities, even if all the trees over 5 metres are uprooted completely.
+
+A number of exotic plants species have been introduced to the savannas around the world. Amongst the woody plant species are serious environmental weeds such as Prickly Acacia (Acacia nilotica), Rubbervine (Cryptostegia grandiflora), Mesquite (Prosopis spp.), Lantana (Lantana camara and L. montevidensis) and Prickly Pear (Opuntia spp.) A range of herbaceous species have also been introduced to these woodlands, either deliberately or accidentally including Rhodes grass and other Chloris species, Buffel grass (Cenchrus ciliaris), Giant rat's tail grass (Sporobolus pyramidalis) parthenium (Parthenium hysterophorus) and stylos (Stylosanthes spp.) and other legumes. These introductions have the potential to significantly alter the structure and composition of savannas worldwide, and have already done so in many areas through a number of processes including altering the fire regime, increasing grazing pressure, competing with native vegetation and occupying previously vacant ecological niches.[46][47]
+Other plant species include: white sage, spotted cactus, cotton seed, rosemary.
+
+Human induced climate change resulting from the greenhouse effect may result in an alteration of the structure and function of savannas. Some authors[48] have suggested that savannas and grasslands may become even more susceptible to woody plant encroachment as a result of greenhouse induced climate change. However, a recent case described a savanna increasing its range at the expense of forest in response to climate variation, and potential exists for similar rapid, dramatic shifts in vegetation distribution as a result of global climate change, particularly at ecotones such as savannas so often represent.[49]
+
+Savanna ecoregions are of several different types:

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+A scientist is someone who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of interest.[1][2]
+
+In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosophical study of nature called natural philosophy, a precursor of natural science.[3] It was not until the 19th century that the term scientist came into regular use after it was coined by the theologian, philosopher, and historian of science William Whewell in 1833.[4][5]
+
+In modern times, many scientists have advanced degrees[6] in an area of science and pursue careers in various sectors of the economy such as academia, industry, government, and nonprofit environments.[7][8][9]
+
+The roles of "scientists", and their predecessors before the emergence of modern scientific disciplines, have evolved considerably over time.  Scientists of different eras (and before them, natural philosophers, mathematicians, natural historians, natural theologians, engineers, and others who contributed to the development of science) have had widely different places in society, and the social norms, ethical values, and epistemic virtues associated with scientists—and expected of them—have changed over time as well. Accordingly, many different historical figures can be identified as early scientists, depending on which characteristics of modern science are taken to be essential.
+
+Some historians point to the Scientific Revolution that began in 16th century as the period when science in a recognizably modern form developed. It wasn't until the 19th century that sufficient socioeconomic changes occurred for scientists to emerge as a major profession.[11]
+
+Knowledge about nature in classical antiquity was pursued by many kinds of scholars. Greek contributions to science—including works of geometry and mathematical astronomy, early accounts of biological processes and catalogs of plants and animals, and theories of knowledge and learning—were produced by philosophers and physicians, as well as practitioners of various trades.  These roles, and their associations with scientific knowledge, spread with the Roman Empire and, with the spread of Christianity, became closely linked to religious institutions in most of European countries. Astrology and astronomy became an important area of knowledge, and the role of astronomer/astrologer developed with the support of political and religious patronage.  By the time of the medieval university system, knowledge was divided into the trivium—philosophy, including natural philosophy—and the quadrivium—mathematics, including astronomy.  Hence, the medieval analogs of scientists were often either philosophers or mathematicians. Knowledge of plants and animals was broadly the province of physicians.
+
+Science in medieval Islam generated some new modes of developing natural knowledge, although still within the bounds of existing social roles such as philosopher and mathematician. Many proto-scientists from the Islamic Golden Age are considered polymaths, in part because of the lack of anything corresponding to modern scientific disciplines. Many of these early polymaths were also religious priests and theologians: for example, Alhazen and al-Biruni were mutakallimiin; the physician Avicenna was a hafiz; the physician Ibn al-Nafis was a hafiz, muhaddith and ulema; the botanist Otto Brunfels was a theologian and historian of Protestantism; the astronomer and physician Nicolaus Copernicus was a priest. During the Italian Renaissance scientists like Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Galileo Galilei and Gerolamo Cardano have been considered as the most recognizable polymaths.
+
+During the Renaissance, Italians made substantial contributions in science. Leonardo Da Vinci made significant discoveries in paleontology and anatomy. The Father of modern Science,[12][13]
+Galileo Galilei, made key improvements on the thermometer and telescope which allowed him to observe and clearly describe the solar system. Descartes was not only a pioneer of analytic geometry but formulated a theory of mechanics[14] and advanced ideas about the origins of animal movement and perception. Vision interested the physicists Young and Helmholtz, who also studied optics, hearing and music. Newton extended Descartes' mathematics by inventing calculus (at the same time as Leibniz). He provided a comprehensive formulation of classical mechanics and investigated light and optics. Fourier founded a new branch of mathematics — infinite, periodic series — studied heat flow and infrared radiation, and discovered the greenhouse effect. Girolamo Cardano, Blaise Pascal Pierre de Fermat, Von Neumann, Turing, Khinchin, Markov and Wiener, all mathematicians, made major contributions to science and probability theory, including the ideas behind computers, and some of the foundations of statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics. Many mathematically inclined scientists, including Galileo, were also musicians.
+
+There are many compelling stories in medicine and biology, such as the development of ideas about the circulation of blood from Galen to Harvey.
+
+During the age of Enlightenment, Luigi Galvani, the pioneer of the bioelectromagnetics, discovered the animal electricity. He discovered that a charge applied to the spinal cord of a frog could generate muscular spasms throughout its body. Charges could make frog legs jump even if the legs were no longer attached to a frog. While cutting a frog leg, Galvani's steel scalpel touched a brass hook that was holding the leg in place. The leg twitched. Further experiments confirmed this effect, and Galvani was convinced that he was seeing the effects of what he called animal electricity, the life force within the muscles of the frog. At the University of Pavia, Galvani's colleague Alessandro Volta was able to reproduce the results, but was sceptical of Galvani's explanation.[15]
+
+Lazzaro Spallanzani is one of the most influential figures in experimental physiology and the natural sciences. His investigations have exerted a lasting influence on the medical sciences. He made important contributions to the experimental study of bodily functions and animal reproduction.[16]
+
+Francesco Redi discovered that microorganisms can cause disease.
+
+Until the late 19th or early 20th century, scientists were still referred to as "natural philosophers" or "men of science".[17][18][19][20]
+
+English philosopher and historian of science William Whewell coined the term scientist in 1833, and it first appeared in print in Whewell's anonymous 1834 review of Mary Somerville's On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences published in the Quarterly Review.[21] Whewell's suggestion of the term was partly satirical, a response to changing conceptions of science itself in which natural knowledge was increasingly seen as distinct from other forms of knowledge.  Whewell wrote of "an increasing proclivity of separation and dismemberment" in the sciences; while highly specific terms proliferated—chemist, mathematician, naturalist—the broad term "philosopher" was no longer satisfactory to group together those who pursued science, without the caveats of "natural" or "experimental" philosopher.  Members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science had been complaining about the lack of a good term at recent meetings, Whewell reported in his review; alluding to himself, he noted that "some ingenious gentleman proposed that, by analogy with artist, they might form [the word] scientist, and added that there could be no scruple in making free with this term since we already have such words as economist, and atheist—but this was not generally palatable".[22]
+
+Whewell proposed the word again more seriously (and not anonymously) in his 1840[23] The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences:
+
+The terminations ize (rather than ise), ism, and ist, are applied to words of all origins: thus we have to pulverize, to colonize, Witticism, Heathenism, Journalist, Tobacconist. Hence we may make such words when they are wanted. As we cannot use physician for a cultivator of physics, I have called him a Physicist. We need very much a name to describe a cultivator of science in general. I should incline to call him a Scientist. Thus we might say, that as an Artist is a Musician, Painter, or Poet, a Scientist is a Mathematician, Physicist, or Naturalist.
+
+He also proposed the term physicist at the same time, as a counterpart to the French word physicien.  Neither term gained wide acceptance until decades later; scientist became a common term in the late 19th century in the United States and around the turn of the 20th century in Great Britain.[21][24][25] By the twentieth century, the modern notion of science as a special brand of information about the world, practiced by a distinct group and pursued through a unique method, was essentially in place.
+
+Ramón y Cajal won the Nobel Prize in 1906 for his remarkable observations in neuroanatomy.
+
+Marie Curie became the first female to win the Nobel Prize and the first person to win it twice. Her efforts led to the development of nuclear energy and Radiotherapy for the treatment of cancer. In 1922, she was appointed a member of the International Commission on Intellectual Co-operation by the Council of the League of Nations. She campaigned for scientist's right to patent their discoveries and inventions. She also campaigned for free access to international scientific literature and for internationally recognized scientific symbols.
+
+As a profession, the scientist of today is widely recognized.
+
+In modern times, many professional scientists are trained in an academic setting (e.g., universities and research institutes), mostly at the level of graduate schools. Upon completion, they would normally attain an academic degree, with the highest degree being a doctorate such as a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).[6] Although graduate education for scientists varies among institutions and countries, some common training requirements include specializing in an  area of interest,[26] publishing research findings in peer-reviewed scientific journals[27] and presenting them at scientific conferences,[28] giving lectures or teaching,[28] and defending a thesis (or dissertation) during an oral examination.[6] To aid them in this endeavor, graduate students often work under the guidance of a mentor, usually a senior scientist, which may continue after the completion of their doctorates whereby they work as postdoctoral researchers.[29]
+
+After the completion of their training, many scientists pursue careers in a variety of work settings and conditions.[7] In 2017, the British scientific journal Nature published the results of a large-scale survey of more than 5,700 doctoral students worldwide, asking them which sectors of the economy they would like to work in. A little over half of the respondents wanted to pursue a career in academia, with smaller proportions hoping to work in industry, government, and nonprofit environments.[8][9]
+
+Scientists are motivated to work in several ways. Many have a desire to understand why the world is as we see it and how it came to be. They exhibit a strong curiosity about reality. Other motivations are recognition by their peers and prestige. The Nobel Prize, a widely regarded prestigious award,[30] is awarded annually to those who have achieved scientific advances in the fields of medicine, physics, chemistry, and economics.
+
+Some scientists have a desire to apply scientific knowledge for the benefit of people's health, the nations, the world, nature, or industries (academic scientist and industrial scientist). Scientists tend to be less motivated by direct financial reward for their work than other careers. As a result, scientific researchers often accept lower average salaries when compared with many other professions which require a similar amount of training and qualification.[31]
+
+Although there have been exceptions, most scientists tend to do their best research when they are relatively young, in their 30s.[32]
+
+Scientists include experimentalists who mainly perform experiments to test hypotheses, and theoreticians who mainly develop models to explain existing data and predict new results. There is a continuum between two activities and the division between them is not clear-cut, with many scientists performing both tasks.
+
+Those considering science as a career often look to the frontiers. These include cosmology and biology, especially molecular biology and the human genome project. Other areas of active research include the exploration of matter at the scale of elementary particles as described by high-energy physics, and materials science, which seeks to discover and design new materials. Although there have been remarkable discoveries with regard to brain function and neurotransmitters, the nature of the mind and human thought still remains unknown.
+
+The number of scientists is vastly different from country to country. For instance, there are only four full-time scientists per 10,000 workers in India, while this number is 79 for the United Kingdom, and 85 for the United States.[33]
+
+According to the National Science Foundation, 4.7 million people with science degrees worked in the United States in 2015, across all disciplines and employment sectors. The figure included twice as many men as women. Of that total, 17% worked in academia, that is, at universities and undergraduate institutions, and men held 53% of those positions. 5% of scientists worked for the federal government, and about 3.5% were self-employed. Of the latter two groups, two-thirds were men. 59% of scientists in the United States were employed in industry or business, and another 6% worked in non-profit positions.[34]
+
+Scientist and engineering statistics are usually intertwined, but they indicate that women enter the field far less than men, though this gap is narrowing. The number of science and engineering doctorates awarded to women rose from a mere 7 percent in 1970 to 34 percent in 1985 and in engineering alone the numbers of bachelor's degrees awarded to women rose from only 385 in 1975 to more than 11000 in 1985.[35][clarification needed]

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+
+
+
+
+Knowledge is a familiarity, awareness, or understanding of someone or something, such as facts (propositional knowledge), skills (procedural knowledge), or objects (acquaintance knowledge). By most accounts, knowledge can be acquired in many different ways and from many difference sources, including but not limited to perception, reason, memory, testimony, scientific inquiry, education, and practice. The philosophical study of knowledge is called epistemology.
+
+Knowledge can refer to a theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. It can be implicit (as with practical skill or expertise) or explicit (as with the theoretical understanding of a subject); formal or informal; systematic or particular.[1] The philosopher Plato famously pointed out the need for a distinction between knowledge and true belief in the Theaetetus, leading many to attribute to him a definition of knowledge as "justified true belief".[2][3] The difficulties with this definition raised by the Gettier problem have been the subject of extensive debate in epistemology for more than half a century.[2]
+
+The eventual demarcation of philosophy from science was made possible by the notion that philosophy's core was "theory of knowledge," a theory distinct from the sciences because it was their foundation... Without this idea of a "theory of knowledge," it is hard to imagine what "philosophy" could have been in the age of modern science.
+
+The definition of knowledge is a matter of ongoing debate among philosophers in the field of epistemology. The classical definition, described but not ultimately endorsed by Plato,[4] specifies that a statement must meet three criteria in order to be considered knowledge: it must be justified, true, and believed. Some claim that these conditions are not sufficient, as Gettier case examples allegedly demonstrate. There are a number of alternatives proposed, including Robert Nozick's arguments for a requirement that knowledge 'tracks the truth' and Simon Blackburn's additional requirement that we do not want to say that those who meet any of these conditions 'through a defect, flaw, or failure' have knowledge. Richard Kirkham suggests that our definition of knowledge requires that the evidence for the belief necessitates its truth.[5]
+
+In contrast to this approach, Ludwig Wittgenstein observed, following Moore's paradox, that one can say "He believes it, but it isn't so," but not "He knows it, but it isn't so."[6] He goes on to argue that these do not correspond to distinct mental states, but rather to distinct ways of talking about conviction. What is different here is not the mental state of the speaker, but the activity in which they are engaged. For example, on this account, to know that the kettle is boiling is not to be in a particular state of mind, but to perform a particular task with the statement that the kettle is boiling. Wittgenstein sought to bypass the difficulty of definition by looking to the way "knowledge" is used in natural languages. He saw knowledge as a case of a family resemblance. Following this idea, "knowledge" has been reconstructed as a cluster concept that points out relevant features but that is not adequately captured by any definition.[7]
+
+“Self-knowledge” usually refers to a person's knowledge of her own sensations, thoughts, beliefs, and other mental states.[8] A number of questions regarding self-knowledge have been the subject of extensive debates/ in philosophy, including whether self-knowledge differs from other types of knowledge, whether we have privileged self-knowledge compared to knowledge of other minds, and the nature of our acquaintance with ourselves.[8] David Hume famously expressed skepticism about whether we could ever have self-knowledge over and above our immediate awareness of a "bundle of perceptions", which was part of his broader skepticism about personal identity.[8]
+
+We generally assume that knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief. If so, what is the explanation? A formulation of the value problem in epistemology first occurs in Plato's Meno. Socrates points out to Meno that a man who knew the way to Larissa could lead others there correctly. But so, too, could a man who had true beliefs about how to get there, even if he had not gone there or had any knowledge of Larissa. Socrates says that it seems that both knowledge and true opinion can guide action. Meno then wonders why knowledge is valued more than true belief and why knowledge and true belief are different. Socrates responds that knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief because it is tethered or justified. Justification, or working out the reason for a true belief, locks down true belief.[9]
+
+The problem is to identify what (if anything) makes knowledge more valuable than mere true belief, or that makes knowledge more valuable than a mere minimal conjunction of its components, such as justification, safety, sensitivity, statistical likelihood, and anti-Gettier conditions, on a particular analysis of knowledge that conceives of knowledge as divided into components (to which knowledge-first epistemological theories, which posit knowledge as fundamental, are notable exceptions).[10] The value problem re-emerged in the philosophical literature on epistemology in the twenty-first century following the rise of virtue epistemology in the 1980s, partly because of the obvious link to the concept of value in ethics.[11]
+
+In contemporary philosophy, epistemologists including Ernest Sosa, John Greco, Jonathan Kvanvig,[12] Linda Zagzebski, and Duncan Pritchard have defended virtue epistemology as a solution to the value problem. They argue that epistemology should also evaluate the "properties" of people as epistemic agents (i.e. intellectual virtues), rather than merely the properties of propositions and propositional mental attitudes.
+
+The development of the scientific method has made a significant contribution to how knowledge of the physical world and its phenomena is acquired.[13] To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning and experimentation.[14] The scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.[15] Science, and the nature of scientific knowledge have also become the subject of philosophy. As science itself has developed, scientific knowledge now includes a broader usage[16] in the soft sciences such as biology and the social sciences – discussed elsewhere as meta-epistemology, or genetic epistemology, and to some extent related to "theory of cognitive development". Note that "epistemology" is the study of knowledge and how it is acquired. Science is "the process used everyday to logically complete thoughts through inference of facts determined by calculated experiments." Sir Francis Bacon was critical in the historical development of the scientific method; his works established and popularized an inductive methodology for scientific inquiry. His famous aphorism, "knowledge is power", is found in the Meditations Sacrae (1597).[17]
+
+Until recent times, at least in the Western tradition, it was simply taken for granted that knowledge was something possessed only by humans – and probably adult humans at that. Sometimes the notion might stretch to Society-as-such, as in (e. g.) "the knowledge possessed by the Coptic culture" (as opposed to its individual members), but that was not assured either. Nor was it usual to consider unconscious knowledge in any systematic way until this approach was popularized by Freud.[18]
+
+Other biological domains where "knowledge" might be said to reside, include: (iii) the immune system, and (iv) in the DNA of the genetic code. See the list of four "epistemological domains": Popper, (1975);[19] and Traill (2008:[20] Table S, p. 31) – also references by both to Niels Jerne.
+
+Such considerations seem to call for a separate definition of "knowledge" to cover the biological systems. For biologists, knowledge must be usefully available to the system, though that system need not be conscious. Thus the criteria seem to be:
+
+Those who use the phrase "scientific knowledge" don't necessary claim to certainty, since scientists will never be absolutely certain when they are correct and when they are not. It is thus an irony of proper scientific method that one must doubt even when correct, in the hopes that this practice will lead to greater convergence on the truth in general.[22]
+
+Situated knowledge is knowledge specific to a particular situation. It was used by Donna Haraway as an extension of the feminist approaches of "successor science" suggested by Sandra Harding, one which "offers a more adequate, richer, better account of a world, in order to live in it well and in critical, reflexive relation to our own as well as others' practices of domination and the unequal parts of privilege and oppression that makes up all positions."[23] This situation partially transforms science into a narrative, which Arturo Escobar explains as, "neither fictions nor supposed facts." This narrative of situation is historical textures woven of fact and fiction, and as Escobar explains further, "even the most neutral scientific domains are narratives in this sense," insisting that rather than a purpose dismissing science as a trivial matter of contingency, "it is to treat (this narrative) in the most serious way, without succumbing to its mystification as 'the truth' or to the ironic skepticism common to many critiques."[24]
+
+Haraway's argument stems from the limitations of the human perception, as well as the overemphasis of the sense of vision in science. According to Haraway, vision in science has been, "used to signify a leap out of the marked body and into a conquering gaze from nowhere." This is the "gaze that mythically inscribes all the marked bodies, that makes the unmarked category claim the power to see and not be seen, to represent while escaping representation."[23] This causes a limitation of views in the position of science itself as a potential player in the creation of knowledge, resulting in a position of "modest witness". This is what Haraway terms a "god trick", or the aforementioned representation while escaping representation.[25] In order to avoid this, "Haraway perpetuates a tradition of thought which emphasizes the importance of the subject in terms of both ethical and political accountability".[26]
+
+Some methods of generating knowledge, such as trial and error, or learning from experience, tend to create highly situational knowledge.
+Situational knowledge is often embedded in language, culture, or traditions. This integration of situational knowledge is an allusion to the community, and its attempts at collecting subjective perspectives into an embodiment "of views from somewhere." [23] Knowledge is also said to be related to the capacity of acknowledgement in human beings.[27]
+
+Even though Haraway's arguments are largely based on feminist studies,[23] this idea of different worlds, as well as the skeptic stance of situated knowledge is present in the main arguments of post-structuralism. Fundamentally, both argue the contingency of knowledge on the presence of history; power, and geography, as well as the rejection of universal rules or laws or elementary structures; and the idea of power as an inherited trait of objectification.[28]
+
+One discipline of epistemology focuses on partial knowledge. In most cases, it is not possible to understand an information domain exhaustively; our knowledge is always incomplete or partial. Most real problems have to be solved by taking advantage of a partial understanding of the problem context and problem data, unlike the typical math problems one might solve at school, where all data is given and one is given a complete understanding of formulas necessary to solve them.[citation needed]
+
+This idea is also present in the concept of bounded rationality which assumes that in real life situations people often have a limited amount of information and make decisions accordingly.
+
+In many expressions of Christianity, such as Catholicism and Anglicanism, knowledge is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.[29]
+
+The Old Testament's tree of the knowledge of good and evil contained the knowledge that separated Man from God: "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil..." (Genesis 3:22)
+
+In Gnosticism, divine knowledge or gnosis is hoped to be attained.
+
+विद्या दान (Vidya Daan) i.e. knowledge sharing is a major part of Daan, a tenet of all Dharmic Religions.[30]
+Hindu Scriptures present two kinds of knowledge, Paroksh Gyan and Prataksh Gyan. Paroksh Gyan (also spelled Paroksha-Jnana) is secondhand knowledge: knowledge obtained from books, hearsay, etc. Pratyaksh Gyan (also spelled Pratyaksha-Jnana) is the knowledge borne of direct experience, i.e., knowledge that one discovers for oneself.[31] Jnana yoga ("path of knowledge") is one of three main types of yoga expounded by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. (It is compared and contrasted with Bhakti Yoga and Karma yoga.)
+
+In Islam, knowledge (Arabic: علم, ʿilm) is given great significance. "The Knowing" (al-ʿAlīm) is one of the 99 names reflecting distinct attributes of God. The Qur'an asserts that knowledge comes from God (2:239) and various hadith encourage the acquisition of knowledge. Muhammad is reported to have said "Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave" and "Verily the men of knowledge are the inheritors of the prophets". Islamic scholars, theologians and jurists are often given the title alim, meaning "knowledgeble".[citation needed]
+
+In Jewish tradition, knowledge (Hebrew: דעת da'ath) is considered one of the most valuable traits a person can acquire. Observant Jews recite three times a day in the Amidah "Favor us with knowledge, understanding and discretion that come from you. Exalted are you, Existent-One, the gracious giver of knowledge." The Tanakh states, "A wise man gains power, and a man of knowledge maintains power", and "knowledge is chosen above gold".

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+
+
+Soap is a salt of a fatty acid[1] used in a variety of cleansing and lubricating products. In a domestic setting, soaps are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are used as thickeners, components of some lubricants, and precursors to catalysts.
+
+When used for cleaning, soap solubilizes particles and grime, which can then be separated from the article being cleaned. In hand washing, as a surfactant, when lathered with a little water, soap kills microorganisms by disorganizing their membrane lipid bilayer and denaturing their proteins. It also emulsifies oils, enabling them to be carried away by running water.[2]
+
+Soap is created by mixing fats and oils with a base,[3] as opposed to detergent which is created by combining chemical compounds in a mixer.
+
+Humans have used soap for millennia. Evidence exists of the production of soap-like materials in around 2800 BC in ancient Babylon.
+
+Since they are salts of fatty acids, soaps have the general formula (RCO2−)nMn+ (Where R is an alkyl, M is a metal and n is the charge of the cation). The major classification of soaps is determined by the identity of Mn+. When M is Na or K, the soaps are called toilet soaps, used for handwashing. Many metal dications (Mg2+, Ca2+, and others) give metallic soap. When M is Li, the result is lithium soap (e.g., lithium stearate), which is used in high-performance greases.[4]
+
+Soaps are key components of most lubricating greases and thickeners.  Greases are usually emulsions of calcium soap or lithium soap and mineral oil.[5] Many other metallic soaps are also useful, including those of aluminium, sodium, and mixtures thereof. Such soaps are also used as thickeners to increase the viscosity of oils. In ancient times, lubricating greases were made by the addition of lime to olive oil.[6]
+
+Metal soaps are also included in modern artists' oil paints formulations as a rheology modifier.[7]
+
+Most metal soaps are prepared by neutralization of purified fatty acids:
+
+In a domestic setting, "soap" usually refers to what is technically called a toilet soap, used for household and personal cleaning. When used for cleaning, soap solubilizes particles and grime, which can then be separated from the article being cleaned.
+The insoluble oil/fat molecules become associated inside micelles, tiny spheres formed from soap molecules with polar hydrophilic (water-attracting) groups on the outside and encasing a lipophilic (fat-attracting) pocket, which shields the oil/fat molecules from the water making it soluble. Anything that is soluble will be washed away with the water.
+
+The production of toilet soaps usually entails saponification of fats (triglycerides).  Triglycerides are vegetable or animal oils and fats.  An alkaline solution (often lye or sodium hydroxide) induces saponification whereby the triglyceride fats first hydrolyze into salts of fatty acids. Glycerol (glycerin) is liberated. The glycerin can remain in the soap product as a softening agent, although it is sometimes separated.[8]
+
+The type of alkali metal used determines the kind of soap product. Sodium soaps, prepared from sodium hydroxide, are firm, whereas potassium soaps, derived from potassium hydroxide, are softer or often liquid. Historically, potassium hydroxide was extracted from the ashes of bracken or other plants. Lithium soaps also tend to be hard. These are used exclusively in greases.
+
+For making toilet soaps, triglycerides (oils and fats) are derived from coconut, olive, or palm oils, as well as tallow.[9] Triglyceride is the chemical name for the triesters of fatty acids and glycerin. Tallow, i.e., rendered beef fat, is the most available triglyceride from animals. Each species offers quite different fatty acid content, resulting in soaps of distinct feel. The seed oils give softer but milder soaps. Soap made from pure olive oil, sometimes called Castile soap or Marseille soap, is reputed for its particular mildness. The term "Castile" is also sometimes applied to soaps from a mixture of oils, but a high percentage of olive oil.
+
+The earliest recorded evidence of the production of soap-like materials dates back to around 2800 BC in ancient Babylon.[10]  A formula for soap consisting of water, alkali, and cassia oil was written on a Babylonian clay tablet around 2200 BC.[11]
+
+The Ebers papyrus (Egypt, 1550 BC) indicates the ancient Egyptians bathed regularly and combined animal and vegetable oils with alkaline salts to create a soap-like substance. Egyptian documents mention a similar substance was used in the preparation of wool for weaving.[12]
+
+In the reign of Nabonidus (556–539 BC), a recipe for soap consisted of uhulu [ashes], cypress [oil] and sesame [seed oil] "for washing the stones for the servant girls".[13]
+
+In ancient Israel, the ashes from barilla plants, such as species of Salsola, saltwort (Seidlitzia rosmarinus) and Anabasis, were used in soap production, known as potash.[14][15] Soap made from potash (a concentrate of burnt wood or vegetable ashes mixed with lard or olive oil) is alkaline. If animal lard were used, it was heated and kept lukewarm (not boiling hot; neither cold). Lard, collected from suet, needed to be rendered and strained before being used with ashes (with the recommended consistency of 1 cup of lard to 3/8 cup of concentrated ash water). Traditionally, olive oil was used instead of animal lard throughout the Levant, which was boiled in a copper cauldron for several days.[16] As the boiling progresses, alkali ashes and smaller quantities of quicklime were added, and constantly stirred.[16] In the case of lard, it required constant stirring while kept lukewarm until it began to trace. Once it began to thicken, the brew was poured into a mold and left to cool and harden for 2 weeks. After hardening, it was cut into smaller cakes. Aromatic herbs were often added to the rendered soap to impart their fragrance, such as yarrow leaves, lavender, germander, etc. The ancient method here described is still in use in the production of Nabulsi soap.
+
+The word sapo, Latin for soap, likely was borrowed from an early Germanic language and is cognate with Latin sebum, "tallow". It first appears in Pliny the Elder's account,[17] Historia Naturalis, which discusses the manufacture of soap from tallow and ashes, but the only use he mentions for it is as a pomade for hair; he mentions rather disapprovingly that the men of the Gauls and Germans were more likely to use it than their female counterparts.[18] The Romans avoided washing with harsh soaps before encountering the milder soaps used by the Gauls around 58 BC.[19] Aretaeus of Cappadocia, writing in the 2nd century AD, observes among "Celts, which are men called Gauls, those alkaline substances that are made into balls [...] called soap".[20] The Romans' preferred method of cleaning the body was to massage oil into the skin and then scrape away both the oil and any dirt with a strigil. The Gauls used soap made from animal fat.
+
+Zosimos of Panopolis, circa 300 AD, describes soap and soapmaking.[21] Galen describes soap-making using lye and prescribes washing to carry away impurities from the body and clothes. The use of soap for personal cleanliness became increasingly common in the 2nd century AD. According to Galen, the best soaps were Germanic, and soaps from Gaul were second best.[21]
+
+A detergent similar to soap was manufactured in ancient China from the seeds of Gleditsia sinensis.[22] Another traditional detergent is a mixture of pig pancreas and plant ash called zhuyizi (simplified Chinese: 猪胰子; traditional Chinese: 豬胰子; pinyin: zhūyízǐ). True soap, made of animal fat, did not appear in China until the modern era.[23] Soap-like detergents were not as popular as ointments and creams.[22]
+
+Hard toilet soap with a pleasant smell was produced in the Middle East during the Islamic Golden Age, when soap-making became an established industry. Recipes for soap-making are described by Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (854–925), who also gave a recipe for producing glycerine from olive oil. In the Middle East, soap was produced from the interaction of fatty oils and fats with alkali. In Syria, soap was produced using olive oil together with alkali and lime. Soap was exported from Syria to other parts of the Muslim world and to Europe.[24]
+
+A 12th-century Islamic document describes the process of soap production.[25]  It mentions the key ingredient, alkali, which later becomes crucial to modern chemistry, derived from al-qaly or "ashes".
+
+By the 13th century, the manufacture of soap in the Islamic world had become virtually industrialized, with sources in Nablus, Fes, Damascus, and Aleppo.[26][27]
+
+Soapmakers in Naples were members of a guild in the late sixth century (then under the control of the Eastern Roman Empire),[28] and in the eighth century, soap-making was well known in Italy and Spain.[29] The Carolingian capitulary De Villis, dating to around 800, representing the royal will of Charlemagne, mentions soap as being one of the products the stewards of royal estates are to tally. The lands of Medieval Spain were a leading soapmaker by 800, and soapmaking began in the Kingdom of England about 1200.[30] Soapmaking is mentioned both as "women's work" and as the produce of "good workmen" alongside other necessities, such as the produce of carpenters, blacksmiths, and bakers.[31]
+
+In Europe, soap in the 9th century was produced from animal fats and had an unpleasant smell. Hard toilet soap with a pleasant smell was later imported from the Middle East.[24]
+
+In France, by the second half of the 15th century, the semi-industrialized professional manufacture of soap was concentrated in a few centers of Provence—Toulon, Hyères, and Marseille—which supplied the rest of France.[32] In Marseilles, by 1525, production was concentrated in at least two factories, and soap production at Marseille tended to eclipse the other Provençal centers.[33] English manufacture tended to concentrate in London.[34]
+
+Finer soaps were later produced in Europe from the 16th century, using vegetable oils (such as olive oil) as opposed to animal fats. Many of these soaps are still produced, both industrially and by small-scale artisans. Castile soap is a popular example of the vegetable-only soaps derived from the oldest "white soap" of Italy. In 1634 Charles I granted the newly formed Society of Soapmakers a monopoly in soap production who produced certificates from ‘foure Countesses, and five Viscountesses, and divers other Ladies and Gentlewomen of great credite and quality, besides common Laundresses and others’, testifying that ‘the New White Soap washeth whiter and sweeter than the Old Soap’.[35]
+
+Industrially manufactured bar soaps became available in the late 18th century, as advertising campaigns in Europe and America promoted popular awareness of the relationship between cleanliness and health.[36] In modern times, the use of soap has become commonplace in industrialized nations due to a better understanding of the role of hygiene in reducing the population size of pathogenic microorganisms.
+
+Until the Industrial Revolution, soapmaking was conducted on a small scale and the product was rough. In 1780, James Keir established a chemical works at Tipton, for the manufacture of alkali from the sulfates of potash and soda, to which he afterwards added a soap manufactory. The method of extraction proceeded on a discovery of Keir's. In 1790, Nicolas Leblanc discovered how to make alkali from common salt.[19] Andrew Pears started making a high-quality, transparent soap in 1807[37] in London. His son-in-law, Thomas J. Barratt, opened a factory in Isleworth in 1862.
+
+During the Restoration era (February 1665 – August 1714) a soap tax was introduced in England, which meant that until the mid-1800s, soap was a luxury, used regularly only by the well-to-do. The soap manufacturing process was closely supervised by revenue officials who made sure that soapmakers' equipment was kept under lock and key when not being supervised. Moreover, soap could not be produced by small makers because of a law which stipulated that soap boilers must manufacture a minimum quantity of one imperial ton at each boiling, which placed the process beyond reach of the average person. The soap trade was boosted and deregulated when the tax was repealed in 1853.[38][39][40]
+
+William Gossage produced low-priced, good-quality soap from the 1850s. Robert Spear Hudson began manufacturing a soap powder in 1837, initially by grinding the soap with a mortar and pestle. American manufacturer Benjamin T. Babbitt introduced marketing innovations that included sale of bar soap and distribution of product samples. William Hesketh Lever and his brother, James, bought a small soap works in Warrington in 1886 and founded what is still one of the largest soap businesses, formerly called Lever Brothers and now called Unilever. These soap businesses were among the first to employ large-scale advertising campaigns.
+
+Liquid soap was not invented until the nineteenth century; in 1865, William Shepphard patented a liquid version of soap.[41] In 1898, B.J. Johnson developed a soap derived from palm and olive oils; his company, the B.J. Johnson Soap Company, introduced "Palmolive" brand soap that same year.[42] This new brand of soap became popular rapidly, and to such a degree that B.J. Johnson Soap Company changed its name to Palmolive.[43]
+
+In the early 1900s, other companies began to develop their own liquid soaps. Such products as Pine-Sol and Tide appeared on the market, making the process of cleaning things other than skin, such as clothing, floors, and bathrooms, much easier.
+
+Liquid soap also works better for more traditional or non-machine washing methods, such as using a washboard.[44]
+
+A variety of methods are available for hobbyists to make soap.[45] Most soapmakers use processes where the glycerol remains in the product, and the saponification continues for many days after the soap is poured into molds. The glycerol is left during the hot-process method, but at the high temperature employed, the reaction is practically completed in the kettle, before the soap is poured into molds. This simple and quick process is employed in small factories all over the world.
+
+Handmade soap from the cold process also differs from industrially made soap in that an excess of fat is used, beyond that needed to consume the alkali (in a cold-pour process, this excess fat is called "superfatting"), and the glycerol left in acts as a moisturizing agent. However, the glycerine also makes the soap softer. Addition of glycerol and processing of this soap produces glycerin soap. Superfatted soap is more skin-friendly than one without extra fat, although it can leave a "greasy" feel. Sometimes, an emollient is added, such as jojoba oil or shea butter.[46] Sand or pumice may be added to produce a scouring soap. The scouring agents serve to remove dead cells from the skin surface being cleaned. This process is called exfoliation.
+
+To make antibacterial soap, compounds such as triclosan or triclocarban can be added. There is some concern that use of antibacterial soaps and other products might encourage antibiotic resistance in microorganisms.[47]
+
+Azul e branco soap – a bar of blue-white soap
+
+Handmade soaps sold at a shop in Hyères, France
+
+Traditional Marseille soap
+
+Modern Soap Shop in Tübingen (2019)

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+Military band family:
+
+Orchestral family:
+
+Other saxophones:
+
+The saxophone (referred to colloquially as the sax) is a family of woodwind instruments usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece.[2] Although most saxophones are made from brass, they are categorized as woodwind instruments, because sound is produced by an oscillating reed (traditionally made out of woody cane) rather than lips vibrating in a mouthpiece cup as with the brass instrument family. As with the other woodwind instruments, the pitch of the note being played is controlled by covering holes in the body tube to control the resonant frequency of the air column by changing the effective length of the tube.[3]
+The player covers or uncovers the holes by pressing keys.
+
+The saxophone is used in classical music (such as concert bands, chamber music, solo repertoire, and, occasionally, orchestras), military bands, marching bands, jazz (such as big bands and jazz combos), and contemporary music. The saxophone is also used as a solo and melody instrument or as a member of a horn section in some styles of rock and roll and popular music. Saxophone players are called saxophonists.[2]
+
+Since the first saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in the early 1840s,[4] saxophones have been produced in a variety of series distinguished by transpositions within instrument sets and tuning standard. Sax patented the saxophone on 28 June 1846, in two groups of seven instruments each. Each series consisted of instruments ranked by pitch, in alternating transposition. The series pitched in B♭ and E♭ soon became dominant and most saxophones encountered today are from this series. Instruments from the series pitched in C and F never gained a foothold and constituted only a small percentage of instruments made by Sax. High Pitch (also marked "H" or "HP") saxophones tuned sharper than the (concert) A = 440 Hz standard were produced into the early twentieth century for sonic qualities suited for outdoor uses, but are not playable to modern tuning and are considered obsolete. Low Pitch (also marked "L" or "LP") saxophones are equivalent in tuning to modern instruments. C soprano and C melody saxophones were produced for the casual market as parlor instruments during the early twentieth century. Saxophones in F were introduced during the late 1920s but never gained acceptance. The modern saxophone family consists entirely of instruments in the B♭ – E♭ series, historical and experimental instruments notwithstanding.  The saxophones with widest use and availability are the soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones.
+
+In the keyed (below overtone-produced altissimo) ranges of the various saxophones, the pitch is controlled by keys with shallow cups in which are fastened leather pads that seal toneholes, controlling the resonant length, and thereby frequency, of the air column within the bore.  Small holes called vents, located between the toneholes and the mouthpiece, are opened by an octave key to raise the pitch one octave by eliminating the fundamental frequency, leaving the first harmonic as the frequency defining the pitch.  Most modern saxophones are keyed to produce a low B♭ (relative to the instrument's transposition) with all keys closed; modern baritone saxophones commonly play a low A and altos keyed to low A have been produced in the past.  The highest keyed note has traditionally been F two and a half octaves above low B♭, while the keyed range is extended to F♯ on most recent performance-class instruments.  A high G key is most common on modern soprano saxophones.  Notes above F are considered part of the altissimo register of any saxophone, and can be produced using advanced embouchure techniques and fingering combinations. Keywork facilitating altissimo playing is a feature of modern saxophones. Modern saxophone players have extended the range to over four octaves on tenor and alto.  Music for most saxophones is usually notated using treble clef.
+
+Because all saxophones use the same key arrangement and fingering to produce a given notated pitch, it is not difficult for a competent player to switch among the various sizes when the music has been suitably transposed, and many players do so. Since the baritone and alto are pitched in E♭, players can read concert pitch music notated in the bass clef by reading it as if it were treble clef and adding three sharps to the key signature. This process, referred to as clef substitution, makes it possible for the Eb instruments to play from parts written for baritone horn, bassoon, euphonium, string bass, trombone, or tuba. This can be useful if a band or orchestra lacks one of those instruments.
+
+The straight soprano and sopranino saxophones consist of a straight conical tube with a flared bell at the end opposite the mouthpiece. Alto and larger saxophones include a detachable curved neck above the highest tone hole, directing the mouthpiece to the player's mouth and, with rare exceptions, a U-shaped bow that directs the bore upward and a curve in the throat of the bell directing it forward. The set of curves near the bell has become a distinctive feature of the saxophone family, to the extent that soprano and even sopranino saxes are sometimes made in the curved style.   The baritone, bass, and contrabass saxophones accommodate the length of the bore with extra bows and right-angle bends between the main body and the mouthpiece.
+
+The left hand operates keys from the upper part of the body tube while the right hand operates keys from the lower part.  The right thumb sits under a thumb hook and left thumb is placed on a thumb rest to stabilize and balance the saxophone or operates the octave key. The weight of most saxophones is shared by the right thumb and a neckstrap attached to a strap ring on the rear of the body of the instrument. With the smaller instruments, relatively more of the weight is supported by the thumb.
+
+Keys consist of the cups, levers, and pivots that control the position of the pads over the toneholes.  At rest, some keys are open and some are closed, held in position by springs that are overridden by finger or hand (palm keys) pressure.  The keys are activated by pressure on key touches, either directly on the pad cup or connected to it with levers, either directly or with joints called linkages.  The levers between the key cups and the pivots are called key arms.
+
+The fingering for the saxophone is a combination of that of the oboe with the Boehm system[5] and is similar to the flute or upper register of the clarinet. The stack keys are operated by the first, second, and third fingers on each hand with slightly concave button-style key touches (key buttons) operating with the same motion as the pad cups that they control.  The stack keys are linked to higher stack keys with regulation bar and bridge arm linkages.  Key buttons are advantageous for operating keys with direct downward finger pressure but provide disadvantages operating keys with other finger and hand motions, hence, their use on keys operated with such motions has diminished with the evolution of saxophone designs.
+
+Palm keys and the front F key operated by the left hand, and the high F, high F♯ and high G keys operated by the right hand, control the upper end of the keyed range and are used to vent altissimo notes.  Chromatic keys operated by the right hand provide alternate fingerings for F♯, B♭, and C within the stack range.  The  fourth fingers of the right and left hands open keys to raise pitch by a semitone as well as close keys towards the lower range of the instrument, with the lowest pitch bell keys operated by the left hand.  The keys operated by the fourth fingers are referred to as table keys.  Instruments that play to low A have a left thumb key for that note.
+
+On saxophones produced since the early 1920s the G♯ key operated from the left hand table is closed by closing keys on the lower stack regardless of pressure on the G♯ actuating mechanism (F-linked, or stack-linked, G♯ mechanism).  That feature vastly increases the speed and playability of certain intervals to the point that saxophones with direct G♯ action, in which the key stays open when the lower stack keys are depressed, are considered obsolete.  Modern left hand tables also articulate the G♯ key with the low C♯, B, and B♭ keys to open it when any of those keys are depressed and the right hand stack keys are not.  That also provides significant advantages for playing certain intervals near the lower range of the instrument.  Some players willingly forego the benefits of the articulated G♯ to play vintage instruments, but a front F key and a stack-linked G♯ key are regarded as critical features by serious players.[6]
+
+From the earliest days of the saxophone the body and key cups have been made from sheet brass stock, owing to its workability in forming complex shapes.  Mechanical keywork is assembled from components either hand-tooled or machined from other forms of brass stock.  King introduced saxophones with necks and bells of sterling silver during the 1930s and continued that "silversonic" scheme into the early 1960s. Yanagisawa revived the scheme during the 1980s and later introduced entire instruments of sterling silver.[7]
+Keilwerth and P. Mauriat have used nickel silver, a copper-nickel-zinc alloy more commonly used for flutes, for the bodies of some saxophone models.[8] 
+For visual and tonal effect, higher copper variants of brass  are sometimes substituted for the more common "yellow brass" and "cartridge brass." Yanagisawa made its 902 and 992 series saxophones with the high copper alloy phosphor bronze to achieve a darker, more "vintage" tone than the brass 901 and 991 models.[9] Other saxophones made of high copper alloys are sold under various brands.
+
+Other materials are used for some mechanical parts and keywork.  Since 1920, most saxophones have replaceable key buttons operating the stack keys, usually made from either plastic or mother of pearl. Some saxophones are made with abalone, stone, or wood key buttons.  On some premium models, the key button material is used to form the convex key touches for other keys.  The rods and screw pins that the keywork's hinges pivot on, and the needle and leaf springs that hold keys in their rest position, are usually made of blued or stainless steel. Mechanical buffers of felt, cork, leather, and various synthetic materials are used to reduce friction, to minimize mechanical noise from movement of keys, and to optimize the action of the keywork for positive pad sealing, intonation, speed, and "feel."  Nickel silver is sometimes used for hinges for its advantages of mechanical durability, although the most common material for such applications has remained brass.  Saxophones with high copper bodies still have brass keywork owing to its more suitable mechanical properties relative to those alloys.
+
+Before final assembly, manufacturers usually apply a finish to the surface of the horn.  The most common finish is a thin coating of clear or colored acrylic lacquer. The lacquer serves to protect the brass from oxidation and maintains its shiny appearance. Silver or gold plating are offered as premium options on some models. Some silver plated saxophones are also lacquered.  Plating saxophones with gold is an expensive process because an underplating of silver is required for the gold to adhere to.[10] Nickel plating has been used on the bodies of early budget model saxophones and is commonly used on keywork when a more durable finish than lacquer is desired, mostly with student model saxophones. Chemical surface treatment of the base metal has come into use as an alternative to the lacquer and plating finishes in recent years.  Some saxophonists, retailers, and repair technicians argue that the type of lacquer or plating (or absence of lacquer)[11] may be a factor affecting the instrument's tone quality.
+
+The saxophone uses a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. Each size of saxophone (alto, tenor, etc.) uses a different size of reed and mouthpiece.
+
+Most saxophonists use reeds made from Arundo donax cane, but since middle of the twentieth century some have also been made of fiberglass and other composite materials.  Saxophone reeds are proportioned slightly differently from clarinet reeds, being wider for the same length.  Reeds are commercially available in a vast array of brands, styles, and strengths. Saxophonists experiment with reeds of different strength (hardnesses) and material to find which strength and cut suits their mouthpiece, embouchure, physiology, and playing style.
+
+Mouthpiece design has a profound impact on tone.[12] Different mouthpiece design characteristics and features tend to be favored for different styles. Early mouthpieces were designed to produce a "warm" and "round" sound for classical playing. Among classical mouthpieces, those with a concave ("excavated") chamber are more true to Adolphe Sax's original design; these provide a softer or less piercing tone favored by the Raschèr school of classical playing. Saxophonists who follow the French school of classical playing, influenced by Marcel Mule, generally use mouthpieces with smaller chambers for a somewhat "brighter" sound with relatively more upper harmonics.  The use of the saxophone in dance orchestras and jazz ensembles from the 1920s onward placed emphasis on dynamic range and projection, leading to innovation in mouthpiece chamber shapes and tip designs, as well as metal construction. At the opposite extreme from the classical mouthpieces are those with a small chamber and a low clearance above the reed between the tip and the chamber, called high baffle. These produce a bright sound with maximum projection, suitable for having a sound stand out among amplified instruments and are commonly used in modern pop and smooth jazz.
+
+Mouthpieces come in a wide variety of materials, including vulcanized rubber (sometimes called hard rubber or ebonite), plastic, and metals such as bronze or surgical steel. Less common materials that have been used include wood, glass, crystal, porcelain, and bone. Recently, Delrin has been added to the stock of mouthpiece materials.
+
+The effect of mouthpiece materials on tone of the saxophone has been the subject of much debate. According to Larry Teal, the mouthpiece material has little, if any, effect on the sound, and the physical dimensions give a mouthpiece its tone color.[13] There are examples of "dark" sounding metal pieces and "bright" sounding hard rubber pieces. The lower rigidity of hard rubber relative to metal restricts some design characteristics affecting tone and response more than with metal. The extra bulk required near the tip with hard rubber affects mouth position and airflow characteristics.  Recently, increased mass of the mouthpiece over the shank, which fits over the neck cork, has become a design feature to enhance the integrity of the harmonic series by stabilizing the mouthpiece/neck connection.  Shank weights (large rings of brass over the shank) are used with some Delrin mouthpieces to increase "resonance and projection."[14] Other "hybrid" designs with a hard rubber body and a substantial metal shank have a similar mass distribution, although its contribution to sound characteristics is not highlighted in product descriptions.[15]
+
+The saxophone was designed around 1840 by Adolphe Sax, a Belgian instrument maker, flautist, and clarinetist.[4] Born in Dinant and originally based in Brussels, he moved to Paris in 1842 to establish his musical instrument business. Before working on the saxophone, he made several improvements to the bass clarinet by improving its keywork and acoustics and extending its lower range. Sax was also a maker of the ophicleide, a large conical brass instrument in the bass register with keys similar to a woodwind instrument. His experience with these two instruments allowed him to develop the skills and technologies needed to make the first saxophones.
+
+As an outgrowth of his work improving the bass clarinet, Sax began developing an instrument with the projection of a brass instrument and the agility of a woodwind. He wanted it to overblow at the octave, unlike the clarinet, which rises in pitch by a twelfth when overblown. An instrument that overblows at the octave has identical fingering for both registers.
+
+Sax created an instrument with a single-reed mouthpiece and conical brass body. Having constructed saxophones in several sizes in the early 1840s, Sax applied for, and received, a 15-year patent for the instrument on 28 June 1846.[16] The patent encompassed 14 versions of the fundamental design, split into two categories of seven instruments each, and ranging from sopranino to contrabass.  A limited number of instruments in the series pitched in F and C were produced by Sax, but the series pitched in E♭ and B♭ quickly became the standard.  All the instruments were given an initial written range from the B below the treble staff to the E♭ one half-step below the third ledger line above staff, giving each saxophone a range of two and a half octaves.  Sax's patent expired in 1866.[17] Thereafter, numerous other instrument manufacturers implemented their own improvements to the design and keywork.
+
+Sax's original keywork, which was based on the Triebert system 3 oboe for the left hand and the Boehm clarinet for the right, was simplistic and made certain legato passages and wide intervals extremely difficult to finger; that system would later evolve with extra keys, linkage mechanisms, and alternate fingerings to make some intervals less difficult.
+
+Early in the development of the saxophone the upper keyed range was extended to E, then F above the staff; 1880s era sheet music for saxophone was written for the range of low B to F.  In 1887 the Buffet-Crampon company obtained a patent for extending the bell and adding an extra key to extend the range downwards by one semitone to B♭.[18]  This extension is currently standard in most modern designs, with the notable exception of baritone saxophones further extended and keyed to low A. The upper range to F would remain the standard for nearly a century until the altissimo F♯ key became common on modern saxophones.
+
+In the 1840s and 1850s, Sax's invention gained use in small classical ensembles (both all-saxophone and mixed), as a solo instrument, and in French and British military bands.  Saxophone method books were published and saxophone instruction was offered at conservatories in France, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, and Italy.  By 1856 the French Garde Republicaine band included eight saxophones, making it the large ensemble that featured the instrument most prominently.  The saxophone was used experimentally in orchestral scores, but never came into widespread use as an orchestral instrument.  In 1853-54 the orchestra of Louis Antoine Jullien featured a soprano saxophone on a concert tour of the United States.[19]
+
+After an early period of interest and support from classical music communities in Europe, their interest in the instrument waned in the late nineteenth century.  Saxophone teaching at the Paris Conservatory was suspended from 1870 to 1900 and classical saxophone repertoire stagnated during that period.[16]  But it was during this same period that the saxophone began to be promoted in the United States, largely through the efforts of Patrick Gilmore, leader of the 22nd Regiment band, and Edward A. Lefebre, a Dutch emigre and saxophonist with family business associations with Sax.  Lefebre settled in New York in early 1872 after he arrived as a clarinetist with a British opera company.  Gilmore organized the World Peace Jubilee and International Music Festival taking place in Boston that summer. The Garde Republicaine band performed and Lefebre was a clarinetist with the Great Festival Orchestra for that event.[20] In the fall of 1873 Gilmore was reorganizing the 22nd Regiment band under the influence of the Garde Republicaine band and recruited Lefebre, who had established a reputation in New York as a saxophonist over the previous year.  Gilmore's band soon featured a soprano-alto-tenor-baritone saxophone section, which also performed as a quartet.  The Gilmore-Lefebre association lasted until Gilmore's death in 1892, during which time Lefebre also performed in smaller ensembles of various sizes and instrumentation, and worked with composers to increase light classical and popular repertoire for saxophone.[21]
+
+Lefebre's later promotional efforts were extremely significant in broadening adoption of the saxophone.  Starting towards the end of the 1880s he consulted with the brass instrument manufacturer C.G. Conn to develop and start production of improved saxophones to replace the costly, scantly available, and mechanically unreliable European instruments in the American market.  The early 1890s saw regular production of saxophones commence at Conn and its offshoot Buescher Manufacturing Company, which dramatically increased availability of saxophones in the US.  Lefebre worked with the music publisher Carl Fischer to distribute his transcriptions, arrangements, and original works for saxophone, and worked with the Conn Conservatory to further saxophone pedagogy in the US.  Lefebre's associations with Conn and Fischer lasted into the first decade of the twentieth century and Fischer continued to publish new arrangements of Lefebre's works posthumously.[22]
+
+While the saxophone remained marginal and regarded mainly as a novelty instrument in the classical music world, many new musical niches were established for it during the early decades of the twentieth century.  Its early use in Vaudeville and ragtime bands around the turn of the century laid the groundwork for its use in dance orchestras and eventually jazz.  As the market for saxophones grew in the US, the manufacturing industry grew; the Martin Band Instrument Company started producing saxophones between 1905 and 1912, and the Cleveland Band Instrument Company started producing saxophones under contract to the H. N. White Company in 1916.  The saxophone was promoted for the casual market with introduction of the C-soprano and C-melody (between alto and tenor) saxophones to play in key with pianos from the same sheet music.  Production of such instruments stopped during the Great Depression.  During the 1920s the saxophone came into use as a jazz instrument, fostered by the influences of the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra and the Duke Ellington Orchestra.  Starting in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the modern era of classical saxophone was launched largely through the efforts of Marcel Mule and Sigurd Raschèr, and classical repertoire for the instrument expanded rapidly.
+
+The use of the saxophone for more dynamic and more technically demanding styles of playing added incentive for improvements in keywork and acoustic design. Early saxophones had two separate octave keys operated by the left thumb to control the two octave vents required on alto and larger saxophones. A substantial advance in keywork around the turn of the century was the development of mechanisms by which the left thumb operates the two octave vents with a single octave key.  Ergonomic design of keywork evolved rapidly during the 1920s and 1930s.  The front F mechanism supporting alternate fingerings for high E and F, and stack-linked G♯ key action, became standard during the 1920s, followed by improvements to the left hand table key mechanisms controlling the G♯ and bell keys.  New bore designs during the 1920s and 1930s resulted from the quest for improved intonation, dynamic response, and tonal qualities.  The 1920s were also the era of design experiments such as the Buescher straight altos and tenors, the King Saxello soprano, the C.G. Conn mezzo-soprano saxophone keyed in F, and the Conn-O-Sax saxophone – English horn hybrid.
+
+The modern layout of the saxophone emerged during the 1930s and 1940s, first with right-side bell keys introduced by C. G. Conn on baritones, then by King on altos and tenors. The mechanics of the left hand table were revolutionized by Selmer with their Balanced Action instruments in 1936, capitalizing on the right-side bell key layout. In 1948 Selmer introduced their Super Action saxophones with offset left and right hand stack keys. Between 30 and 40 years after Selmer devised their final layout it had been adopted for virtually every saxophone being produced, from student to professional models.
+
+The high F♯ key was also first introduced as an option on the Balanced Action model, although it took several decades for it to gain acceptance because of perceived deleterious effects on intonation in its early implementations.[23]
+
+The saxophone first gained popularity in military bands. Although the instrument was initially ignored in Germany, French and Belgian military bands were quick to include the instrument in their ensembles. Most French and Belgian military bands incorporate at least a quartet of saxophones, comprising an E♭ baritone, B♭ tenor, E♭ alto and B♭ soprano. These four instruments have proved the most popular of all of Sax's creations, with the E♭ contrabass and B♭ bass usually considered impractically large and the E♭ sopranino insufficiently powerful. British military bands tend to include at minimum two saxophonists, on the alto and tenor.[citation needed]
+
+The saxophone was introduced into the concert band, which usually calls for an E♭ alto saxophone, a B♭ tenor saxophone, and an E♭ baritone saxophone. A concert band may include two altos, one tenor, and one baritone. A B♭ soprano saxophone is also used, in which case it is played by the first alto saxophonist. A bass saxophone in B♭ is used in some concert band music (especially music by Percy Grainger).[24]
+
+Saxophones are used in chamber music, such as saxophone quartets and other chamber combinations of instruments. The classical saxophone quartet consists of a B♭ soprano saxophone, E♭ alto saxophone, B♭ tenor saxophone, and E♭ baritone saxophone (SATB). On occasion, the soprano is replaced with a second alto sax (AATB); a few professional saxophone quartets have featured non-standard instrumentation, such as James Fei's Alto Quartet[25] (four altos).
+
+There is a repertoire of classical compositions and arrangements for the SATB instrumentation dating back to the nineteenth century, particularly by French composers who knew Sax. However, the largest body of chamber works for saxophone are from the modern era of classical saxophone initiated by Marcel Mule in 1928.  Sigurd Raschèr followed as a soloist in orchestral works, starting in 1931, and also figured prominently in development of modern classical saxophone repertoire.  The Mule quartet is often considered the prototype for quartets due the level of virtuosity demonstrated by its members and its central role in the development of modern quartet repertoire. However, organized quartets existed before Mule's ensemble, the prime example being the quartet headed by Edward A. Lefebre (1834–1911), which was a subset of Patrick Gilmore's 22nd Regiment band between 1873 and 1893.[21]
+
+In the 20th and 21st centuries, the saxophone found increased popularity in symphony orchestras. The instrument has also been used in genres such as opera and choral music. Many musical theatre scores include parts for saxophone, sometimes doubling another woodwind or brass instrument.
+
+Coincident with the more widespread availability of saxophones in the US around the turn of the century was the rise of ragtime music.  The bands featuring the syncopated Latin- and African-American rhythmic influences of ragtime were an exciting new feature of the American cultural landscape and provided the groundwork for new styles of dancing.  Two of the best known ragtime-playing brass bands with saxophones were those led by W. C. Handy and James R. Europe.  Europe's 369th Infantry Regiment Band popularized ragtime in France during its 1918 tour.[28] The rise of dance bands into the 1920s followed from the popularity of ragtime.  The saxophone was also used in Vaudeville entertainment during the same period.  Ragtime, Vaudeville, and dance bands introduced much of the American public to the saxophone.  Rudy Wiedoeft became the best known individual saxophone stylist and virtuoso during this period leading into the "saxophone craze" of the 1920s.[29] Following it, the saxophone became featured in music as diverse as the "sweet" music of Paul Whiteman and Guy Lombardo, jazz, swing, and large stage show bands.[citation needed]
+
+The rise of the saxophone as a jazz instrument followed its widespread adoption in dance bands during the early 1920s.  The Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, formed in 1923, featured arrangements to back up improvisation, bringing the first elements of jazz to the large dance band format.[30] Following the innovations of the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, the Duke Ellington Orchestra and Jean Goldkette's Victor Recording Orchestra featured jazz solos with saxophones and other instruments.  The association of dance bands with jazz would reach its peak with the swing music of the 1930s. The large show band format, influenced by the 1930s swing bands, would be used  as backing for popular vocalists and stage shows in the post World War II era, and provided a foundation for big band jazz.  Show bands with saxophone sections became a staple of television talk shows (such as the Tonight Show that featured bands led by Doc Severinsen and Branford Marsalis) and Las Vegas stage shows. The swing era fostered the later saxophone styles that permeated bebop and rhythm and blues in the early postwar era.[citation needed]
+
+Coleman Hawkins established the tenor saxophone as a jazz solo instrument during his stint with Fletcher Henderson from 1923 to 1934.  Hawkins' arpeggiated, rich-toned, vibrato-laden style was the main influence on swing era tenor players before Lester Young, and his influence continued with other big-toned tenor players into the era of modern jazz.  Among the tenor players directly influenced by him were Chu Berry, Charlie Barnet, Tex Beneke, Ben Webster, Vido Musso, Herschel Evans, Buddy Tate, and Don Byas.[5]  Hawkins' bandmate Benny Carter and Duke Ellington's alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges became influential on swing era alto styles, while Harry Carney brought the baritone saxophone to prominence with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. The New Orleans player Sidney Bechet gained recognition for playing the soprano saxophone during the 1920s, but the instrument did not come into wide use until the modern era of jazz.[citation needed]
+
+As Chicago style jazz evolved from New Orleans jazz in the 1920s, one of its defining features was the addition of saxophones to the ensemble.  The small Chicago ensembles offered more improvisational freedom than did the New Orleans or large band formats, fostering the innovations of saxophonists Jimmy Dorsey (alto), Frankie Trumbauer (c-melody), Bud Freeman (tenor) and Stump Evans (baritone).  Dorsey and Trumbauer became important influences on tenor saxophonist Lester Young.[5]
+
+Lester Young's approach on tenor saxophone differed from Hawkins', emphasizing more melodic "linear" playing that wove in and out of the chordal structure and longer phrases that differed from those suggested by the tune. He used vibrato less, fitting it to the passage he was playing. His tone was smoother and darker than that of his 1930s contemporaries. Young's playing was a major influence on the modern jazz saxophonists Al Cohn, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray, Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh, Charlie Parker, and Art Pepper.[5]
+
+The influence of Lester Young with the Count Basie Orchestra in the late 1930s and the popularity of Hawkins' 1939 recording of "Body and Soul" marked the saxophone as an influence on jazz equal to the trumpet, which had been the defining instrument of jazz since its beginnings in New Orleans. But the greatest influence of the saxophone on jazz was to occur a few years later when alto saxophonist Charlie Parker became an icon of the bebop revolution that influenced generations of jazz musicians. The small-group format of bebop and post-bebop jazz ensembles gained ascendancy in the 1940s as musicians used the harmonic and melodic freedom pioneered by Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Bud Powell in extended jazz solos.[citation needed]
+
+During the 1950s, prominent alto players included Sonny Stitt, Cannonball Adderley, Jackie McLean, Lou Donaldson, Sonny Criss and Paul Desmond, while prominent tenor players included Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Dexter Gordon, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz,  Zoot Sims, Lucky Thompson, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, and Paul Gonsalves.  Serge Chaloff, Gerry Mulligan, Pepper Adams and Leo Parker brought the baritone saxophone to prominence as a solo instrument.  Steve Lacy renewed attention to the soprano saxophone in the context of modern jazz and John Coltrane boosted the instrument's popularity during the 1960s. Smooth jazz musician Kenny G also uses the soprano sax as his principal instrument.[31]
+
+Saxophonists such as John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Sam Rivers, and Pharoah Sanders defined the forefront of creative exploration with the avant-garde movement of the 1960s. The new realms offered with Modal, harmolodic, and free jazz were explored with every device that saxophonists could conceive of. Sheets of sound, tonal exploration, upper harmonics, and multiphonics were hallmarks of the creative possibilities that saxophones offered. One lasting influence of the avant-garde movement is the exploration of non-Western ethnic sounds on the saxophone, for example, the African-influenced sounds used by Sanders and the Indian-influenced sounds used by Coltrane. The devices of the avant-garde movement have continued to be influential in music that challenges the boundaries between avant-garde and other categories of jazz, such as that of alto saxophonists Steve Coleman and Greg Osby.
+
+Some ensembles such as the World Saxophone Quartet use the soprano-alto-tenor-baritone (SATB) format of the classical saxophone quartet for jazz.  In the 1990s, World Saxophone Quartet founder Hamiet Bluiett formed the quartet Baritone Nation (four baritones).[citation needed]
+
+The "jump swing" bands of the 1940s gave rise to rhythm and blues, featuring horn sections and exuberant, strong-toned, heavily rhythmic styles of saxophone playing with a melodic sense based on blues tonalities.  Illinois Jacquet, Sam Butera, Arnett Cobb, and Jimmy Forrest were major influences on R&B tenor styles and Louis Jordan, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Earl Bostic, and Bull Moose Jackson were major influences on alto.  The R&B saxophone players influenced later genres including rock and roll, ska, soul, and funk.  Horn section work continued with  Johnny Otis and Ray Charles featuring horn sections and the Memphis Horns, the Phenix Horns, and Tower of Power achieving distinction for their section playing.  Horn sections were added to the Chicago and West Coast blues bands of Lowell Fulson, T-Bone Walker, B.B. King, and Guitar Slim. Rock and soul fusion bands such as Chicago, The Electric Flag, and Blood, Sweat, and Tears featured horn sections. Bobby Keys and Clarence Clemons became influential rock and roll saxophone stylists. Junior Walker, King Curtis and Maceo Parker became influential soul and funk saxophone stylists, influencing the more technical jazz-fusion sounds of Michael Brecker and Bob Mintzer and pop-jazz players such as Candy Dulfer.[citation needed]
+
+A number of experimental saxophones and saxophone-related instruments have appeared since Sax's original work, most with no lasting impact. During the early 1920s Reiffel & Husted of Chicago produced a slide soprano saxophone.[32][33][34]
+During the 1920s some straight alto and tenor saxophones were produced by Buescher, which proved cumbersome to handle and difficult to transport.  Buescher custom produced one straight baritone saxophone as novelty instrument for a vaudeville performer.[35]
+C.G. Conn introduced two new variants in 1928–1929, the Conn-O-Sax and the mezzo-soprano saxophone keyed in F.  The Conn-O-Sax is a straight-conical bore instrument in F (one step above the E♭ alto) with a slightly curved neck and spherical bell. This instrument, which combines a saxophone bore and keys with a bell shaped similar to that of a heckelphone, was intended to imitate the timbre of the English horn and was produced only in 1929 and 1930. The instrument has a key range from low A to high G.  Fewer than 100 Conn-O-Saxes are in existence and they are highly sought by collectors. The Conn mezzo-soprano experienced a similarly short production run as the economics of the Great Depression curtailed the market for what were regarded as novelty instruments.  Most were expended by Conn as objects of repair training exercises.
+
+The most successful of the unusual 1920s designs was the King Saxello, essentially a straight B♭ soprano, but with a slightly curved neck and tipped bell, made by the H. N. White Company.  Such instruments now command prices up to US$4,000. Its lasting influence is shown in the number of companies, including Keilwerth, Rampone & Cazzani (altello model), L.A. Sax and Sax Dakota USA, marketing straight-bore, tipped-bell soprano saxophones as saxellos (or "saxello sopranos").
+
+Interest in two 1920s variants was revived by jazz musician Rahsaan Roland Kirk, who called his straight Buescher alto a "stritch" and his Saxello a "manzello.". The Buescher straight alto was a production instrument while the manzello was in fact a Saxello with a custom-made large bell and modified keywork.[36]  More recently, the mezzo-soprano, or a modern variant of it, came into use by jazz musicians Anthony Braxton, James Carter, Vinny Golia, and Joe Lovano.
+
+Some of the 1920s experimental designs, in addition to the Saxello, provide the basis for similar instruments produced during the modern era.  Straight altos and tenors have been revived by Keilwerth,[37] L.A. Sax[38] and Sax Dakota USA. A mezzo-soprano in the key of G has been produced by Danish woodwind technician Peter Jessen, most notably played by Joe Lovano. This instrument is more in the timbral quality of Bb soprano saxophone.
+
+The contralto saxophone, similar in size to the orchestral c-soprano, was developed in the late 20th century by California instrument maker Jim Schmidt.[39] This instrument has a larger bore and a new fingering system, and does not resemble the orchestral instrument except for its key and register.
+
+Benedikt Eppelsheim, of Munich, Germany has introduced recent innovations at the upper and lower ends of the saxophone range.  The soprillo sax is a piccolo-sized straight instrument with the upper speaker hole built into the mouthpiece. The instrument, which extends Sax's original family, is pitched a full octave higher than the B♭ soprano sax. 
+The tubax, developed in 1999 by Eppelsheim,[40] plays the same range and with the same fingering as the E♭ contrabass saxophone; its bore, however, is narrower than that of a contrabass saxophone, resulting in a more compact instrument with a "reedier" tone (akin to the double-reed contrabass sarrusophone). It can be played with the smaller (and more commonly available) baritone saxophone mouthpiece and reeds. Eppelsheim has also produced subcontrabass tubaxes in C and B♭, the latter being the lowest saxophone ever made.
+
+Among the 2000s developments is the aulochrome, a double soprano saxophone invented by Belgian instrument maker François Louis in 2001.
+
+Since the 1950s, saxophones with non-metallic bodies have occasionally been in production.  Such instruments have failed to gain acceptance over a number of issues including durability, repairability, and deficiencies in key action and tone.[41][42]  The best known of these efforts is the 1950s Grafton acrylic alto saxophone used briefly by Charlie Parker and Ornette Coleman.  It had a production run of over 10 years as a budget model saxophone.  The polycarbonate Vibratosax is in production as a low cost alternative to metal saxophones. Wooden Sawat saxophones are made in Thailand on a small scale.  Opinions vary on the significance of body materials to sound.
+
+The fingering scheme of the saxophone, which has had only minor changes since the instrument's original invention, has presented inherent acoustic problems related to closed keys below the first open tonehole that affect response of, and slightly muffle, some notes. There is also a lack of tactile consistency between key centers, requiring extra effort from the player to adjust modes of muscle memory when moving between key centers. Two efforts to remedy the acoustic problems and awkward aspects of the original fingering system are noteworthy.
+
+The Leblanc Rationale and System[43] saxophones have key mechanics designed to remedy the acoustic problems associated with closed keys below the first open tonehole. They also enable players to make half-step shifts of scales by depressing one key while keeping the rest of the fingering consistent with that of the fingering a half step away. Some Leblanc System features were built into the Vito Model 35 saxophones of the 1950s and 1960s.  Despite the advantages of that system, acceptance was impaired by the expense and mechanical reliability issues related to the complexity of certain key mechanisms.[44]
+
+The chromatic, or linear fingering, saxophone is a project of instrument designer and builder Jim Schmidt, developing a horn maximizing tactile and logical consistency between every interval regardless of the key, and avoiding the acoustic problems associated closed keys below the first open tone hole.[45] Several working prototypes have been built and presented at trade shows.[46] Production of this original and expensive saxophone is on an individual order basis.
+
+Inexpensive keyless folk versions of the saxophone made of bamboo (recalling a chalumeau) were developed in the 20th century by instrument makers in Hawaii, Jamaica, Thailand, Indonesia, Ethiopia, and Argentina. The Hawaiian instrument, called a xaphoon, was invented during the 1970s and is also marketed as a "bamboo sax", although its cylindrical bore more closely resembles that of a clarinet, and its lack of any keywork makes it more akin to a recorder. Jamaica's best known exponent of a similar type of homemade bamboo "saxophone" was the mento musician and instrument maker 'Sugar Belly' (William Walker).[47] In the Minahasa region of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, there exist entire bands made up of bamboo "saxophones"[48] and "brass" instruments of various sizes. These instruments are imitations of European instruments, made using local materials. Similar instruments are produced in Thailand.[49]
+
+In Argentina, Ángel Sampedro del Río and Mariana García have produced bamboo saxophones of various sizes since 1985, the larger of which have bamboo keys to allow for the playing of lower notes.[50]
+
+Many synthesizer wind controllers are played and fingered like a saxophone.
+
+From left to right, an E♭ alto saxophone, a curved B♭ soprano saxophone, and a B♭ tenor saxophone
+
+A straight-necked Conn C melody saxophone (Conn New Wonder Series 1)[51] with a serial number that dates manufacture to 1922
+
+Vintage silver-plated 'Pennsylvania Special' alto saxophone, manufactured by Kohlert & Sons for Selmer[52] in Czechoslovakia, circa 1930
+
+Conn 6M "Lady Face"[53] brass alto saxophone (dated 1935) in its original case
+
+1950s Grafton alto made of plastic
+
+Yamaha YAS-25 alto saxophone. Circa 1990s
+
+Yanagisawa A9932J alto saxophone: has a solid silver bell and neck with solid phosphor bronze body. The bell, neck and key-cups are extensively engraved. Manufactured in 2008
+
+Bauhaus Walstein tenor saxophone manufactured in 2008 from phosphor bronze
+
+The lower portion of a P. Mauriat alto saxophone, showing the mother of pearl key touches and engraved brass pad cups
+
+A Yamaha baritone saxophone
+
+Two mouthpieces for tenor saxophone: the one on the left is ebonite; the one on the right is metal.
+
+Ochres Music "No.5" hand-made professional alto saxophone with 24 carat gold seal on bell.

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+Military band family:
+
+Orchestral family:
+
+Other saxophones:
+
+The saxophone (referred to colloquially as the sax) is a family of woodwind instruments usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece.[2] Although most saxophones are made from brass, they are categorized as woodwind instruments, because sound is produced by an oscillating reed (traditionally made out of woody cane) rather than lips vibrating in a mouthpiece cup as with the brass instrument family. As with the other woodwind instruments, the pitch of the note being played is controlled by covering holes in the body tube to control the resonant frequency of the air column by changing the effective length of the tube.[3]
+The player covers or uncovers the holes by pressing keys.
+
+The saxophone is used in classical music (such as concert bands, chamber music, solo repertoire, and, occasionally, orchestras), military bands, marching bands, jazz (such as big bands and jazz combos), and contemporary music. The saxophone is also used as a solo and melody instrument or as a member of a horn section in some styles of rock and roll and popular music. Saxophone players are called saxophonists.[2]
+
+Since the first saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in the early 1840s,[4] saxophones have been produced in a variety of series distinguished by transpositions within instrument sets and tuning standard. Sax patented the saxophone on 28 June 1846, in two groups of seven instruments each. Each series consisted of instruments ranked by pitch, in alternating transposition. The series pitched in B♭ and E♭ soon became dominant and most saxophones encountered today are from this series. Instruments from the series pitched in C and F never gained a foothold and constituted only a small percentage of instruments made by Sax. High Pitch (also marked "H" or "HP") saxophones tuned sharper than the (concert) A = 440 Hz standard were produced into the early twentieth century for sonic qualities suited for outdoor uses, but are not playable to modern tuning and are considered obsolete. Low Pitch (also marked "L" or "LP") saxophones are equivalent in tuning to modern instruments. C soprano and C melody saxophones were produced for the casual market as parlor instruments during the early twentieth century. Saxophones in F were introduced during the late 1920s but never gained acceptance. The modern saxophone family consists entirely of instruments in the B♭ – E♭ series, historical and experimental instruments notwithstanding.  The saxophones with widest use and availability are the soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones.
+
+In the keyed (below overtone-produced altissimo) ranges of the various saxophones, the pitch is controlled by keys with shallow cups in which are fastened leather pads that seal toneholes, controlling the resonant length, and thereby frequency, of the air column within the bore.  Small holes called vents, located between the toneholes and the mouthpiece, are opened by an octave key to raise the pitch one octave by eliminating the fundamental frequency, leaving the first harmonic as the frequency defining the pitch.  Most modern saxophones are keyed to produce a low B♭ (relative to the instrument's transposition) with all keys closed; modern baritone saxophones commonly play a low A and altos keyed to low A have been produced in the past.  The highest keyed note has traditionally been F two and a half octaves above low B♭, while the keyed range is extended to F♯ on most recent performance-class instruments.  A high G key is most common on modern soprano saxophones.  Notes above F are considered part of the altissimo register of any saxophone, and can be produced using advanced embouchure techniques and fingering combinations. Keywork facilitating altissimo playing is a feature of modern saxophones. Modern saxophone players have extended the range to over four octaves on tenor and alto.  Music for most saxophones is usually notated using treble clef.
+
+Because all saxophones use the same key arrangement and fingering to produce a given notated pitch, it is not difficult for a competent player to switch among the various sizes when the music has been suitably transposed, and many players do so. Since the baritone and alto are pitched in E♭, players can read concert pitch music notated in the bass clef by reading it as if it were treble clef and adding three sharps to the key signature. This process, referred to as clef substitution, makes it possible for the Eb instruments to play from parts written for baritone horn, bassoon, euphonium, string bass, trombone, or tuba. This can be useful if a band or orchestra lacks one of those instruments.
+
+The straight soprano and sopranino saxophones consist of a straight conical tube with a flared bell at the end opposite the mouthpiece. Alto and larger saxophones include a detachable curved neck above the highest tone hole, directing the mouthpiece to the player's mouth and, with rare exceptions, a U-shaped bow that directs the bore upward and a curve in the throat of the bell directing it forward. The set of curves near the bell has become a distinctive feature of the saxophone family, to the extent that soprano and even sopranino saxes are sometimes made in the curved style.   The baritone, bass, and contrabass saxophones accommodate the length of the bore with extra bows and right-angle bends between the main body and the mouthpiece.
+
+The left hand operates keys from the upper part of the body tube while the right hand operates keys from the lower part.  The right thumb sits under a thumb hook and left thumb is placed on a thumb rest to stabilize and balance the saxophone or operates the octave key. The weight of most saxophones is shared by the right thumb and a neckstrap attached to a strap ring on the rear of the body of the instrument. With the smaller instruments, relatively more of the weight is supported by the thumb.
+
+Keys consist of the cups, levers, and pivots that control the position of the pads over the toneholes.  At rest, some keys are open and some are closed, held in position by springs that are overridden by finger or hand (palm keys) pressure.  The keys are activated by pressure on key touches, either directly on the pad cup or connected to it with levers, either directly or with joints called linkages.  The levers between the key cups and the pivots are called key arms.
+
+The fingering for the saxophone is a combination of that of the oboe with the Boehm system[5] and is similar to the flute or upper register of the clarinet. The stack keys are operated by the first, second, and third fingers on each hand with slightly concave button-style key touches (key buttons) operating with the same motion as the pad cups that they control.  The stack keys are linked to higher stack keys with regulation bar and bridge arm linkages.  Key buttons are advantageous for operating keys with direct downward finger pressure but provide disadvantages operating keys with other finger and hand motions, hence, their use on keys operated with such motions has diminished with the evolution of saxophone designs.
+
+Palm keys and the front F key operated by the left hand, and the high F, high F♯ and high G keys operated by the right hand, control the upper end of the keyed range and are used to vent altissimo notes.  Chromatic keys operated by the right hand provide alternate fingerings for F♯, B♭, and C within the stack range.  The  fourth fingers of the right and left hands open keys to raise pitch by a semitone as well as close keys towards the lower range of the instrument, with the lowest pitch bell keys operated by the left hand.  The keys operated by the fourth fingers are referred to as table keys.  Instruments that play to low A have a left thumb key for that note.
+
+On saxophones produced since the early 1920s the G♯ key operated from the left hand table is closed by closing keys on the lower stack regardless of pressure on the G♯ actuating mechanism (F-linked, or stack-linked, G♯ mechanism).  That feature vastly increases the speed and playability of certain intervals to the point that saxophones with direct G♯ action, in which the key stays open when the lower stack keys are depressed, are considered obsolete.  Modern left hand tables also articulate the G♯ key with the low C♯, B, and B♭ keys to open it when any of those keys are depressed and the right hand stack keys are not.  That also provides significant advantages for playing certain intervals near the lower range of the instrument.  Some players willingly forego the benefits of the articulated G♯ to play vintage instruments, but a front F key and a stack-linked G♯ key are regarded as critical features by serious players.[6]
+
+From the earliest days of the saxophone the body and key cups have been made from sheet brass stock, owing to its workability in forming complex shapes.  Mechanical keywork is assembled from components either hand-tooled or machined from other forms of brass stock.  King introduced saxophones with necks and bells of sterling silver during the 1930s and continued that "silversonic" scheme into the early 1960s. Yanagisawa revived the scheme during the 1980s and later introduced entire instruments of sterling silver.[7]
+Keilwerth and P. Mauriat have used nickel silver, a copper-nickel-zinc alloy more commonly used for flutes, for the bodies of some saxophone models.[8] 
+For visual and tonal effect, higher copper variants of brass  are sometimes substituted for the more common "yellow brass" and "cartridge brass." Yanagisawa made its 902 and 992 series saxophones with the high copper alloy phosphor bronze to achieve a darker, more "vintage" tone than the brass 901 and 991 models.[9] Other saxophones made of high copper alloys are sold under various brands.
+
+Other materials are used for some mechanical parts and keywork.  Since 1920, most saxophones have replaceable key buttons operating the stack keys, usually made from either plastic or mother of pearl. Some saxophones are made with abalone, stone, or wood key buttons.  On some premium models, the key button material is used to form the convex key touches for other keys.  The rods and screw pins that the keywork's hinges pivot on, and the needle and leaf springs that hold keys in their rest position, are usually made of blued or stainless steel. Mechanical buffers of felt, cork, leather, and various synthetic materials are used to reduce friction, to minimize mechanical noise from movement of keys, and to optimize the action of the keywork for positive pad sealing, intonation, speed, and "feel."  Nickel silver is sometimes used for hinges for its advantages of mechanical durability, although the most common material for such applications has remained brass.  Saxophones with high copper bodies still have brass keywork owing to its more suitable mechanical properties relative to those alloys.
+
+Before final assembly, manufacturers usually apply a finish to the surface of the horn.  The most common finish is a thin coating of clear or colored acrylic lacquer. The lacquer serves to protect the brass from oxidation and maintains its shiny appearance. Silver or gold plating are offered as premium options on some models. Some silver plated saxophones are also lacquered.  Plating saxophones with gold is an expensive process because an underplating of silver is required for the gold to adhere to.[10] Nickel plating has been used on the bodies of early budget model saxophones and is commonly used on keywork when a more durable finish than lacquer is desired, mostly with student model saxophones. Chemical surface treatment of the base metal has come into use as an alternative to the lacquer and plating finishes in recent years.  Some saxophonists, retailers, and repair technicians argue that the type of lacquer or plating (or absence of lacquer)[11] may be a factor affecting the instrument's tone quality.
+
+The saxophone uses a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. Each size of saxophone (alto, tenor, etc.) uses a different size of reed and mouthpiece.
+
+Most saxophonists use reeds made from Arundo donax cane, but since middle of the twentieth century some have also been made of fiberglass and other composite materials.  Saxophone reeds are proportioned slightly differently from clarinet reeds, being wider for the same length.  Reeds are commercially available in a vast array of brands, styles, and strengths. Saxophonists experiment with reeds of different strength (hardnesses) and material to find which strength and cut suits their mouthpiece, embouchure, physiology, and playing style.
+
+Mouthpiece design has a profound impact on tone.[12] Different mouthpiece design characteristics and features tend to be favored for different styles. Early mouthpieces were designed to produce a "warm" and "round" sound for classical playing. Among classical mouthpieces, those with a concave ("excavated") chamber are more true to Adolphe Sax's original design; these provide a softer or less piercing tone favored by the Raschèr school of classical playing. Saxophonists who follow the French school of classical playing, influenced by Marcel Mule, generally use mouthpieces with smaller chambers for a somewhat "brighter" sound with relatively more upper harmonics.  The use of the saxophone in dance orchestras and jazz ensembles from the 1920s onward placed emphasis on dynamic range and projection, leading to innovation in mouthpiece chamber shapes and tip designs, as well as metal construction. At the opposite extreme from the classical mouthpieces are those with a small chamber and a low clearance above the reed between the tip and the chamber, called high baffle. These produce a bright sound with maximum projection, suitable for having a sound stand out among amplified instruments and are commonly used in modern pop and smooth jazz.
+
+Mouthpieces come in a wide variety of materials, including vulcanized rubber (sometimes called hard rubber or ebonite), plastic, and metals such as bronze or surgical steel. Less common materials that have been used include wood, glass, crystal, porcelain, and bone. Recently, Delrin has been added to the stock of mouthpiece materials.
+
+The effect of mouthpiece materials on tone of the saxophone has been the subject of much debate. According to Larry Teal, the mouthpiece material has little, if any, effect on the sound, and the physical dimensions give a mouthpiece its tone color.[13] There are examples of "dark" sounding metal pieces and "bright" sounding hard rubber pieces. The lower rigidity of hard rubber relative to metal restricts some design characteristics affecting tone and response more than with metal. The extra bulk required near the tip with hard rubber affects mouth position and airflow characteristics.  Recently, increased mass of the mouthpiece over the shank, which fits over the neck cork, has become a design feature to enhance the integrity of the harmonic series by stabilizing the mouthpiece/neck connection.  Shank weights (large rings of brass over the shank) are used with some Delrin mouthpieces to increase "resonance and projection."[14] Other "hybrid" designs with a hard rubber body and a substantial metal shank have a similar mass distribution, although its contribution to sound characteristics is not highlighted in product descriptions.[15]
+
+The saxophone was designed around 1840 by Adolphe Sax, a Belgian instrument maker, flautist, and clarinetist.[4] Born in Dinant and originally based in Brussels, he moved to Paris in 1842 to establish his musical instrument business. Before working on the saxophone, he made several improvements to the bass clarinet by improving its keywork and acoustics and extending its lower range. Sax was also a maker of the ophicleide, a large conical brass instrument in the bass register with keys similar to a woodwind instrument. His experience with these two instruments allowed him to develop the skills and technologies needed to make the first saxophones.
+
+As an outgrowth of his work improving the bass clarinet, Sax began developing an instrument with the projection of a brass instrument and the agility of a woodwind. He wanted it to overblow at the octave, unlike the clarinet, which rises in pitch by a twelfth when overblown. An instrument that overblows at the octave has identical fingering for both registers.
+
+Sax created an instrument with a single-reed mouthpiece and conical brass body. Having constructed saxophones in several sizes in the early 1840s, Sax applied for, and received, a 15-year patent for the instrument on 28 June 1846.[16] The patent encompassed 14 versions of the fundamental design, split into two categories of seven instruments each, and ranging from sopranino to contrabass.  A limited number of instruments in the series pitched in F and C were produced by Sax, but the series pitched in E♭ and B♭ quickly became the standard.  All the instruments were given an initial written range from the B below the treble staff to the E♭ one half-step below the third ledger line above staff, giving each saxophone a range of two and a half octaves.  Sax's patent expired in 1866.[17] Thereafter, numerous other instrument manufacturers implemented their own improvements to the design and keywork.
+
+Sax's original keywork, which was based on the Triebert system 3 oboe for the left hand and the Boehm clarinet for the right, was simplistic and made certain legato passages and wide intervals extremely difficult to finger; that system would later evolve with extra keys, linkage mechanisms, and alternate fingerings to make some intervals less difficult.
+
+Early in the development of the saxophone the upper keyed range was extended to E, then F above the staff; 1880s era sheet music for saxophone was written for the range of low B to F.  In 1887 the Buffet-Crampon company obtained a patent for extending the bell and adding an extra key to extend the range downwards by one semitone to B♭.[18]  This extension is currently standard in most modern designs, with the notable exception of baritone saxophones further extended and keyed to low A. The upper range to F would remain the standard for nearly a century until the altissimo F♯ key became common on modern saxophones.
+
+In the 1840s and 1850s, Sax's invention gained use in small classical ensembles (both all-saxophone and mixed), as a solo instrument, and in French and British military bands.  Saxophone method books were published and saxophone instruction was offered at conservatories in France, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, and Italy.  By 1856 the French Garde Republicaine band included eight saxophones, making it the large ensemble that featured the instrument most prominently.  The saxophone was used experimentally in orchestral scores, but never came into widespread use as an orchestral instrument.  In 1853-54 the orchestra of Louis Antoine Jullien featured a soprano saxophone on a concert tour of the United States.[19]
+
+After an early period of interest and support from classical music communities in Europe, their interest in the instrument waned in the late nineteenth century.  Saxophone teaching at the Paris Conservatory was suspended from 1870 to 1900 and classical saxophone repertoire stagnated during that period.[16]  But it was during this same period that the saxophone began to be promoted in the United States, largely through the efforts of Patrick Gilmore, leader of the 22nd Regiment band, and Edward A. Lefebre, a Dutch emigre and saxophonist with family business associations with Sax.  Lefebre settled in New York in early 1872 after he arrived as a clarinetist with a British opera company.  Gilmore organized the World Peace Jubilee and International Music Festival taking place in Boston that summer. The Garde Republicaine band performed and Lefebre was a clarinetist with the Great Festival Orchestra for that event.[20] In the fall of 1873 Gilmore was reorganizing the 22nd Regiment band under the influence of the Garde Republicaine band and recruited Lefebre, who had established a reputation in New York as a saxophonist over the previous year.  Gilmore's band soon featured a soprano-alto-tenor-baritone saxophone section, which also performed as a quartet.  The Gilmore-Lefebre association lasted until Gilmore's death in 1892, during which time Lefebre also performed in smaller ensembles of various sizes and instrumentation, and worked with composers to increase light classical and popular repertoire for saxophone.[21]
+
+Lefebre's later promotional efforts were extremely significant in broadening adoption of the saxophone.  Starting towards the end of the 1880s he consulted with the brass instrument manufacturer C.G. Conn to develop and start production of improved saxophones to replace the costly, scantly available, and mechanically unreliable European instruments in the American market.  The early 1890s saw regular production of saxophones commence at Conn and its offshoot Buescher Manufacturing Company, which dramatically increased availability of saxophones in the US.  Lefebre worked with the music publisher Carl Fischer to distribute his transcriptions, arrangements, and original works for saxophone, and worked with the Conn Conservatory to further saxophone pedagogy in the US.  Lefebre's associations with Conn and Fischer lasted into the first decade of the twentieth century and Fischer continued to publish new arrangements of Lefebre's works posthumously.[22]
+
+While the saxophone remained marginal and regarded mainly as a novelty instrument in the classical music world, many new musical niches were established for it during the early decades of the twentieth century.  Its early use in Vaudeville and ragtime bands around the turn of the century laid the groundwork for its use in dance orchestras and eventually jazz.  As the market for saxophones grew in the US, the manufacturing industry grew; the Martin Band Instrument Company started producing saxophones between 1905 and 1912, and the Cleveland Band Instrument Company started producing saxophones under contract to the H. N. White Company in 1916.  The saxophone was promoted for the casual market with introduction of the C-soprano and C-melody (between alto and tenor) saxophones to play in key with pianos from the same sheet music.  Production of such instruments stopped during the Great Depression.  During the 1920s the saxophone came into use as a jazz instrument, fostered by the influences of the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra and the Duke Ellington Orchestra.  Starting in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the modern era of classical saxophone was launched largely through the efforts of Marcel Mule and Sigurd Raschèr, and classical repertoire for the instrument expanded rapidly.
+
+The use of the saxophone for more dynamic and more technically demanding styles of playing added incentive for improvements in keywork and acoustic design. Early saxophones had two separate octave keys operated by the left thumb to control the two octave vents required on alto and larger saxophones. A substantial advance in keywork around the turn of the century was the development of mechanisms by which the left thumb operates the two octave vents with a single octave key.  Ergonomic design of keywork evolved rapidly during the 1920s and 1930s.  The front F mechanism supporting alternate fingerings for high E and F, and stack-linked G♯ key action, became standard during the 1920s, followed by improvements to the left hand table key mechanisms controlling the G♯ and bell keys.  New bore designs during the 1920s and 1930s resulted from the quest for improved intonation, dynamic response, and tonal qualities.  The 1920s were also the era of design experiments such as the Buescher straight altos and tenors, the King Saxello soprano, the C.G. Conn mezzo-soprano saxophone keyed in F, and the Conn-O-Sax saxophone – English horn hybrid.
+
+The modern layout of the saxophone emerged during the 1930s and 1940s, first with right-side bell keys introduced by C. G. Conn on baritones, then by King on altos and tenors. The mechanics of the left hand table were revolutionized by Selmer with their Balanced Action instruments in 1936, capitalizing on the right-side bell key layout. In 1948 Selmer introduced their Super Action saxophones with offset left and right hand stack keys. Between 30 and 40 years after Selmer devised their final layout it had been adopted for virtually every saxophone being produced, from student to professional models.
+
+The high F♯ key was also first introduced as an option on the Balanced Action model, although it took several decades for it to gain acceptance because of perceived deleterious effects on intonation in its early implementations.[23]
+
+The saxophone first gained popularity in military bands. Although the instrument was initially ignored in Germany, French and Belgian military bands were quick to include the instrument in their ensembles. Most French and Belgian military bands incorporate at least a quartet of saxophones, comprising an E♭ baritone, B♭ tenor, E♭ alto and B♭ soprano. These four instruments have proved the most popular of all of Sax's creations, with the E♭ contrabass and B♭ bass usually considered impractically large and the E♭ sopranino insufficiently powerful. British military bands tend to include at minimum two saxophonists, on the alto and tenor.[citation needed]
+
+The saxophone was introduced into the concert band, which usually calls for an E♭ alto saxophone, a B♭ tenor saxophone, and an E♭ baritone saxophone. A concert band may include two altos, one tenor, and one baritone. A B♭ soprano saxophone is also used, in which case it is played by the first alto saxophonist. A bass saxophone in B♭ is used in some concert band music (especially music by Percy Grainger).[24]
+
+Saxophones are used in chamber music, such as saxophone quartets and other chamber combinations of instruments. The classical saxophone quartet consists of a B♭ soprano saxophone, E♭ alto saxophone, B♭ tenor saxophone, and E♭ baritone saxophone (SATB). On occasion, the soprano is replaced with a second alto sax (AATB); a few professional saxophone quartets have featured non-standard instrumentation, such as James Fei's Alto Quartet[25] (four altos).
+
+There is a repertoire of classical compositions and arrangements for the SATB instrumentation dating back to the nineteenth century, particularly by French composers who knew Sax. However, the largest body of chamber works for saxophone are from the modern era of classical saxophone initiated by Marcel Mule in 1928.  Sigurd Raschèr followed as a soloist in orchestral works, starting in 1931, and also figured prominently in development of modern classical saxophone repertoire.  The Mule quartet is often considered the prototype for quartets due the level of virtuosity demonstrated by its members and its central role in the development of modern quartet repertoire. However, organized quartets existed before Mule's ensemble, the prime example being the quartet headed by Edward A. Lefebre (1834–1911), which was a subset of Patrick Gilmore's 22nd Regiment band between 1873 and 1893.[21]
+
+In the 20th and 21st centuries, the saxophone found increased popularity in symphony orchestras. The instrument has also been used in genres such as opera and choral music. Many musical theatre scores include parts for saxophone, sometimes doubling another woodwind or brass instrument.
+
+Coincident with the more widespread availability of saxophones in the US around the turn of the century was the rise of ragtime music.  The bands featuring the syncopated Latin- and African-American rhythmic influences of ragtime were an exciting new feature of the American cultural landscape and provided the groundwork for new styles of dancing.  Two of the best known ragtime-playing brass bands with saxophones were those led by W. C. Handy and James R. Europe.  Europe's 369th Infantry Regiment Band popularized ragtime in France during its 1918 tour.[28] The rise of dance bands into the 1920s followed from the popularity of ragtime.  The saxophone was also used in Vaudeville entertainment during the same period.  Ragtime, Vaudeville, and dance bands introduced much of the American public to the saxophone.  Rudy Wiedoeft became the best known individual saxophone stylist and virtuoso during this period leading into the "saxophone craze" of the 1920s.[29] Following it, the saxophone became featured in music as diverse as the "sweet" music of Paul Whiteman and Guy Lombardo, jazz, swing, and large stage show bands.[citation needed]
+
+The rise of the saxophone as a jazz instrument followed its widespread adoption in dance bands during the early 1920s.  The Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, formed in 1923, featured arrangements to back up improvisation, bringing the first elements of jazz to the large dance band format.[30] Following the innovations of the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, the Duke Ellington Orchestra and Jean Goldkette's Victor Recording Orchestra featured jazz solos with saxophones and other instruments.  The association of dance bands with jazz would reach its peak with the swing music of the 1930s. The large show band format, influenced by the 1930s swing bands, would be used  as backing for popular vocalists and stage shows in the post World War II era, and provided a foundation for big band jazz.  Show bands with saxophone sections became a staple of television talk shows (such as the Tonight Show that featured bands led by Doc Severinsen and Branford Marsalis) and Las Vegas stage shows. The swing era fostered the later saxophone styles that permeated bebop and rhythm and blues in the early postwar era.[citation needed]
+
+Coleman Hawkins established the tenor saxophone as a jazz solo instrument during his stint with Fletcher Henderson from 1923 to 1934.  Hawkins' arpeggiated, rich-toned, vibrato-laden style was the main influence on swing era tenor players before Lester Young, and his influence continued with other big-toned tenor players into the era of modern jazz.  Among the tenor players directly influenced by him were Chu Berry, Charlie Barnet, Tex Beneke, Ben Webster, Vido Musso, Herschel Evans, Buddy Tate, and Don Byas.[5]  Hawkins' bandmate Benny Carter and Duke Ellington's alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges became influential on swing era alto styles, while Harry Carney brought the baritone saxophone to prominence with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. The New Orleans player Sidney Bechet gained recognition for playing the soprano saxophone during the 1920s, but the instrument did not come into wide use until the modern era of jazz.[citation needed]
+
+As Chicago style jazz evolved from New Orleans jazz in the 1920s, one of its defining features was the addition of saxophones to the ensemble.  The small Chicago ensembles offered more improvisational freedom than did the New Orleans or large band formats, fostering the innovations of saxophonists Jimmy Dorsey (alto), Frankie Trumbauer (c-melody), Bud Freeman (tenor) and Stump Evans (baritone).  Dorsey and Trumbauer became important influences on tenor saxophonist Lester Young.[5]
+
+Lester Young's approach on tenor saxophone differed from Hawkins', emphasizing more melodic "linear" playing that wove in and out of the chordal structure and longer phrases that differed from those suggested by the tune. He used vibrato less, fitting it to the passage he was playing. His tone was smoother and darker than that of his 1930s contemporaries. Young's playing was a major influence on the modern jazz saxophonists Al Cohn, Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray, Lee Konitz, Warne Marsh, Charlie Parker, and Art Pepper.[5]
+
+The influence of Lester Young with the Count Basie Orchestra in the late 1930s and the popularity of Hawkins' 1939 recording of "Body and Soul" marked the saxophone as an influence on jazz equal to the trumpet, which had been the defining instrument of jazz since its beginnings in New Orleans. But the greatest influence of the saxophone on jazz was to occur a few years later when alto saxophonist Charlie Parker became an icon of the bebop revolution that influenced generations of jazz musicians. The small-group format of bebop and post-bebop jazz ensembles gained ascendancy in the 1940s as musicians used the harmonic and melodic freedom pioneered by Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, and Bud Powell in extended jazz solos.[citation needed]
+
+During the 1950s, prominent alto players included Sonny Stitt, Cannonball Adderley, Jackie McLean, Lou Donaldson, Sonny Criss and Paul Desmond, while prominent tenor players included Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Dexter Gordon, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz,  Zoot Sims, Lucky Thompson, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, and Paul Gonsalves.  Serge Chaloff, Gerry Mulligan, Pepper Adams and Leo Parker brought the baritone saxophone to prominence as a solo instrument.  Steve Lacy renewed attention to the soprano saxophone in the context of modern jazz and John Coltrane boosted the instrument's popularity during the 1960s. Smooth jazz musician Kenny G also uses the soprano sax as his principal instrument.[31]
+
+Saxophonists such as John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Sam Rivers, and Pharoah Sanders defined the forefront of creative exploration with the avant-garde movement of the 1960s. The new realms offered with Modal, harmolodic, and free jazz were explored with every device that saxophonists could conceive of. Sheets of sound, tonal exploration, upper harmonics, and multiphonics were hallmarks of the creative possibilities that saxophones offered. One lasting influence of the avant-garde movement is the exploration of non-Western ethnic sounds on the saxophone, for example, the African-influenced sounds used by Sanders and the Indian-influenced sounds used by Coltrane. The devices of the avant-garde movement have continued to be influential in music that challenges the boundaries between avant-garde and other categories of jazz, such as that of alto saxophonists Steve Coleman and Greg Osby.
+
+Some ensembles such as the World Saxophone Quartet use the soprano-alto-tenor-baritone (SATB) format of the classical saxophone quartet for jazz.  In the 1990s, World Saxophone Quartet founder Hamiet Bluiett formed the quartet Baritone Nation (four baritones).[citation needed]
+
+The "jump swing" bands of the 1940s gave rise to rhythm and blues, featuring horn sections and exuberant, strong-toned, heavily rhythmic styles of saxophone playing with a melodic sense based on blues tonalities.  Illinois Jacquet, Sam Butera, Arnett Cobb, and Jimmy Forrest were major influences on R&B tenor styles and Louis Jordan, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Earl Bostic, and Bull Moose Jackson were major influences on alto.  The R&B saxophone players influenced later genres including rock and roll, ska, soul, and funk.  Horn section work continued with  Johnny Otis and Ray Charles featuring horn sections and the Memphis Horns, the Phenix Horns, and Tower of Power achieving distinction for their section playing.  Horn sections were added to the Chicago and West Coast blues bands of Lowell Fulson, T-Bone Walker, B.B. King, and Guitar Slim. Rock and soul fusion bands such as Chicago, The Electric Flag, and Blood, Sweat, and Tears featured horn sections. Bobby Keys and Clarence Clemons became influential rock and roll saxophone stylists. Junior Walker, King Curtis and Maceo Parker became influential soul and funk saxophone stylists, influencing the more technical jazz-fusion sounds of Michael Brecker and Bob Mintzer and pop-jazz players such as Candy Dulfer.[citation needed]
+
+A number of experimental saxophones and saxophone-related instruments have appeared since Sax's original work, most with no lasting impact. During the early 1920s Reiffel & Husted of Chicago produced a slide soprano saxophone.[32][33][34]
+During the 1920s some straight alto and tenor saxophones were produced by Buescher, which proved cumbersome to handle and difficult to transport.  Buescher custom produced one straight baritone saxophone as novelty instrument for a vaudeville performer.[35]
+C.G. Conn introduced two new variants in 1928–1929, the Conn-O-Sax and the mezzo-soprano saxophone keyed in F.  The Conn-O-Sax is a straight-conical bore instrument in F (one step above the E♭ alto) with a slightly curved neck and spherical bell. This instrument, which combines a saxophone bore and keys with a bell shaped similar to that of a heckelphone, was intended to imitate the timbre of the English horn and was produced only in 1929 and 1930. The instrument has a key range from low A to high G.  Fewer than 100 Conn-O-Saxes are in existence and they are highly sought by collectors. The Conn mezzo-soprano experienced a similarly short production run as the economics of the Great Depression curtailed the market for what were regarded as novelty instruments.  Most were expended by Conn as objects of repair training exercises.
+
+The most successful of the unusual 1920s designs was the King Saxello, essentially a straight B♭ soprano, but with a slightly curved neck and tipped bell, made by the H. N. White Company.  Such instruments now command prices up to US$4,000. Its lasting influence is shown in the number of companies, including Keilwerth, Rampone & Cazzani (altello model), L.A. Sax and Sax Dakota USA, marketing straight-bore, tipped-bell soprano saxophones as saxellos (or "saxello sopranos").
+
+Interest in two 1920s variants was revived by jazz musician Rahsaan Roland Kirk, who called his straight Buescher alto a "stritch" and his Saxello a "manzello.". The Buescher straight alto was a production instrument while the manzello was in fact a Saxello with a custom-made large bell and modified keywork.[36]  More recently, the mezzo-soprano, or a modern variant of it, came into use by jazz musicians Anthony Braxton, James Carter, Vinny Golia, and Joe Lovano.
+
+Some of the 1920s experimental designs, in addition to the Saxello, provide the basis for similar instruments produced during the modern era.  Straight altos and tenors have been revived by Keilwerth,[37] L.A. Sax[38] and Sax Dakota USA. A mezzo-soprano in the key of G has been produced by Danish woodwind technician Peter Jessen, most notably played by Joe Lovano. This instrument is more in the timbral quality of Bb soprano saxophone.
+
+The contralto saxophone, similar in size to the orchestral c-soprano, was developed in the late 20th century by California instrument maker Jim Schmidt.[39] This instrument has a larger bore and a new fingering system, and does not resemble the orchestral instrument except for its key and register.
+
+Benedikt Eppelsheim, of Munich, Germany has introduced recent innovations at the upper and lower ends of the saxophone range.  The soprillo sax is a piccolo-sized straight instrument with the upper speaker hole built into the mouthpiece. The instrument, which extends Sax's original family, is pitched a full octave higher than the B♭ soprano sax. 
+The tubax, developed in 1999 by Eppelsheim,[40] plays the same range and with the same fingering as the E♭ contrabass saxophone; its bore, however, is narrower than that of a contrabass saxophone, resulting in a more compact instrument with a "reedier" tone (akin to the double-reed contrabass sarrusophone). It can be played with the smaller (and more commonly available) baritone saxophone mouthpiece and reeds. Eppelsheim has also produced subcontrabass tubaxes in C and B♭, the latter being the lowest saxophone ever made.
+
+Among the 2000s developments is the aulochrome, a double soprano saxophone invented by Belgian instrument maker François Louis in 2001.
+
+Since the 1950s, saxophones with non-metallic bodies have occasionally been in production.  Such instruments have failed to gain acceptance over a number of issues including durability, repairability, and deficiencies in key action and tone.[41][42]  The best known of these efforts is the 1950s Grafton acrylic alto saxophone used briefly by Charlie Parker and Ornette Coleman.  It had a production run of over 10 years as a budget model saxophone.  The polycarbonate Vibratosax is in production as a low cost alternative to metal saxophones. Wooden Sawat saxophones are made in Thailand on a small scale.  Opinions vary on the significance of body materials to sound.
+
+The fingering scheme of the saxophone, which has had only minor changes since the instrument's original invention, has presented inherent acoustic problems related to closed keys below the first open tonehole that affect response of, and slightly muffle, some notes. There is also a lack of tactile consistency between key centers, requiring extra effort from the player to adjust modes of muscle memory when moving between key centers. Two efforts to remedy the acoustic problems and awkward aspects of the original fingering system are noteworthy.
+
+The Leblanc Rationale and System[43] saxophones have key mechanics designed to remedy the acoustic problems associated with closed keys below the first open tonehole. They also enable players to make half-step shifts of scales by depressing one key while keeping the rest of the fingering consistent with that of the fingering a half step away. Some Leblanc System features were built into the Vito Model 35 saxophones of the 1950s and 1960s.  Despite the advantages of that system, acceptance was impaired by the expense and mechanical reliability issues related to the complexity of certain key mechanisms.[44]
+
+The chromatic, or linear fingering, saxophone is a project of instrument designer and builder Jim Schmidt, developing a horn maximizing tactile and logical consistency between every interval regardless of the key, and avoiding the acoustic problems associated closed keys below the first open tone hole.[45] Several working prototypes have been built and presented at trade shows.[46] Production of this original and expensive saxophone is on an individual order basis.
+
+Inexpensive keyless folk versions of the saxophone made of bamboo (recalling a chalumeau) were developed in the 20th century by instrument makers in Hawaii, Jamaica, Thailand, Indonesia, Ethiopia, and Argentina. The Hawaiian instrument, called a xaphoon, was invented during the 1970s and is also marketed as a "bamboo sax", although its cylindrical bore more closely resembles that of a clarinet, and its lack of any keywork makes it more akin to a recorder. Jamaica's best known exponent of a similar type of homemade bamboo "saxophone" was the mento musician and instrument maker 'Sugar Belly' (William Walker).[47] In the Minahasa region of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, there exist entire bands made up of bamboo "saxophones"[48] and "brass" instruments of various sizes. These instruments are imitations of European instruments, made using local materials. Similar instruments are produced in Thailand.[49]
+
+In Argentina, Ángel Sampedro del Río and Mariana García have produced bamboo saxophones of various sizes since 1985, the larger of which have bamboo keys to allow for the playing of lower notes.[50]
+
+Many synthesizer wind controllers are played and fingered like a saxophone.
+
+From left to right, an E♭ alto saxophone, a curved B♭ soprano saxophone, and a B♭ tenor saxophone
+
+A straight-necked Conn C melody saxophone (Conn New Wonder Series 1)[51] with a serial number that dates manufacture to 1922
+
+Vintage silver-plated 'Pennsylvania Special' alto saxophone, manufactured by Kohlert & Sons for Selmer[52] in Czechoslovakia, circa 1930
+
+Conn 6M "Lady Face"[53] brass alto saxophone (dated 1935) in its original case
+
+1950s Grafton alto made of plastic
+
+Yamaha YAS-25 alto saxophone. Circa 1990s
+
+Yanagisawa A9932J alto saxophone: has a solid silver bell and neck with solid phosphor bronze body. The bell, neck and key-cups are extensively engraved. Manufactured in 2008
+
+Bauhaus Walstein tenor saxophone manufactured in 2008 from phosphor bronze
+
+The lower portion of a P. Mauriat alto saxophone, showing the mother of pearl key touches and engraved brass pad cups
+
+A Yamaha baritone saxophone
+
+Two mouthpieces for tenor saxophone: the one on the left is ebonite; the one on the right is metal.
+
+Ochres Music "No.5" hand-made professional alto saxophone with 24 carat gold seal on bell.

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+
+
+Nordic territories that are not part of Scandinavia:
+
+Scandinavia[b] (/ˌskændɪˈneɪviə/ SKAN-dih-NAY-vee-ə) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties. The term Scandinavia in local usage covers the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The majority national languages of these three belong to the Scandinavian dialect continuum, and are mutually intelligible North Germanic languages.[4]
+
+In English usage, Scandinavia also sometimes refers more narrowly to the Scandinavian Peninsula, or more broadly so as to include the Åland Islands, the Faroe Islands, Finland and Iceland.[3][a]
+
+The broader definition is similar to what are locally called the Nordic countries, which also include the remote Norwegian islands of Svalbard and Jan Mayen and Greenland, a constituent country within the Kingdom of Denmark.[5]
+
+The geography of Scandinavia is extremely varied. Notable are the Norwegian fjords, the Scandinavian Mountains, the flat, low areas in Denmark and the archipelagos of Sweden and Norway. Sweden has many lakes and moraines, legacies of the ice age, which ended about ten millennia ago.
+
+The southern and by far most populous regions of Scandinavia have a temperate climate. Scandinavia extends north of the Arctic Circle, but has relatively mild weather for its latitude due to the Gulf Stream. Many of the Scandinavian mountains have an alpine tundra climate.
+
+The climate varies from north to south and from west to east: a marine west coast climate (Cfb) typical of western Europe dominates in Denmark, southernmost part of Sweden and along the west coast of Norway reaching north to 65°N, with orographic lift giving more mm/year precipitation (<5000 mm) in some areas in western Norway. The central part – from Oslo to Stockholm – has a humid continental climate (Dfb), which gradually gives way to subarctic climate (Dfc) further north and cool marine west coast climate (Cfc) along the northwestern coast.[6] A small area along the northern coast east of the North Cape has tundra climate (Et) as a result of a lack of summer warmth. The Scandinavian Mountains block the mild and moist air coming from the southwest, thus northern Sweden and the Finnmarksvidda plateau in Norway receive little precipitation and have cold winters. Large areas in the Scandinavian mountains have alpine tundra climate.
+
+The warmest temperature ever recorded in Scandinavia is 38.0 °C in Målilla (Sweden).[7] The coldest temperature ever recorded is −52.6 °C in Vuoggatjålme, Arjeplog (Sweden).[8]  The coldest month was February 1985 in Vittangi (Sweden) with a mean of −27.2 °C.[8]
+
+Southwesterly winds further warmed by foehn wind can give warm temperatures in narrow Norwegian fjords in winter. Tafjord has recorded 17.9 °C in January and Sunndal 18.9 °C in February.
+
+The words Scandinavia and Scania (Skåne, the southernmost province of Sweden) are both thought to go back to the Proto-Germanic compound *Skaðin-awjō (the ð represented in Latin by t or d), which appears later in Old English as Scedenig and in Old Norse as Skáney.[9] The earliest identified source for the name Scandinavia is Pliny the Elder's Natural History, dated to the first century AD.
+
+Various references to the region can also be found in Pytheas, Pomponius Mela, Tacitus, Ptolemy, Procopius and Jordanes, usually in the form of Scandza. It is believed that the name used by Pliny may be of West Germanic origin, originally denoting Scania.[10] According to some scholars, the Germanic stem can be reconstructed as *skaðan- and meaning "danger" or "damage".[11] The second segment of the name has been reconstructed as *awjō, meaning "land on the water" or "island". The name Scandinavia would then mean "dangerous island", which is considered to refer to the treacherous sandbanks surrounding Scania.[11] Skanör in Scania, with its long Falsterbo reef, has the same stem (skan) combined with -ör, which means "sandbanks".
+
+Alternatively, Sca(n)dinavia and Skáney, along with the Old Norse goddess name Skaði, may be related to Proto-Germanic *skaðwa- (meaning "shadow"). John McKinnell comments that this etymology suggests that the goddess Skaði may have once been a personification of the geographical region of Scandinavia or associated with the underworld.[12]
+
+Another possibility is that all or part of the segments of the name came from the pre-Germanic Mesolithic people inhabiting the region.[13] In modernity, Scandinavia is a peninsula, but between approximately 10,300 and 9,500 years ago the southern part of Scandinavia was an island separated from the northern peninsula, with water exiting the Baltic Sea through the area where Stockholm is now located.[14] Correspondingly, some Basque scholars have presented the idea that the segment sk that appears in *Skaðinawjō is connected to the name for the Euzko peoples, akin to Basques, that populated Paleolithic Europe. According to one scholar, Scandinavian people share particular genetic markers with the Basque people.[13][unreliable source?]
+
+The Latin names in Pliny's text gave rise to different forms in medieval Germanic texts. In Jordanes' history of the Goths (AD 551), the form Scandza is the name used for their original home, separated by sea from the land of Europe (chapter 1, 4).[15] Where Jordanes meant to locate this quasi-legendary island is still a hotly debated issue, both in scholarly discussions and in the nationalistic discourse of various European countries.[16][17] The form Scadinavia as the original home of the Langobards appears in Paulus Diaconus' Historia Langobardorum,[18] but in other versions of Historia Langobardorum appear the forms Scadan, Scandanan, Scadanan and Scatenauge.[19] Frankish sources used Sconaowe and Aethelweard, an Anglo-Saxon historian, used Scani.[20][21] In Beowulf, the forms Scedenige and Scedeland are used while the Alfredian translation of Orosius and Wulfstan's travel accounts used the Old English Sconeg.[21]
+
+The earliest Sami yoik texts written down refer to the world as Skadesi-suolo (north Sami) and Skađsuâl (east Sami), meaning "Skaði's island". Svennung considers the Sami name to have been introduced as a loan word from the North Germanic languages;[22] "Skaði" is the giant stepmother of Freyr and Freyja in Norse mythology. It has been suggested that Skaði to some extent is modeled on a Sami woman. The name for Skade's father Thjazi is known in Sami as Čáhci, "the waterman"; and her son with Odin, Saeming, can be interpreted as a descendant of Saam the Sami population.[23][24] Older joik texts give evidence of the old Sami belief about living on an island and state that the wolf is known as suolu gievra, meaning "the strong one on the island". The Sami place name Sulliidčielbma means "the island's threshold" and Suoločielgi means "the island's back".
+
+In recent substrate studies, Sami linguists have examined the initial cluster sk- in words used in Sami and concluded that sk- is a phonotactic structure of alien origin.[25]
+
+Although the term Scandinavia used by Pliny the Elder probably originated in the ancient Germanic languages, the modern form Scandinavia does not descend directly from the ancient Germanic term. Rather the word was brought into use in Europe by scholars borrowing the term from ancient sources like Pliny, and was used vaguely for Scania and the southern region of the peninsula.[26]
+
+The term was popularised by the linguistic and cultural Scandinavist movement, which asserted the common heritage and cultural unity of the Scandinavian countries and rose to prominence in the 1830s.[26] The popular usage of the term in Sweden, Denmark and Norway as a unifying concept became established in the nineteenth century through poems such as Hans Christian Andersen's "I am a Scandinavian" of 1839. After a visit to Sweden, Andersen became a supporter of early political Scandinavism. In a letter describing the poem to a friend, he wrote: "All at once I understood how related the Swedes, the Danes and the Norwegians are, and with this feeling I wrote the poem immediately after my return: 'We are one people, we are called Scandinavians!'".
+
+The influence of Scandinavism as a Scandinavist political movement peaked in the middle of the nineteenth century, between the First Schleswig War (1848–1850) and the Second Schleswig War (1864).
+
+The Swedish king also proposed a unification of Denmark, Norway and Sweden into a single united kingdom. The background for the proposal was the tumultuous events during the Napoleonic Wars in the beginning of the century. This war resulted in Finland (formerly the eastern third of Sweden) becoming the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland in 1809 and Norway (de jure in union with Denmark since 1387, although de facto treated as a province) becoming independent in 1814, but thereafter swiftly forced to accept a personal union with Sweden. The dependent territories Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, historically part of Norway, remained with Denmark in accordance with the Treaty of Kiel. Sweden and Norway were thus united under the Swedish monarch, but Finland's inclusion in the Russian Empire excluded any possibility for a political union between Finland and any of the other Nordic countries.
+
+The end of the Scandinavian political movement came when Denmark was denied the military support promised from Sweden and Norway to annex the (Danish) Duchy of Schleswig, which together with the (German) Duchy of Holstein had been in personal union with Denmark. The Second war of Schleswig followed in 1864, a brief but disastrous war between Denmark and Prussia (supported by Austria). Schleswig-Holstein was conquered by Prussia and after Prussia's success in the Franco-Prussian War a Prussian-led German Empire was created and a new power-balance of the Baltic sea countries was established. The Scandinavian Monetary Union, established in 1873, lasted until World War I.
+
+The term Scandinavia (sometimes specified in English as Continental Scandinavia or mainland Scandinavia) is commonly used strictly for Denmark, Norway and Sweden as a subset of the Nordic countries (known in Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish as Norden; Finnish: Pohjoismaat, Icelandic: Norðurlöndin, Faroese: Norðurlond).[27]
+
+However, in English usage, the term Scandinavia is sometimes used as a synonym or near-synonym for Nordic countries.[5][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]
+
+Debate about which meaning is more appropriate is complicated by the fact that usage in English is different from usage in the Scandinavian languages themselves (which use Scandinavia in the narrow meaning), and by the fact that the question of whether a country belongs to Scandinavia is politicised: people from the Nordic world beyond Norway, Denmark and Sweden may be offended at being either included in or excluded from the category of "Scandinavia".[37]
+
+Nordic countries is used unambiguously for Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland, including their associated territories (Svalbard,[citation needed] Greenland, the Faroe Islands and the Åland Islands).[5]
+
+In addition to the mainland Scandinavian countries of:
+
+The Nordic countries also consist of:
+
+The clearest example of the use of the term Scandinavia as a political and societal construct is the unique position of Finland, based largely on the fact that most of modern-day Finland was part of Sweden for more than six centuries (see: Finland under Swedish rule), thus to much of the world associating Finland with all of Scandinavia. But the creation of a Finnish identity is unique in the region in that it was formed in relation to two different imperial models, the Swedish[38] and the Russian.[39][40][41]
+
+There is also the geological term Fennoscandia (sometimes Fennoscandinavia),  which in technical use refers to the Fennoscandian Shield (or Baltic Shield), that is the Scandinavian peninsula (Norway and Sweden), Finland and Karelia (excluding Denmark and other parts of the wider Nordic world). The terms Fennoscandia and Fennoscandinavia are sometimes used in a broader, political sense to refer to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland.[42]
+
+Whereas both narrow and broad conceptions of Scandinavian countries are straightforwardly defined, there is much ambiguity and political contestation as to which people are Scandinavian people (or Scandinavians). English dictionaries usually define the noun Scandinavian as meaning any inhabitant of Scandinavia (which might be narrowly conceived or broadly conceived).[43][44][45] However, the noun Scandinavian is frequently used as a synonym for speakers of Scandinavian languages (languages descended from Old Norse).  This usage can exclude the indigenous Sámi people of Scandinavia, as well as other non-Scandinavian-speaking inhabitants of the region.[46]
+
+Thus, based on intersecting cultural and geographic definitions, Scandinavians always include Scandinavian-speaking Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes (and, earlier, ancient speakers of the North Germanic languages).
+
+In usages based on cultural/linguistic definitions (native speakers of North Germanic languages), Scandinavians also include Faroe Islanders, Icelanders, the Swedish-speaking population of Finland, the Swedish-speaking population of Estonia, and the Scandinavian diaspora.
+
+In usages based on geographical definitions (inhabitants of Continental Scandinavia), Scandinavians include Sami people and, depending on how broad an understanding of Scandinavia is being used, Finns and Inuit.[32]
+
+Two language groups have coexisted on the Scandinavian peninsula since prehistory—the North Germanic languages (Scandinavian languages) and the Sami languages.[47]
+
+The majority of the population of Scandinavia (including Iceland and the Faroe Islands) today derive their language from several North Germanic tribes who once inhabited the southern part of Scandinavia and spoke a Germanic language that evolved into Old Norse and from Old Norse into Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese, and Icelandic. The Danish, Norwegian and Swedish languages form a dialect continuum and are known as the Scandinavian languages—all of which are considered mutually intelligible with one another. Faroese and Icelandic, sometimes referred to as insular Scandinavian languages, are intelligible in continental Scandinavian languages only to a limited extent.
+
+A small minority of Scandinavians are Sami people, concentrated in the extreme north of Scandinavia.
+
+Finland (sometimes included in Scandinavia in English usage) is mainly populated by speakers of Finnish, with a minority of approximately 5%[48] of Swedish speakers. However, Finnish is also spoken as a recognized minority language in Sweden, including in distinctive varieties sometimes known as Meänkieli. Finnish is distantly related to the Sami languages, but these are entirely different in origin to the Scandinavian languages.
+
+German (in Denmark), Yiddish and Romani are recognized minority languages in parts of Scandinavia. More recent migrations has added even more languages. Apart from Sami and the languages of minority groups speaking a variant of the majority language of a neighboring state, the following minority languages in Scandinavia are protected under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages: Yiddish, Romani Chib/Romanes and Romani.
+
+The North Germanic languages of Scandinavia are traditionally divided into an East Scandinavian branch (Danish and Swedish) and a West Scandinavian branch (Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese),[49][50] but because of changes appearing in the languages since 1600 the East Scandinavian and West Scandinavian branches are now usually reconfigured into Insular Scandinavian (ö-nordisk/øy-nordisk) featuring Icelandic and Faroese[51] and Continental Scandinavian (Skandinavisk), comprising Danish, Norwegian and Swedish.[52]
+
+The modern division is based on the degree of mutual comprehensibility between the languages in the two branches.[53] The populations of the Scandinavian countries, with common Scandinavian roots in language, can—at least with some training—understand each other's standard languages as they appear in print and are heard on radio and television.
+
+The reason Danish, Swedish and the two official written versions of Norwegian (Nynorsk and Bokmål) are traditionally viewed as different languages, rather than dialects of one common language, is that each is a well-established standard language in its respective country.
+
+Danish, Swedish and Norwegian have since medieval times been influenced to varying degrees by Middle Low German and standard German. That influence came from not just proximity but also that Denmark and later Denmark-Norway ruling over the German speaking region of Holstein, and in Sweden with its close trade with the Hanseatic League.
+
+Norwegians are accustomed to variation and may perceive Danish and Swedish only as slightly more distant dialects. This is because they have two official written standards, in addition to the habit of strongly holding on to local dialects. The people of Stockholm, Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark have the greatest difficulty in understanding other Scandinavian languages.[54] In the Faroe Islands and Iceland, learning Danish is mandatory. This causes Faroese people as well as Icelandic people to become bilingual in two very distinct North Germanic languages, making it relatively easy for them to understand the other two Mainland Scandinavian languages.[55][56]
+
+Although Iceland was under the political control of Denmark until a much later date (1918), very little influence and borrowing from Danish has occurred in the Icelandic language.[57] Icelandic remained the preferred language among the ruling classes in Iceland. Danish was not used for official communications, most of the royal officials were of Icelandic descent and the language of the church and law courts remained Icelandic.[58]
+
+The Scandinavian languages are (as a language family) unrelated to Finnish, Estonian and Sami languages, which as Uralic languages are distantly related to Hungarian. Owing to the close proximity, there is still a great deal of borrowing from the Swedish and Norwegian languages in the Finnish and Sami languages.[59] The long history of linguistic influence of Swedish on Finnish is also due to the fact that Finnish, the language of the majority in Finland, was treated as a minority language while Finland was part of Sweden. Finnish-speakers had to learn Swedish in order to advance to higher positions.[60] Swedish spoken in today's Finland includes a lot of words that are borrowed from Finnish, whereas the written language remains closer to that of Sweden.
+
+Finland is officially bilingual, with Finnish and Swedish having mostly the same status at national level. Finland's majority population are Finns, whose mother tongue is either Finnish (approximately 95%), Swedish or both. The Swedish-speakers live mainly on the coastline starting from approximately the city of Porvoo (in the Gulf of Finland) up to the city of Kokkola (in the Bay of Bothnia). The Åland Islands, an autonomous province of Finland situated in the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden, are entirely Swedish-speaking. Children are taught the other official language at school: for Swedish-speakers this is Finnish (usually from the 3rd grade), while for Finnish-speakers it is Swedish (usually from the 3rd, 5th or 7th grade).[citation needed]
+
+Finnish speakers constitute a language minority in Sweden and Norway. Meänkieli and Kven are Finnish dialects spoken in Swedish Lapland and Norwegian Lapland.
+
+The Sami languages are indigenous minority languages in Scandinavia.[61] They belong to their own branch of the Uralic language family and are unrelated to the North Germanic languages other than by limited grammatical (particularly lexical) characteristics resulting from prolonged contact.[59] Sami is divided into several languages or dialects.[62] Consonant gradation is a feature in both Finnish and northern Sami dialects, but it is not present in south Sami, which is considered to have a different language history. According to the Sami Information Centre of the Sami Parliament in Sweden, southern Sami may have originated in an earlier migration from the south into the Scandinavian peninsula.[59]
+
+A key ancient description of Scandinavia was provided by Pliny the Elder, though his mentions of Scatinavia and surrounding areas are not always easy to decipher. Writing in the capacity of a Roman admiral, he introduces the northern region by declaring to his Roman readers that there are 23 islands "Romanis armis cognitae" ("known to Roman arms") in this area. According to Pliny, the "clarissima" ("most famous") of the region's islands is Scatinavia, of unknown size. There live the Hilleviones. The belief that Scandinavia was an island became widespread among classical authors during the first century and dominated descriptions of Scandinavia in classical texts during the centuries that followed.
+
+Pliny begins his description of the route to Scatinavia by referring to the mountain of Saevo ("mons Saevo ibi"), the Codanus Bay ("Codanus sinus") and the Cimbrian promontory.[63] The geographical features have been identified in various ways. By some scholars, Saevo is thought to be the mountainous Norwegian coast at the entrance to Skagerrak and the Cimbrian peninsula is thought to be Skagen, the north tip of Jutland, Denmark. As described, Saevo and Scatinavia can also be the same place.
+
+Pliny mentions Scandinavia one more time: in Book VIII he says that the animal called achlis (given in the accusative, achlin, which is not Latin) was born on the island of Scandinavia.[64] The animal grazes, has a big upper lip and some mythical attributes.
+
+The name Scandia, later used as a synonym for Scandinavia, also appears in Pliny's Naturalis Historia (Natural History), but is used for a group of Northern European islands which he locates north of Britannia. Scandia thus does not appear to be denoting the island Scadinavia in Pliny's text. The idea that Scadinavia may have been one of the Scandiae islands was instead introduced by Ptolemy (c. 90 – c. 168 AD), a mathematician, geographer and astrologer of Roman Egypt. He used the name Skandia for the biggest, most easterly of the three Scandiai islands, which according to him were all located east of Jutland.[11]
+
+Neither Pliny's nor Ptolemy's lists of Scandinavian tribes include the Suiones mentioned by Tacitus. Some early Swedish scholars of the Swedish Hyperborean school[65] and of the ninettenth-century romantic nationalism period proceeded to synthesize the different versions by inserting references to the Suiones, arguing that they must have been referred to in the original texts and obscured over time by spelling mistakes or various alterations.[66][67]
+
+During a period of Christianization and state formation in the 10th–13th centuries, numerous Germanic petty kingdoms and chiefdoms were unified into three kingdoms:
+
+The three Scandinavian kingdoms joined in 1387 in the Kalmar Union under Queen Margaret I of Denmark. Sweden left the union in 1523 under King Gustav Vasa. In the aftermath of Sweden's secession from the Kalmar Union, civil war broke out in Denmark and Norway—the Protestant Reformation followed. When things had settled, the Norwegian Privy Council was abolished—it assembled for the last time in 1537. A personal union, entered into by the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway in 1536, lasted until 1814. Three sovereign successor states have subsequently emerged from this unequal union: Denmark, Norway and Iceland.
+
+The borders between the three countries got the shape they have had since in the middle of the seventeenth century: In the 1645 Treaty of Brömsebro, Denmark–Norway ceded the Norwegian provinces of Jämtland, Härjedalen and Idre and Särna, as well as the Baltic Sea islands of Gotland and Ösel (in Estonia) to Sweden. The Treaty of Roskilde, signed in 1658, forced Denmark–Norway to cede the Danish provinces Scania, Blekinge, Halland, Bornholm and the Norwegian provinces of Båhuslen and Trøndelag to Sweden. The 1660 Treaty of Copenhagen forced Sweden to return Bornholm and Trøndelag to Denmark–Norway, and to give up its recent claims to the island Funen.[69]
+
+In the east, Finland, was a fully incorporated part of Sweden since medieval times until the Napoleonic wars, when it was ceded to Russia. Despite many wars over the years since the formation of the three kingdoms, Scandinavia has been politically and culturally close.
+
+Denmark–Norway as a historiographical name refers to the former political union consisting of the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, including the Norwegian dependencies of Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The corresponding adjective and demonym is Dano-Norwegian. During Danish rule, Norway kept its separate laws, coinage and army as well as some institutions such as a royal chancellor. Norway's old royal line had died out with the death of Olav IV[70] in 1387, but Norway's remaining a hereditary kingdom became an important factor for the Oldenburg dynasty of Denmark–Norway in its struggles to win elections as kings of Denmark.
+
+The Treaty of Kiel (14 January 1814) formally dissolved the Dano-Norwegian union and ceded the territory of Norway proper to the King of Sweden, but Denmark retained Norway's overseas possessions. However, widespread Norwegian resistance to the prospect of a union with Sweden induced the governor of Norway, crown prince Christian Frederick (later Christian VIII of Denmark), to call a constituent assembly at Eidsvoll in April 1814. The assembly drew up a liberal constitution and elected Christian Frederick to the throne of Norway. Following a Swedish invasion during the summer, the peace conditions of the Convention of Moss (14 August 1814) specified that king Christian Frederik had to resign, but Norway would keep its independence and its constitution within a personal union with Sweden. Christian Frederik formally abdicated on 10 August 1814 and returned to Denmark. The Norwegian parliament Storting elected king Charles XIII of Sweden as king of Norway on 4 November.
+
+The Storting dissolved the union between Sweden and Norway in 1905, after which the Norwegians elected Prince Charles of Denmark as king of Norway: he reigned as Haakon VII.
+
+The economies of the countries of Scandinavia are amongst the strongest in Europe.[71] There is a generous welfare system in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland.[72]
+
+Various promotional agencies of the Nordic countries in the United States (such as The American-Scandinavian Foundation, established in 1910 by the Danish American industrialist Niels Poulsen) serve to promote market and tourism interests in the region. Today, the five Nordic heads of state act as the organization's patrons and according to the official statement by the organization its mission is "to promote the Nordic region as a whole while increasing the visibility of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden in New York City and the United States".[73] The official tourist boards of Scandinavia sometimes cooperate under one umbrella, such as the Scandinavian Tourist Board.[74] The cooperation was introduced for the Asian market in 1986, when the Swedish national tourist board joined the Danish national tourist board to coordinate intergovernmental promotion of the two countries. Norway's government entered one year later. All five Nordic governments participate in the joint promotional efforts in the United States through the Scandinavian Tourist Board of North America.[75]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+

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+Adolf Hitler (German: [ˈadɔlf ˈhɪtlɐ] (listen); 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was a German politician and leader of the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; NSDAP). He rose to power as the chancellor of Germany in 1933 and then as Führer in 1934.[a] During his dictatorship from 1933 to 1945, he initiated World War II in Europe by invading Poland on 1 September 1939. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust.
+
+Hitler was born in Austria—then part of Austria-Hungary—and was raised near Linz. He moved to Germany in 1913 and was decorated during his service in the German Army in World War I. In 1919, he joined the German Workers' Party (DAP), the precursor of the NSDAP, and was appointed leader of the NSDAP in 1921. In 1923, he attempted to seize power in a failed coup in Munich and was imprisoned. In jail, he dictated the first volume of his autobiography and political manifesto Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"). After his release in 1924, Hitler gained popular support by attacking the Treaty of Versailles and promoting Pan-Germanism, anti-semitism and anti-communism with charismatic oratory and Nazi propaganda. He frequently denounced international capitalism and communism as part of a Jewish conspiracy.
+
+By November 1932, the Nazi Party had the most seats in the German Reichstag but did not have a majority. As a result, no party was able to form a majority parliamentary coalition in support of a candidate for chancellor. Former chancellor Franz von Papen and other conservative leaders persuaded President Paul von Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor on 30 January 1933. Shortly after, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act of 1933 which began the process of transforming the Weimar Republic into Nazi Germany, a one-party dictatorship based on the totalitarian and autocratic ideology of National Socialism. Hitler aimed to eliminate Jews from Germany and establish a New Order to counter what he saw as the injustice of the post-World War I international order dominated by Britain and France. His first six years in power resulted in rapid economic recovery from the Great Depression, the abrogation of restrictions imposed on Germany after World War I, and the annexation of territories inhabited by millions of ethnic Germans, which gave him significant popular support.
+
+Hitler sought Lebensraum ("living space") for the German people in Eastern Europe, and his aggressive foreign policy is considered the primary cause of World War II in Europe. He directed large-scale rearmament and, on 1 September 1939, invaded Poland, resulting in Britain and France declaring war on Germany. In June 1941, Hitler ordered an invasion of the Soviet Union. By the end of 1941, German forces and the European Axis powers occupied most of Europe and North Africa. These gains were gradually reversed after 1941, and in 1945 the Allied armies defeated the German army. On 29 April 1945, he married his longtime lover Eva Braun. Less than two days later, the couple committed suicide to avoid capture by the Soviet Red Army. Their corpses were burned.
+
+Under Hitler's leadership and racially motivated ideology, the Nazi regime was responsible for the genocide of about 6 million Jews and millions of other victims whom he and his followers deemed Untermenschen (subhumans) or socially undesirable. Hitler and the Nazi regime were also responsible for the killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians and prisoners of war. In addition, 28.7 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in the European theatre. The number of civilians killed during World War II was unprecedented in warfare, and the casualties constitute the deadliest conflict in history.
+
+Hitler's actions and Nazi ideology are almost universally regarded as gravely immoral. According to Ian Kershaw, "Never in history has such ruination – physical and moral – been associated with the name of one man."[4]
+
+Hitler's father Alois Hitler Sr. (1837–1903) was the illegitimate child of Maria Anna Schicklgruber.[5] The baptismal register did not show the name of his father, and Alois initially bore his mother's surname Schicklgruber. In 1842, Johann Georg Hiedler married Alois's mother Maria Anna. Alois was brought up in the family of Hiedler's brother, Johann Nepomuk Hiedler.[6] In 1876, Alois was legitimated and the baptismal record received an annotation made by a priest to register Johann Georg Hiedler as Alois's father (recorded as "Georg Hitler").[7][8] Alois then assumed the surname "Hitler",[8] also spelled Hiedler, Hüttler, or Huettler. The name is probably based on "one who lives in a hut" (German Hütte for "hut").[9]
+
+Nazi official Hans Frank suggested that Alois' mother had been employed as a housekeeper by a Jewish family in Graz, and that the family's 19-year-old son Leopold Frankenberger had fathered Alois.[10] No Frankenberger was registered in Graz during that period, and no record has been produced of Leopold Frankenberger's existence,[11] so historians dismiss the claim that Alois' father was Jewish.[12][13]
+
+Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, a town in Austria-Hungary (in present-day Austria), close to the border with the German Empire.[14]  He was the fourth of six children born to Alois Hitler and his third wife, Klara Pölzl. Three of Hitler's siblings—Gustav, Ida, and Otto—died in infancy.[15] Also living in the household were Alois's children from his second marriage: Alois Jr. (born 1882) and Angela (born 1883).[16] When Hitler was three, the family moved to Passau, Germany.[17] There he acquired the distinctive lower Bavarian dialect, rather than Austrian German, which marked his speech throughout his life.[18][19][20] The family returned to Austria and settled in Leonding in 1894, and in June 1895 Alois retired to Hafeld, near Lambach, where he farmed and kept bees. Hitler attended Volksschule (a state-owned primary school) in nearby Fischlham.[21][22]
+
+The move to Hafeld coincided with the onset of intense father-son conflicts caused by Hitler's refusal to conform to the strict discipline of his school.[23] His father beat him, although his mother tried to protect him.[24] Alois Hitler's farming efforts at Hafeld ended in failure, and in 1897 the family moved to Lambach. The eight-year-old Hitler took singing lessons, sang in the church choir, and even considered becoming a priest.[25] In 1898 the family returned permanently to Leonding. Hitler was deeply affected by the death of his younger brother Edmund, who died in 1900 from measles. Hitler changed from a confident, outgoing, conscientious student to a morose, detached boy who constantly fought with his father and teachers.[26]
+
+Alois had made a successful career in the customs bureau, and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps.[27] Hitler later dramatised an episode from this period when his father took him to visit a customs office, depicting it as an event that gave rise to an unforgiving antagonism between father and son, who were both strong-willed.[28][29][30] Ignoring his son's desire to attend a classical high school and become an artist, Alois sent Hitler to the Realschule in Linz in September 1900.[b][31] Hitler rebelled against this decision, and in Mein Kampf states that he intentionally did poorly in school, hoping that once his father saw "what little progress I was making at the technical school he would let me devote myself to my dream".[32]
+
+Like many Austrian Germans, Hitler began to develop German nationalist ideas from a young age.[33] He expressed loyalty only to Germany, despising the declining Habsburg Monarchy and its rule over an ethnically variegated empire.[34][35] Hitler and his friends used the greeting "Heil", and sang the "Deutschlandlied" instead of the Austrian Imperial anthem.[36]
+
+After Alois's sudden death on 3 January 1903, Hitler's performance at school deteriorated and his mother allowed him to leave.[37] He enrolled at the Realschule in Steyr in September 1904, where his behaviour and performance improved.[38] In 1905, after passing a repeat of the final exam, Hitler left the school without any ambitions for further education or clear plans for a career.[39]
+
+In 1907 Hitler left Linz to live and study fine art in Vienna, financed by orphan's benefits and support from his mother. He applied for admission to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna but was rejected twice.[40][41] The director suggested Hitler should apply to the School of Architecture, but he lacked the necessary academic credentials because he had not finished secondary school.[42]
+
+On 21 December 1907, his mother died of breast cancer at the age of 47, when he himself was 18. In 1909 Hitler ran out of money and was forced to live a bohemian life in homeless shelters and a men's dormitory.[43][44] He earned money as a casual labourer and by painting and selling watercolours of Vienna's sights.[40] During his time in Vienna, he pursued a growing passion for architecture and music, attending ten performances of Lohengrin, his favourite Wagner opera.[45]
+
+It was in Vienna that Hitler first became exposed to racist rhetoric.[46] Populists such as mayor Karl Lueger exploited the climate of virulent anti-Semitism and occasionally espoused German nationalist notions for political effect. German nationalism had a particularly widespread following in the Mariahilf district, where Hitler lived.[47] Georg Ritter von Schönerer became a major influence on Hitler.[48] He also developed an admiration for Martin Luther.[49] Hitler read local newspapers such as Deutsches Volksblatt that fanned prejudice and played on Christian fears of being swamped by an influx of Eastern European Jews.[50] He read newspapers and pamphlets that published the thoughts of philosophers and theoreticians such as Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gustave Le Bon and Arthur Schopenhauer.[51]
+
+The origin and development of Hitler's anti-Semitism remains a matter of debate.[52] His friend, August Kubizek, claimed that Hitler was a "confirmed anti-Semite" before he left Linz.[53] However, historian Brigitte Hamann describes Kubizek's claim as "problematical".[54] While Hitler states in Mein Kampf that he first became an anti-Semite in Vienna,[55] Reinhold Hanisch, who helped him sell his paintings, disagrees. Hitler had dealings with Jews while living in Vienna.[56][57][58] Historian Richard J. Evans states that "historians now generally agree that his notorious, murderous anti-Semitism emerged well after Germany's defeat [in World War I], as a product of the paranoid "stab-in-the-back" explanation for the catastrophe".[59]
+
+Hitler received the final part of his father's estate in May 1913 and moved to Munich, Germany.[60] When he was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian Army,[61] he journeyed to Salzburg on 5 February 1914 for medical assessment. After he was deemed unfit for service, he returned to Munich.[62] Hitler later claimed that he did not wish to serve the Habsburg Empire because of the mixture of races in its army and his belief that the collapse of Austria-Hungary was imminent.[63]
+
+In August 1914, at the outbreak of World War I, Hitler was living in Munich and voluntarily enlisted in the Bavarian Army.[64] According to a 1924 report by the Bavarian authorities, allowing Hitler to serve was almost certainly an administrative error, since as an Austrian citizen, he should have been returned to Austria.[64] Posted to the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (1st Company of the List Regiment),[65][64] he served as a dispatch runner on the Western Front in France and Belgium,[66] spending nearly half his time at the regimental headquarters in Fournes-en-Weppes, well behind the front lines.[67][68] He was present at the First Battle of Ypres, the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Arras, and the Battle of Passchendaele, and was wounded at the Somme.[69] He was decorated for bravery, receiving the Iron Cross, Second Class, in 1914.[69] On a recommendation by Lieutenant Hugo Gutmann, Hitler's Jewish superior, he received the Iron Cross, First Class on 4 August 1918, a decoration rarely awarded to one of Hitler's Gefreiter rank.[70][71] He received the Black Wound Badge on 18 May 1918.[72]
+
+During his service at headquarters, Hitler pursued his artwork, drawing cartoons and instructions for an army newspaper. During the Battle of the Somme in October 1916, he was wounded in the left thigh when a shell exploded in the dispatch runners' dugout.[73] Hitler spent almost two months in hospital at Beelitz, returning to his regiment on 5 March 1917.[74] On 15 October 1918, he was temporarily blinded in a mustard gas attack and was hospitalised in Pasewalk.[75] While there, Hitler learned of Germany's defeat, and—by his own account—upon receiving this news, he suffered a second bout of blindness.[76]
+
+Hitler described the war as "the greatest of all experiences", and was praised by his commanding officers for his bravery.[77] His wartime experience reinforced his German patriotism and he was shocked by Germany's capitulation in November 1918.[78] His bitterness over the collapse of the war effort began to shape his ideology.[79] Like other German nationalists, he believed the Dolchstoßlegende (stab-in-the-back myth), which claimed that the German army, "undefeated in the field", had been "stabbed in the back" on the home front by civilian leaders, Jews, Marxists, and those who signed the armistice that ended the fighting—later dubbed the "November criminals".[80]
+
+The Treaty of Versailles stipulated that Germany must relinquish several of its territories and demilitarise the Rhineland. The treaty imposed economic sanctions and levied heavy reparations on the country. Many Germans saw the treaty as an unjust humiliation—they especially objected to Article 231, which they interpreted as declaring Germany responsible for the war.[81] The Versailles Treaty and the economic, social, and political conditions in Germany after the war were later exploited by Hitler for political gain.[82]
+
+After World War I, Hitler returned to Munich.[83] Without formal education or career prospects, he remained in the army.[84] In July 1919 he was appointed Verbindungsmann (intelligence agent) of an Aufklärungskommando (reconnaissance unit) of the Reichswehr, assigned to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the German Workers' Party (DAP). At a DAP meeting on 12 September 1919, Party Chairman Anton Drexler was impressed with Hitler's oratorical skills. He gave him a copy of his pamphlet My Political Awakening, which contained anti-Semitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist, and anti-Marxist ideas.[85] On the orders of his army superiors, Hitler applied to join the party,[86] and within a week was accepted as party member 555 (the party began counting membership at 500 to give the impression they were a much larger party).[87][88]
+
+Around this time, Hitler made his earliest known recorded statement about the Jews in a letter (now known as the Gemlich letter) dated 16 September 1919 to Adolf Gemlich about the Jewish question. In the letter, Hitler argues that the aim of the government "must unshakably be the removal of the Jews altogether".[89]
+
+At the DAP, Hitler met Dietrich Eckart, one of the party's founders and a member of the occult Thule Society.[90] Eckart became Hitler's mentor, exchanging ideas with him and introducing him to a wide range of Munich society.[91] To increase its appeal, the DAP changed its name to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party; NSDAP).[92] Hitler designed the party's banner of a swastika in a white circle on a red background.[93]
+
+Hitler was discharged from the army on 31 March 1920 and began working full-time for the NSDAP.[94] The party headquarters was in Munich, a hotbed of anti-government German nationalists determined to crush Marxism and undermine the Weimar Republic.[95] In February 1921—already highly effective at crowd manipulation—he spoke to a crowd of over 6,000.[96] To publicise the meeting, two truckloads of party supporters drove around Munich waving swastika flags and distributing leaflets. Hitler soon gained notoriety for his rowdy polemic speeches against the Treaty of Versailles, rival politicians, and especially against Marxists and Jews.[97]
+
+In June 1921, while Hitler and Eckart were on a fundraising trip to Berlin, a mutiny broke out within the NSDAP in Munich. Members of its executive committee wanted to merge with the rival German Socialist Party (DSP).[98] Hitler returned to Munich on 11 July and angrily tendered his resignation. The committee members realised that the resignation of their leading public figure and speaker would mean the end of the party.[99] Hitler announced he would rejoin on the condition that he would replace Drexler as party chairman, and that the party headquarters would remain in Munich.[100] The committee agreed, and he rejoined the party on 26 July as member 3,680. Hitler continued to face some opposition within the NSDAP: Opponents of Hitler in the leadership had Hermann Esser expelled from the party, and they printed 3,000 copies of a pamphlet attacking Hitler as a traitor to the party.[100][c] In the following days, Hitler spoke to several packed houses and defended himself and Esser, to thunderous applause. His strategy proved successful, and at a special party congress on 29 July, he was granted absolute powers as party chairman, replacing Drexler, by a vote of 533 to 1.[101]
+
+Hitler's vitriolic beer hall speeches began attracting regular audiences. A demagogue,[102] he became adept at using populist themes, including the use of scapegoats, who were blamed for his listeners' economic hardships.[103][104][105] Hitler used personal magnetism and an understanding of crowd psychology to his advantage while engaged in public speaking.[106][107] Historians have noted the hypnotic effect of his rhetoric on large audiences, and of his eyes in small groups.[108] Algis Budrys recalled the crowd noise and behaviour when Hitler appeared in a 1936 parade; some in the audience writhed and rolled on the ground or experienced fecal incontinence.[109] Alfons Heck, a former member of the Hitler Youth, recalled a similar experience:
+
+We erupted into a frenzy of nationalistic pride that bordered on hysteria. For minutes on end, we shouted at the top of our lungs, with tears streaming down our faces: Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil! From that moment on, I belonged to Adolf Hitler body and soul.[110]
+
+Early followers included Rudolf Hess, former air force ace Hermann Göring, and army captain Ernst Röhm. Röhm became head of the Nazis' paramilitary organisation, the Sturmabteilung (SA, "Stormtroopers"), which protected meetings and attacked political opponents. A critical influence on Hitler's thinking during this period was the Aufbau Vereinigung,[111] a conspiratorial group of White Russian exiles and early National Socialists. The group, financed with funds channelled from wealthy industrialists, introduced Hitler to the idea of a Jewish conspiracy, linking international finance with Bolshevism.[112]
+
+The programme of the NSDAP, known colloquially as the "Nazi Party", was laid out in their 25-point programme on 24 February 1920. This did not represent a coherent ideology, but was a conglomeration of received ideas which had currency in the völkisch Pan-Germanic movement, such as ultranationalism, opposition to the Treaty of Versailles, distrust of capitalism, as well as some socialist ideas. For Hitler, though, the most important aspect of it was its strong anti-Semitic stance. He also perceived the programme as primarily a basis for propaganda and for attracting people to the party.[113]
+
+In 1923, Hitler enlisted the help of World War I General Erich Ludendorff for an attempted coup known as the "Beer Hall Putsch". The NSDAP used Italian Fascism as a model for their appearance and policies. Hitler wanted to emulate Benito Mussolini's "March on Rome" of 1922 by staging his own coup in Bavaria, to be followed by a challenge to the government in Berlin. Hitler and Ludendorff sought the support of Staatskommissar (state commissioner) Gustav Ritter von Kahr, Bavaria's de facto ruler. However, Kahr, along with Police Chief Hans Ritter von Seisser and Reichswehr General Otto von Lossow, wanted to install a nationalist dictatorship without Hitler.[114]
+
+On 8 November 1923, Hitler and the SA stormed a public meeting of 3,000 people organised by Kahr in the Bürgerbräukeller, a beer hall in Munich. Interrupting Kahr's speech, he announced that the national revolution had begun and declared the formation of a new government with Ludendorff.[115] Retiring to a back room, Hitler, with handgun drawn, demanded and got the support of Kahr, Seisser, and Lossow.[115] Hitler's forces initially succeeded in occupying the local Reichswehr and police headquarters, but Kahr and his cohorts quickly withdrew their support. Neither the army, nor the state police, joined forces with Hitler.[116] The next day, Hitler and his followers marched from the beer hall to the Bavarian War Ministry to overthrow the Bavarian government, but police dispersed them.[117] Sixteen NSDAP members and four police officers were killed in the failed coup.[118]
+
+Hitler fled to the home of Ernst Hanfstaengl and by some accounts contemplated suicide.[119] He was depressed but calm when arrested on 11 November 1923 for high treason.[120] His trial before the special People's Court in Munich began in February 1924,[121] and Alfred Rosenberg became temporary leader of the NSDAP. On 1 April, Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at Landsberg Prison.[122] There, he received friendly treatment from the guards, and was allowed mail from supporters and regular visits by party comrades. Pardoned by the Bavarian Supreme Court, he was released from jail on 20 December 1924, against the state prosecutor's objections.[123] Including time on remand, Hitler served just over one year in prison.[124]
+
+While at Landsberg, Hitler dictated most of the first volume of Mein Kampf (My Struggle; originally entitled Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice) at first to his chauffeur, Emil Maurice, and then to his deputy, Rudolf Hess.[124][125] The book, dedicated to Thule Society member Dietrich Eckart, was an autobiography and exposition of his ideology. The book laid out Hitler's plans for transforming German society into one based on race. Throughout the book, Jews are equated with "germs" and presented as the "international poisoners" of society. According to Hitler's ideology, the only solution was their extermination. While Hitler did not describe exactly how this was to be accomplished, his "inherent genocidal thrust is undeniable," according to Ian Kershaw.[126]
+
+Published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926, Mein Kampf sold 228,000 copies between 1925 and 1932. One million copies were sold in 1933, Hitler's first year in office.[127]
+
+Shortly before Hitler was eligible for parole, the Bavarian government attempted to have him deported to Austria.[128] The Austrian federal chancellor rejected the request on the specious grounds that his service in the German Army made his Austrian citizenship void.[129] In response, Hitler formally renounced his Austrian citizenship on 7 April 1925.[129]
+
+At the time of Hitler's release from prison, politics in Germany had become less combative and the economy had improved, limiting Hitler's opportunities for political agitation. As a result of the failed Beer Hall Putsch, the Nazi Party and its affiliated organisations were banned in Bavaria. In a meeting with the Prime Minister of Bavaria Heinrich Held on 4 January 1925, Hitler agreed to respect the state's authority and promised that he would seek political power only through the democratic process. The meeting paved the way for the ban on the NSDAP to be lifted on 16 February.[130] However, after an inflammatory speech he gave on 27 February, Hitler was barred from public speaking by the Bavarian authorities, a ban that remained in place until 1927.[131][132] To advance his political ambitions in spite of the ban, Hitler appointed Gregor Strasser, Otto Strasser and Joseph Goebbels to organise and enlarge the NSDAP in northern Germany. Gregor Strasser steered a more independent political course, emphasising the socialist elements of the party's programme.[133]
+
+The stock market in the United States crashed on 24 October 1929. The impact in Germany was dire: millions were thrown out of work and several major banks collapsed. Hitler and the NSDAP prepared to take advantage of the emergency to gain support for their party. They promised to repudiate the Versailles Treaty, strengthen the economy, and provide jobs.[134]
+
+The Great Depression provided a political opportunity for Hitler. Germans were ambivalent about the parliamentary republic, which faced challenges from right- and left-wing extremists. The moderate political parties were increasingly unable to stem the tide of extremism, and the German referendum of 1929 helped to elevate Nazi ideology.[136] The elections of September 1930 resulted in the break-up of a grand coalition and its replacement with a minority cabinet. Its leader, chancellor Heinrich Brüning of the Centre Party, governed through emergency decrees from President Paul von Hindenburg. Governance by decree became the new norm and paved the way for authoritarian forms of government.[137] The NSDAP rose from obscurity to win 18.3 per cent of the vote and 107 parliamentary seats in the 1930 election, becoming the second-largest party in parliament.[138]
+
+Hitler made a prominent appearance at the trial of two Reichswehr officers, Lieutenants Richard Scheringer and Hanns Ludin, in late 1930. Both were charged with membership in the NSDAP, at that time illegal for Reichswehr personnel.[139] The prosecution argued that the NSDAP was an extremist party, prompting defence lawyer Hans Frank to call on Hitler to testify.[140] On 25 September 1930, Hitler testified that his party would pursue political power solely through democratic elections,[141] which won him many supporters in the officer corps.[142]
+
+Brüning's austerity measures brought little economic improvement and were extremely unpopular.[143] Hitler exploited this by targeting his political messages specifically at people who had been affected by the inflation of the 1920s and the Depression, such as farmers, war veterans, and the middle class.[144]
+
+Although Hitler had terminated his Austrian citizenship in 1925, he did not acquire German citizenship for almost seven years. This meant that he was stateless, legally unable to run for public office, and still faced the risk of deportation.[145] On 25 February 1932, the interior minister of Brunswick, Dietrich Klagges, who was a member of the NSDAP, appointed Hitler as administrator for the state's delegation to the Reichsrat in Berlin, making Hitler a citizen of Brunswick,[146] and thus of Germany.[147]
+
+Hitler ran against Hindenburg in the 1932 presidential elections. A speech to the Industry Club in Düsseldorf on 27 January 1932 won him support from many of Germany's most powerful industrialists.[148] Hindenburg had support from various nationalist, monarchist, Catholic, and republican parties, and some Social Democrats. Hitler used the campaign slogan "Hitler über Deutschland" ("Hitler over Germany"), a reference to his political ambitions and his campaigning by aircraft.[149] He was one of the first politicians to use aircraft travel for political purposes, and used it effectively.[150][151] Hitler came in second in both rounds of the election, garnering more than 35 per cent of the vote in the final election. Although he lost to Hindenburg, this election established Hitler as a strong force in German politics.[152]
+
+The absence of an effective government prompted two influential politicians, Franz von Papen and Alfred Hugenberg, along with several other industrialists and businessmen, to write a letter to Hindenburg. The signers urged Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as leader of a government "independent from parliamentary parties", which could turn into a movement that would "enrapture millions of people".[153][154]
+
+Hindenburg reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler as chancellor after two further parliamentary elections—in July and November 1932—had not resulted in the formation of a majority government. Hitler headed a short-lived coalition government formed by the NSDAP (which had the most seats in the Reichstag) and Hugenberg's party, the German National People's Party (DNVP). On 30 January 1933, the new cabinet was sworn in during a brief ceremony in Hindenburg's office. The NSDAP gained three posts: Hitler was named chancellor, Wilhelm Frick Minister of the Interior, and Hermann Göring Minister of the Interior for Prussia.[155] Hitler had insisted on the ministerial positions as a way to gain control over the police in much of Germany.[156]
+
+As chancellor, Hitler worked against attempts by the NSDAP's opponents to build a majority government. Because of the political stalemate, he asked Hindenburg to again dissolve the Reichstag, and elections were scheduled for early March. On 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire. Göring blamed a communist plot, because Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe was found in incriminating circumstances inside the burning building.[157] According to Kershaw, the consensus of nearly all historians is that van der Lubbe actually set the fire.[158] Others, including William L. Shirer and Alan Bullock, are of the opinion that the NSDAP itself was responsible.[159][160] At Hitler's urging, Hindenburg responded with the Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February, which suspended basic rights and allowed detention without trial. The decree was permitted under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, which gave the president the power to take emergency measures to protect public safety and order.[161] Activities of the German Communist Party (KPD) were suppressed, and some 4,000 KPD members were arrested.[162]
+
+In addition to political campaigning, the NSDAP engaged in paramilitary violence and the spread of anti-communist propaganda in the days preceding the election. On election day, 6 March 1933, the NSDAP's share of the vote increased to 43.9 per cent, and the party acquired the largest number of seats in parliament. Hitler's party failed to secure an absolute majority, necessitating another coalition with the DNVP.[163]
+
+On 21 March 1933, the new Reichstag was constituted with an opening ceremony at the Garrison Church in Potsdam. This "Day of Potsdam" was held to demonstrate unity between the Nazi movement and the old Prussian elite and military. Hitler appeared in a morning coat and humbly greeted Hindenburg.[164][165]
+
+To achieve full political control despite not having an absolute majority in parliament, Hitler's government brought the Ermächtigungsgesetz (Enabling Act) to a vote in the newly elected Reichstag. The Act—officially titled the Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich ("Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich")—gave Hitler's cabinet the power to enact laws without the consent of the Reichstag for four years. These laws could (with certain exceptions) deviate from the constitution.[166] Since it would affect the constitution, the Enabling Act required a two-thirds majority to pass. Leaving nothing to chance, the Nazis used the provisions of the Reichstag Fire Decree to arrest all 81 Communist deputies (in spite of their virulent campaign against the party, the Nazis had allowed the KPD to contest the election)[167] and prevent several Social Democrats from attending.[168]
+
+On 23 March 1933, the Reichstag assembled at the Kroll Opera House under turbulent circumstances. Ranks of SA men served as guards inside the building, while large groups outside opposing the proposed legislation shouted slogans and threats towards the arriving members of parliament.[169] The position of the Centre Party, the third largest party in the Reichstag, was decisive. After Hitler verbally promised party leader Ludwig Kaas that Hindenburg would retain his power of veto, Kaas announced the Centre Party would support the Enabling Act. The Act passed by a vote of 441–84, with all parties except the Social Democrats voting in favour. The Enabling Act, along with the Reichstag Fire Decree, transformed Hitler's government into a de facto legal dictatorship.[170]
+
+At the risk of appearing to talk nonsense I tell you that the National Socialist movement will go on for 1,000 years! ... Don't forget how people laughed at me 15 years ago when I declared that one day I would govern Germany. They laugh now, just as foolishly, when I declare that I shall remain in power![171]
+
+Having achieved full control over the legislative and executive branches of government, Hitler and his allies began to suppress the remaining opposition. The Social Democratic Party was banned and its assets seized.[172] While many trade union delegates were in Berlin for May Day activities, SA stormtroopers demolished union offices around the country. On 2 May 1933 all trade unions were forced to dissolve and their leaders were arrested. Some were sent to concentration camps.[173] The German Labour Front was formed as an umbrella organisation to represent all workers, administrators, and company owners, thus reflecting the concept of national socialism in the spirit of Hitler's Volksgemeinschaft ("people's community").[174]
+
+By the end of June, the other parties had been intimidated into disbanding. This included the Nazis' nominal coalition partner, the DNVP; with the SA's help, Hitler forced its leader, Hugenberg, to resign on 29 June. On 14 July 1933, the NSDAP was declared the only legal political party in Germany.[174][172] The demands of the SA for more political and military power caused anxiety among military, industrial, and political leaders. In response, Hitler purged the entire SA leadership in the Night of the Long Knives, which took place from 30 June to 2 July 1934.[175] Hitler targeted Ernst Röhm and other SA leaders who, along with a number of Hitler's political adversaries (such as Gregor Strasser and former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher), were rounded up, arrested, and shot.[176] While the international community and some Germans were shocked by the murders, many in Germany believed Hitler was restoring order.[177]
+
+On 2 August 1934, Hindenburg died. The previous day, the cabinet had enacted the "Law Concerning the Highest State Office of the Reich".[3] This law stated that upon Hindenburg's death, the office of president would be abolished and its powers merged with those of the chancellor. Hitler thus became head of state as well as head of government, and was formally named as Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor),[2] although Reichskanzler was eventually quietly dropped.[178] With this action, Hitler eliminated the last legal remedy by which he could be removed from office.[179]
+
+As head of state, Hitler became commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Immediately after Hindenburg's death, at the instigation of the leadership of the Reichswehr, the traditional loyalty oath of soldiers was altered to affirm loyalty to Hitler personally, by name, rather than to the office of commander-in-chief (which was later renamed to supreme commander) or the state.[180] On 19 August, the merger of the presidency with the chancellorship was approved by 88 per cent of the electorate voting in a plebiscite.[181]
+
+In early 1938, Hitler used blackmail to consolidate his hold over the military by instigating the Blomberg–Fritsch affair. Hitler forced his War Minister, Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg, to resign by using a police dossier that showed that Blomberg's new wife had a record for prostitution.[182][183] Army commander Colonel-General Werner von Fritsch was removed after the Schutzstaffel (SS) produced allegations that he had engaged in a homosexual relationship.[184] Both men had fallen into disfavour because they objected to Hitler's demand to make the Wehrmacht ready for war as early as 1938.[185] Hitler assumed Blomberg's title of Commander-in-Chief, thus taking personal command of the armed forces. He replaced the Ministry of War with the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), headed by General Wilhelm Keitel. On the same day, sixteen generals were stripped of their commands and 44 more were transferred; all were suspected of not being sufficiently pro-Nazi.[186] By early February 1938, twelve more generals had been removed.[187]
+
+Hitler took care to give his dictatorship the appearance of legality. Many of his decrees were explicitly based on the Reichstag Fire Decree and hence on Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. The Reichstag renewed the Enabling Act twice, each time for a four-year period.[188] While elections to the Reichstag were still held (in 1933, 1936, and 1938), voters were presented with a single list of Nazis and pro-Nazi "guests" which carried with well over 90 per cent of the vote.[189] These elections were held in far-from-secret conditions; the Nazis threatened severe reprisals against anyone who did not vote or dared to vote no.[190]
+
+In August 1934, Hitler appointed Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schacht as Minister of Economics, and in the following year, as Plenipotentiary for War Economy in charge of preparing the economy for war.[191] Reconstruction and rearmament were financed through Mefo bills, printing money, and seizing the assets of people arrested as enemies of the State, including Jews.[192] Unemployment fell from six million in 1932 to one million in 1936.[193] Hitler oversaw one of the largest infrastructure improvement campaigns in German history, leading to the construction of dams, autobahns, railroads, and other civil works. Wages were slightly lower in the mid to late 1930s compared with wages during the Weimar Republic, while the cost of living increased by 25 per cent.[194] The average work week increased during the shift to a war economy; by 1939, the average German was working between 47 and 50 hours a week.[195]
+
+Hitler's government sponsored architecture on an immense scale. Albert Speer, instrumental in implementing Hitler's classicist reinterpretation of German culture, was placed in charge of the proposed architectural renovations of Berlin.[196] Despite a threatened multi-nation boycott, Germany hosted the 1936 Olympic Games. Hitler officiated at the opening ceremonies and attended events at both the Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the Summer Games in Berlin.[197]
+
+In a meeting with German military leaders on 3 February 1933, Hitler spoke of "conquest for Lebensraum in the East and its ruthless Germanisation" as his ultimate foreign policy objectives.[198] In March, Prince Bernhard Wilhelm von Bülow, secretary at the Auswärtiges Amt (Foreign Office), issued a statement of major foreign policy aims: Anschluss with Austria, the restoration of Germany's national borders of 1914, rejection of military restrictions under the Treaty of Versailles, the return of the former German colonies in Africa, and a German zone of influence in Eastern Europe. Hitler found Bülow's goals to be too modest.[199] In speeches during this period, he stressed the peaceful goals of his policies and a willingness to work within international agreements.[200] At the first meeting of his cabinet in 1933, Hitler prioritised military spending over unemployment relief.[201]
+
+Germany withdrew from the League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference in October 1933.[202] In January 1935, over 90 per cent of the people of the Saarland, then under League of Nations administration, voted to unite with Germany.[203] That March, Hitler announced an expansion of the Wehrmacht to 600,000 members—six times the number permitted by the Versailles Treaty—including development of an air force (Luftwaffe) and an increase in the size of the navy (Kriegsmarine). Britain, France, Italy, and the League of Nations condemned these violations of the Treaty, but did nothing to stop it.[204][205] The Anglo-German Naval Agreement (AGNA) of 18 June allowed German tonnage to increase to 35 per cent of that of the British navy. Hitler called the signing of the AGNA "the happiest day of his life", believing that the agreement marked the beginning of the Anglo-German alliance he had predicted in Mein Kampf.[206] France and Italy were not consulted before the signing, directly undermining the League of Nations and setting the Treaty of Versailles on the path towards irrelevance.[207]
+
+Germany reoccupied the demilitarised zone in the Rhineland in March 1936, in violation of the Versailles Treaty. Hitler also sent troops to Spain to support General Franco during the Spanish Civil War after receiving an appeal for help in July 1936. At the same time, Hitler continued his efforts to create an Anglo-German alliance.[208] In August 1936, in response to a growing economic crisis caused by his rearmament efforts, Hitler ordered Göring to implement a Four Year Plan to prepare Germany for war within the next four years.[209] The plan envisaged an all-out struggle between "Judeo-Bolshevism" and German national socialism, which in Hitler's view required a committed effort of rearmament regardless of the economic costs.[210]
+
+Count Galeazzo Ciano, foreign minister of Mussolini's government, declared an axis between Germany and Italy, and on 25 November, Germany signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan. Britain, China, Italy, and Poland were also invited to join the Anti-Comintern Pact, but only Italy signed in 1937. Hitler abandoned his plan of an Anglo-German alliance, blaming "inadequate" British leadership.[211] At a meeting in the Reich Chancellery with his foreign ministers and military chiefs that November, Hitler restated his intention of acquiring Lebensraum for the German people. He ordered preparations for war in the East, to begin as early as 1938 and no later than 1943. In the event of his death, the conference minutes, recorded as the Hossbach Memorandum, were to be regarded as his "political testament".[212] He felt that a severe decline in living standards in Germany as a result of the economic crisis could only be stopped by military aggression aimed at seizing Austria and Czechoslovakia.[213][214] Hitler urged quick action before Britain and France gained a permanent lead in the arms race.[213] In early 1938, in the wake of the Blomberg–Fritsch Affair, Hitler asserted control of the military-foreign policy apparatus, dismissing Neurath as foreign minister and appointing himself as War Minister.[209] From early 1938 onwards, Hitler was carrying out a foreign policy ultimately aimed at war.[215]
+
+In February 1938, on the advice of his newly appointed foreign minister, the strongly pro-Japanese Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler ended the Sino-German alliance with the Republic of China to instead enter into an alliance with the more modern and powerful Empire of Japan. Hitler announced German recognition of Manchukuo, the Japanese-occupied state in Manchuria, and renounced German claims to their former colonies in the Pacific held by Japan.[216] Hitler ordered an end to arms shipments to China and recalled all German officers working with the Chinese Army.[216] In retaliation, Chinese General Chiang Kai-shek cancelled all Sino-German economic agreements, depriving the Germans of many Chinese raw materials.[217]
+
+On 12 March 1938, Hitler announced the unification of Austria with Nazi Germany in the Anschluss.[218][219] Hitler then turned his attention to the ethnic German population of the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia.[220] On 28–29 March 1938, Hitler held a series of secret meetings in Berlin with Konrad Henlein of the Sudeten German Party, the largest of the ethnic German parties of the Sudetenland. The men agreed that Henlein would demand increased autonomy for Sudeten Germans from the Czechoslovakian government, thus providing a pretext for German military action against Czechoslovakia. In April 1938 Henlein told the foreign minister of Hungary that "whatever the Czech government might offer, he would always raise still higher demands ... he wanted to sabotage an understanding by any means because this was the only method to blow up Czechoslovakia quickly".[221] In private, Hitler considered the Sudeten issue unimportant; his real intention was a war of conquest against Czechoslovakia.[222]
+
+In April Hitler ordered the OKW to prepare for 
+Fall Grün (Case Green), the code name for an invasion of Czechoslovakia.[223] As a result of intense French and British diplomatic pressure, on 5 September Czechoslovakian President Edvard Beneš unveiled the "Fourth Plan" for constitutional reorganisation of his country, which agreed to most of Henlein's demands for Sudeten autonomy.[224] Henlein's party responded to Beneš' offer by instigating a series of violent clashes with the Czechoslovakian police that led to the declaration of martial law in certain Sudeten districts.[225][226]
+
+Germany was dependent on imported oil; a confrontation with Britain over the Czechoslovakian dispute could curtail Germany's oil supplies. This forced Hitler to call off Fall Grün, originally planned for 1 October 1938.[227] On 29 September Hitler, Neville Chamberlain, Édouard Daladier, and Mussolini attended a one-day conference in Munich that led to the Munich Agreement, which handed over the Sudetenland districts to Germany.[228][229]
+
+Chamberlain was satisfied with the Munich conference, calling the outcome "peace for our time", while Hitler was angered about the missed opportunity for war in 1938;[230][231] he expressed his disappointment in a speech on 9 October in Saarbrücken.[232] In Hitler's view, the British-brokered peace, although favourable to the ostensible German demands, was a diplomatic defeat which spurred his intent of limiting British power to pave the way for the eastern expansion of Germany.[233][234] As a result of the summit, Hitler was selected Time magazine's Man of the Year for 1938.[235]
+
+In late 1938 and early 1939, the continuing economic crisis caused by rearmament forced Hitler to make major defence cuts.[236] In his "Export or die" speech of 30 January 1939, he called for an economic offensive to increase German foreign exchange holdings to pay for raw materials such as high-grade iron needed for military weapons.[236]
+
+On 14 March 1939, under threat from Hungary, Slovakia declared independence and received protection from Germany.[237] The next day, in violation of the Munich accord and possibly as a result of the deepening economic crisis requiring additional assets,[238] Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht to invade the Czech rump state, and from Prague Castle he proclaimed the territory a German protectorate.[239]
+
+In private discussions in 1939, Hitler declared Britain the main enemy to be defeated and that Poland's obliteration was a necessary prelude for that goal.[240] The eastern flank would be secured and land would be added to Germany's Lebensraum.[241] Offended by the British "guarantee" on 31 March 1939 of Polish independence, he said, "I shall brew them a devil's drink".[242] In a speech in Wilhelmshaven for the launch of the battleship Tirpitz on 1 April, he threatened to denounce the Anglo-German Naval Agreement if the British continued to guarantee Polish independence, which he perceived as an "encirclement" policy.[242] Poland was to either become a German satellite state or it would be neutralised in order to secure the Reich's eastern flank and prevent a possible British blockade.[243] Hitler initially favoured the idea of a satellite state, but upon its rejection by the Polish government, he decided to invade and made this the main foreign policy goal of 1939.[244] On 3 April, Hitler ordered the military to prepare for Fall Weiss ("Case White"), the plan for invading Poland on 25 August.[244] In a Reichstag speech on 28 April, he renounced both the Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the German–Polish Non-Aggression Pact.[245] Historians such as William Carr, Gerhard Weinberg, and Ian Kershaw have argued that one reason for Hitler's rush to war was his fear of an early death. He had repeatedly claimed that he must lead Germany into war before he got too old, as his successors might lack his strength of will.[246][247][248]
+
+Hitler was concerned that a military attack against Poland could result in a premature war with Britain.[243][249] Hitler's foreign minister and former Ambassador to London, Joachim von Ribbentrop, assured him that neither Britain nor France would honour their commitments to Poland.[250][251] Accordingly, on 22 August 1939 Hitler ordered a military mobilisation against Poland.[252]
+
+This plan required tacit Soviet support,[253] and the non-aggression pact (the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact) between Germany and the Soviet Union, led by Joseph Stalin, included a secret agreement to partition Poland between the two countries.[254] Contrary to Ribbentrop's prediction that Britain would sever Anglo-Polish ties, Britain and Poland signed the Anglo-Polish alliance on 25 August 1939. This, along with news from Italy that Mussolini would not honour the Pact of Steel, prompted Hitler to postpone the attack on Poland from 25 August to 1 September.[255] Hitler unsuccessfully tried to manoeuvre the British into neutrality by offering them a non-aggression guarantee on 25 August; he then instructed Ribbentrop to present a last-minute peace plan with an impossibly short time limit in an effort to blame the imminent war on British and Polish inaction.[256][257]
+
+On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded western Poland under the pretext of having been denied claims to the Free City of Danzig and the right to extraterritorial roads across the Polish Corridor, which Germany had ceded under the Versailles Treaty.[258] In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September, surprising Hitler and prompting him to angrily ask Ribbentrop, "Now what?"[259] France and Britain did not act on their declarations immediately, and on 17 September, Soviet forces invaded eastern Poland.[260]
+
+The fall of Poland was followed by what contemporary journalists dubbed the "Phoney War" or Sitzkrieg ("sitting war"). Hitler instructed the two newly appointed Gauleiters of north-western Poland, Albert Forster of Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia and Arthur Greiser of Reichsgau Wartheland, to Germanise their areas, with "no questions asked" about how this was accomplished.[261] In Forster's area, ethnic Poles merely had to sign forms stating that they had German blood.[262] In contrast, Greiser agreed with Himmler and carried out an ethnic cleansing campaign towards Poles. Greiser soon complained that Forster was allowing thousands of Poles to be accepted as "racial" Germans and thus endangered German "racial purity".[261] Hitler refrained from getting involved. This inaction has been advanced as an example of the theory of "working towards the Führer", in which Hitler issued vague instructions and expected his subordinates to work out policies on their own.[261][263]
+
+Another dispute pitched one side represented by Heinrich Himmler and Greiser, who championed ethnic cleansing in Poland, against another represented by Göring and Hans Frank (governor-general of occupied Poland), who called for turning Poland into the "granary" of the Reich.[264] On 12 February 1940, the dispute was initially settled in favour of the Göring–Frank view, which ended the economically disruptive mass expulsions.[264] On 15 May 1940, Himmler issued a memo entitled "Some Thoughts on the Treatment of Alien Population in the East", calling for the expulsion of the entire Jewish population of Europe into Africa and the reduction of the Polish population to a "leaderless class of labourers".[264] Hitler called Himmler's memo "good and correct",[264] and, ignoring Göring and Frank, implemented the Himmler–Greiser policy in Poland.
+
+On 9 April, German forces invaded Denmark and Norway. On the same day Hitler proclaimed the birth of the Greater Germanic Reich, his vision of a united empire of Germanic nations of Europe in which the Dutch, Flemish, and Scandinavians were joined into a "racially pure" polity under German leadership.[265] In May 1940, Germany attacked France, and conquered Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium. These victories prompted Mussolini to have Italy join forces with Hitler on 10 June. France and Germany signed an armistice on 22 June.[266] Kershaw notes that Hitler's popularity within Germany—and German support for the war—reached its peak when he returned to Berlin on 6 July from his tour of Paris.[267] Following the unexpected swift victory, Hitler promoted twelve generals to the rank of field marshal during the 1940 Field Marshal Ceremony.[268][269]
+
+Britain, whose troops were forced to evacuate France by sea from Dunkirk,[270] continued to fight alongside other British dominions in the Battle of the Atlantic. Hitler made peace overtures to the new British leader, Winston Churchill, and upon their rejection he ordered a series of aerial attacks on Royal Air Force airbases and radar stations in south-east England. On 7 September the systematic nightly bombing of London began. The German Luftwaffe failed to defeat the Royal Air Force in what became known as the Battle of Britain.[271] By the end of September, Hitler realised that air superiority for the invasion of Britain (in Operation Sea Lion) could not be achieved, and ordered the operation postponed. The nightly air raids on British cities intensified and continued for months, including London, Plymouth, and Coventry.[272]
+
+On 27 September 1940, the Tripartite Pact was signed in Berlin by Saburō Kurusu of Imperial Japan, Hitler, and Italian foreign minister Ciano,[273] and later expanded to include Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, thus yielding the Axis powers. Hitler's attempt to integrate the Soviet Union into the anti-British bloc failed after inconclusive talks between Hitler and Molotov in Berlin in November, and he ordered preparations for the invasion of the Soviet Union.[274]
+
+In early 1941, German forces were deployed to North Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East. In February, German forces arrived in Libya to bolster the Italian presence. In April, Hitler launched the invasion of Yugoslavia, quickly followed by the invasion of Greece.[275] In May, German forces were sent to support Iraqi rebel forces fighting against the British and to invade Crete.[276]
+
+On 22 June 1941, contravening the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, over three million Axis troops attacked the Soviet Union.[277] This offensive (codenamed Operation Barbarossa) was intended to destroy the Soviet Union and seize its natural resources for subsequent aggression against the Western powers.[278][279] The invasion conquered a huge area, including the Baltic republics, Belarus, and West Ukraine. By early August, Axis troops had advanced 500 km (310 mi) and won the Battle of Smolensk. Hitler ordered Army Group Centre to temporarily halt its advance to Moscow and divert its Panzer groups to aid in the encirclement of Leningrad and Kiev.[280] His generals disagreed with this change, having advanced within 400 km (250 mi) of Moscow, and his decision caused a crisis among the military leadership.[281][282] The pause provided the Red Army with an opportunity to mobilise fresh reserves; historian Russel Stolfi considers it to be one of the major factors that caused the failure of the Moscow offensive, which was resumed in October 1941 and ended disastrously in December.[280] During this crisis, Hitler appointed himself as head of the Oberkommando des Heeres.[283]
+
+On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked the American fleet based at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Four days later, Hitler declared war against the United States.[284]
+
+On 18 December 1941, Himmler asked Hitler, "What to do with the Jews of Russia?", to which Hitler replied, "als Partisanen auszurotten" ("exterminate them as partisans").[285] Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer has commented that the remark is probably as close as historians will ever get to a definitive order from Hitler for the genocide carried out during the Holocaust.[285]
+
+In late 1942, German forces were defeated in the second battle of El Alamein,[286] thwarting Hitler's plans to seize the Suez Canal and the Middle East. Overconfident in his own military expertise following the earlier victories in 1940, Hitler became distrustful of his Army High Command and began to interfere in military and tactical planning, with damaging consequences.[287] In December 1942 and January 1943, Hitler's repeated refusal to allow their withdrawal at the Battle of Stalingrad led to the almost total destruction of the 6th Army. Over 200,000 Axis soldiers were killed and 235,000 were taken prisoner.[288] Thereafter came a decisive strategic defeat at the Battle of Kursk.[289] Hitler's military judgement became increasingly erratic, and Germany's military and economic position deteriorated, as did Hitler's health.[290]
+
+Following the allied invasion of Sicily in 1943, Mussolini was removed from power by Victor Emmanuel III after a vote of no confidence of the Grand Council. Marshal Pietro Badoglio, placed in charge of the government, soon surrendered to the Allies.[291] Throughout 1943 and 1944, the Soviet Union steadily forced Hitler's armies into retreat along the Eastern Front. On 6 June 1944, the Western Allied armies landed in northern France in one of the largest amphibious operations in history, Operation Overlord.[292] Many German officers concluded that defeat was inevitable and that continuing under Hitler's leadership would result in the complete destruction of the country.[293]
+
+Between 1939 and 1945, there were many plans to assassinate Hitler, some of which proceeded to significant degrees.[294] The most well known, the 20 July plot of 1944, came from within Germany and was at least partly driven by the increasing prospect of a German defeat in the war.[295] Part of Operation Valkyrie, the plot involved Claus von Stauffenberg planting a bomb in one of Hitler's headquarters, the Wolf's Lair at Rastenburg. Hitler narrowly survived because staff officer Heinz Brandt moved the briefcase containing the bomb behind a leg of the heavy conference table, which deflected much of the blast. Later, Hitler ordered savage reprisals resulting in the execution of more than 4,900 people.[296]
+
+By late 1944, both the Red Army and the Western Allies were advancing into Germany. Recognising the strength and determination of the Red Army, Hitler decided to use his remaining mobile reserves against the American and British troops, which he perceived as far weaker.[297] On 16 December, he launched the Ardennes Offensive to incite disunity among the Western Allies and perhaps convince them to join his fight against the Soviets.[298] The offensive failed after some temporary successes.[299] With much of Germany in ruins in January 1945, Hitler spoke on the radio: "However grave as the crisis may be at this moment, it will, despite everything, be mastered by our unalterable will."[300] Acting on his view that Germany's military failures meant it had forfeited its right to survive as a nation, Hitler ordered the destruction of all German industrial infrastructure before it could fall into Allied hands.[301] Minister for Armaments Albert Speer was entrusted with executing this scorched earth policy, but he secretly disobeyed the order.[301][302] Hitler's hope to negotiate peace with the United States and Britain was encouraged by the death of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt on 12 April 1945, but contrary to his expectations, this caused no rift among the Allies.[298][303]
+
+On 20 April, his 56th birthday, Hitler made his last trip from the Führerbunker (Führer's shelter) to the surface. In the ruined garden of the Reich Chancellery, he awarded Iron Crosses to boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth, who were now fighting the Red Army at the front near Berlin.[304] By 21 April, Georgy Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front had broken through the defences of General Gotthard Heinrici's Army Group Vistula during the Battle of the Seelow Heights and advanced to the outskirts of Berlin.[305] In denial about the dire situation, Hitler placed his hopes on the undermanned and under-equipped Armeeabteilung Steiner (Army Detachment Steiner), commanded by Waffen-SS General Felix Steiner. Hitler ordered Steiner to attack the northern flank of the salient, while the German Ninth Army was ordered to attack northward in a pincer attack.[306]
+
+During a military conference on 22 April, Hitler asked about Steiner's offensive. He was told that the attack had not been launched and that the Soviets had entered Berlin. Hitler asked everyone except Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred Jodl, Hans Krebs, and Wilhelm Burgdorf to leave the room,[307] then launched into a tirade against the treachery and incompetence of his commanders, culminating in his declaration—for the first time—that "everything was lost".[308] He announced that he would stay in Berlin until the end and then shoot himself.[309]
+
+By 23 April the Red Army had surrounded Berlin,[310] and Goebbels made a proclamation urging its citizens to defend the city.[307] That same day, Göring sent a telegram from Berchtesgaden, arguing that since Hitler was isolated in Berlin, Göring should assume leadership of Germany. Göring set a deadline, after which he would consider Hitler incapacitated.[311] Hitler responded by having Göring arrested, and in his last will and testament of 29 April, he removed Göring from all government positions.[312][313] On 28 April Hitler discovered that Himmler, who had left Berlin on 20 April, was trying to negotiate a surrender to the Western Allies.[314][315] He ordered Himmler's arrest and had Hermann Fegelein (Himmler's SS representative at Hitler's HQ in Berlin) shot.[316]
+
+After midnight on the night of 28–29 April, Hitler married Eva Braun in a small civil ceremony in the Führerbunker.[317][d] Later that afternoon, Hitler was informed that Mussolini had been executed by the Italian resistance movement on the previous day; this presumably increased his determination to avoid capture.[318]
+
+On 30 April 1945, Soviet troops were within a block or two of the Reich Chancellery when Hitler shot himself in the head and Braun bit into a cyanide capsule.[319][320] Their bodies were carried outside to the garden behind the Reich Chancellery, where they were placed in a bomb crater, doused with petrol,[321] and set on fire as the Red Army shelling continued.[322][323] Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz and Joseph Goebbels assumed Hitler's roles as head of state and chancellor respectively.[324]
+
+Berlin surrendered on 2 May. Records in the Soviet archives obtained after the fall of the Soviet Union state that the remains of Hitler, Braun, Joseph and Magda Goebbels, the six Goebbels children, General Hans Krebs, and Hitler's dogs were repeatedly buried and exhumed.[325] On 4 April 1970, a Soviet KGB team used detailed burial charts to exhume five wooden boxes at the SMERSH facility in Magdeburg. The remains from the boxes were burned, crushed, and scattered into the Biederitz river, a tributary of the Elbe.[326] According to Kershaw, the corpses of Braun and Hitler were fully burned when the Red Army found them, and only a lower jaw with dental work could be identified as Hitler's remains.[327]
+
+If the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevisation of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe![328]
+
+The Holocaust and Germany's war in the East were based on Hitler's long-standing view that the Jews were the enemy of the German people and that Lebensraum was needed for Germany's expansion. He focused on Eastern Europe for this expansion, aiming to defeat Poland and the Soviet Union and then removing or killing the Jews and Slavs.[329] The Generalplan Ost (General Plan East) called for deporting the population of occupied Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to West Siberia, for use as slave labour or to be murdered;[330] the conquered territories were to be colonised by German or "Germanised" settlers.[331] The goal was to implement this plan after the conquest of the Soviet Union, but when this failed, Hitler moved the plans forward.[330][332] By January 1942, he had decided that the Jews, Slavs, and other deportees considered undesirable should be killed.[333][e]
+
+The genocide was organised and executed by Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich. The records of the Wannsee Conference, held on 20 January 1942 and led by Heydrich, with fifteen senior Nazi officials participating, provide the clearest evidence of systematic planning for the Holocaust. On 22 February, Hitler was recorded saying, "we shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jews".[334] Similarly, at a meeting in July 1941 with leading functionaries of the Eastern territories, Hitler said that the easiest way to quickly pacify the areas would be best achieved by "shooting everyone who even looks odd".[335] Although no direct order from Hitler authorising the mass killings has surfaced,[336] his public speeches, orders to his generals, and the diaries of Nazi officials demonstrate that he conceived and authorised the extermination of European Jewry.[337][338] During the war, Hitler repeatedly stated his prophecy of 1939 was being fulfilled, namely, that a world war would bring about the annihilation of the Jewish race.[339] Hitler approved the Einsatzgruppen—killing squads that followed the German army through Poland, the Baltic, and the Soviet Union[340]—and was well informed about their activities.[337][341] By summer 1942, Auschwitz concentration camp was expanded to accommodate large numbers of deportees for killing or enslavement.[342] Scores of other concentration camps and satellite camps were set up throughout Europe, with several camps devoted exclusively to extermination.[343]
+
+Between 1939 and 1945, the Schutzstaffel (SS), assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, was responsible for the deaths of at least eleven million non-combatants,[344][330] including about 6 million Jews (representing two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe),[345][f] and between 200,000 and 1,500,000 Romani people.[347][345] Deaths took place in concentration and extermination camps, ghettos, and through mass executions. Many victims of the Holocaust were gassed to death, while others died of starvation or disease or while working as slave labourers.[348] In addition to eliminating Jews, the Nazis planned to reduce the population of the conquered territories by 30 million people through starvation in an action called the Hunger Plan. Food supplies would be diverted to the German army and German civilians. Cities would be razed and the land allowed to return to forest or resettled by German colonists.[349] Together, the Hunger Plan and Generalplan Ost would have led to the starvation of 80 million people in the Soviet Union.[350] These partially fulfilled plans resulted in additional deaths, bringing the total number of civilians and prisoners of war who died in the democide to an estimated 19.3 million people.[351]
+
+Hitler's policies resulted in the killing of nearly two million non-Jewish Polish civilians,[352] over three million Soviet prisoners of war,[353] communists and other political opponents, homosexuals, the physically and mentally disabled,[354][355] Jehovah's Witnesses, Adventists, and trade unionists. Hitler did not speak publicly about the killings, and seems never to have visited the concentration camps.[356]
+
+The Nazis embraced the concept of racial hygiene. On 15 September 1935, Hitler presented two laws—known as the Nuremberg Laws—to the Reichstag. The laws banned sexual relations and marriages between Aryans and Jews and were later extended to include "Gypsies, Negroes or their bastard offspring".[357] The laws stripped all non-Aryans of their German citizenship and forbade the employment of non-Jewish women under the age of 45 in Jewish households.[358] Hitler's early eugenic policies targeted children with physical and developmental disabilities in a programme dubbed Action Brandt, and he later authorised a euthanasia programme for adults with serious mental and physical disabilities, now referred to as Aktion T4.[359]
+
+Hitler ruled the NSDAP autocratically by asserting the Führerprinzip (leader principle). The principle relied on absolute obedience of all subordinates to their superiors; thus he viewed the government structure as a pyramid, with himself—the infallible leader—at the apex. Rank in the party was not determined by elections—positions were filled through appointment by those of higher rank, who demanded unquestioning obedience to the will of the leader.[360] Hitler's leadership style was to give contradictory orders to his subordinates and to place them into positions where their duties and responsibilities overlapped with those of others, to have "the stronger one [do] the job".[361] In this way, Hitler fostered distrust, competition, and infighting among his subordinates to consolidate and maximise his own power. His cabinet never met after 1938, and he discouraged his ministers from meeting independently.[362][363] Hitler typically did not give written orders; instead he communicated verbally, or had them conveyed through his close associate, Martin Bormann.[364] He entrusted Bormann with his paperwork, appointments, and personal finances; Bormann used his position to control the flow of information and access to Hitler.[365]
+
+Hitler dominated his country's war effort during World War II to a greater extent than any other national leader. He strengthened his control of the armed forces in 1938, and subsequently made all major decisions regarding Germany's military strategy. His decision to mount a risky series of offensives against Norway, France, and the Low Countries in 1940 against the advice of the military proved successful, though the diplomatic and military strategies he employed in attempts to force the United Kingdom out of the war ended in failure.[366] Hitler deepened his involvement in the war effort by appointing himself commander-in-chief of the Army in December 1941; from this point forward he personally directed the war against the Soviet Union, while his military commanders facing the Western Allies retained a degree of autonomy.[367] Hitler's leadership became increasingly disconnected from reality as the war turned against Germany, with the military's defensive strategies often hindered by his slow decision making and frequent directives to hold untenable positions. Nevertheless, he continued to believe that only his leadership could deliver victory.[366] In the final months of the war Hitler refused to consider peace negotiations, regarding the destruction of Germany as preferable to surrender.[368] The military did not challenge Hitler's dominance of the war effort, and senior officers generally supported and enacted his decisions.[369]
+
+Hitler created a public image as a celibate man without a domestic life, dedicated entirely to his political mission and the nation.[145][370] He met his lover, Eva Braun, in 1929,[371] and married her on 29 April 1945, one day before they both committed suicide.[372] In September 1931, his half-niece, Geli Raubal, took her own life with Hitler's gun in his Munich apartment. It was rumoured among contemporaries that Geli was in a romantic relationship with him, and her death was a source of deep, lasting pain.[373] Paula Hitler, the younger sister of Hitler and the last living member of his immediate family, died in June 1960.[15]
+
+Hitler was born to a practising Catholic mother and an anticlerical father; after leaving home Hitler never again attended Mass or received the sacraments.[374][375][376] Speer states that Hitler railed against the church to his political associates and though he never officially left it, he had no attachment to it.[377] He adds that Hitler felt that in the absence of organised religion, people would turn to mysticism, which he considered regressive.[377] According to Speer, Hitler believed that Japanese religious beliefs or Islam would have been a more suitable religion for Germans than Christianity, with its "meekness and flabbiness".[378]
+
+Historian John S. Conway states that Hitler was fundamentally opposed to the Christian churches.[379] According to Bullock, Hitler did not believe in God, was anticlerical, and held Christian ethics in contempt because they contravened his preferred view of "survival of the fittest".[380] He favoured aspects of Protestantism that suited his own views, and adopted some elements of the Catholic Church's hierarchical organisation, liturgy, and phraseology.[381]
+
+Hitler viewed the church as an important politically conservative influence on society,[382] and he adopted a strategic relationship with it that "suited his immediate political purposes".[379] In public, Hitler often praised Christian heritage and German Christian culture, though professing a belief in an "Aryan Jesus" who fought against the Jews.[383] Any pro-Christian public rhetoric contradicted his private statements, which described Christianity as "absurdity"[384] and nonsense founded on lies.[385]
+
+According to a US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) report, "The Nazi Master Plan", Hitler planned to destroy the influence of Christian churches within the Reich.[386][387] His eventual goal was the total elimination of Christianity.[388] This goal informed Hitler's movement early on, but he saw it as inexpedient to publicly express this extreme position.[389] According to Bullock, Hitler wanted to wait until after the war before executing this plan.[390]
+
+Speer wrote that Hitler had a negative view of Himmler's and Alfred Rosenberg's mystical notions and Himmler's attempt to mythologise the SS. Hitler was more pragmatic, and his ambitions centred on more practical concerns.[391][392]
+
+Researchers have variously suggested that Hitler suffered from irritable bowel syndrome, skin lesions, irregular heartbeat, coronary sclerosis,[393] Parkinson's disease,[290][394] syphilis,[394] giant-cell arteritis,[395] and tinnitus.[396] In a report prepared for the OSS in 1943, Walter C. Langer of Harvard University described Hitler as a "neurotic psychopath".[397] In his 1977 book The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler, historian Robert G. L. Waite proposes that he suffered from borderline personality disorder.[398] Historians Henrik Eberle and Hans-Joachim Neumann consider that while he suffered from a number of illnesses including Parkinson's disease, Hitler did not experience pathological delusions and was always fully aware of, and therefore responsible for, his decisions.[399][308] Theories about Hitler's medical condition are difficult to prove, and placing too much weight on them may have the effect of attributing many of the events and consequences of Nazi Germany to the possibly impaired physical health of one individual.[400] Kershaw feels that it is better to take a broader view of German history by examining what social forces led to the Nazi dictatorship and its policies rather than to pursue narrow explanations for the Holocaust and World War II based on only one person.[401]
+
+Sometime in the 1930s Hitler adopted a mainly vegetarian diet,[402][403] avoiding all meat and fish from 1942 onwards. At social events he sometimes gave graphic accounts of the slaughter of animals in an effort to make his guests shun meat.[404] Bormann had a greenhouse constructed near the Berghof (near Berchtesgaden) to ensure a steady supply of fresh fruit and vegetables for Hitler.[405]
+
+Hitler stopped drinking alcohol around the time he became vegetarian and thereafter only very occasionally drank beer or wine on social occasions.[406][407] He was a non-smoker for most of his adult life, but smoked heavily in his youth (25 to 40 cigarettes a day); he eventually quit, calling the habit "a waste of money".[408] He encouraged his close associates to quit by offering a gold watch to anyone able to break the habit.[409] Hitler began using amphetamine occasionally after 1937 and became addicted to it in late 1942.[410] Speer linked this use of amphetamine to Hitler's increasingly erratic behaviour and inflexible decision making (for example, rarely allowing military retreats).[411]
+
+Prescribed 90 medications during the war years by his personal physician, Theodor Morell, Hitler took many pills each day for chronic stomach problems and other ailments.[412] He regularly consumed amphetamine, barbiturates, opiates, and cocaine,[413][414] as well as potassium bromide and atropa belladonna (the latter in the form of Doktor Koster's Antigaspills).[415] He suffered ruptured eardrums as a result of the 20 July plot bomb blast in 1944, and 200 wood splinters had to be removed from his legs.[416] Newsreel footage of Hitler shows tremors in his left hand and a shuffling walk, which began before the war and worsened towards the end of his life.[412] Ernst-Günther Schenck and several other doctors who met Hitler in the last weeks of his life also formed a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease.[417]
+
+For peace, freedom
+and democracy
+never again fascism
+millions of dead warn [us]
+
+Hitler's suicide was likened by contemporaries to a "spell" being broken.[419][420] Public support for Hitler had collapsed by the time of his death and few Germans mourned his passing; Kershaw argues that most civilians and military personnel were too busy adjusting to the collapse of the country or fleeing from the fighting to take any interest.[421] According to historian John Toland, National Socialism "burst like a bubble" without its leader.[422]
+
+Hitler's actions and Nazi ideology are almost universally regarded as gravely immoral;[423] according to Kershaw, "Never in history has such ruination—physical and moral—been associated with the name of one man."[4] Hitler's political programme brought about a world war, leaving behind a devastated and impoverished Eastern and Central Europe. Germany suffered wholesale destruction, characterised as Stunde Null (Zero Hour).[424] Hitler's policies inflicted human suffering on an unprecedented scale;[425] according to R. J. Rummel, the Nazi regime was responsible for the democidal killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians and prisoners of war.[344] In addition, 28.7 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in the European Theatre of World War II.[344] The number of civilians killed during the Second World War was unprecedented in the history of warfare.[426] Historians, philosophers, and politicians often use the word "evil" to describe the Nazi regime.[427] Many European countries have criminalised both the promotion of Nazism and Holocaust denial.[428]
+
+Historian Friedrich Meinecke described Hitler as "one of the great examples of the singular and incalculable power of personality in historical life".[429] English historian Hugh Trevor-Roper saw him as "among the 'terrible simplifiers' of history, the most systematic, the most historical, the most philosophical, and yet the coarsest, cruelest, least magnanimous conqueror the world has ever known".[430] For the historian John M. Roberts, Hitler's defeat marked the end of a phase of European history dominated by Germany.[431] In its place emerged the Cold War, a global confrontation between the Western Bloc, dominated by the United States and other NATO nations, and the Eastern Bloc, dominated by the Soviet Union.[432] Historian Sebastian Haffner asserts that without Hitler and the displacement of the Jews, the modern nation state of Israel would not exist. He contends that without Hitler, the de-colonisation of former European spheres of influence would have been postponed.[433] Further, Haffner claims that other than Alexander the Great, Hitler had a more significant impact than any other comparable historical figure, in that he too caused a wide range of worldwide changes in a relatively short time span.[434]
+
+Hitler exploited documentary films and newsreels to inspire a cult of personality. He was involved and appeared in a series of propaganda films throughout his political career, many made by Leni Riefenstahl, regarded as a pioneer of modern filmmaking.[435] Hitler's propaganda film appearances include:

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+
+
+Ballet (French: [balɛ]) is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread, highly technical form of dance with its own vocabulary based on French terminology. It has been globally influential and has defined the foundational techniques used in many other dance genres and cultures. Ballet has been taught in various schools around the world, which have historically incorporated their own cultures and as a result, the art has evolved in a number of distinct ways. See glossary of ballet.
+
+A ballet, a work, consists of the choreography and music for a ballet production. Ballets are choreographed and performed by trained ballet dancers. Traditional classical ballets are usually performed with classical music accompaniment and use elaborate costumes and staging, whereas modern ballets, such as the neoclassical works of American choreographer George Balanchine, are often performed in simple costumes (e.g., leotards and tights) and without the use of elaborate sets or scenery.
+
+Ballet is a French word which had its origin in Italian balletto, a diminutive of ballo (dance) which comes from Latin ballo, ballare, meaning "to dance",[1][2] which in turn comes from the Greek "βαλλίζω" (ballizo), "to dance, to jump about".[2][3] The word came into English usage from the French around 1630.
+
+Ballet originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Under Catherine de' Medici's influence as Queen, it spread to France, where it developed even further.[4] The dancers in these early court ballets were mostly noble amateurs.  Ornamented costumes were meant to impress viewers, but they restricted performers' freedom of movement.[5]
+
+The ballets were performed in large chambers with viewers on three sides.  The implementation of the proscenium arch from 1618 on distanced performers from audience members, who could then better view and appreciate the technical feats of the professional dancers in the productions.[citation needed]
+
+French court ballet reached its height under the reign of King Louis XIV. Louis founded the Académie Royale de Danse (Royal Dance Academy) in 1661 to establish standards and certify dance instructors.[6] In 1672, Louis XIV made Jean-Baptiste Lully the director of the Académie Royale de Musique (Paris Opera) from which the first professional ballet company, the Paris Opera Ballet, arose.[7] Pierre Beauchamp served as Lully's ballet-master. Together their partnership would drastically influence the development of ballet, as evidenced by the credit given to them for the creation of the five major positions of the feet.  By 1681, the first "ballerinas" took the stage following years of training at the Académie.[5]
+
+Ballet started to decline in France after 1830, but it continued to develop in Denmark, Italy, and Russia. The arrival in Europe of the Ballets Russes led by Sergei Diaghilev on the eve of the First World War revived interest in the ballet and started the modern era.[8]
+
+In the twentieth century, ballet had a wide influence on other dance genres,[9]  Also in the twentieth century, ballet took a turn dividing it from classical ballet to the introduction of modern dance, leading to modernist movements in several countries.[10]
+
+Famous dancers of the twentieth century include Anna Pavlova, Galina Ulanova, Rudolf Nureyev, Maya Plisetskaya, Margot Fonteyn, Rosella Hightower, Maria Tall Chief, Erik Bruhn, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Suzanne Farrell, Gelsey Kirkland, Natalia Makarova, and Arthur Mitchell.[11]
+
+Stylistic variations and subgenres have evolved over time. Early, classical variations are primarily associated with geographic origin. Examples of this are Russian ballet, French ballet, and Italian ballet. Later variations, such as contemporary ballet and neoclassical ballet, incorporate both classical ballet and non-traditional technique and movement. Perhaps the most widely known and performed ballet style is late Romantic ballet (or Ballet blanc).
+
+Classical ballet is based on traditional ballet technique and vocabulary.[12] Different styles have emerged in different countries, such as French ballet, Italian ballet, English ballet, and Russian ballet. Several of the classical ballet styles are associated with specific training methods, typically named after their creators (see below).  The Royal Academy of Dance method is a ballet technique and training system that was founded by a diverse group of ballet dancers. They merged their respective dance methods (Italian, French, Danish and Russian) to create a new style of ballet that is unique to the organization and is recognized internationally as the English style of ballet.[8] Some examples of classical ballet productions are: Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker.
+
+Romantic ballet was an artistic movement of classical ballet and several productions remain in the classical repertoire today. The Romantic era was marked by the emergence of pointe work, the dominance of female dancers, and longer, flowy tutus that attempt to exemplify softness and a delicate aura.[5] This movement occurred during the early to mid-nineteenth century (the Romantic era) and featured themes that emphasized intense emotion as a source of aesthetic experience. The plots of many romantic ballets revolved around spirit women (sylphs, wilis, and ghosts) who enslaved the hearts and senses of mortal men. The 1827 ballet La Sylphide is widely considered to be the first, and the 1870 ballet Coppélia is considered to be the last.[4] Famous ballet dancers of the Romantic era include Marie Taglioni, Fanny Elssler, and Jules Perrot. Jules Perrot is also known for his choreography, especially that of Giselle, often considered to be the most widely celebrated romantic ballet.[5]
+
+Neoclassical ballet is usually abstract, with no clear plot, costumes or scenery. Music choice can be diverse and will often include music that is also neoclassical (e.g. Stravinsky, Roussel). Tim Scholl, author of From Petipa to Balanchine, considers George Balanchine's Apollo in 1928 to be the first neoclassical ballet. Apollo represented a return to form in response to Sergei Diaghilev's abstract ballets. Balanchine worked with modern dance choreographer Martha Graham, and brought modern dancers into his company such as Paul Taylor, who in 1959 performed in Balanchine's Episodes.[13]
+
+While Balanchine is widely considered the face of neoclassical ballet, there were others who made significant contributions. Frederick Ashton’s Symphonic Variations (1946) is a seminal work for the choreographer. Set to César Franck’s score of the same title, it is a pure-dance interpretation of the score.[5]
+
+Another form, Modern Ballet, also emerged as an offshoot of neoclassicism. Among the innovators in this form were Glen Tetley, Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino. While difficult to parse modern ballet from neoclassicism, the work of these choreographers favored a greater athleticism that departed from the delicacy of ballet. The physicality was more daring, with mood, subject matter and music more intense. An example of this would be Joffrey's Astarte (1967), which featured a rock score and sexual overtones in the choreography.[8]
+
+This ballet style is often performed barefoot. Contemporary ballets may include mime and acting, and are usually set to music (typically orchestral but occasionally vocal). It can be difficult to differentiate this form from neoclassical or modern ballet. Contemporary ballet is also close to contemporary dance because many contemporary ballet concepts come from the ideas and innovations of twentieth-century modern dance, including floor work and turn-in of the legs. The main distinction is that ballet technique is essential to perform a contemporary ballet.
+
+George Balanchine is considered to have been a pioneer of contemporary ballet. Another early contemporary ballet choreographer, Twyla Tharp, choreographed Push Comes To Shove for the American Ballet Theatre in 1976, and in 1986 created In The Upper Room for her own company. Both of these pieces were considered innovative for their melding of distinctly modern movements with the use of pointe shoes and classically trained dancers.
+
+Today there are many contemporary ballet companies and choreographers. These include Alonzo King and his company LINES Ballet; Matthew Bourne and his company New Adventures; Complexions Contemporary Ballet; Nacho Duato and his Compañia Nacional de Danza; William Forsythe and The Forsythe Company; and Jiří Kylián of the Nederlands Dans Theater. Traditionally "classical" companies, such as the Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet and the Paris Opera Ballet, also regularly perform contemporary works.
+
+The term ballet has evolved to include all forms associated with it. Someone training as a ballet dancer will now be expected to perform neoclassical, modern and contemporary work. A ballet dancer is expected to be able to be stately and regal for classical work, free and lyrical in neoclassical work, and unassuming, harsh or pedestrian for modern and contemporary work. In addition, there are several modern varieties of dance that fuse classical ballet technique with contemporary dance, such as Hiplet, that require dancers to be practised in non-Western dance styles.[14]
+
+There are six widely used, internationally recognized methods to teach or study ballet. These methods are the French School, the Vaganova Method, the Cecchetti Method, the Bournonville method, the Royal Academy of Dance method (English style), and the Balanchine method (American style). Many more schools of technique exist in various countries.
+
+Although preschool-age children are a lucrative source of income for a ballet studio, ballet instruction is generally not an age-appropriate for young children.[15] The initial instruction requires standing still and concentrating on posture, rather than dancing. Because of this, many ballet programs have historically not accepted students until approximately age 8. Creative movement and non-demanding pre-ballet classes are recommended as alternatives for children.[16][17]
+
+The French method is the basis of all ballet training. When Louis XIV created the Académie Royale de Danse in 1661, he helped to create the codified technique still used today by those in the profession, regardless of what method of training they adhere to. The French school was particularly revitalized under Rudolf Nureyev, in the 1980s. His influence revitalized and renewed appreciation for this style, and has drastically shaped ballet as a whole.[18]  In fact, the French school is now sometimes referred to as Nureyev school. The French method is often characterized by technical precision, fluidity and gracefulness, and elegant, clean lines. For this style, fast footwork is often utilized in order to give the impression that the performers are drifting lightly across the stage.[19] Two important trademarks of this technique are the specific way in which the port de bras and the épaulement are performed, more rounded than when dancing in a Russian style, but not as rounded as the Danish style.[20]
+
+The Vaganova method is a style of ballet training that emerged from Russian ballet, created by Agrippina Vaganova. After retiring from dance in 1916, Vaganova turned to teaching at the Leningrad Choreographic School in 1921. Her training method is now internationally recognized and her book, The Fundamentals of Classical Dance (1934), is a classic reference. This method is marked by the fusion of the classical French style, specifically elements from the Romantic era, with the athleticism of the Italian method, and the soulful passion of Russian ballet.[19] She developed an extremely precise method of instruction in her book Basic Principles of Russian Classical dance (1948). This includes outlining when to teach technical components to students in their ballet careers, for how long to focus on it, and the right amount of focus at each stage of the student's career. These textbooks continue to be extremely important to the instruction of ballet today.
+
+The method emphasizes development of strength, flexibility, and endurance for the proper performance of ballet. She espoused the belief that equal importance should be placed on the arms and legs while performing ballet, as this will bring harmony and greater expression to the body as a whole.[21]
+
+Developed by Enrico Cecchetti (1850-1928), this method is one known internationally for its intense reliance of the understanding of anatomy as it relates to classical ballet. The goal of this method is to instill important characteristics for the performance of ballet into students so that they do not need to rely on imitations of teachers. Important components for this method is the emphasis of balance, elevations, ballon, poise, and strength.
+
+This method espouses the importance of recognizing that all parts of the body move together to  create beautiful, graceful lines, and as such cautions against thinking of ballet in terms of the arms, legs, and neck and torso as separate parts. This method is well known for eight port de bras that are utilized.[19]
+
+The Bournonville method is a Danish method first devised by August Bournonville. Bournonville was heavily influenced by the early French ballet method due to his training with his father, Antoine Bournonville and other important French ballet masters. This method has many style differences that differentiate it from other ballet methods taught today.[22] A key component is the use of diagonal  épaulements, with the upper body turning towards the working foot typically. This method also incorporates very basic use of arms, pirouettes from a low développé position into seconde, and use of fifth position bras en bas for the beginning and end of movements.
+
+The Bournonville method produces dancers who have beautiful ballon ("the illusion of imponderable lightness"[23]).
+
+The Royal Academy of Dance method, also referred to as the English style of ballet, was established in 1920 by Genee, Karsavina, Bedells, E Espinosa, and Richardson. The goal of this method is to promote academic training in classical ballet throughout Great Britain. This style also spread to the United States, and is widely utilized still today. There are specific grade levels which a student must move through in order to complete training in this method.[24] The key principle behind this method of instruction is that basic ballet technique must be taught at a slow pace, with difficulty progression often much slower than the rest of the methods. The idea behind this is if a student is to put in a large amount of effort into perfecting the basic steps, the technique learned in these steps allow a student to utilize harder ones at a much easier rate.[19]
+
+Developed by George Balanchine at the New York City Ballet. His method draws heavily on his own training as a dancer in Russia. The technique is known for extreme speed throughout routines, emphasis on lines, and deep pliés. Perhaps one of the most well known differences of this style is the unorthodox positioning of the body.[19] Dancers of this style often have flexed hands and even feet, and are placed in off-balance positions. Important ballet studios teaching this method are the Miami City Ballet, Ballet Chicago Studio company, and the School of American Ballet in New York.[25]
+
+Ballet costumes play an important role in the ballet community. They are often the only survival of a production, representing a living imaginary picture of the scene.[26]
+
+The roots of ballet go back to the Renaissance in France and Italy when court wear was the beginning of ballet costumes. Ballet costumes have been around since the early fifteenth century. Cotton and silk were mixed with flax, woven into semitransparent gauze[26] to create exquisite ballet costumes.
+
+During the seventeenth century, different types of fabrics and designs were used to make costumes more spectacular and eye catching. Court dress still remained for women during this century. Silks, satins and fabrics embroidered with real gold and precious stones increased the level of spectacular decoration associated with ballet costumes.[26] Women's costumes also consisted of heavy garments and knee-long skirts which made it difficult for them to create much movement and gesture.
+
+During the eighteenth century, stage costumes were still very similar to court wear but progressed over time, mostly due to the French dancer and ballet-master Jean-Georges Noverre (1727–1810) whose proposals to modernize ballet are contained in his revolutionary Lettres sur la danse et les ballets (1760). Noverre's book altered the emphasis in a production away from the costumes towards the physical movements and emotions of the dancers.
+
+European ballet was centered in the Paris Opera.[26] During this era, skirts were raised a few inches off the ground.  Flowers, flounces, ribbons, and lace emphasized this opulent feminine style, as soft pastel tones in citron, peach, pink and pistachio dominated the color range.[26]
+
+During the early nineteenth century, close-fitting body costumes, floral crowns, corsages and jewels were used. Ideals of Romanticism were reflected through female movements.[26]
+
+Costumes became much tighter as corsets started to come into use, to show off the curves on a ballerina. Jewels and bedazzled costumes became much more popular.
+
+During the twentieth century, ballet costumes transitioned back to the influence of Russian ballet. Ballerina skirts became knee-length tutus, later on in order to show off their precise pointe work. Colors used on stage costumes also became much more vibrant. Designers used colors such as red, orange, yellow, etc. to create visual expression when ballet dancers perform on stage.
+
+Professional dancers are generally not well paid.  As of 2017, American dancers (including ballet and other dance forms) were paid an average of US$14.25 per hour.[27] The job outlook is not strong, and the competition to get a job is intense, with the number of applicants vastly exceeding the number of job openings.[27] Some dancers earn money by participating in dancing competitions and are awarded with money or high paying contracts.[27] Choreographers were paid nearly twice the amount of dancers in 2017.[27]
+
+Teenage girl ballet dancers are prone to stress fractures in the first rib.[28] Eating disorders are a common stereotype associated with ballet. In addition, some researchers have noted that intensive training in ballet results in lower bone mineral density in the arms.[29]
+
+In the twenty-first century, ballet has been criticized[weasel words] for being anti-woman and ageist. The complaint about ageism is because most choreography is written so that it can only be performed by a relatively young dancer.[30]  The structure of ballet–in which a (usually) male choreographer or director uses (mostly) women's bodies to express his artistic vision, while ignoring, objectifying, or silencing the women involved – has been criticized for not respecting women.[30][31]

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+
+
+Nordic territories that are not part of Scandinavia:
+
+Scandinavia[b] (/ˌskændɪˈneɪviə/ SKAN-dih-NAY-vee-ə) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties. The term Scandinavia in local usage covers the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The majority national languages of these three belong to the Scandinavian dialect continuum, and are mutually intelligible North Germanic languages.[4]
+
+In English usage, Scandinavia also sometimes refers more narrowly to the Scandinavian Peninsula, or more broadly so as to include the Åland Islands, the Faroe Islands, Finland and Iceland.[3][a]
+
+The broader definition is similar to what are locally called the Nordic countries, which also include the remote Norwegian islands of Svalbard and Jan Mayen and Greenland, a constituent country within the Kingdom of Denmark.[5]
+
+The geography of Scandinavia is extremely varied. Notable are the Norwegian fjords, the Scandinavian Mountains, the flat, low areas in Denmark and the archipelagos of Sweden and Norway. Sweden has many lakes and moraines, legacies of the ice age, which ended about ten millennia ago.
+
+The southern and by far most populous regions of Scandinavia have a temperate climate. Scandinavia extends north of the Arctic Circle, but has relatively mild weather for its latitude due to the Gulf Stream. Many of the Scandinavian mountains have an alpine tundra climate.
+
+The climate varies from north to south and from west to east: a marine west coast climate (Cfb) typical of western Europe dominates in Denmark, southernmost part of Sweden and along the west coast of Norway reaching north to 65°N, with orographic lift giving more mm/year precipitation (<5000 mm) in some areas in western Norway. The central part – from Oslo to Stockholm – has a humid continental climate (Dfb), which gradually gives way to subarctic climate (Dfc) further north and cool marine west coast climate (Cfc) along the northwestern coast.[6] A small area along the northern coast east of the North Cape has tundra climate (Et) as a result of a lack of summer warmth. The Scandinavian Mountains block the mild and moist air coming from the southwest, thus northern Sweden and the Finnmarksvidda plateau in Norway receive little precipitation and have cold winters. Large areas in the Scandinavian mountains have alpine tundra climate.
+
+The warmest temperature ever recorded in Scandinavia is 38.0 °C in Målilla (Sweden).[7] The coldest temperature ever recorded is −52.6 °C in Vuoggatjålme, Arjeplog (Sweden).[8]  The coldest month was February 1985 in Vittangi (Sweden) with a mean of −27.2 °C.[8]
+
+Southwesterly winds further warmed by foehn wind can give warm temperatures in narrow Norwegian fjords in winter. Tafjord has recorded 17.9 °C in January and Sunndal 18.9 °C in February.
+
+The words Scandinavia and Scania (Skåne, the southernmost province of Sweden) are both thought to go back to the Proto-Germanic compound *Skaðin-awjō (the ð represented in Latin by t or d), which appears later in Old English as Scedenig and in Old Norse as Skáney.[9] The earliest identified source for the name Scandinavia is Pliny the Elder's Natural History, dated to the first century AD.
+
+Various references to the region can also be found in Pytheas, Pomponius Mela, Tacitus, Ptolemy, Procopius and Jordanes, usually in the form of Scandza. It is believed that the name used by Pliny may be of West Germanic origin, originally denoting Scania.[10] According to some scholars, the Germanic stem can be reconstructed as *skaðan- and meaning "danger" or "damage".[11] The second segment of the name has been reconstructed as *awjō, meaning "land on the water" or "island". The name Scandinavia would then mean "dangerous island", which is considered to refer to the treacherous sandbanks surrounding Scania.[11] Skanör in Scania, with its long Falsterbo reef, has the same stem (skan) combined with -ör, which means "sandbanks".
+
+Alternatively, Sca(n)dinavia and Skáney, along with the Old Norse goddess name Skaði, may be related to Proto-Germanic *skaðwa- (meaning "shadow"). John McKinnell comments that this etymology suggests that the goddess Skaði may have once been a personification of the geographical region of Scandinavia or associated with the underworld.[12]
+
+Another possibility is that all or part of the segments of the name came from the pre-Germanic Mesolithic people inhabiting the region.[13] In modernity, Scandinavia is a peninsula, but between approximately 10,300 and 9,500 years ago the southern part of Scandinavia was an island separated from the northern peninsula, with water exiting the Baltic Sea through the area where Stockholm is now located.[14] Correspondingly, some Basque scholars have presented the idea that the segment sk that appears in *Skaðinawjō is connected to the name for the Euzko peoples, akin to Basques, that populated Paleolithic Europe. According to one scholar, Scandinavian people share particular genetic markers with the Basque people.[13][unreliable source?]
+
+The Latin names in Pliny's text gave rise to different forms in medieval Germanic texts. In Jordanes' history of the Goths (AD 551), the form Scandza is the name used for their original home, separated by sea from the land of Europe (chapter 1, 4).[15] Where Jordanes meant to locate this quasi-legendary island is still a hotly debated issue, both in scholarly discussions and in the nationalistic discourse of various European countries.[16][17] The form Scadinavia as the original home of the Langobards appears in Paulus Diaconus' Historia Langobardorum,[18] but in other versions of Historia Langobardorum appear the forms Scadan, Scandanan, Scadanan and Scatenauge.[19] Frankish sources used Sconaowe and Aethelweard, an Anglo-Saxon historian, used Scani.[20][21] In Beowulf, the forms Scedenige and Scedeland are used while the Alfredian translation of Orosius and Wulfstan's travel accounts used the Old English Sconeg.[21]
+
+The earliest Sami yoik texts written down refer to the world as Skadesi-suolo (north Sami) and Skađsuâl (east Sami), meaning "Skaði's island". Svennung considers the Sami name to have been introduced as a loan word from the North Germanic languages;[22] "Skaði" is the giant stepmother of Freyr and Freyja in Norse mythology. It has been suggested that Skaði to some extent is modeled on a Sami woman. The name for Skade's father Thjazi is known in Sami as Čáhci, "the waterman"; and her son with Odin, Saeming, can be interpreted as a descendant of Saam the Sami population.[23][24] Older joik texts give evidence of the old Sami belief about living on an island and state that the wolf is known as suolu gievra, meaning "the strong one on the island". The Sami place name Sulliidčielbma means "the island's threshold" and Suoločielgi means "the island's back".
+
+In recent substrate studies, Sami linguists have examined the initial cluster sk- in words used in Sami and concluded that sk- is a phonotactic structure of alien origin.[25]
+
+Although the term Scandinavia used by Pliny the Elder probably originated in the ancient Germanic languages, the modern form Scandinavia does not descend directly from the ancient Germanic term. Rather the word was brought into use in Europe by scholars borrowing the term from ancient sources like Pliny, and was used vaguely for Scania and the southern region of the peninsula.[26]
+
+The term was popularised by the linguistic and cultural Scandinavist movement, which asserted the common heritage and cultural unity of the Scandinavian countries and rose to prominence in the 1830s.[26] The popular usage of the term in Sweden, Denmark and Norway as a unifying concept became established in the nineteenth century through poems such as Hans Christian Andersen's "I am a Scandinavian" of 1839. After a visit to Sweden, Andersen became a supporter of early political Scandinavism. In a letter describing the poem to a friend, he wrote: "All at once I understood how related the Swedes, the Danes and the Norwegians are, and with this feeling I wrote the poem immediately after my return: 'We are one people, we are called Scandinavians!'".
+
+The influence of Scandinavism as a Scandinavist political movement peaked in the middle of the nineteenth century, between the First Schleswig War (1848–1850) and the Second Schleswig War (1864).
+
+The Swedish king also proposed a unification of Denmark, Norway and Sweden into a single united kingdom. The background for the proposal was the tumultuous events during the Napoleonic Wars in the beginning of the century. This war resulted in Finland (formerly the eastern third of Sweden) becoming the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland in 1809 and Norway (de jure in union with Denmark since 1387, although de facto treated as a province) becoming independent in 1814, but thereafter swiftly forced to accept a personal union with Sweden. The dependent territories Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, historically part of Norway, remained with Denmark in accordance with the Treaty of Kiel. Sweden and Norway were thus united under the Swedish monarch, but Finland's inclusion in the Russian Empire excluded any possibility for a political union between Finland and any of the other Nordic countries.
+
+The end of the Scandinavian political movement came when Denmark was denied the military support promised from Sweden and Norway to annex the (Danish) Duchy of Schleswig, which together with the (German) Duchy of Holstein had been in personal union with Denmark. The Second war of Schleswig followed in 1864, a brief but disastrous war between Denmark and Prussia (supported by Austria). Schleswig-Holstein was conquered by Prussia and after Prussia's success in the Franco-Prussian War a Prussian-led German Empire was created and a new power-balance of the Baltic sea countries was established. The Scandinavian Monetary Union, established in 1873, lasted until World War I.
+
+The term Scandinavia (sometimes specified in English as Continental Scandinavia or mainland Scandinavia) is commonly used strictly for Denmark, Norway and Sweden as a subset of the Nordic countries (known in Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish as Norden; Finnish: Pohjoismaat, Icelandic: Norðurlöndin, Faroese: Norðurlond).[27]
+
+However, in English usage, the term Scandinavia is sometimes used as a synonym or near-synonym for Nordic countries.[5][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]
+
+Debate about which meaning is more appropriate is complicated by the fact that usage in English is different from usage in the Scandinavian languages themselves (which use Scandinavia in the narrow meaning), and by the fact that the question of whether a country belongs to Scandinavia is politicised: people from the Nordic world beyond Norway, Denmark and Sweden may be offended at being either included in or excluded from the category of "Scandinavia".[37]
+
+Nordic countries is used unambiguously for Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland, including their associated territories (Svalbard,[citation needed] Greenland, the Faroe Islands and the Åland Islands).[5]
+
+In addition to the mainland Scandinavian countries of:
+
+The Nordic countries also consist of:
+
+The clearest example of the use of the term Scandinavia as a political and societal construct is the unique position of Finland, based largely on the fact that most of modern-day Finland was part of Sweden for more than six centuries (see: Finland under Swedish rule), thus to much of the world associating Finland with all of Scandinavia. But the creation of a Finnish identity is unique in the region in that it was formed in relation to two different imperial models, the Swedish[38] and the Russian.[39][40][41]
+
+There is also the geological term Fennoscandia (sometimes Fennoscandinavia),  which in technical use refers to the Fennoscandian Shield (or Baltic Shield), that is the Scandinavian peninsula (Norway and Sweden), Finland and Karelia (excluding Denmark and other parts of the wider Nordic world). The terms Fennoscandia and Fennoscandinavia are sometimes used in a broader, political sense to refer to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland.[42]
+
+Whereas both narrow and broad conceptions of Scandinavian countries are straightforwardly defined, there is much ambiguity and political contestation as to which people are Scandinavian people (or Scandinavians). English dictionaries usually define the noun Scandinavian as meaning any inhabitant of Scandinavia (which might be narrowly conceived or broadly conceived).[43][44][45] However, the noun Scandinavian is frequently used as a synonym for speakers of Scandinavian languages (languages descended from Old Norse).  This usage can exclude the indigenous Sámi people of Scandinavia, as well as other non-Scandinavian-speaking inhabitants of the region.[46]
+
+Thus, based on intersecting cultural and geographic definitions, Scandinavians always include Scandinavian-speaking Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes (and, earlier, ancient speakers of the North Germanic languages).
+
+In usages based on cultural/linguistic definitions (native speakers of North Germanic languages), Scandinavians also include Faroe Islanders, Icelanders, the Swedish-speaking population of Finland, the Swedish-speaking population of Estonia, and the Scandinavian diaspora.
+
+In usages based on geographical definitions (inhabitants of Continental Scandinavia), Scandinavians include Sami people and, depending on how broad an understanding of Scandinavia is being used, Finns and Inuit.[32]
+
+Two language groups have coexisted on the Scandinavian peninsula since prehistory—the North Germanic languages (Scandinavian languages) and the Sami languages.[47]
+
+The majority of the population of Scandinavia (including Iceland and the Faroe Islands) today derive their language from several North Germanic tribes who once inhabited the southern part of Scandinavia and spoke a Germanic language that evolved into Old Norse and from Old Norse into Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese, and Icelandic. The Danish, Norwegian and Swedish languages form a dialect continuum and are known as the Scandinavian languages—all of which are considered mutually intelligible with one another. Faroese and Icelandic, sometimes referred to as insular Scandinavian languages, are intelligible in continental Scandinavian languages only to a limited extent.
+
+A small minority of Scandinavians are Sami people, concentrated in the extreme north of Scandinavia.
+
+Finland (sometimes included in Scandinavia in English usage) is mainly populated by speakers of Finnish, with a minority of approximately 5%[48] of Swedish speakers. However, Finnish is also spoken as a recognized minority language in Sweden, including in distinctive varieties sometimes known as Meänkieli. Finnish is distantly related to the Sami languages, but these are entirely different in origin to the Scandinavian languages.
+
+German (in Denmark), Yiddish and Romani are recognized minority languages in parts of Scandinavia. More recent migrations has added even more languages. Apart from Sami and the languages of minority groups speaking a variant of the majority language of a neighboring state, the following minority languages in Scandinavia are protected under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages: Yiddish, Romani Chib/Romanes and Romani.
+
+The North Germanic languages of Scandinavia are traditionally divided into an East Scandinavian branch (Danish and Swedish) and a West Scandinavian branch (Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese),[49][50] but because of changes appearing in the languages since 1600 the East Scandinavian and West Scandinavian branches are now usually reconfigured into Insular Scandinavian (ö-nordisk/øy-nordisk) featuring Icelandic and Faroese[51] and Continental Scandinavian (Skandinavisk), comprising Danish, Norwegian and Swedish.[52]
+
+The modern division is based on the degree of mutual comprehensibility between the languages in the two branches.[53] The populations of the Scandinavian countries, with common Scandinavian roots in language, can—at least with some training—understand each other's standard languages as they appear in print and are heard on radio and television.
+
+The reason Danish, Swedish and the two official written versions of Norwegian (Nynorsk and Bokmål) are traditionally viewed as different languages, rather than dialects of one common language, is that each is a well-established standard language in its respective country.
+
+Danish, Swedish and Norwegian have since medieval times been influenced to varying degrees by Middle Low German and standard German. That influence came from not just proximity but also that Denmark and later Denmark-Norway ruling over the German speaking region of Holstein, and in Sweden with its close trade with the Hanseatic League.
+
+Norwegians are accustomed to variation and may perceive Danish and Swedish only as slightly more distant dialects. This is because they have two official written standards, in addition to the habit of strongly holding on to local dialects. The people of Stockholm, Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark have the greatest difficulty in understanding other Scandinavian languages.[54] In the Faroe Islands and Iceland, learning Danish is mandatory. This causes Faroese people as well as Icelandic people to become bilingual in two very distinct North Germanic languages, making it relatively easy for them to understand the other two Mainland Scandinavian languages.[55][56]
+
+Although Iceland was under the political control of Denmark until a much later date (1918), very little influence and borrowing from Danish has occurred in the Icelandic language.[57] Icelandic remained the preferred language among the ruling classes in Iceland. Danish was not used for official communications, most of the royal officials were of Icelandic descent and the language of the church and law courts remained Icelandic.[58]
+
+The Scandinavian languages are (as a language family) unrelated to Finnish, Estonian and Sami languages, which as Uralic languages are distantly related to Hungarian. Owing to the close proximity, there is still a great deal of borrowing from the Swedish and Norwegian languages in the Finnish and Sami languages.[59] The long history of linguistic influence of Swedish on Finnish is also due to the fact that Finnish, the language of the majority in Finland, was treated as a minority language while Finland was part of Sweden. Finnish-speakers had to learn Swedish in order to advance to higher positions.[60] Swedish spoken in today's Finland includes a lot of words that are borrowed from Finnish, whereas the written language remains closer to that of Sweden.
+
+Finland is officially bilingual, with Finnish and Swedish having mostly the same status at national level. Finland's majority population are Finns, whose mother tongue is either Finnish (approximately 95%), Swedish or both. The Swedish-speakers live mainly on the coastline starting from approximately the city of Porvoo (in the Gulf of Finland) up to the city of Kokkola (in the Bay of Bothnia). The Åland Islands, an autonomous province of Finland situated in the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden, are entirely Swedish-speaking. Children are taught the other official language at school: for Swedish-speakers this is Finnish (usually from the 3rd grade), while for Finnish-speakers it is Swedish (usually from the 3rd, 5th or 7th grade).[citation needed]
+
+Finnish speakers constitute a language minority in Sweden and Norway. Meänkieli and Kven are Finnish dialects spoken in Swedish Lapland and Norwegian Lapland.
+
+The Sami languages are indigenous minority languages in Scandinavia.[61] They belong to their own branch of the Uralic language family and are unrelated to the North Germanic languages other than by limited grammatical (particularly lexical) characteristics resulting from prolonged contact.[59] Sami is divided into several languages or dialects.[62] Consonant gradation is a feature in both Finnish and northern Sami dialects, but it is not present in south Sami, which is considered to have a different language history. According to the Sami Information Centre of the Sami Parliament in Sweden, southern Sami may have originated in an earlier migration from the south into the Scandinavian peninsula.[59]
+
+A key ancient description of Scandinavia was provided by Pliny the Elder, though his mentions of Scatinavia and surrounding areas are not always easy to decipher. Writing in the capacity of a Roman admiral, he introduces the northern region by declaring to his Roman readers that there are 23 islands "Romanis armis cognitae" ("known to Roman arms") in this area. According to Pliny, the "clarissima" ("most famous") of the region's islands is Scatinavia, of unknown size. There live the Hilleviones. The belief that Scandinavia was an island became widespread among classical authors during the first century and dominated descriptions of Scandinavia in classical texts during the centuries that followed.
+
+Pliny begins his description of the route to Scatinavia by referring to the mountain of Saevo ("mons Saevo ibi"), the Codanus Bay ("Codanus sinus") and the Cimbrian promontory.[63] The geographical features have been identified in various ways. By some scholars, Saevo is thought to be the mountainous Norwegian coast at the entrance to Skagerrak and the Cimbrian peninsula is thought to be Skagen, the north tip of Jutland, Denmark. As described, Saevo and Scatinavia can also be the same place.
+
+Pliny mentions Scandinavia one more time: in Book VIII he says that the animal called achlis (given in the accusative, achlin, which is not Latin) was born on the island of Scandinavia.[64] The animal grazes, has a big upper lip and some mythical attributes.
+
+The name Scandia, later used as a synonym for Scandinavia, also appears in Pliny's Naturalis Historia (Natural History), but is used for a group of Northern European islands which he locates north of Britannia. Scandia thus does not appear to be denoting the island Scadinavia in Pliny's text. The idea that Scadinavia may have been one of the Scandiae islands was instead introduced by Ptolemy (c. 90 – c. 168 AD), a mathematician, geographer and astrologer of Roman Egypt. He used the name Skandia for the biggest, most easterly of the three Scandiai islands, which according to him were all located east of Jutland.[11]
+
+Neither Pliny's nor Ptolemy's lists of Scandinavian tribes include the Suiones mentioned by Tacitus. Some early Swedish scholars of the Swedish Hyperborean school[65] and of the ninettenth-century romantic nationalism period proceeded to synthesize the different versions by inserting references to the Suiones, arguing that they must have been referred to in the original texts and obscured over time by spelling mistakes or various alterations.[66][67]
+
+During a period of Christianization and state formation in the 10th–13th centuries, numerous Germanic petty kingdoms and chiefdoms were unified into three kingdoms:
+
+The three Scandinavian kingdoms joined in 1387 in the Kalmar Union under Queen Margaret I of Denmark. Sweden left the union in 1523 under King Gustav Vasa. In the aftermath of Sweden's secession from the Kalmar Union, civil war broke out in Denmark and Norway—the Protestant Reformation followed. When things had settled, the Norwegian Privy Council was abolished—it assembled for the last time in 1537. A personal union, entered into by the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway in 1536, lasted until 1814. Three sovereign successor states have subsequently emerged from this unequal union: Denmark, Norway and Iceland.
+
+The borders between the three countries got the shape they have had since in the middle of the seventeenth century: In the 1645 Treaty of Brömsebro, Denmark–Norway ceded the Norwegian provinces of Jämtland, Härjedalen and Idre and Särna, as well as the Baltic Sea islands of Gotland and Ösel (in Estonia) to Sweden. The Treaty of Roskilde, signed in 1658, forced Denmark–Norway to cede the Danish provinces Scania, Blekinge, Halland, Bornholm and the Norwegian provinces of Båhuslen and Trøndelag to Sweden. The 1660 Treaty of Copenhagen forced Sweden to return Bornholm and Trøndelag to Denmark–Norway, and to give up its recent claims to the island Funen.[69]
+
+In the east, Finland, was a fully incorporated part of Sweden since medieval times until the Napoleonic wars, when it was ceded to Russia. Despite many wars over the years since the formation of the three kingdoms, Scandinavia has been politically and culturally close.
+
+Denmark–Norway as a historiographical name refers to the former political union consisting of the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, including the Norwegian dependencies of Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The corresponding adjective and demonym is Dano-Norwegian. During Danish rule, Norway kept its separate laws, coinage and army as well as some institutions such as a royal chancellor. Norway's old royal line had died out with the death of Olav IV[70] in 1387, but Norway's remaining a hereditary kingdom became an important factor for the Oldenburg dynasty of Denmark–Norway in its struggles to win elections as kings of Denmark.
+
+The Treaty of Kiel (14 January 1814) formally dissolved the Dano-Norwegian union and ceded the territory of Norway proper to the King of Sweden, but Denmark retained Norway's overseas possessions. However, widespread Norwegian resistance to the prospect of a union with Sweden induced the governor of Norway, crown prince Christian Frederick (later Christian VIII of Denmark), to call a constituent assembly at Eidsvoll in April 1814. The assembly drew up a liberal constitution and elected Christian Frederick to the throne of Norway. Following a Swedish invasion during the summer, the peace conditions of the Convention of Moss (14 August 1814) specified that king Christian Frederik had to resign, but Norway would keep its independence and its constitution within a personal union with Sweden. Christian Frederik formally abdicated on 10 August 1814 and returned to Denmark. The Norwegian parliament Storting elected king Charles XIII of Sweden as king of Norway on 4 November.
+
+The Storting dissolved the union between Sweden and Norway in 1905, after which the Norwegians elected Prince Charles of Denmark as king of Norway: he reigned as Haakon VII.
+
+The economies of the countries of Scandinavia are amongst the strongest in Europe.[71] There is a generous welfare system in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland.[72]
+
+Various promotional agencies of the Nordic countries in the United States (such as The American-Scandinavian Foundation, established in 1910 by the Danish American industrialist Niels Poulsen) serve to promote market and tourism interests in the region. Today, the five Nordic heads of state act as the organization's patrons and according to the official statement by the organization its mission is "to promote the Nordic region as a whole while increasing the visibility of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden in New York City and the United States".[73] The official tourist boards of Scandinavia sometimes cooperate under one umbrella, such as the Scandinavian Tourist Board.[74] The cooperation was introduced for the Asian market in 1986, when the Swedish national tourist board joined the Danish national tourist board to coordinate intergovernmental promotion of the two countries. Norway's government entered one year later. All five Nordic governments participate in the joint promotional efforts in the United States through the Scandinavian Tourist Board of North America.[75]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+

en/5301.html.txt

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+
+
+The New Testament (Ancient Greek: Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. Hē Kainḕ Diathḗkē; Latin: Novum Testamentum) is the second part of the Christian biblical canon, the first being the Old Testament. The New Testament discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christianity. Christians regard both the Old and New Testaments together as sacred scripture.
+
+The New Testament is a collection of Christian texts originally written in the Koine Greek language, at different times by various different authors. While the Old Testament canon varies somewhat between different Christian denominations, the 27-book canon of the New Testament has been almost universally recognized within Christianity since at least Late Antiquity. Thus, in almost all Christian traditions today, the New Testament consists of 27 books:
+
+The earliest known complete list of the 27 books of the New Testament is found in a letter written by Athanasius, a 4th-century bishop of Alexandria, dated to 367 AD.[1] The 27-book New Testament was first formally canonized during the councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) in North Africa. Pope Innocent I ratified the same canon in 405, but it is probable that a Council in Rome in 382 under Pope Damasus I gave the same list first. These councils also provided the canon of the Old Testament, which included the apocryphal books.[2]
+
+There is no scholarly consensus on the date of composition of the latest New Testament texts. Conservative scholars John A. T. Robinson, Dan Wallace, and William F. Albright dated all the books of the New Testament before 70 AD.[3] But most[citation needed] scholars date some New Testament texts much later than this.[4] For example, Richard Pervo dates Luke-Acts to c. AD 115,[5] and David Trobisch places Acts in the mid- to late second century, contemporaneous with the publication of the first New Testament canon.[6][note 1]
+
+The use of the phrase New Testament (Koine Greek: Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, Hē Kainḕ Diathḗkē) to describe a collection of first and second-century Christian Greek scriptures can be traced back to Tertullian in his work Against Praxeas.[7][8][9] Irenaeus uses the phrase "New Testament" several times, but does not use it in reference to any written text.[8] In Against Marcion, written c. 208 AD, Tertullian writes of:[10]
+
+the Divine Word, who is doubly edged with the two testaments of the law and the gospel.
+
+And Tertullian continues later in the book, writing:[11][note 2]
+
+it is certain that the whole aim at which he [Marcion] has strenuously laboured, even in the drawing up of his Antitheses, centres in this, that he may establish a diversity between the Old and the New Testaments, so that his own Christ may be separate from the Creator, as belonging to this rival god, and as alien from the law and the prophets.
+
+By the 4th century, the existence—even if not the exact contents—of both an Old and New Testament had been established. Lactantius, a 3rd–4th century Christian author wrote in his early-4th-century Latin Institutiones Divinae (Divine Institutes):[12]
+
+But all scripture is divided into two Testaments. That which preceded the advent and passion of Christ—that is, the law and the prophets—is called the Old; but those things which were written after His resurrection are named the New Testament. The Jews make use of the Old, we of the New: but yet they are not discordant, for the New is the fulfilling of the Old, and in both there is the same testator, even Christ, who, having suffered death for us, made us heirs of His everlasting kingdom, the people of the Jews being deprived and disinherited. As the prophet Jeremiah testifies when he speaks such things: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new testament to the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not according to the testament which I made to their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; for they continued not in my testament, and I disregarded them, saith the Lord."[Jer 31:31–32]  ... For that which He said above, that He would make a new testament to the house of Judah, shows that the old testament which was given by Moses was not perfect; but that which was to be given by Christ would be complete.
+
+Eusebius describes the collection of Christian writings as "covenanted" (ἐνδιαθήκη) books in Hist. Eccl. 3.3.1–7; 3.25.3; 5.8.1; 6.25.1.
+
+Each of the four gospels in the New Testament narrates the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, with the exception of Mark which in the original text ends with the empty tomb and has no account of the post-resurrection appearances. The word "gospel" derives from the Old English gōd-spell[13] (rarely godspel), meaning "good news" or "glad tidings". The gospel was considered the "good news" of the coming Kingdom of Messiah, and the redemption through the life and death of Jesus, the central Christian message.[14] Gospel is a calque (word-for-word translation) of the Greek word εὐαγγέλιον, euangelion (eu- "good", -angelion "message").
+
+Starting in the late second century, the four narrative accounts of the life and work of Jesus Christ have been referred to as "The Gospel of ..." or "The Gospel according to ..." followed by the name of the supposed author. The first author to explicitly name the canonical gospels is Irenaeus of Lyon,[8][15] who promoted the four canonical gospels in his book Against Heresies, written around 180.[16] Whatever these admittedly early ascriptions may imply about the sources behind or the perception of these gospels, they are anonymous compositions.
+
+The first three gospels listed above are classified as the Synoptic Gospels. They contain similar accounts of the events in Jesus's life and his teaching, due to their literary interdependence. The Gospel of John is structured differently and includes stories of several miracles of Jesus and sayings not found in the other three.
+
+These four gospels that were eventually included in the New Testament were only a few among many other early Christian gospels. The existence of such texts is even mentioned at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke.[Luke 1:1–4] Other early Christian gospels, such as the so-called "Jewish-Christian Gospels" or the Gospel of Thomas, also offer both a window into the context of early Christianity and may provide some assistance in the reconstruction of the historical Jesus.
+
+The Acts of the Apostles is a narrative of the apostles' ministry and activity after Christ's death and resurrection, from which point it resumes and functions as a sequel to the Gospel of Luke. Examining style, phraseology, and other evidence, modern scholarship generally concludes that Acts and the Gospel of Luke share the same author, referred to as Luke–Acts. Luke-Acts does not name its author.[18] Church tradition identified him as Luke the Evangelist, the companion of Paul, but the majority of scholars reject this due to the many differences between Acts and the authentic Pauline letters.[19] The most probable date of composition is around 80–100 AD, although some scholars date it significantly later,[5][6] and there is evidence that it was still being substantially revised well into the 2nd century.[20]
+
+The epistles of the New Testament are considered by Christians to be divinely inspired and holy letters, written by the apostles and disciples of Christ, to either local congregations with specific needs, or to New Covenant Christians in general, scattered about; or "catholic epistles."
+
+The Pauline letters to churches are the thirteen New Testament books that present Paul the Apostle as their author.[note 3] Six of the letters are disputed. Four are thought by most modern scholars to be pseudepigraphic, i.e., not actually written by Paul even if attributed to him within the letters themselves.  Opinion is more divided on the other two disputed letters (2 Thessalonians and Colossians).[22] These letters were written to Christian communities in specific cities or geographical regions, often to address issues faced by that particular community. Prominent themes include the relationship both to broader "pagan" society, to Judaism, and to other Christians.[23]
+
+[Disputed letters are marked with an asterisk (*).]
+
+The last four Pauline letters in the New Testament are addressed to individual persons. They include the following:
+
+[Disputed letters are marked with an asterisk (*).]
+
+All of the above except for Philemon are known as the Pastoral epistles. They are addressed to individuals charged with pastoral oversight of churches and discuss issues of Christian living, doctrine and leadership. They often address different concerns to those of the preceding epistles. These letters are believed by many to be pseudepigraphic. Some scholars (e.g., Bill Mounce, Ben Witherington) will argue that the letters are genuinely Pauline, or at least written under Paul's supervision.
+
+The Epistle to the Hebrews addresses a Jewish audience who had come to believe that Jesus was the anointed one (Hebrew: מָשִׁיחַ—transliterated in English as "Moshiach", or "Messiah"; Greek: Χριστός—transliterated in English as "Christos", for "Christ") who was predicted in the writings of the Hebrew Scriptures. The author discusses the superiority of the new covenant and the ministry of Jesus, to the Mosaic covenant [Heb. 1:1–10:18] and urges the readers in the practical implications of this conviction through the end of the epistle.[Heb. 10:19–13:25]
+
+The book has been widely accepted by the Christian church as inspired by God and thus authoritative, despite the acknowledgment of uncertainties about who its human author was. Regarding authorship, although the Epistle to the Hebrews does not internally claim to have been written by the Apostle Paul, some similarities in wordings to some of the Pauline Epistles have been noted and inferred. In antiquity, some began to ascribe it to Paul in an attempt to provide the anonymous work an explicit apostolic pedigree.[24]
+
+In the 4th century, Jerome and Augustine of Hippo supported Paul's authorship. The Church largely agreed to include Hebrews as the fourteenth letter of Paul, and affirmed this authorship until the Reformation. The letter to the Hebrews had difficulty in being accepted as part of the Christian canon because of its anonymity.[25] As early as the 3rd century, Origen wrote of the letter, "Men of old have handed it down as Paul's, but who wrote the Epistle God only knows."[26]
+
+Contemporary scholars often reject Pauline authorship for the epistle to the Hebrews,[27] based on its distinctive style and theology, which are considered to set it apart from Paul's writings.[28]
+
+The Catholic epistles (or "general epistles") consist of both letters and treatises in the form of letters written to the church at large. The term "catholic" (Greek: καθολική, katholikē), used to describe these letters in the oldest manuscripts containing them, here simply means "general" or "universal". The authorship of a number of these is disputed.
+
+The final book of the New Testament is the Book of Revelation, also known as the Apocalypse of John. In the New Testament canon, it is considered prophetical or apocalyptic literature. Its authorship has been attributed either to John the Apostle (in which case it is often thought that John the Apostle is John the Evangelist, i.e. author of the Gospel of John) or to another John designated "John of Patmos" after the island where the text says the revelation was received (1:9). Some ascribe the writership date as circa 81–96 AD, and others at around 68 AD.[30] The work opens with letters to seven local congregations of Asia Minor and thereafter takes the form of an apocalypse, a "revealing" of divine prophecy and mysteries, a literary genre popular in ancient Judaism and Christianity.[31]
+
+The order in which the books of the New Testament appear differs between some collections and ecclesiastical traditions. In the Latin West, prior to the Vulgate (an early 5th-century Latin version of the Bible), the four Gospels were arranged in the following order: Matthew, John, Luke, and Mark.[note 4] The Syriac Peshitta places the major Catholic epistles (James, 1 Peter, and 1 John) immediately after Acts and before the Pauline epistles.
+
+The order of an early edition of the letters of Paul is based on the size of the letters: longest to shortest, though keeping 1 and 2 Corinthians and 1 and 2 Thessalonians together. The Pastoral epistles were apparently not part of the Corpus Paulinum in which this order originated and were later inserted after 2 Thessalonians and before Philemon. Hebrews was variously incorporated into the Corpus Paulinum either after 2 Thessalonians, after Philemon (i.e. at the very end), or after Romans.
+
+The New Testament of the 16th-century Luther Bible continues, to this day, to place Hebrews, James, Jude, and the Apocalypse last. This reflects the thoughts of the Reformer Martin Luther on the canonicity of these books.[36][note 5][citation needed]
+
+The books that eventually found a permanent place in the New Testament were not the only works of Christian literature produced in the earliest Christian centuries. The long process of canonization began early, sometimes with tacit reception of traditional texts, sometimes with explicit selection or rejection of particular texts as either acceptable or unacceptable for use in a given context (e.g., not all texts that were acceptable for private use were considered appropriate for use in the liturgy).
+
+Over the course of history, those works of early Christian literature that survived but that did not become part of the New Testament have been variously grouped by theologians and scholars. Drawing upon, though redefining, an older term used in early Christianity and among Protestants when referring to those books found in the Christian Old Testament although not in the Jewish Bible, modern scholars began to refer to these works of early Christian literature not included in the New Testament as "apocryphal", by which was meant non-canonical.
+
+Collected editions of these works were then referred to as the "New Testament apocrypha". Typically excluded from such published collections are the following groups of works: The Apostolic Fathers, the 2nd-century Christian apologists, the Alexandrians, Tertullian, Methodius of Olympus, Novatian, Cyprian, martyrdoms, and the Desert Fathers. Almost all other Christian literature from the period, and sometimes including works composed well into Late Antiquity, are relegated to the so-called New Testament apocrypha.
+
+Although not considered to be inspired by God, these "apocryphal" works were produced in the same ancient context and often using the same language as those books that would eventually form the New Testament. Some of these later works are dependent (either directly or indirectly) upon books that would later come to be in the New Testament or upon the ideas expressed in them. There is even an example of a pseudepigraphical letter composed under the guise of a presumably lost letter of the Apostle Paul, the Epistle to the Laodiceans.
+
+The books of the New Testament were all or nearly all written by Jewish Christians—that is, Jewish disciples of Christ, who lived in the Roman Empire, and under Roman occupation.[37] Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, is frequently thought of as an exception; scholars are divided as to whether Luke was a Gentile or a Hellenistic Jew.[38] A few scholars identify the author of the Gospel of Mark as probably a Gentile, and similarly for the Gospel of Matthew, though most assert Jewish-Christian authorship.[39][40][41][verification needed]
+
+According to the large majority of critical scholars, none of the authors of the Gospels were eyewitnesses or even explicitly claimed to be eyewitnesses.[42][43][44] Bart D. Ehrman of the University of North Carolina has argued for a scholarly consensus that many New Testament books were not written by the individuals whose names are attached to them.[44][45] He further argues that names were not ascribed to the gospels until around 185 AD.[46][47] Other scholars concur.[48][49][50] Many scholars believe that none of the gospels were written in the region of Palestine.[51]
+
+Christian tradition identifies John the Apostle with John the Evangelist, the supposed author of the Gospel of John. Traditionalists tend to support the idea that the writer of the Gospel of John himself claimed to be an eyewitness in their commentaries of John 21:24 and therefore the gospel was written by an eyewitness;[52][53] however, this idea is rejected by the majority of modern scholars.[54]
+
+Most[citation needed] scholars hold to the two-source hypothesis, which posits that the Gospel of Mark was the first gospel to be written. On this view, the authors of the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke used as sources the Gospel of Mark and a hypothetical Q document to write their individual gospel accounts.[55][56][57][58][59] These three gospels are called the Synoptic Gospels, because they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes in exactly the same wording. Scholars agree that the Gospel of John was written last, by using a different tradition and body of testimony. In addition, most scholars agree that the author of Luke also wrote the Acts of the Apostles. Scholars hold that these books constituted two-halves of a single work, Luke-Acts.[citation needed]
+
+All four gospels and the Acts of the Apostles are anonymous works.[60] The Gospel of John claims to be based on eyewitness testimony from the Disciple whom Jesus loved, but never names this character.[61]
+
+The same author appears to have written the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, and most refer to them as the Lucan texts.[62][63] The most direct evidence comes from the prefaces of each book; both were addressed to Theophilus, and the preface to the Acts of the Apostles references "my former book" about the ministry of Jesus.[64] Furthermore, there are linguistic and theological similarities between the two works, suggesting that they have a common author.[65][66][67][68]
+
+The Pauline epistles are the thirteen books in the New Testament traditionally attributed to Paul of Tarsus. The anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews is, despite unlikely Pauline authorship, often functionally grouped with these thirteen to form a corpus of fourteen "Pauline" epistles.[note 6]
+
+Seven letters are generally classified as "undisputed", expressing contemporary scholarly near consensus that they are the work of Paul: Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon. Six additional letters bearing Paul's name do not currently enjoy the same academic consensus: Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus.[note 7]
+
+While many scholars uphold the traditional view, some question whether the first three, called the "Deutero-Pauline Epistles", are authentic letters of Paul. As for the latter three, the "Pastoral epistles", some scholars uphold the traditional view of these as the genuine writings of the Apostle Paul;[note 7] most, however, regard them as pseudepigrapha.[71]
+
+One might refer to the Epistle to the Laodiceans and the Third Epistle to the Corinthians as examples of works identified as pseudonymous. Since the early centuries of the church, there has been debate concerning the authorship of the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews, and contemporary scholars generally reject Pauline authorship.[27]
+
+The epistles all share common themes, emphasis, vocabulary and style; they exhibit a uniformity of doctrine concerning the Mosaic Law, Jesus, faith, and various other issues. All of these letters easily fit into the chronology of Paul's journeys depicted in Acts of the Apostles.
+
+The author of the Epistle of James identifies himself in the opening verse as "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ". From the middle of the 3rd century, patristic authors cited the Epistle as written by James the Just.[72] Ancient and modern scholars have always been divided on the issue of authorship. Many consider the epistle to be written in the late 1st or early 2nd centuries.[73]
+
+The author of the First Epistle of Peter identifies himself in the opening verse as "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ", and the view that the epistle was written by St. Peter is attested to by a number of Church Fathers: Irenaeus (140–203), Tertullian (150–222), Clement of Alexandria (155–215) and Origen of Alexandria (185–253). Unlike The Second Epistle of Peter, the authorship of which was debated in antiquity, there was little debate about Peter's authorship of this first epistle until the 18th century. Although 2 Peter internally purports to be a work of the apostle, many biblical scholars have concluded that Peter is not the author.[74] For an early date and (usually) for a defense of the Apostle Peter's authorship see Kruger,[75] Zahn,[76] Spitta,[77] Bigg,[78] and Green.[79]
+
+The Epistle of Jude title is written as follows: "Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James" (NRSV). The debate has continued over the author's identity as the apostle, the brother of Jesus, both, or neither.[80]
+
+The Gospel of John, the three Johannine epistles, and the Book of Revelation, exhibit marked similarities, although more so between the gospel and the epistles (especially the gospel and 1 John) than between those and Revelation.[81] Most scholars therefore treat the five as a single corpus of Johannine literature, albeit not from the same author.[82]
+
+The gospel went through two or three "editions" before reaching its current form around AD 90–110.[83][84] It speaks of an unnamed "disciple whom Jesus loved" as the source of its traditions, but does not say specifically that he is its author;[85] Christian tradition identifies this disciple as the apostle John, but while this idea still has supporters, for a variety of reasons the majority of modern scholars have abandoned it or hold it only tenuously.[86] It is significantly different from the synoptic gospels, with major variations in material, theological emphasis, chronology, and literary style, sometimes amounting to contradictions.[87]
+
+The author of the Book of Revelation identifies himself several times as "John".[Rev. 1:1, 4, 9; 22:8] and states that he was on Patmos when he received his first vision.[Rev. 1:9; 4:1–2] As a result, the author is sometimes referred to as John of Patmos. The author has traditionally been identified with John the Apostle to whom the Gospel and the epistles of John were attributed. It was believed that he was exiled to the island of Patmos during the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian, and there wrote Revelation. Justin Martyr (c. 100–165 AD) who was acquainted with Polycarp, who had been mentored by John, makes a possible allusion to this book, and credits John as the source.[88] Irenaeus (c. 115–202) assumes it as a conceded point. According to the Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, modern scholars are divided between the apostolic view and several alternative hypotheses put forth in the last hundred years or so.[89] Ben Witherington points out that linguistic evidence makes it unlikely that the books were written by the same person.[90]
+
+The earliest manuscripts of New Testament books date from the late second to early third centuries (although see Papyrus 52 for a possible exception).[27]:479–480 These manuscripts place a clear upper limit on the dating of New Testament texts. Explicit references to NT books in extra-biblical documents can push this upper limit down a bit further. Irenaeus of Lyon names and quotes from most of the books in the New Testament in his book Against Heresies, written around 180 AD. The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, written some time between 110 and Polycarp's death in 155-167 AD, quotes or alludes to most New Testament texts. Ignatius of Antioch wrote letters referencing much of the New Testament. He lived from about 35AD to 107AD and is rumored to have been a disciple of the Apostle John. His writings reference the Gospels of John, Matthew, and Luke, as well as Peter, James, and Paul's Epistles. His writing is usually attributed to the end of his lifetime, which places the Gospels as First Century writings.
+
+Literary analysis of the New Testament texts themselves can be used to date many of the books of the New Testament to the mid- to late first century. The earliest works of the New Testament are the letters of the Apostle Paul. It can be determined that 1 Thessalonians is likely the earliest of these letters, written around 52 AD.[91]
+
+The major languages spoken by both Jews and Greeks in the Holy Land at the time of Jesus were Aramaic and Koine Greek, and also a colloquial dialect of Mishnaic Hebrew. It is generally agreed by most scholars that the historical Jesus primarily spoke Aramaic,[92] perhaps also some Hebrew and Koine Greek. The majority view is that all of the books that would eventually form the New Testament were written in the Koine Greek language.[93][94]
+
+As Christianity spread, these books were later translated into other languages, most notably, Latin, Syriac, and Egyptian Coptic. However, some of the Church Fathers[95] imply or claim that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic, and then soon after was written in Koine Greek. Nevertheless, some scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew known today was composed in Greek and is neither directly dependent upon nor a translation of a text in a Semitic language.[96]
+
+The process of canonization of the New Testament was complex and lengthy. In the initial centuries of early Christianity, there were many books widely considered by the church to be inspired, but there was no single formally recognized New Testament canon.[97] The process was characterized by a compilation of books that apostolic tradition considered authoritative in worship and teaching, relevant to the historical situations in which they lived, and consonant with the Old Testament.[98] Writings attributed to the apostles circulated among the earliest Christian communities and the Pauline epistles were circulating, perhaps in collected forms, by the end of the 1st century AD.[99]
+
+One of the earliest attempts at solidifying a canon was made by Marcion, circa 140 AD, who accepted only a modified version of Luke (the Gospel of Marcion) and ten of Paul's letters, while rejecting the Old Testament entirely. His canon was largely rejected by other groups of Christians, notably the proto-orthodox Christians, as was his theology, Marcionism. Adolf von Harnack,[100] John Knox,[101] and David Trobisch,[6] among other scholars, have argued that the church formulated its New Testament canon partially in response to the challenge posed by Marcion.
+
+Polycarp,[102] Irenaeus[103] and Tertullian[104] held the epistles of Paul to be divinely inspired "scripture." Other books were held in high esteem but were gradually relegated to the status of New Testament apocrypha. Justin Martyr, in the mid 2nd century, mentions "memoirs of the apostles" as being read on Sunday alongside the "writings of the prophets".[105]
+
+The Muratorian fragment, dated at between 170 and as late as the end of the 4th century (according to the Anchor Bible Dictionary), may be the earliest known New Testament canon attributed to mainstream Christianity. It is similar, but not identical, to the modern New Testament canon.
+
+The oldest clear endorsement of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John being the only legitimate gospels was written circa 180 AD. A four gospel canon (the Tetramorph) was asserted by Irenaeus, who refers to it directly[106][107] in his polemic Against Heresies:
+
+"It is not possible that the gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the church is scattered throughout all the world, and the 'pillar and ground' of the church is the gospel and the spirit of life; it is fitting that she should have four pillars, breathing out immortality on every side, and vivifying men afresh." (emphasis added)[107]
+
+The books considered to be authoritative by Irenaeus included the four gospels and many of the letters of Paul, although, based on the arguments Irenaeus made in support of only four authentic gospels, some interpreters deduce that the fourfold Gospel must have still been a novelty in Irenaeus's time.[108]
+
+By the early 200s, Origen may have been using the same twenty-seven books as in the Catholic New Testament canon, though there were still disputes over the canonicity of the Letter to the Hebrews, Epistle of James, II Peter, II John and III John and the Book of Revelation,[109] known as the Antilegomena. Likewise, the Muratorian fragment is evidence that, perhaps as early as 200, there existed a set of Christian writings somewhat similar to the twenty-seven book NT canon, which included four gospels and argued against objections to them.[110] Thus, while there was a good measure of debate in the Early Church over the New Testament canon, the major writings are claimed to have been accepted by almost all Christians by the middle of the 3rd century.[111]
+
+Origen was largely responsible for the collection of usage information regarding the texts that became the New Testament. The information used to create the late-4th-century Easter Letter, which declared accepted Christian writings, was probably based on the Ecclesiastical History [HE] of Eusebius of Caesarea, wherein he uses the information passed on to him by Origen to create both his list at HE 3:25 and Origen's list at HE 6:25. Eusebius got his information about what texts were then accepted and what were then disputed, by the third-century churches throughout the known world, a great deal of which Origen knew of firsthand from his extensive travels, from the library and writings of Origen.[112]
+
+In fact, Origen would have possibly included in his list of "inspired writings" other texts kept out by the likes of Eusebius—including the Epistle of Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas, and 1 Clement. Notwithstanding these facts, "Origen is not the originator of the idea of biblical canon, but he certainly gives the philosophical and literary-interpretative underpinnings for the whole notion."[113]
+
+Eusebius, circa 300, gave a detailed list of New Testament writings in his Ecclesiastical History Book 3, Chapter XXV:
+
+The Book of Revelation is counted as both accepted (Kirsopp Lake translation: "Recognized") and disputed, which has caused some confusion over what exactly Eusebius meant by doing so. From other writings of the church fathers, it was disputed with several canon lists rejecting its canonicity. EH 3.3.5 adds further detail on Paul: "Paul's fourteen epistles are well known and undisputed. It is not indeed right to overlook the fact that some have rejected the Epistle to the Hebrews, saying that it is disputed by the church of Rome, on the ground that it was not written by Paul." EH 4.29.6 mentions the Diatessaron: "But their original founder, Tatian, formed a certain combination and collection of the gospels, I know not how, to which he gave the title Diatessaron, and which is still in the hands of some. But they say that he ventured to paraphrase certain words of the apostle Paul, in order to improve their style."
+
+In his Easter letter of 367, Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, gave a list of the books that would become the twenty-seven-book NT canon,[1] and he used the word "canonized" (kanonizomena) in regards to them.[114] The first council that accepted the present canon of the New Testament may have been the Synod of Hippo Regius in North Africa (393 AD); the acts of this council, however, are lost. A brief summary of the acts was read at and accepted by the Council of Carthage (397) and the Council of Carthage (419).[115] These councils were under the authority of St. Augustine, who regarded the canon as already closed.[116][117][118]
+
+Pope Damasus I's Council of Rome in 382, if the Decretum Gelasianum is correctly associated with it, issued a biblical canon identical to that mentioned above,[1] or, if not, the list is at least a 6th-century compilation.[119] Likewise, Damasus' commissioning of the Latin Vulgate edition of the Bible, c. 383, was instrumental in the fixation of the canon in the West.[120] In c. 405, Pope Innocent I sent a list of the sacred books to a Gallic bishop, Exsuperius of Toulouse. Christian scholars assert that, when these bishops and councils spoke on the matter, however, they were not defining something new but instead "were ratifying what had already become the mind of the Church."[116][121][122]
+
+The New Testament canon as it is now was first listed by St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, in 367, in a letter written to his churches in Egypt, Festal Letter 39. Also cited is the Council of Rome, but not without controversy. That canon gained wider and wider recognition until it was accepted at the Third Council of Carthage in 397 and 419.[note 8]
+
+Even this council did not settle the matter, however. Certain books, referred to as Antilegomena, continued to be questioned, especially James and Revelation. Even as late as the 16th century, the Reformer Martin Luther questioned (but in the end did not reject) the Epistle of James, the Epistle of Jude, the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Book of Revelation. To this day, German-language Luther Bibles are printed with these four books at the end of the canon, rather than in their traditional order as in other editions of the Bible.
+
+In light of this questioning of the canon of Scripture by Protestants in the 16th century, the (Roman Catholic) Council of Trent reaffirmed the traditional western canon (i.e., the canon accepted at the 4th-century Council of Rome and Council of Carthage), thus making the Canon of Trent and the Vulgate Bible dogma in the Catholic Church. Later, Pope Pius XI on 2 June 1927 decreed the Comma Johanneum was open to dispute and Pope Pius XII on 3 September 1943 issued the encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu, which allowed translations based on other versions than just the Latin Vulgate, notably in English the New American Bible.
+
+Thus, some claim that, from the 4th century, there existed unanimity in the West concerning the New Testament canon (as it is today),[123] and that, by the 5th century, the Eastern Church, with a few exceptions, had come to accept the Book of Revelation and thus had come into harmony on the matter of the canon.[124] Nonetheless, full dogmatic articulations of the canon were not made until the Canon of Trent of 1546 for Roman Catholicism, the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563 for the Church of England, the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647 for Calvinism, and the Synod of Jerusalem of 1672 for the Greek Orthodox.
+
+On the question of NT Canon formation generally, New Testament scholar Lee Martin McDonald has written that:[125]
+
+Although a number of Christians have thought that church councils determined what books were to be included in the biblical canons, a more accurate reflection of the matter is that the councils recognized or acknowledged those books that had already obtained prominence from usage among the various early Christian communities.
+
+Christian scholars assert that when these bishops and councils spoke on the matter, they were not defining something new, but instead "were ratifying what had already become the mind of the Church".[121][122]
+
+Some synods of the 4th century published lists of canonical books (e.g. Hippo and Carthage). The existing 27-book canon of the New Testament was reconfirmed (for Roman Catholicism) in the 16th century with the Council of Trent (also called the Tridentine Council) of 1546,[126] the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563 for the Church of England, the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647 for Calvinism, and the Synod of Jerusalem of 1672 for Eastern Orthodoxy. Although these councils did include statements about the canon, when it came to the New Testament they were only reaffirming the existing canon, including the Antilegomena.
+
+According to the Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Canon of the New Testament: "The idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the New Testament existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history. The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council."[127]
+
+In 331, Constantine I commissioned Eusebius to deliver fifty Bibles for the Church of Constantinople. Athanasius (Apol. Const. 4) recorded Alexandrian scribes around 340 preparing Bibles for Constans. Little else is known, though there is plenty of speculation. For example, it is speculated that this may have provided motivation for canon lists, and that Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus may be examples of these Bibles. Together with the Peshitta and Codex Alexandrinus, these are the earliest extant Christian Bibles.[128] There is no evidence among the canons of the First Council of Nicaea of any determination on the canon.
+
+Like other literature from antiquity, the text of the New Testament was (prior to the advent of the printing press) preserved and transmitted in manuscripts. Manuscripts containing at least a part of the New Testament number in the thousands. The earliest of these (like manuscripts containing other literature) are often very fragmentarily preserved. Some of these fragments have even been thought to date as early as the 2nd century (i.e., Papyrus 90, Papyrus 98, Papyrus 104, and famously Rylands Library Papyrus P52, though the early date of the latter has recently been called into question).[129]
+
+For each subsequent century, more and more manuscripts survive that contain a portion or all of the books that were held to be part of the New Testament at that time (for example, the New Testament of the 4th-century Codex Sinaiticus, once a complete Bible, contains the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas), though occasionally these manuscripts contain other works as well (e.g., Papyrus 72 and the Crosby-Schøyen Codex). The date when a manuscript was written, however, does not necessarily reflect the date of the form of text it contains. That is, later manuscripts can, and occasionally do, contain older forms of text or older readings.
+
+Some of the more important manuscripts containing an early text of books of the New Testament are:
+
+Textual criticism deals with the identification and removal of transcription errors in the texts of manuscripts. Ancient scribes made errors or alterations (such as including non-authentic additions).[130] The New Testament has been preserved in more than 5,800 Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 manuscripts in various other ancient languages including Syriac, Slavic, Ethiopic and Armenian. Even if the original Greek versions were lost, the entire New Testament could still be assembled from the translations.[131]
+
+In addition, there are so many quotes from the New Testament in early church documents and commentaries that the entire New Testament could also be assembled from these alone.[131] Not all biblical manuscripts come from orthodox Christian writers. For example, the Gnostic writings of Valentinus come from the 2nd century AD, and these Christians were regarded as heretics by the mainstream church.[132] The sheer number of witnesses presents unique difficulties, but it also gives scholars a better idea of how close modern Bibles are to the original versions.[132]
+
+On noting the large number of surviving ancient manuscripts, Bruce Metzger sums up the view on the issue by saying "The more often you have copies that agree with each other, especially if they emerge from different geographical areas, the more you can cross-check them to figure out what the original document was like. The only way they'd agree would be where they went back genealogically in a family tree that represents the descent of the manuscripts.[131]
+
+In attempting to determine the original text of the New Testament books, some modern textual critics have identified sections as additions of material, centuries after the gospel was written. These are called interpolations. In modern translations of the Bible, the results of textual criticism have led to certain verses, words and phrases being left out or marked as not original. According to Bart D. Ehrman, "These scribal additions are often found in late medieval manuscripts of the New Testament, but not in the manuscripts of the earlier centuries."[133]
+
+Most modern Bibles have footnotes to indicate passages that have disputed source documents. Bible Commentaries also discuss these, sometimes in great detail. While many variations have been discovered between early copies of biblical texts, almost all have no importance, as they are variations in spelling, punctuation, or grammar. Also, many of these variants are so particular to the Greek language that they would not appear in translations into other languages. For example, order of words (i.e. "man bites dog" versus "dog bites man") often does not matter in Greek, so textual variants that flip the order of words often have no consequences.[131]
+
+Outside of these unimportant variants, there are a couple variants of some importance. The two most commonly cited examples are the last verses of the Gospel of Mark[134][135][136] and the story of the adulterous woman in the Gospel of John.[137][138][139] Many scholars and critics also believe that the Comma Johanneum reference supporting the Trinity doctrine in 1 John to have been a later addition.[140][141] According to Norman Geisler and William Nix, "The New Testament, then, has not only survived in more manuscripts than any other book from antiquity, but it has survived in a purer form than any other great book—a form that is 99.5% pure"[142]
+
+The often referred to Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, a book written to prove the validity of the New Testament, says: " A study of 150 Greek [manuscripts] of the Gospel of Luke has revealed more than 30,000 different readings... It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the New Testament in which the [manuscript] is wholly uniform."[143] Most of the variation took place within the first three Christian centuries.
+
+By the 4th century, textual "families" or types of text become discernible among New Testament manuscripts. A "text-type" is the name given to a family of texts with similar readings due to common ancestors and mutual correction. Many early manuscripts, however, contain individual readings from several different earlier forms of text. Modern texual critics have identified the following text-types among textual witnesses to the New Testament: The Alexandrian text-type is usually considered to generally preserve many early readings. It is represented, e.g., by Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus and the Bodmer Papyri.
+
+The Western text-type is generally longer and can be paraphrastic, but can also preserve early readings. The Western version of the Acts of the Apostles is, notably, 8.5% longer than the Alexandrian form of the text. Examples of the Western text are found in Codex Bezae, Codex Claromontanus, Codex Washingtonianus, the Old Latin (i.e., Latin translations made prior to the Vulgate), as well as in quotations by Marcion, Tatian, Irenaeus, Tertullian and Cyprian.
+
+A text-type referred to as the "Caesarean text-type" and thought to have included witnesses such as Codex Koridethi and minuscule 565, can today be described neither as "Caesarean" nor as a text-type as was previously thought. However, the Gospel of Mark in Papyrus 45, Codex Washingtonianus and in Family 13 does indeed reflect a distinct type of text.
+
+Increasing standardization of distinct (and once local) text-types eventually gave rise to the Byzantine text-type. Since most manuscripts of the New Testament do not derive from the first several centuries, that is, they were copied after the rise of the Byzantine text-type, this form of text is found the majority of extant manuscripts and is therefore often called the "Majority Text." As with all of the other (earlier) text-types, the Byzantine can also occasionally preserve early readings.
+
+Biblical criticism is the scholarly "study and investigation of biblical writings that seeks to make discerning judgments about these writings." Viewing biblical texts as having human rather than supernatural origins, it asks when and where a particular text originated; how, why, by whom, for whom, and in what circumstances it was produced; what influences were at work in its production; what sources were used in its composition; and what message it was intended to convey.
+
+It will vary slightly depending on whether the focus is on the Old Testament, the letters of the New Testament, or the Canonical Gospels. It also plays an important role in the quest for the historical Jesus. It also addresses the physical text, including the meaning of the words and the way in which they are used, its preservation, history, and integrity. Biblical criticism draws upon a wide range of scholarly disciplines including archaeology, anthropology, folklore, linguistics, Oral Tradition studies, history, and religious studies.
+
+The textual variation among manuscript copies of books in the New Testament prompted attempts to discern the earliest form of text already in antiquity (e.g., by the 3rd-century Christian author Origen). The efforts began in earnest again during the Renaissance, which saw a revival of the study of ancient Greek texts. During this period, modern textual criticism was born. In this context, Christian humanists such as Lorenzo Valla and Erasmus promoted a return to the original Greek of the New Testament. This was the beginning of modern New Testament textual criticism, which over subsequent centuries would increasingly incorporate more and more manuscripts, in more languages (i.e., versions of the New Testament), as well as citations of the New Testament by ancient authors and the New Testament text in lectionaries in order to reconstruct the earliest recoverable form of the New Testament text and the history of changes to it.[144]
+
+Books that later formed the New Testament, like other Christian literature of the period, originated in a literary context that reveals relationships not only to other Christian writings, but also to Graeco-Roman and Jewish works. Of singular importance is the extensive use of and interaction with the Jewish Bible and what would become the Christian Old Testament. Both implicit and explicit citations, as well as countless allusions, appear throughout the books of the New Testament, from the Gospels and Acts, to the Epistles, to the Apocalypse.[145]
+
+The first translations (usually called "versions") of the New Testament were made beginning already at the end of 2nd century. The earliest versions of the New Testament are the translations into the Syriac, Latin, and Coptic languages.[146] These three versions were made directly from the Greek, and are frequently cited in the apparatuses of modern critical editions.
+
+Syriac was spoken in Syria, and Mesopotamia, and with dialect in Roman and Byzantine Palestine where it was known as Jewish Palestinian Aramaic. Several Syriac translations were made and have come to us. Most of the Old Syriac, however, as well as the Philoxonian version have been lost.
+
+Tatian, the Assyrian, created the Diatessaron, a gospel harmony written in Syriac around 170 AD and the earliest form of the gospel not only in Syriac but probably also in Armenian.
+
+In the 19th century, manuscript evidence was discovered for an "Old Syriac" version of the four distinct (i.e., not harmonized) gospels. These "separated" (Syriac: da-Mepharreshe) gospels, though old, have been shown to be later than the Diatessaron. The Old Syriac gospels are fragmentarily preserved in two manuscripts: the 5th-century Curetonian Syriac and the Sinaitic Syriac from the 4th or 5th century.
+
+No Old Syriac manuscripts of other portions of the New Testament survive, though Old Syriac readings, e.g. from the Pauline Epistles, can be discerned in citations made by Eastern fathers and in later Syriac versions. The Old Syriac version is a representative of the Western text-type. The Peshitta version was prepared in the beginning of the 5th century. It contains only 22 books (neither the Minor Catholic Epistles of 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Jude, nor the Book of Revelation were part of this translation).
+
+The Philoxenian probably was produced in 508 for Philoxenus, Bishop of Mabung.[147]
+
+The Gospels were likely translated into Latin as early as the last quarter of the 2nd century in North Africa (Afra). Not much later, there were also European Latin translations (Itala). There are about 80 Old Latin mansucripts. The Vetus Latina ("Old Latin") versions often contain readings with a Western type of text. (For the avoidance of confusion, these texts were written in Late Latin, not the early version of the Latin language known as Old Latin, pre 75 BC.)
+
+The bewildering diversity of the Old Latin versions prompted Jerome to prepare another translation into Latin—the Vulgate. In many respects it was merely a revision of the Old Latin. There are currently around 8,000 manuscripts of the Vulgate.
+
+There are several dialects of the Coptic language: Bohairic (northern dialect), Fayyumic, Sahidic (southern dialect), Akhmimic, and others. The first translation was made by at least the 3rd century into the Sahidic dialect (copsa). This translation represents a mixed text, mostly Alexandrian, though also with Western readings.[148]
+
+A Bohairic translation was made later, but existed already in the 4th century. Though the translation makes less use of Greek words than the Sahidic, it does employ some Greek grammar (e.g., in word-order and the use of particles such as the syntactic construction μεν—δε). For this reason, the Bohairic translation can be helpful in the reconstruction of the early Greek text of the New Testament.[149]
+
+The continued spread of Christianity, and the foundation of national churches, led to the translation of the Bible—often beginning with books from the New Testament—into a variety of other languages at a relatively early date: Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopic, Persian, Sogdian, and eventually Gothic, Old Church Slavonic, Arabic, and Nubian.[150]
+
+Historically, throughout the Christian world and in the context of Christian missionary activity, the New Testament (or portions thereof) has been that part of the Christian Bible first translated into the vernacular. The production of such translations grew out of the insertion of vernacular glosses in biblical texts, as well as out of the production of biblical paraphrases and poetic renditions of stories from the life of Christ (e.g., the Heliand).
+
+The 16th century saw the rise of Protestantism and an explosion of translations of the New (and Old) Testament into the vernacular. Notable are those of Martin Luther (1522), Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples (1523), the Froschau Bible (1525–1529, revised in 1574), William Tyndale (1526, revised in 1534, 1535 and 1536), the Brest Bible (1563), and the Authorized Version (also called the "King James Version") (1611).
+
+Most of these translations relied (though not always exclusively) upon one of the printed editions of the Greek New Testament edited by Erasmus, the Novum Instrumentum omne; a form of this Greek text emerged as the standard and is known as the Textus Receptus. This text, based on the majority of manuscripts is also used in the majority of translations that were made in the years 100 to 400 AD.
+
+Translations of the New Testament made since the appearance of critical editions of the Greek text (notably those of Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, and von Soden) have largely used them as their base text. Unlike the Textus Receptus, these have a pronounced Alexandrian character. Standard critical editions are those of Nestle-Åland (the text, though not the full critical apparatus of which is reproduced in the United Bible Societies' "Greek New Testament"), Souter, Vogels, Bover and Merk.
+
+Notable translations of the New Testament based on these most recent critical editions include the Revised Standard Version (1946, revised in 1971), La Bible de Jérusalem (1961, revised in 1973 and 2000), the Einheitsübersetzung (1970, final edition 1979), the New American Bible (1970, revised in 1986), the Traduction Oecuménique de la Bible (1988, revised in 2004), and the New Revised Standard Version (1989).
+
+Though all Christian churches accept the New Testament as scripture, they differ in their understanding of the nature, extent, and relevance of its authority. Views of the authoritativeness of the New Testament often depend on the concept of inspiration, which relates to the role of God in the formation of the New Testament. Generally, the greater the role of God in one's doctrine of inspiration, the more one accepts the doctrine of biblical inerrancy or authoritativeness of the Bible. One possible source of confusion is that these terms are difficult to define, because many people use them interchangeably or with very different meanings. This article will use the terms in the following manner:
+
+The self-witness of the Bible to its inspiration demands a commitment to its unity. The ultimate basis for unity is contained in the claim of divine inspiration in 2 Timothy 3:16 that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (KJV). The term "inspiration" renders the Greek word theopneustos. This term only occurs here in the New Testament and literally means "God-breathed" (the chosen translation of the NIV).[151]
+
+All of these concepts depend for their meaning on the supposition that the text of Bible has been properly interpreted, with consideration for the intention of the text, whether literal history, allegory or poetry, etc. Especially the doctrine of inerrancy is variously understood according to the weight given by the interpreter to scientific investigations of the world.
+
+The notion of unity in diversity of Scripture claims that the Bible presents a noncontradictory and consistent message concerning God and redemptive history. The fact of diversity is observed in comparing the diversity of time, culture, authors' perspectives, literary genre, and the theological themes.[151]
+
+Studies from many theologians considering the "unity in diversity" to be found in the New Testament (and the Bible as a whole) have been collected and summarized by New Testament theologian Frank Stagg. He describes them as some basic presuppositions, tenets, and concerns common among the New Testament writers, giving to the New Testament its "unity in diversity":
+
+For the Roman Catholic Church, there are two modes of Revelation: Scripture and Tradition. Both of them are interpreted by the teachings of the Church. The Roman Catholic view is expressed clearly in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1997):
+
+§ 82: As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honoured with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.
+
+§ 107: The inspired books teach the truth. Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures.
+
+In Catholic terminology the teaching office is called the Magisterium.  The Catholic view should not be confused with the two-source theory.  As the Catechism states in §§ 80 and 81, Revelation has "one common source ... two distinct modes of transmission."[153]
+
+While many Eastern Orthodox writers distinguish between Scripture and Tradition, Bishop Kallistos Ware says that for the Orthodox there is only one source of the Christian faith, Holy Tradition, within which Scripture exists.[154]
+
+Traditional Anglicans believe that "Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation", (Article VI), but also that the Catholic Creeds "ought thoroughly to be received and believed" (Article VIII), and that the Church "hath authority in Controversies of Faith" and is "a witness and keeper of Holy Writ" (Article XX).[155] Classical Anglicanism, therefore, like Orthodoxy, holds that Holy Tradition is the only safe guardian against perversion and innovation in the interpretation of Scripture.
+
+In the famous words of Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells: "As for my religion, I dye in the holy catholic and apostolic faith professed by the whole Church before the disunion of East and West, more particularly in the communion of the Church of England, as it stands distinguished from all Papal and Puritan innovations, and as it adheres to the doctrine of the Cross."
+
+Following the doctrine of sola scriptura, Protestants believe that their traditions of faith, practice and interpretations carry forward what the scriptures teach, and so tradition is not a source of authority in itself. Their traditions derive authority from the Bible, and are therefore always open to reevaluation. This openness to doctrinal revision has extended in Liberal Protestant traditions even to the reevaluation of the doctrine of Scripture upon which the Reformation was founded, and members of these traditions may even question whether the Bible is infallible in doctrine, inerrant in historical and other factual statements, and whether it has uniquely divine authority. However, the adjustments made by modern Protestants to their doctrine of scripture vary widely.
+
+Within the US, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978) is a statement, articulating evangelical views on this issue. Paragraph four of its summary states: "Being wholly and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God's acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God's saving grace in individual lives."[156]
+
+Mainline American Protestant denominations, including the United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church USA, The Episcopal Church, and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, do not teach the doctrine of inerrancy as set forth in the Chicago Statement. All of these churches have more ancient doctrinal statements asserting the authority of scripture, but may interpret these statements in such a way as to allow for a very broad range of teaching—from evangelicalism to skepticism. It is not an impediment to ordination in these denominations to teach that the scriptures contain errors, or that the authors follow a more or less unenlightened ethics that, however appropriate it may have seemed in the authors' time, moderns would be very wrong to follow blindly.
+
+For example, ordination of women is universally accepted in the mainline churches, abortion is condemned as a grievous social tragedy but not always a personal sin or a crime against an unborn person, and homosexuality is sometimes recognized as a genetic propensity or morally neutral preference that should be neither encouraged nor condemned. In North America, the most contentious of these issues among these churches at the present time is how far the ordination of gay men and lesbians should be accepted.
+
+Officials of the Presbyterian Church USA report: "We acknowledge the role of scriptural authority in the Presbyterian Church, but Presbyterians generally do not believe in biblical inerrancy. Presbyterians do not insist that every detail of chronology or sequence or prescientific description in scripture be true in literal form. Our confessions do teach biblical infallibility. Infallibility affirms the entire truthfulness of scripture without depending on every exact detail."[157]
+
+Those who hold a more liberal view of the Bible as a human witness to the glory of God, the work of fallible humans who wrote from a limited experience unusual only for the insight they have gained through their inspired struggle to know God in the midst of a troubled world. Therefore, they tend not to accept such doctrines as inerrancy. These churches also tend to retain the social activism of their evangelical forebears of the 19th century, placing particular emphasis on those teachings of scripture that teach compassion for the poor and concern for social justice.
+
+The message of personal salvation is, generally speaking, of the good that comes to oneself and the world through following the New Testament's Golden Rule admonition to love others without hypocrisy or prejudice. Toward these ends, the "spirit" of the New Testament, more than the letter, is infallible and authoritative.
+
+There are some movements that believe the Bible contains the teachings of Jesus but who reject the churches that were formed following its publication. These people believe all individuals can communicate directly with God and therefore do not need guidance or doctrines from a church. These people are known as Christian anarchists.
+
+Messianic Judaism generally holds the same view of New Testament authority as evangelical Protestants.[158] According to the view of some Messianic Jewish congregations, Jesus did not annul the Torah, but that its interpretation is revised and ultimately explained through the Apostolic Scriptures.[159]
+
+Jehovah's Witnesses accept the New Testament as divinely inspired Scripture, and as infallible in every detail, with equal authority as the Hebrew Scriptures. They view it as the written revelation and good news of the Messiah, the ransom sacrifice of Jesus, and the Kingdom of God, explaining and expounding the Hebrew Bible, not replacing but vitally supplementing it. They also view the New Testament as the primary instruction guide for Christian living, and church discipline. They generally call the New Testament the "Christian Greek Scriptures", and see only the "covenants" as "old" or "new", but not any part of the actual Scriptures themselves.[160]
+
+Oneness Pentecostalism subscribes to the common Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura. They view the Bible as the inspired Word of God, and as absolutely inerrant in its contents (though not necessarily in every translation).[161][162] They regard the New Testament as perfect and inerrant in every way, revealing the Lord Jesus Christ in the Flesh, and his Atonement, and which also explains and illuminates the Old Testament perfectly, and is part of the Bible canon, not because church councils or decrees claimed it so, but by witness of the Holy Spirit.[163][164]
+
+The Seventh-day Adventist Church holds the New Testament as the inspired Word of God, with God influencing the "thoughts" of the Apostles in the writing, not necessarily every word though.  The first fundamental belief of the Seventh-Day Adventist church stated that "The Holy Scriptures are the infallible revelation of [God's] will." Adventist theologians generally reject the "verbal inspiration" position on Scripture held by many conservative evangelical Christians. They believe instead that God inspired the thoughts of the biblical authors and apostles, and that the writers then expressed these thoughts in their own words.[165] This view is popularly known as "thought inspiration", and most Adventist members hold to that view. According to Ed Christian, former JATS editor, "few if any ATS members believe in verbal inerrancy".[166]
+
+Regarding the teachings of the New Testament compared to the Old, and the application in the New Covenant, Adventists have traditionally taught that the Decalogue is part of the moral law of God, which was not abrogated by the ministry and death of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the fourth commandment concerning the Sabbath is as applicable to Christian believers as the other nine. Adventists have often taught a distinction between "moral law" and "ceremonial law". According to Adventist beliefs, the moral law continues into the "New Testament era", but the ceremonial law was done away with by Jesus.
+
+How the Mosaic law should be applied came up at Adventist conferences in the past, and Adventist theologians such as A. T. Jones and E. J. Waggoner looked at the problem addressed by Paul in Galatians as not the ceremonial law, but rather the wrong use of the law (legalism). They were opposed by Uriah Smith and George Butler at the 1888 Conference. Smith in particular thought the Galatians issue had been settled by Ellen White already, yet in 1890 she claimed justification by faith is "the third angel's message in verity."[citation needed]
+
+Ellen White interpreted Colossians 2:14 as saying that the ceremonial law was nailed to the cross.[167]
+
+Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) believe that the New Testament, as part of the Christian biblical canon, is accurate "as far as it is translated correctly".[168] They believe the Bible as originally revealed is the word of God, but that the processes of transcription and translation have introduced errors into the texts as currently available, and therefore they cannot be regarded as completely inerrant.[169][170] In addition to the Old and New Testaments, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price are considered part of their scriptural canon.[171][172]
+
+Despite the wide variety among Christian liturgies, texts from the New Testament play a role in almost all forms of Christian worship. In addition to some language derived from the New Testament in the liturgy itself (e.g., the Trisagion may be based on Apocalypse 4:8, and the beginning of the "Hymn of Praise" draws upon Luke 2:14), the reading of extended passages from the New Testament is a practice common to almost all Christian worship, liturgical or not.
+
+These readings are most often part of an established lectionary (i.e., selected texts to be read at church services on specific days), and (together with an Old Testament reading and a Psalm) include a non-gospel reading from the New Testament and culminate with a Gospel reading. No readings from the Book of Revelation, however, are included in the standard lectionary of the Eastern Orthodox churches.
+
+Central to the Christian liturgy is the celebration of the Eucharist or "Holy Communion". The Words of Institution that begin this rite are drawn directly from 1 Corinthians 11:23–26. In addition, the communal recitation of the Lord's Prayer (in the form found in the Gospel of Matthew 6:9–13) is also a standard feature of Christian worship.
+
+Most of the influence of the New Testament upon the arts has come from the Gospels and the Book of Revelation.[citation needed] Literary expansion of the Nativity of Jesus found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke began already in the 2nd century, and the portrayal of the Nativity has continued in various art forms to this day. The earliest Christian art would often depict scenes from the New Testament such as the raising of Lazarus, the baptism of Jesus or the motif of the Good Shepherd.
+
+Biblical paraphrases and poetic renditions of stories from the life of Christ (e.g., the Heliand) became popular in the Middle Ages, as did the portrayal of the arrest, trial and execution of Jesus in Passion plays. Indeed, the Passion became a central theme in Christian art and music. The ministry and Passion of Jesus, as portrayed in one or more of the New Testament Gospels, has also been a theme in film, almost since the inception of the medium (e.g., La Passion, France, 1903).

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+Great Schism may refer to:

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+
+
+
+The Smurfs (French: Les Schtroumpfs; Dutch: De Smurfen) is a Belgian comic franchise centered on a fictional colony of small, blue, human-like creatures who live in mushroom-shaped houses in the forest. The Smurfs was first created and introduced as a series of comic characters by the Belgian comics artist Peyo (the pen name of Pierre Culliford) in 1958, wherein they were known as Les Schtroumpfs. There are more than 100 Smurf characters, and their names are based on adjectives that emphasise their characteristics, such as "Jokey Smurf", who likes to play practical jokes on his fellow smurfs. "Smurfette" was the first female Smurf to be introduced in the series. The Smurfs wear Phrygian caps, which came to represent freedom during the modern era.
+
+The word “smurf” is the original Dutch translation of the French "schtroumpf", which, according to Peyo, is a word he invented during a meal with fellow cartoonist André Franquin when he could not remember the word salt.[1][2][3]
+
+The Smurfs franchise began as a comic and expanded into advertising, films, TV series, ice capades, video games, theme parks, and dolls.
+
+At the time he came up with the idea for the Smurfs, Peyo was the creator, artist, and writer of the Franco-Belgian comics series titled Johan et Pirlouit (translated to English as Johan and Peewit), set in Europe during the Middle Ages and including elements of sword-and-sorcery. Johan serves as a brave young page to the king, and Pirlouit (pronounced Peer-loo-ee) functions as his faithful, if boastful and cheating, midget sidekick. 
+In 1958, Spirou magazine started to publish the Johan et Pirlouit story La Flûte à six trous ("The Flute with Six Holes").[4] The adventure involved them recovering a magic flute, which required some sorcery by the wizard Homnibus. In this manner, they met a tiny, blue-skinned humanoid in white clothing called a "Schtroumpf", followed by his numerous peers who looked just like him, with an elderly leader who wore red clothing and had a white beard. Their first full appearance was published in Spirou on October 23, 1958.[5] The characters proved to be a huge success, and the first independent Smurf stories appeared in Spirou in 1959, together with the first merchandising. The Smurfs shared more adventures with Johan and Pirlouit, got their own series and all subsequent publications of the original story were retitled La Flûte à six Schtroumpfs (also the title of the movie version of the story).
+
+With the commercial success of the Smurfs came the merchandising empire of Smurf miniatures, models, games, and toys. Entire collecting clubs have devoted themselves to collecting PVC Smurfs and Smurf merchandise.
+
+Schtroumpf is pronounced like the German word "Strumpf" meaning "sock". However, according to Peyo, the original author of the Smurfs comic strip, the term and the accompanying language of the Smurfs came during a meal he had with his colleague and friend André Franquin at the Belgian Coast. Having momentarily forgotten the word "salt", Peyo asked him (in French) to pass the schtroumpf. Franquin jokingly replied, "Here's the Schtroumpf—when you are done schtroumpfing, schtroumpf it back..." and the two spent the rest of that weekend speaking in "schtroumpf language".[1][3] The name was later translated into Dutch as Smurf, which was adopted in English.[2]
+
+Both the comics and cartoons have been translated in many languages. In most cases, the original name "Schtroumpf" is replaced by a new term. The most common are variations on the Dutch translation "Smurf", while other names are indicative of their gnome-like appearance.
+
+In Spanish, they are called "Pitufos", a term invented by  Miguel Agustí who was the head of the Spanish magazine Strong which first published the cartoon in Spanish. According to Agustí, he was walking around Barcelona while trying to come up a name for the cartoon. He came across a sculpture of the Ox of Patufet and was inspired by the word Patufet. From Patufet he derived the non-existent word Pitufo. The name later spread to most Spanish-language versions of the cartoon.
+[6]
+
+The storylines tend to be simple tales of bold adventure. The cast has a simple structure as well: almost all the characters look essentially alike—mostly male (a few female Smurfs have appeared: Smurfette, Sassette, and Nanny Smurf), short (three apples high),[7] with blue skin, white trousers with a hole for their short tails, white hat in the style of a Phrygian cap, and sometimes some additional accessory that identifies a personality (for example, "Handy Smurf" wears overalls instead of the standard trousers, a brimmed hat, and a pencil above his ear). Smurfs can walk and run, but often move by skipping on both feet. They love to eat sarsaparilla (a species of Smilax) leaves, whose berries the Smurfs naturally call "smurfberries." The smurfberries appear only in the cartoon; in the original comics, the Smurfs only eat the leaves from the sarsaparilla.
+
+The Smurfs fulfill simple archetypes of everyday people: "Lazy Smurf", "Grouchy Smurf", "Brainy Smurf", and so on. All Smurfs, with the exception of Papa, Baby, Smurfette, Nanny and Grandpa, are said to be 100 years old. There were originally 99 Smurfs, but this number increased as new Smurf characters appeared, such as Sassette and Nanny. All of the original Smurfs were male; later female additions are Smurfette and Sassette. Smurfette was Gargamel's creation, while Sassette was created by the Smurflings.
+
+A characteristic of the Smurf language is the frequent use of the undefinable word "smurf" and its derivatives in a variety of meanings. The Smurfs frequently replace both nouns and verbs in everyday speech with the word "smurf": "We're going smurfing on the River Smurf today." When used as a verb, the word "Smurf" typically means "to make", "to be", "to like", or "to do".
+
+Humans have found that replacing ordinary words with the term "smurf" at random is not enough: in one adventure, Peewit explains to some other humans that the statement "I'm smurfing to the smurf" means "I'm going to the wood", but a Smurf corrects him by saying that the proper statement would be "I'm smurfing to the smurf"; whereas what Peewit said was "I'm warbling to the dawn". So "I'm smurfing to the smurf" is not the same as "I'm smurfing to the smurf".[8]
+
+In the animated series, only some words (or a portion of the word) are replaced with the word "smurf". Context offers a reliable understanding of this speech pattern, but common vocabulary includes remarking that something is "just smurfy" or in some cases, "smurftastic".
+
+In Schtroumpf vert et vert Schtroumpf (see Smurf Versus Smurf), published in Belgium in 1972, it was revealed that the smurf village was divided between North and South, and that the Smurfs on either side had different ideas as to how the term "smurf" should be used: for instance, the Northern Smurfs called a certain object a "bottle smurfer", while the Southern Smurfs called it a "smurf opener". This story is considered a parody on the still ongoing taalstrijd (language war) between French- and Dutch-speaking communities in Belgium.[9]
+
+When they first appeared in 1958, the Smurfs lived in a part of the world called "Le Pays Maudit" (French for "the Cursed Land"). To reach it required magic or travelling through dense forests, deep marshes, a scorching desert and a high mountain range.[10] The Smurfs themselves use storks in order to travel long distances, such as to the kingdom where Johan and Pirlouit live, and keep up-to-date with events in the outside world.[11]
+
+In the Johan et Pirlouit stories, the Smurf village is made up of mushroom-like houses of different shapes and sizes in a desolate and rocky land with just a few trees. However, in the Smurf series itself, the mushroom-like houses are more similar to one another and are located in a clearing in the middle of a deep forest with grass, a river, and vegetation. Humans such as Gargamel are shown to live nearby, though it is almost impossible for an outsider to find the Smurf village except when led by a Smurf.
+
+The Smurfs' community generally takes the form of a cooperative, sharing, and kind environment based on the principle that each Smurf has something he or she is good at, and thus contributes it to Smurf society as he or she can. In return, each Smurf appears to be given their necessities of life, from housing and clothes to food without using any money in exchange.
+
+Papa Smurf is the leader of the community. Other Smurfs are generally named after their personality disposition, much like Disney's Seven Dwarfs; for example, Brainy, Greedy, Vanity, Lazy, Clumsy, Hefty, Jokey, Dreamy, Grouchy, or their profession, for example, Poet, Actor, Handy, Harmony, Farmer, Clockwork, Painter, Tailor, Miner, Architect, Reporter, Timber, Barber and Doctor Smurf. The first female Smurf, Smurfette, was created by Gargamel to lure the other Smurfs. Papa Smurf then changed her into what we see today. The non-Smurf characters who would appear later would include their enemies the wizard Gargamel, his cat Azrael, an ugly witch, Hogatha and Gargamel's godfather Balthazar; and their friends the page Johan and his young friend Peewit and the wizard Homnibus. There are 105 Smurfs.
+
+Since the first appearance of the Smurfs in Johan et Pirlouit in 1958, 31 Smurf comics volumes have been created, 16 of them by Peyo, the others by his studio. Originally, the Smurf stories appeared in Spirou magazine with reprints in many different magazines, but after Peyo left the publisher Dupuis, many comics were first published in dedicated Smurf magazines, which existed in French, Dutch, German and Turkish. A number of short stories and one page gags have been collected into comic books next to the regular series of 30 including a newly released Smurfs comics enitiled Les Schtroumpfs de L'ordre (The Order Law of the Smurfs). English translations have been published in the U.S. by the graphic novel publisher Papercutz as well as a mini series published by Marvel Comics in the mid-1980s.
+
+In 1965, a black-and-white 87-minute animated film called Les Aventures des Schtroumpfs was released in theatres in Belgium. It consisted of five short cartoons made in the previous years for broadcasting on Walloon TV. German copies and copies with Dutch subtitles are known to exist. The stories were based on existing Smurf stories like The Black Smurfs and The Smurfs and the Egg, and were created by writer Maurice Rosy and artist Eddy Ryssack from the small Dupuis animation studios.[12] In total, ten animated shorts were created between 1961 and 1967, the first series in black and white and the later ones in colour.
+
+In 1976, La Flûte à six schtroumpfs (an adaptation of the original "Johan et Pirlouit" story) was released. Michel Legrand provided the musical score to the film. The film would be released in the United States in 1983 (after the animated series became popular there) in an English language dubbed version titled The Smurfs and the Magic Flute. A few more full-length Smurf films were made, most notably The Baby Smurf and Here are the Smurfs,[13] created from episodes of the Hanna-Barbera television cartoon series.
+
+Sony Pictures has announced plans to begin a trilogy of live-action/computer-animated Smurf films, with the first film released on July 29, 2011.[14] The project had been in various stages of development since 2003.[15] In June 2008, it was announced that Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation had acquired film rights from Lafig Belgium. Jordan Kerner produced the film, with the screenwriters including Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third screenwriters J. David Stem and David N. Weiss.[16][17] The film stars Jonathan Winters as Papa Smurf, Katy Perry as Smurfette, George Lopez as Grouchy Smurf, Gary Basaraba as Hefty Smurf, John Oliver as Vanity Smurf, Alan Cumming as Gutsy Smurf, Paul Reubens as Jokey Smurf, Hank Azaria as Gargamel, Neil Patrick Harris as Patrick Winslow and Jayma Mays as Grace Winslow, a couple in New York who help the Smurfs get back to their village. It was suggested that Quentin Tarantino would play Brainy Smurf, but this "didn't work out" so Fred Armisen voices Brainy instead.[18] A CGI/traditionally animated mini-film, titled The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol, was released on December 2, 2011, on The Smurfs DVD and Blu-ray.[19] A sequel to The Smurfs, titled The Smurfs 2, was released on July 31, 2013.[20]  A fully animated Smurfs reboot film, Smurfs: The Lost Village, was released on April 7, 2017, with Demi Lovato starring as Smurfette.[21]
+
+The Smurfs secured their place in North American pop culture in 1981, when the Saturday-morning cartoon series The Smurfs, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in association with SEPP International S.A.R.L, aired on NBC from September 12, 1981 to December 2, 1989 (reruns until August 25, 1990). The show continued to air on the USA network until 1993, and on Cartoon Network until 2003. The Smurfs is still broadcast on the Boomerang channel throughout the United States. The show became a major success for NBC, spawning spin-off television specials on an almost yearly basis. The Smurfs was nominated multiple times for Daytime Emmy awards, and won Outstanding Children's Entertainment Series in 1982–1983.[15] The Smurfs television show enjoyed continued success until 1990, when, after nearly a decade of success, NBC cancelled it due to decreasing ratings and plans to extend their Today morning show franchise to create a Saturday edition, although they did not do so until 1992 (two years later). The decreased ratings were the result of the network changing the format of the show, resulting in the final season featuring regular time travel with only a few Smurfs.
+
+In the TV series, many classical masterpieces are used as background music during the episodes, among them Franz Schubert's Unfinished Symphony (Symphony No. 8 in B minor), Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt and Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.[22] Reruns of the show are played on the Cartoon Network's sister channel Boomerang.
+
+The Smurfs was named the 97th best animated series by IGN. It has been called "kiddie cocaine" for people growing up during the 1980s.[23]
+
+On August 31, 2017 it was announced that IMPS and Dupuis Audiovisuel would be working on the new Smurfs TV series with CGI animation. The series is scheduled for 2020 and is co produced by Ketnet (Flanders), TF1 (France), KiKa (Germany),[24] OUFTIVI (Wallonia), Peyo Productions and Dupuis Audiovisuel[25][26][27] (the TV branch of the comics publisher). It will show new stories, not adaptations of comics or other older stories.[28] Nickelodeon picked up the series for a 2021 release in the United States.[29]
+
+On February 26, 2008, Warner Home Video released Season 1 Volume 1 on DVD, containing the first 19 episodes. On October 7, 2008, Warner Bros. released Season 1 Volume 2 on DVD, containing the remaining 20 episodes from season 1. Though Warner Bros. has decided to discontinue the season sets and release single-disc volume sets instead, they are reportedly still following the correct order of episodes.[citation needed]
+
+Magna Home Entertainment in Australia has released a 9-disc 50th Anniversary Collection, containing a total of 52 episodes[citation needed]. In September 2009, a Smurfette-themed collection containing 25 episodes was made available followed by the "Papa Smurf Collection" in December 2009 containing 26 themed episodes.[30]
+In July 2010, both the Smurfette and Papa Smurf Collection were included in a special 'Favourites Collection'.[31] Also releasing at the same time was the Smurfs very first feature film (produced in 1975), The Smurfs and the Magic Flute, available for the first time on DVD, in Australia.[32]
+
+November 3, 2010 witnessed the release of two "Just Smurfy" collections, each featuring episodes not yet released on DVD to the Australian market.[33][34] December 3, 2010 saw the 3rd collection hit the market.[35] A fourth Just Smurfy set was planned for release on March 2, 2011.[36]
+
+Magna Home Entertainment in Australia have released Season 1[37] & Season 2[38] on August 24, 2011. Season 3[39] and Season 4[40] released October 5, 2011. A limited edition 'Ultimate Collection 1'[41] which features the first 5 seasons was released on August 24, 2011. A 'Ultimate Collection 2'[42] which features Season 6 – Season 9 was released on November 2, 2011.
+
+The show is being released on DVD in the UK through a joint conjunction with Arrow Films and Fabulous Films Ltd. The complete 1st season was released in a 4 Disc box set on July 5, 2010. Season 2 was released on September 6, 2010, Seasons 3, 4 and 5 was released on July 1, 2013 and the original Smurfs feature film, The Smurfs and The Magic Flute, was released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 11, 2010.
+
+Papa Smurf, Hefty Smurf, and Brainy Smurf appeared in the cartoon crossover Cartoon All Stars to the Rescue along with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck (from the Looney Tunes franchise), Huey, Dewey and Louie (from DuckTales), Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, Garfield, Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Muppet Babies (Kermit, Piggy and Gonzo respectively), Slimer (from The Real Ghostbusters), ALF, Michelangelo (from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). Smurfette appeared on the promotional poster, but never[clarification needed] appeared in the actual film.
+
+From 1959 until the end of the 1960s, Dupuis produced Smurf figurines. But the best known and most widely available Smurf figurines are those made by Schleich, a German toy company. Most of the Smurf figurines given away as promotional material (e.g. by National Garages in the 1970s and McDonald's in the 1990s) are also made by Schleich.
+
+New Smurf figures continue to appear; in fact, only in two years since 1969 (1991 and 1998) have no new Smurfs entered the market. Schleich currently produces 8 to 12 new figurines a year. Over 300 million of them have been sold so far.[15]
+
+Other Smurf figurines have been created for advertising purposes, e.g. worldwide for McDonald's and Kinder Surprise, or nationally for e.g. Albert Heijn in the Netherlands, and Delhaize in Belgium.
+
+Special Smurf comics were often created for advertising campaigns. This started in the 1960s for Kwatta and Kellogg's, and later for companies like BP in the UK and Australia, or Benco (a Dutch chocolate drink).[43] These comics were often only part of a larger campaign, e.g. the Benco comics were accompanied by a TV ad.[44]
+
+A Smurf balloon/float/Falloon (which is half float half balloon) continues to be presented in holiday parades such as Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.[45]
+
+Smurfs had two cereals in the 1980s made by Post Cereals: Smurf-Berry Crunch cereal and Smurfs Magic Berries. Both had animated commercials on Saturday morning. Two Smurfs pastas, made by Chef Boyardee and DelVerde were made in the 1980s, as well. Also Libby's & Heinz came out with Smurf-A-Getti canned pasta for the American and Canadian market.
+
+The Smurfs had a commercial in the 1980s for the Mexican snack cake company Marinela Submarinos with a rare version of Smurfette (Pitufina) dressed in a red dress and her hair done in pigtails.
+
+Over the decades, many singles and albums of Smurf music have been released in different countries and languages, sometimes very successfully, with millions of copies sold. The best known is the single The Smurf Song and its accompanying album, created by Dutch musician Pierre Kartner who sings under the alias Father Abraham, which reached the #1 position in 16 countries. Worldwide, more than 10 million CDs with Smurf music have been sold between 2005 and 2007 alone.[15]
+
+In 1989, I.M.P.S and R-Tek Music, International created Smurfin!: Tenth Anniversary Commemorative Album, released by Quality Special Products in Canada and the United States and Dino Music in Australia. It was also released in parts of Europe. The Album came out on LP, CD and cassette. The LP featured 20 tracks (The Canadian CD and cassette had 16, the American CD had 10). The songs were covers of popular songs like Surfin' U.S.A., Kokomo, The Lion Sleeps Tonight and I Think We're Alone Now, as well as two original songs.
+
+For several years, the Smurfs were the children's act in the Ice Capades travelling ice show. After they were retired from that function, the Smurf suits from the show were issued to Ice Capades Chalets, the show's subsidiary chain of ice rinks, lasting until the show was sold to a group of investors led by Dorothy Hamill.  The Chalets were sold to Recreation World. The Smurfette suit in particular had a somewhat different hairstyle from what was portrayed in the Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
+
+In 1984, the Smurfs began appearing in North American theme parks owned by Kings Entertainment Corporation. Each park featured a Smurf attraction and Smurf walk-around figures. Canada's Wonderland had an entire Smurf village to walk through, ending with Gargamel's Castle. "The Smurfs' Enchanted Voyage" was located in Kings Island. Kings Dominion has "Smurf Mountain". California's Great America featured a pint-sized steel coaster, "The Blue Streak". Carowinds had an artificial island that was named Smurf Island that had a Smurf village—including toadstool houses which could be entered. Hanna–Barbera Land had a Smurf district.
+
+In 1989, in the France region of Lorraine, the Sorépark group opened a complete Smurfpark, named Big Bang Schtroumpf. In 1991, the park was bought by the successful Belgian Walibi Group and renamed Walibi Schtroumpf with new attractions. After the Walibi Group was acquired by Six Flags, the park was named Walibi Lorraine, and all the Smurfs references in the park were removed in 2003.
+
+Comics Station, Motiongate Dubai, Movie Animation Park Studios and Dream Island feature Smurf sections.
+
+The Smurfs have appeared in video games made for most major game consoles (including Nintendo's NES, Super NES, and Game Boy systems, Atari, ColecoVision, Sega's Game Gear, Master System, Mega Drive and Mega CD systems, and the original Sony PlayStation) and for the PC. In 2010, the Smurfs expanded into the world of apps for Android, the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch with the game Smurf Village.
+
+In 2005, an advertisement featuring The Smurfs was aired in Belgium in which the Smurf village is annihilated by warplanes.[47]  Designed as a UNICEF advertisement, and with the approval of the family of the Smurfs' late creator Peyo, the 25-second episode was shown on the national television after the 9 p.m. timeslot to avoid children having to see it. It was the keystone in a fund-raising campaign by UNICEF's Belgian arm to raise money for the rehabilitation of former child soldiers in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo—both former Belgian colonies.
+
+In honour of their 50th anniversary in 2008, the Smurfs began a year-long "Happy Smurfday Euro Tour" in connection with UNICEF. The Smurfs visited fifteen European countries on the day of their 50th "Smurfday" in the form of publicly distributed white figurines. The recipients could decorate and submit them to a competition. The results of this contest were auctioned off and raised a total amount of 124,700 euros for benefit of UNICEF.[48]
+
+The 50th anniversary of the Smurfs and the 80th anniversary of the birth of its creator Peyo, were celebrated by issuing a high-value collectors' coin: the Belgian 5 euro 50th anniversary of The Smurfs commemorative coin, minted in 2008.
+
+In 1998, writer Marc Schmidt wrote a parody article citing the Smurfs as an example of the impact of socialism in continental European culture.[49][50] In 2011, Schmidt's essay was scrutinised in a response essay by Kate Krake, who examined the nature of cultural theory built on textual observation and warned against creating false allegories out of texts like The Smurfs.[51]
+
+French sociologist Antoine Buéno described them in a 2011 book as a totalitarian and racist utopia.[52] Studio Peyo head Thierry Culliford, the son of Peyo, dismissed Buéno's accusations as "grotesque and frivolous".[53]

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+
+
+
+
+The Smurfs (French: Les Schtroumpfs; Dutch: De Smurfen) is a Belgian comic franchise centered on a fictional colony of small, blue, human-like creatures who live in mushroom-shaped houses in the forest. The Smurfs was first created and introduced as a series of comic characters by the Belgian comics artist Peyo (the pen name of Pierre Culliford) in 1958, wherein they were known as Les Schtroumpfs. There are more than 100 Smurf characters, and their names are based on adjectives that emphasise their characteristics, such as "Jokey Smurf", who likes to play practical jokes on his fellow smurfs. "Smurfette" was the first female Smurf to be introduced in the series. The Smurfs wear Phrygian caps, which came to represent freedom during the modern era.
+
+The word “smurf” is the original Dutch translation of the French "schtroumpf", which, according to Peyo, is a word he invented during a meal with fellow cartoonist André Franquin when he could not remember the word salt.[1][2][3]
+
+The Smurfs franchise began as a comic and expanded into advertising, films, TV series, ice capades, video games, theme parks, and dolls.
+
+At the time he came up with the idea for the Smurfs, Peyo was the creator, artist, and writer of the Franco-Belgian comics series titled Johan et Pirlouit (translated to English as Johan and Peewit), set in Europe during the Middle Ages and including elements of sword-and-sorcery. Johan serves as a brave young page to the king, and Pirlouit (pronounced Peer-loo-ee) functions as his faithful, if boastful and cheating, midget sidekick. 
+In 1958, Spirou magazine started to publish the Johan et Pirlouit story La Flûte à six trous ("The Flute with Six Holes").[4] The adventure involved them recovering a magic flute, which required some sorcery by the wizard Homnibus. In this manner, they met a tiny, blue-skinned humanoid in white clothing called a "Schtroumpf", followed by his numerous peers who looked just like him, with an elderly leader who wore red clothing and had a white beard. Their first full appearance was published in Spirou on October 23, 1958.[5] The characters proved to be a huge success, and the first independent Smurf stories appeared in Spirou in 1959, together with the first merchandising. The Smurfs shared more adventures with Johan and Pirlouit, got their own series and all subsequent publications of the original story were retitled La Flûte à six Schtroumpfs (also the title of the movie version of the story).
+
+With the commercial success of the Smurfs came the merchandising empire of Smurf miniatures, models, games, and toys. Entire collecting clubs have devoted themselves to collecting PVC Smurfs and Smurf merchandise.
+
+Schtroumpf is pronounced like the German word "Strumpf" meaning "sock". However, according to Peyo, the original author of the Smurfs comic strip, the term and the accompanying language of the Smurfs came during a meal he had with his colleague and friend André Franquin at the Belgian Coast. Having momentarily forgotten the word "salt", Peyo asked him (in French) to pass the schtroumpf. Franquin jokingly replied, "Here's the Schtroumpf—when you are done schtroumpfing, schtroumpf it back..." and the two spent the rest of that weekend speaking in "schtroumpf language".[1][3] The name was later translated into Dutch as Smurf, which was adopted in English.[2]
+
+Both the comics and cartoons have been translated in many languages. In most cases, the original name "Schtroumpf" is replaced by a new term. The most common are variations on the Dutch translation "Smurf", while other names are indicative of their gnome-like appearance.
+
+In Spanish, they are called "Pitufos", a term invented by  Miguel Agustí who was the head of the Spanish magazine Strong which first published the cartoon in Spanish. According to Agustí, he was walking around Barcelona while trying to come up a name for the cartoon. He came across a sculpture of the Ox of Patufet and was inspired by the word Patufet. From Patufet he derived the non-existent word Pitufo. The name later spread to most Spanish-language versions of the cartoon.
+[6]
+
+The storylines tend to be simple tales of bold adventure. The cast has a simple structure as well: almost all the characters look essentially alike—mostly male (a few female Smurfs have appeared: Smurfette, Sassette, and Nanny Smurf), short (three apples high),[7] with blue skin, white trousers with a hole for their short tails, white hat in the style of a Phrygian cap, and sometimes some additional accessory that identifies a personality (for example, "Handy Smurf" wears overalls instead of the standard trousers, a brimmed hat, and a pencil above his ear). Smurfs can walk and run, but often move by skipping on both feet. They love to eat sarsaparilla (a species of Smilax) leaves, whose berries the Smurfs naturally call "smurfberries." The smurfberries appear only in the cartoon; in the original comics, the Smurfs only eat the leaves from the sarsaparilla.
+
+The Smurfs fulfill simple archetypes of everyday people: "Lazy Smurf", "Grouchy Smurf", "Brainy Smurf", and so on. All Smurfs, with the exception of Papa, Baby, Smurfette, Nanny and Grandpa, are said to be 100 years old. There were originally 99 Smurfs, but this number increased as new Smurf characters appeared, such as Sassette and Nanny. All of the original Smurfs were male; later female additions are Smurfette and Sassette. Smurfette was Gargamel's creation, while Sassette was created by the Smurflings.
+
+A characteristic of the Smurf language is the frequent use of the undefinable word "smurf" and its derivatives in a variety of meanings. The Smurfs frequently replace both nouns and verbs in everyday speech with the word "smurf": "We're going smurfing on the River Smurf today." When used as a verb, the word "Smurf" typically means "to make", "to be", "to like", or "to do".
+
+Humans have found that replacing ordinary words with the term "smurf" at random is not enough: in one adventure, Peewit explains to some other humans that the statement "I'm smurfing to the smurf" means "I'm going to the wood", but a Smurf corrects him by saying that the proper statement would be "I'm smurfing to the smurf"; whereas what Peewit said was "I'm warbling to the dawn". So "I'm smurfing to the smurf" is not the same as "I'm smurfing to the smurf".[8]
+
+In the animated series, only some words (or a portion of the word) are replaced with the word "smurf". Context offers a reliable understanding of this speech pattern, but common vocabulary includes remarking that something is "just smurfy" or in some cases, "smurftastic".
+
+In Schtroumpf vert et vert Schtroumpf (see Smurf Versus Smurf), published in Belgium in 1972, it was revealed that the smurf village was divided between North and South, and that the Smurfs on either side had different ideas as to how the term "smurf" should be used: for instance, the Northern Smurfs called a certain object a "bottle smurfer", while the Southern Smurfs called it a "smurf opener". This story is considered a parody on the still ongoing taalstrijd (language war) between French- and Dutch-speaking communities in Belgium.[9]
+
+When they first appeared in 1958, the Smurfs lived in a part of the world called "Le Pays Maudit" (French for "the Cursed Land"). To reach it required magic or travelling through dense forests, deep marshes, a scorching desert and a high mountain range.[10] The Smurfs themselves use storks in order to travel long distances, such as to the kingdom where Johan and Pirlouit live, and keep up-to-date with events in the outside world.[11]
+
+In the Johan et Pirlouit stories, the Smurf village is made up of mushroom-like houses of different shapes and sizes in a desolate and rocky land with just a few trees. However, in the Smurf series itself, the mushroom-like houses are more similar to one another and are located in a clearing in the middle of a deep forest with grass, a river, and vegetation. Humans such as Gargamel are shown to live nearby, though it is almost impossible for an outsider to find the Smurf village except when led by a Smurf.
+
+The Smurfs' community generally takes the form of a cooperative, sharing, and kind environment based on the principle that each Smurf has something he or she is good at, and thus contributes it to Smurf society as he or she can. In return, each Smurf appears to be given their necessities of life, from housing and clothes to food without using any money in exchange.
+
+Papa Smurf is the leader of the community. Other Smurfs are generally named after their personality disposition, much like Disney's Seven Dwarfs; for example, Brainy, Greedy, Vanity, Lazy, Clumsy, Hefty, Jokey, Dreamy, Grouchy, or their profession, for example, Poet, Actor, Handy, Harmony, Farmer, Clockwork, Painter, Tailor, Miner, Architect, Reporter, Timber, Barber and Doctor Smurf. The first female Smurf, Smurfette, was created by Gargamel to lure the other Smurfs. Papa Smurf then changed her into what we see today. The non-Smurf characters who would appear later would include their enemies the wizard Gargamel, his cat Azrael, an ugly witch, Hogatha and Gargamel's godfather Balthazar; and their friends the page Johan and his young friend Peewit and the wizard Homnibus. There are 105 Smurfs.
+
+Since the first appearance of the Smurfs in Johan et Pirlouit in 1958, 31 Smurf comics volumes have been created, 16 of them by Peyo, the others by his studio. Originally, the Smurf stories appeared in Spirou magazine with reprints in many different magazines, but after Peyo left the publisher Dupuis, many comics were first published in dedicated Smurf magazines, which existed in French, Dutch, German and Turkish. A number of short stories and one page gags have been collected into comic books next to the regular series of 30 including a newly released Smurfs comics enitiled Les Schtroumpfs de L'ordre (The Order Law of the Smurfs). English translations have been published in the U.S. by the graphic novel publisher Papercutz as well as a mini series published by Marvel Comics in the mid-1980s.
+
+In 1965, a black-and-white 87-minute animated film called Les Aventures des Schtroumpfs was released in theatres in Belgium. It consisted of five short cartoons made in the previous years for broadcasting on Walloon TV. German copies and copies with Dutch subtitles are known to exist. The stories were based on existing Smurf stories like The Black Smurfs and The Smurfs and the Egg, and were created by writer Maurice Rosy and artist Eddy Ryssack from the small Dupuis animation studios.[12] In total, ten animated shorts were created between 1961 and 1967, the first series in black and white and the later ones in colour.
+
+In 1976, La Flûte à six schtroumpfs (an adaptation of the original "Johan et Pirlouit" story) was released. Michel Legrand provided the musical score to the film. The film would be released in the United States in 1983 (after the animated series became popular there) in an English language dubbed version titled The Smurfs and the Magic Flute. A few more full-length Smurf films were made, most notably The Baby Smurf and Here are the Smurfs,[13] created from episodes of the Hanna-Barbera television cartoon series.
+
+Sony Pictures has announced plans to begin a trilogy of live-action/computer-animated Smurf films, with the first film released on July 29, 2011.[14] The project had been in various stages of development since 2003.[15] In June 2008, it was announced that Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation had acquired film rights from Lafig Belgium. Jordan Kerner produced the film, with the screenwriters including Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third screenwriters J. David Stem and David N. Weiss.[16][17] The film stars Jonathan Winters as Papa Smurf, Katy Perry as Smurfette, George Lopez as Grouchy Smurf, Gary Basaraba as Hefty Smurf, John Oliver as Vanity Smurf, Alan Cumming as Gutsy Smurf, Paul Reubens as Jokey Smurf, Hank Azaria as Gargamel, Neil Patrick Harris as Patrick Winslow and Jayma Mays as Grace Winslow, a couple in New York who help the Smurfs get back to their village. It was suggested that Quentin Tarantino would play Brainy Smurf, but this "didn't work out" so Fred Armisen voices Brainy instead.[18] A CGI/traditionally animated mini-film, titled The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol, was released on December 2, 2011, on The Smurfs DVD and Blu-ray.[19] A sequel to The Smurfs, titled The Smurfs 2, was released on July 31, 2013.[20]  A fully animated Smurfs reboot film, Smurfs: The Lost Village, was released on April 7, 2017, with Demi Lovato starring as Smurfette.[21]
+
+The Smurfs secured their place in North American pop culture in 1981, when the Saturday-morning cartoon series The Smurfs, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in association with SEPP International S.A.R.L, aired on NBC from September 12, 1981 to December 2, 1989 (reruns until August 25, 1990). The show continued to air on the USA network until 1993, and on Cartoon Network until 2003. The Smurfs is still broadcast on the Boomerang channel throughout the United States. The show became a major success for NBC, spawning spin-off television specials on an almost yearly basis. The Smurfs was nominated multiple times for Daytime Emmy awards, and won Outstanding Children's Entertainment Series in 1982–1983.[15] The Smurfs television show enjoyed continued success until 1990, when, after nearly a decade of success, NBC cancelled it due to decreasing ratings and plans to extend their Today morning show franchise to create a Saturday edition, although they did not do so until 1992 (two years later). The decreased ratings were the result of the network changing the format of the show, resulting in the final season featuring regular time travel with only a few Smurfs.
+
+In the TV series, many classical masterpieces are used as background music during the episodes, among them Franz Schubert's Unfinished Symphony (Symphony No. 8 in B minor), Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt and Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.[22] Reruns of the show are played on the Cartoon Network's sister channel Boomerang.
+
+The Smurfs was named the 97th best animated series by IGN. It has been called "kiddie cocaine" for people growing up during the 1980s.[23]
+
+On August 31, 2017 it was announced that IMPS and Dupuis Audiovisuel would be working on the new Smurfs TV series with CGI animation. The series is scheduled for 2020 and is co produced by Ketnet (Flanders), TF1 (France), KiKa (Germany),[24] OUFTIVI (Wallonia), Peyo Productions and Dupuis Audiovisuel[25][26][27] (the TV branch of the comics publisher). It will show new stories, not adaptations of comics or other older stories.[28] Nickelodeon picked up the series for a 2021 release in the United States.[29]
+
+On February 26, 2008, Warner Home Video released Season 1 Volume 1 on DVD, containing the first 19 episodes. On October 7, 2008, Warner Bros. released Season 1 Volume 2 on DVD, containing the remaining 20 episodes from season 1. Though Warner Bros. has decided to discontinue the season sets and release single-disc volume sets instead, they are reportedly still following the correct order of episodes.[citation needed]
+
+Magna Home Entertainment in Australia has released a 9-disc 50th Anniversary Collection, containing a total of 52 episodes[citation needed]. In September 2009, a Smurfette-themed collection containing 25 episodes was made available followed by the "Papa Smurf Collection" in December 2009 containing 26 themed episodes.[30]
+In July 2010, both the Smurfette and Papa Smurf Collection were included in a special 'Favourites Collection'.[31] Also releasing at the same time was the Smurfs very first feature film (produced in 1975), The Smurfs and the Magic Flute, available for the first time on DVD, in Australia.[32]
+
+November 3, 2010 witnessed the release of two "Just Smurfy" collections, each featuring episodes not yet released on DVD to the Australian market.[33][34] December 3, 2010 saw the 3rd collection hit the market.[35] A fourth Just Smurfy set was planned for release on March 2, 2011.[36]
+
+Magna Home Entertainment in Australia have released Season 1[37] & Season 2[38] on August 24, 2011. Season 3[39] and Season 4[40] released October 5, 2011. A limited edition 'Ultimate Collection 1'[41] which features the first 5 seasons was released on August 24, 2011. A 'Ultimate Collection 2'[42] which features Season 6 – Season 9 was released on November 2, 2011.
+
+The show is being released on DVD in the UK through a joint conjunction with Arrow Films and Fabulous Films Ltd. The complete 1st season was released in a 4 Disc box set on July 5, 2010. Season 2 was released on September 6, 2010, Seasons 3, 4 and 5 was released on July 1, 2013 and the original Smurfs feature film, The Smurfs and The Magic Flute, was released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 11, 2010.
+
+Papa Smurf, Hefty Smurf, and Brainy Smurf appeared in the cartoon crossover Cartoon All Stars to the Rescue along with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck (from the Looney Tunes franchise), Huey, Dewey and Louie (from DuckTales), Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, Garfield, Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Muppet Babies (Kermit, Piggy and Gonzo respectively), Slimer (from The Real Ghostbusters), ALF, Michelangelo (from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). Smurfette appeared on the promotional poster, but never[clarification needed] appeared in the actual film.
+
+From 1959 until the end of the 1960s, Dupuis produced Smurf figurines. But the best known and most widely available Smurf figurines are those made by Schleich, a German toy company. Most of the Smurf figurines given away as promotional material (e.g. by National Garages in the 1970s and McDonald's in the 1990s) are also made by Schleich.
+
+New Smurf figures continue to appear; in fact, only in two years since 1969 (1991 and 1998) have no new Smurfs entered the market. Schleich currently produces 8 to 12 new figurines a year. Over 300 million of them have been sold so far.[15]
+
+Other Smurf figurines have been created for advertising purposes, e.g. worldwide for McDonald's and Kinder Surprise, or nationally for e.g. Albert Heijn in the Netherlands, and Delhaize in Belgium.
+
+Special Smurf comics were often created for advertising campaigns. This started in the 1960s for Kwatta and Kellogg's, and later for companies like BP in the UK and Australia, or Benco (a Dutch chocolate drink).[43] These comics were often only part of a larger campaign, e.g. the Benco comics were accompanied by a TV ad.[44]
+
+A Smurf balloon/float/Falloon (which is half float half balloon) continues to be presented in holiday parades such as Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.[45]
+
+Smurfs had two cereals in the 1980s made by Post Cereals: Smurf-Berry Crunch cereal and Smurfs Magic Berries. Both had animated commercials on Saturday morning. Two Smurfs pastas, made by Chef Boyardee and DelVerde were made in the 1980s, as well. Also Libby's & Heinz came out with Smurf-A-Getti canned pasta for the American and Canadian market.
+
+The Smurfs had a commercial in the 1980s for the Mexican snack cake company Marinela Submarinos with a rare version of Smurfette (Pitufina) dressed in a red dress and her hair done in pigtails.
+
+Over the decades, many singles and albums of Smurf music have been released in different countries and languages, sometimes very successfully, with millions of copies sold. The best known is the single The Smurf Song and its accompanying album, created by Dutch musician Pierre Kartner who sings under the alias Father Abraham, which reached the #1 position in 16 countries. Worldwide, more than 10 million CDs with Smurf music have been sold between 2005 and 2007 alone.[15]
+
+In 1989, I.M.P.S and R-Tek Music, International created Smurfin!: Tenth Anniversary Commemorative Album, released by Quality Special Products in Canada and the United States and Dino Music in Australia. It was also released in parts of Europe. The Album came out on LP, CD and cassette. The LP featured 20 tracks (The Canadian CD and cassette had 16, the American CD had 10). The songs were covers of popular songs like Surfin' U.S.A., Kokomo, The Lion Sleeps Tonight and I Think We're Alone Now, as well as two original songs.
+
+For several years, the Smurfs were the children's act in the Ice Capades travelling ice show. After they were retired from that function, the Smurf suits from the show were issued to Ice Capades Chalets, the show's subsidiary chain of ice rinks, lasting until the show was sold to a group of investors led by Dorothy Hamill.  The Chalets were sold to Recreation World. The Smurfette suit in particular had a somewhat different hairstyle from what was portrayed in the Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
+
+In 1984, the Smurfs began appearing in North American theme parks owned by Kings Entertainment Corporation. Each park featured a Smurf attraction and Smurf walk-around figures. Canada's Wonderland had an entire Smurf village to walk through, ending with Gargamel's Castle. "The Smurfs' Enchanted Voyage" was located in Kings Island. Kings Dominion has "Smurf Mountain". California's Great America featured a pint-sized steel coaster, "The Blue Streak". Carowinds had an artificial island that was named Smurf Island that had a Smurf village—including toadstool houses which could be entered. Hanna–Barbera Land had a Smurf district.
+
+In 1989, in the France region of Lorraine, the Sorépark group opened a complete Smurfpark, named Big Bang Schtroumpf. In 1991, the park was bought by the successful Belgian Walibi Group and renamed Walibi Schtroumpf with new attractions. After the Walibi Group was acquired by Six Flags, the park was named Walibi Lorraine, and all the Smurfs references in the park were removed in 2003.
+
+Comics Station, Motiongate Dubai, Movie Animation Park Studios and Dream Island feature Smurf sections.
+
+The Smurfs have appeared in video games made for most major game consoles (including Nintendo's NES, Super NES, and Game Boy systems, Atari, ColecoVision, Sega's Game Gear, Master System, Mega Drive and Mega CD systems, and the original Sony PlayStation) and for the PC. In 2010, the Smurfs expanded into the world of apps for Android, the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch with the game Smurf Village.
+
+In 2005, an advertisement featuring The Smurfs was aired in Belgium in which the Smurf village is annihilated by warplanes.[47]  Designed as a UNICEF advertisement, and with the approval of the family of the Smurfs' late creator Peyo, the 25-second episode was shown on the national television after the 9 p.m. timeslot to avoid children having to see it. It was the keystone in a fund-raising campaign by UNICEF's Belgian arm to raise money for the rehabilitation of former child soldiers in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo—both former Belgian colonies.
+
+In honour of their 50th anniversary in 2008, the Smurfs began a year-long "Happy Smurfday Euro Tour" in connection with UNICEF. The Smurfs visited fifteen European countries on the day of their 50th "Smurfday" in the form of publicly distributed white figurines. The recipients could decorate and submit them to a competition. The results of this contest were auctioned off and raised a total amount of 124,700 euros for benefit of UNICEF.[48]
+
+The 50th anniversary of the Smurfs and the 80th anniversary of the birth of its creator Peyo, were celebrated by issuing a high-value collectors' coin: the Belgian 5 euro 50th anniversary of The Smurfs commemorative coin, minted in 2008.
+
+In 1998, writer Marc Schmidt wrote a parody article citing the Smurfs as an example of the impact of socialism in continental European culture.[49][50] In 2011, Schmidt's essay was scrutinised in a response essay by Kate Krake, who examined the nature of cultural theory built on textual observation and warned against creating false allegories out of texts like The Smurfs.[51]
+
+French sociologist Antoine Buéno described them in a 2011 book as a totalitarian and racist utopia.[52] Studio Peyo head Thierry Culliford, the son of Peyo, dismissed Buéno's accusations as "grotesque and frivolous".[53]

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+The Smurfs (French: Les Schtroumpfs; Dutch: De Smurfen) is a Belgian comic franchise centered on a fictional colony of small, blue, human-like creatures who live in mushroom-shaped houses in the forest. The Smurfs was first created and introduced as a series of comic characters by the Belgian comics artist Peyo (the pen name of Pierre Culliford) in 1958, wherein they were known as Les Schtroumpfs. There are more than 100 Smurf characters, and their names are based on adjectives that emphasise their characteristics, such as "Jokey Smurf", who likes to play practical jokes on his fellow smurfs. "Smurfette" was the first female Smurf to be introduced in the series. The Smurfs wear Phrygian caps, which came to represent freedom during the modern era.
+
+The word “smurf” is the original Dutch translation of the French "schtroumpf", which, according to Peyo, is a word he invented during a meal with fellow cartoonist André Franquin when he could not remember the word salt.[1][2][3]
+
+The Smurfs franchise began as a comic and expanded into advertising, films, TV series, ice capades, video games, theme parks, and dolls.
+
+At the time he came up with the idea for the Smurfs, Peyo was the creator, artist, and writer of the Franco-Belgian comics series titled Johan et Pirlouit (translated to English as Johan and Peewit), set in Europe during the Middle Ages and including elements of sword-and-sorcery. Johan serves as a brave young page to the king, and Pirlouit (pronounced Peer-loo-ee) functions as his faithful, if boastful and cheating, midget sidekick. 
+In 1958, Spirou magazine started to publish the Johan et Pirlouit story La Flûte à six trous ("The Flute with Six Holes").[4] The adventure involved them recovering a magic flute, which required some sorcery by the wizard Homnibus. In this manner, they met a tiny, blue-skinned humanoid in white clothing called a "Schtroumpf", followed by his numerous peers who looked just like him, with an elderly leader who wore red clothing and had a white beard. Their first full appearance was published in Spirou on October 23, 1958.[5] The characters proved to be a huge success, and the first independent Smurf stories appeared in Spirou in 1959, together with the first merchandising. The Smurfs shared more adventures with Johan and Pirlouit, got their own series and all subsequent publications of the original story were retitled La Flûte à six Schtroumpfs (also the title of the movie version of the story).
+
+With the commercial success of the Smurfs came the merchandising empire of Smurf miniatures, models, games, and toys. Entire collecting clubs have devoted themselves to collecting PVC Smurfs and Smurf merchandise.
+
+Schtroumpf is pronounced like the German word "Strumpf" meaning "sock". However, according to Peyo, the original author of the Smurfs comic strip, the term and the accompanying language of the Smurfs came during a meal he had with his colleague and friend André Franquin at the Belgian Coast. Having momentarily forgotten the word "salt", Peyo asked him (in French) to pass the schtroumpf. Franquin jokingly replied, "Here's the Schtroumpf—when you are done schtroumpfing, schtroumpf it back..." and the two spent the rest of that weekend speaking in "schtroumpf language".[1][3] The name was later translated into Dutch as Smurf, which was adopted in English.[2]
+
+Both the comics and cartoons have been translated in many languages. In most cases, the original name "Schtroumpf" is replaced by a new term. The most common are variations on the Dutch translation "Smurf", while other names are indicative of their gnome-like appearance.
+
+In Spanish, they are called "Pitufos", a term invented by  Miguel Agustí who was the head of the Spanish magazine Strong which first published the cartoon in Spanish. According to Agustí, he was walking around Barcelona while trying to come up a name for the cartoon. He came across a sculpture of the Ox of Patufet and was inspired by the word Patufet. From Patufet he derived the non-existent word Pitufo. The name later spread to most Spanish-language versions of the cartoon.
+[6]
+
+The storylines tend to be simple tales of bold adventure. The cast has a simple structure as well: almost all the characters look essentially alike—mostly male (a few female Smurfs have appeared: Smurfette, Sassette, and Nanny Smurf), short (three apples high),[7] with blue skin, white trousers with a hole for their short tails, white hat in the style of a Phrygian cap, and sometimes some additional accessory that identifies a personality (for example, "Handy Smurf" wears overalls instead of the standard trousers, a brimmed hat, and a pencil above his ear). Smurfs can walk and run, but often move by skipping on both feet. They love to eat sarsaparilla (a species of Smilax) leaves, whose berries the Smurfs naturally call "smurfberries." The smurfberries appear only in the cartoon; in the original comics, the Smurfs only eat the leaves from the sarsaparilla.
+
+The Smurfs fulfill simple archetypes of everyday people: "Lazy Smurf", "Grouchy Smurf", "Brainy Smurf", and so on. All Smurfs, with the exception of Papa, Baby, Smurfette, Nanny and Grandpa, are said to be 100 years old. There were originally 99 Smurfs, but this number increased as new Smurf characters appeared, such as Sassette and Nanny. All of the original Smurfs were male; later female additions are Smurfette and Sassette. Smurfette was Gargamel's creation, while Sassette was created by the Smurflings.
+
+A characteristic of the Smurf language is the frequent use of the undefinable word "smurf" and its derivatives in a variety of meanings. The Smurfs frequently replace both nouns and verbs in everyday speech with the word "smurf": "We're going smurfing on the River Smurf today." When used as a verb, the word "Smurf" typically means "to make", "to be", "to like", or "to do".
+
+Humans have found that replacing ordinary words with the term "smurf" at random is not enough: in one adventure, Peewit explains to some other humans that the statement "I'm smurfing to the smurf" means "I'm going to the wood", but a Smurf corrects him by saying that the proper statement would be "I'm smurfing to the smurf"; whereas what Peewit said was "I'm warbling to the dawn". So "I'm smurfing to the smurf" is not the same as "I'm smurfing to the smurf".[8]
+
+In the animated series, only some words (or a portion of the word) are replaced with the word "smurf". Context offers a reliable understanding of this speech pattern, but common vocabulary includes remarking that something is "just smurfy" or in some cases, "smurftastic".
+
+In Schtroumpf vert et vert Schtroumpf (see Smurf Versus Smurf), published in Belgium in 1972, it was revealed that the smurf village was divided between North and South, and that the Smurfs on either side had different ideas as to how the term "smurf" should be used: for instance, the Northern Smurfs called a certain object a "bottle smurfer", while the Southern Smurfs called it a "smurf opener". This story is considered a parody on the still ongoing taalstrijd (language war) between French- and Dutch-speaking communities in Belgium.[9]
+
+When they first appeared in 1958, the Smurfs lived in a part of the world called "Le Pays Maudit" (French for "the Cursed Land"). To reach it required magic or travelling through dense forests, deep marshes, a scorching desert and a high mountain range.[10] The Smurfs themselves use storks in order to travel long distances, such as to the kingdom where Johan and Pirlouit live, and keep up-to-date with events in the outside world.[11]
+
+In the Johan et Pirlouit stories, the Smurf village is made up of mushroom-like houses of different shapes and sizes in a desolate and rocky land with just a few trees. However, in the Smurf series itself, the mushroom-like houses are more similar to one another and are located in a clearing in the middle of a deep forest with grass, a river, and vegetation. Humans such as Gargamel are shown to live nearby, though it is almost impossible for an outsider to find the Smurf village except when led by a Smurf.
+
+The Smurfs' community generally takes the form of a cooperative, sharing, and kind environment based on the principle that each Smurf has something he or she is good at, and thus contributes it to Smurf society as he or she can. In return, each Smurf appears to be given their necessities of life, from housing and clothes to food without using any money in exchange.
+
+Papa Smurf is the leader of the community. Other Smurfs are generally named after their personality disposition, much like Disney's Seven Dwarfs; for example, Brainy, Greedy, Vanity, Lazy, Clumsy, Hefty, Jokey, Dreamy, Grouchy, or their profession, for example, Poet, Actor, Handy, Harmony, Farmer, Clockwork, Painter, Tailor, Miner, Architect, Reporter, Timber, Barber and Doctor Smurf. The first female Smurf, Smurfette, was created by Gargamel to lure the other Smurfs. Papa Smurf then changed her into what we see today. The non-Smurf characters who would appear later would include their enemies the wizard Gargamel, his cat Azrael, an ugly witch, Hogatha and Gargamel's godfather Balthazar; and their friends the page Johan and his young friend Peewit and the wizard Homnibus. There are 105 Smurfs.
+
+Since the first appearance of the Smurfs in Johan et Pirlouit in 1958, 31 Smurf comics volumes have been created, 16 of them by Peyo, the others by his studio. Originally, the Smurf stories appeared in Spirou magazine with reprints in many different magazines, but after Peyo left the publisher Dupuis, many comics were first published in dedicated Smurf magazines, which existed in French, Dutch, German and Turkish. A number of short stories and one page gags have been collected into comic books next to the regular series of 30 including a newly released Smurfs comics enitiled Les Schtroumpfs de L'ordre (The Order Law of the Smurfs). English translations have been published in the U.S. by the graphic novel publisher Papercutz as well as a mini series published by Marvel Comics in the mid-1980s.
+
+In 1965, a black-and-white 87-minute animated film called Les Aventures des Schtroumpfs was released in theatres in Belgium. It consisted of five short cartoons made in the previous years for broadcasting on Walloon TV. German copies and copies with Dutch subtitles are known to exist. The stories were based on existing Smurf stories like The Black Smurfs and The Smurfs and the Egg, and were created by writer Maurice Rosy and artist Eddy Ryssack from the small Dupuis animation studios.[12] In total, ten animated shorts were created between 1961 and 1967, the first series in black and white and the later ones in colour.
+
+In 1976, La Flûte à six schtroumpfs (an adaptation of the original "Johan et Pirlouit" story) was released. Michel Legrand provided the musical score to the film. The film would be released in the United States in 1983 (after the animated series became popular there) in an English language dubbed version titled The Smurfs and the Magic Flute. A few more full-length Smurf films were made, most notably The Baby Smurf and Here are the Smurfs,[13] created from episodes of the Hanna-Barbera television cartoon series.
+
+Sony Pictures has announced plans to begin a trilogy of live-action/computer-animated Smurf films, with the first film released on July 29, 2011.[14] The project had been in various stages of development since 2003.[15] In June 2008, it was announced that Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation had acquired film rights from Lafig Belgium. Jordan Kerner produced the film, with the screenwriters including Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third screenwriters J. David Stem and David N. Weiss.[16][17] The film stars Jonathan Winters as Papa Smurf, Katy Perry as Smurfette, George Lopez as Grouchy Smurf, Gary Basaraba as Hefty Smurf, John Oliver as Vanity Smurf, Alan Cumming as Gutsy Smurf, Paul Reubens as Jokey Smurf, Hank Azaria as Gargamel, Neil Patrick Harris as Patrick Winslow and Jayma Mays as Grace Winslow, a couple in New York who help the Smurfs get back to their village. It was suggested that Quentin Tarantino would play Brainy Smurf, but this "didn't work out" so Fred Armisen voices Brainy instead.[18] A CGI/traditionally animated mini-film, titled The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol, was released on December 2, 2011, on The Smurfs DVD and Blu-ray.[19] A sequel to The Smurfs, titled The Smurfs 2, was released on July 31, 2013.[20]  A fully animated Smurfs reboot film, Smurfs: The Lost Village, was released on April 7, 2017, with Demi Lovato starring as Smurfette.[21]
+
+The Smurfs secured their place in North American pop culture in 1981, when the Saturday-morning cartoon series The Smurfs, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in association with SEPP International S.A.R.L, aired on NBC from September 12, 1981 to December 2, 1989 (reruns until August 25, 1990). The show continued to air on the USA network until 1993, and on Cartoon Network until 2003. The Smurfs is still broadcast on the Boomerang channel throughout the United States. The show became a major success for NBC, spawning spin-off television specials on an almost yearly basis. The Smurfs was nominated multiple times for Daytime Emmy awards, and won Outstanding Children's Entertainment Series in 1982–1983.[15] The Smurfs television show enjoyed continued success until 1990, when, after nearly a decade of success, NBC cancelled it due to decreasing ratings and plans to extend their Today morning show franchise to create a Saturday edition, although they did not do so until 1992 (two years later). The decreased ratings were the result of the network changing the format of the show, resulting in the final season featuring regular time travel with only a few Smurfs.
+
+In the TV series, many classical masterpieces are used as background music during the episodes, among them Franz Schubert's Unfinished Symphony (Symphony No. 8 in B minor), Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt and Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.[22] Reruns of the show are played on the Cartoon Network's sister channel Boomerang.
+
+The Smurfs was named the 97th best animated series by IGN. It has been called "kiddie cocaine" for people growing up during the 1980s.[23]
+
+On August 31, 2017 it was announced that IMPS and Dupuis Audiovisuel would be working on the new Smurfs TV series with CGI animation. The series is scheduled for 2020 and is co produced by Ketnet (Flanders), TF1 (France), KiKa (Germany),[24] OUFTIVI (Wallonia), Peyo Productions and Dupuis Audiovisuel[25][26][27] (the TV branch of the comics publisher). It will show new stories, not adaptations of comics or other older stories.[28] Nickelodeon picked up the series for a 2021 release in the United States.[29]
+
+On February 26, 2008, Warner Home Video released Season 1 Volume 1 on DVD, containing the first 19 episodes. On October 7, 2008, Warner Bros. released Season 1 Volume 2 on DVD, containing the remaining 20 episodes from season 1. Though Warner Bros. has decided to discontinue the season sets and release single-disc volume sets instead, they are reportedly still following the correct order of episodes.[citation needed]
+
+Magna Home Entertainment in Australia has released a 9-disc 50th Anniversary Collection, containing a total of 52 episodes[citation needed]. In September 2009, a Smurfette-themed collection containing 25 episodes was made available followed by the "Papa Smurf Collection" in December 2009 containing 26 themed episodes.[30]
+In July 2010, both the Smurfette and Papa Smurf Collection were included in a special 'Favourites Collection'.[31] Also releasing at the same time was the Smurfs very first feature film (produced in 1975), The Smurfs and the Magic Flute, available for the first time on DVD, in Australia.[32]
+
+November 3, 2010 witnessed the release of two "Just Smurfy" collections, each featuring episodes not yet released on DVD to the Australian market.[33][34] December 3, 2010 saw the 3rd collection hit the market.[35] A fourth Just Smurfy set was planned for release on March 2, 2011.[36]
+
+Magna Home Entertainment in Australia have released Season 1[37] & Season 2[38] on August 24, 2011. Season 3[39] and Season 4[40] released October 5, 2011. A limited edition 'Ultimate Collection 1'[41] which features the first 5 seasons was released on August 24, 2011. A 'Ultimate Collection 2'[42] which features Season 6 – Season 9 was released on November 2, 2011.
+
+The show is being released on DVD in the UK through a joint conjunction with Arrow Films and Fabulous Films Ltd. The complete 1st season was released in a 4 Disc box set on July 5, 2010. Season 2 was released on September 6, 2010, Seasons 3, 4 and 5 was released on July 1, 2013 and the original Smurfs feature film, The Smurfs and The Magic Flute, was released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 11, 2010.
+
+Papa Smurf, Hefty Smurf, and Brainy Smurf appeared in the cartoon crossover Cartoon All Stars to the Rescue along with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck (from the Looney Tunes franchise), Huey, Dewey and Louie (from DuckTales), Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, Garfield, Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Muppet Babies (Kermit, Piggy and Gonzo respectively), Slimer (from The Real Ghostbusters), ALF, Michelangelo (from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). Smurfette appeared on the promotional poster, but never[clarification needed] appeared in the actual film.
+
+From 1959 until the end of the 1960s, Dupuis produced Smurf figurines. But the best known and most widely available Smurf figurines are those made by Schleich, a German toy company. Most of the Smurf figurines given away as promotional material (e.g. by National Garages in the 1970s and McDonald's in the 1990s) are also made by Schleich.
+
+New Smurf figures continue to appear; in fact, only in two years since 1969 (1991 and 1998) have no new Smurfs entered the market. Schleich currently produces 8 to 12 new figurines a year. Over 300 million of them have been sold so far.[15]
+
+Other Smurf figurines have been created for advertising purposes, e.g. worldwide for McDonald's and Kinder Surprise, or nationally for e.g. Albert Heijn in the Netherlands, and Delhaize in Belgium.
+
+Special Smurf comics were often created for advertising campaigns. This started in the 1960s for Kwatta and Kellogg's, and later for companies like BP in the UK and Australia, or Benco (a Dutch chocolate drink).[43] These comics were often only part of a larger campaign, e.g. the Benco comics were accompanied by a TV ad.[44]
+
+A Smurf balloon/float/Falloon (which is half float half balloon) continues to be presented in holiday parades such as Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.[45]
+
+Smurfs had two cereals in the 1980s made by Post Cereals: Smurf-Berry Crunch cereal and Smurfs Magic Berries. Both had animated commercials on Saturday morning. Two Smurfs pastas, made by Chef Boyardee and DelVerde were made in the 1980s, as well. Also Libby's & Heinz came out with Smurf-A-Getti canned pasta for the American and Canadian market.
+
+The Smurfs had a commercial in the 1980s for the Mexican snack cake company Marinela Submarinos with a rare version of Smurfette (Pitufina) dressed in a red dress and her hair done in pigtails.
+
+Over the decades, many singles and albums of Smurf music have been released in different countries and languages, sometimes very successfully, with millions of copies sold. The best known is the single The Smurf Song and its accompanying album, created by Dutch musician Pierre Kartner who sings under the alias Father Abraham, which reached the #1 position in 16 countries. Worldwide, more than 10 million CDs with Smurf music have been sold between 2005 and 2007 alone.[15]
+
+In 1989, I.M.P.S and R-Tek Music, International created Smurfin!: Tenth Anniversary Commemorative Album, released by Quality Special Products in Canada and the United States and Dino Music in Australia. It was also released in parts of Europe. The Album came out on LP, CD and cassette. The LP featured 20 tracks (The Canadian CD and cassette had 16, the American CD had 10). The songs were covers of popular songs like Surfin' U.S.A., Kokomo, The Lion Sleeps Tonight and I Think We're Alone Now, as well as two original songs.
+
+For several years, the Smurfs were the children's act in the Ice Capades travelling ice show. After they were retired from that function, the Smurf suits from the show were issued to Ice Capades Chalets, the show's subsidiary chain of ice rinks, lasting until the show was sold to a group of investors led by Dorothy Hamill.  The Chalets were sold to Recreation World. The Smurfette suit in particular had a somewhat different hairstyle from what was portrayed in the Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
+
+In 1984, the Smurfs began appearing in North American theme parks owned by Kings Entertainment Corporation. Each park featured a Smurf attraction and Smurf walk-around figures. Canada's Wonderland had an entire Smurf village to walk through, ending with Gargamel's Castle. "The Smurfs' Enchanted Voyage" was located in Kings Island. Kings Dominion has "Smurf Mountain". California's Great America featured a pint-sized steel coaster, "The Blue Streak". Carowinds had an artificial island that was named Smurf Island that had a Smurf village—including toadstool houses which could be entered. Hanna–Barbera Land had a Smurf district.
+
+In 1989, in the France region of Lorraine, the Sorépark group opened a complete Smurfpark, named Big Bang Schtroumpf. In 1991, the park was bought by the successful Belgian Walibi Group and renamed Walibi Schtroumpf with new attractions. After the Walibi Group was acquired by Six Flags, the park was named Walibi Lorraine, and all the Smurfs references in the park were removed in 2003.
+
+Comics Station, Motiongate Dubai, Movie Animation Park Studios and Dream Island feature Smurf sections.
+
+The Smurfs have appeared in video games made for most major game consoles (including Nintendo's NES, Super NES, and Game Boy systems, Atari, ColecoVision, Sega's Game Gear, Master System, Mega Drive and Mega CD systems, and the original Sony PlayStation) and for the PC. In 2010, the Smurfs expanded into the world of apps for Android, the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch with the game Smurf Village.
+
+In 2005, an advertisement featuring The Smurfs was aired in Belgium in which the Smurf village is annihilated by warplanes.[47]  Designed as a UNICEF advertisement, and with the approval of the family of the Smurfs' late creator Peyo, the 25-second episode was shown on the national television after the 9 p.m. timeslot to avoid children having to see it. It was the keystone in a fund-raising campaign by UNICEF's Belgian arm to raise money for the rehabilitation of former child soldiers in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo—both former Belgian colonies.
+
+In honour of their 50th anniversary in 2008, the Smurfs began a year-long "Happy Smurfday Euro Tour" in connection with UNICEF. The Smurfs visited fifteen European countries on the day of their 50th "Smurfday" in the form of publicly distributed white figurines. The recipients could decorate and submit them to a competition. The results of this contest were auctioned off and raised a total amount of 124,700 euros for benefit of UNICEF.[48]
+
+The 50th anniversary of the Smurfs and the 80th anniversary of the birth of its creator Peyo, were celebrated by issuing a high-value collectors' coin: the Belgian 5 euro 50th anniversary of The Smurfs commemorative coin, minted in 2008.
+
+In 1998, writer Marc Schmidt wrote a parody article citing the Smurfs as an example of the impact of socialism in continental European culture.[49][50] In 2011, Schmidt's essay was scrutinised in a response essay by Kate Krake, who examined the nature of cultural theory built on textual observation and warned against creating false allegories out of texts like The Smurfs.[51]
+
+French sociologist Antoine Buéno described them in a 2011 book as a totalitarian and racist utopia.[52] Studio Peyo head Thierry Culliford, the son of Peyo, dismissed Buéno's accusations as "grotesque and frivolous".[53]

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+Franz Peter Schubert (German: [ˈfʁant͡s ˈpeːtɐ ˈʃuːbɐt]; 31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works (mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music and a large body of piano and chamber music. His major works include the Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 (Trout Quintet), the Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759 (Unfinished Symphony), the ”Great” Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944, the String Quintet (D. 956), the three last piano sonatas (D. 958–960), the opera Fierrabras (D. 796), the incidental music to the play Rosamunde (D. 797), and the song cycles Die schöne Müllerin (D. 795) and Winterreise (D. 911).
+
+Born in the Himmelpfortgrund suburb of Vienna, Schubert's uncommon gifts for music were evident from an early age. His father gave him his first violin lessons and his elder brother gave him piano lessons, but Schubert soon exceeded their abilities. In 1808, at the age of eleven, he became a pupil at the Stadtkonvikt school, where he became acquainted with the orchestral music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. He left the Stadtkonvikt at the end of 1813, and returned home to live with his father, where he began studying to become a schoolteacher; despite this, he continued his studies in composition with Antonio Salieri and still composed prolifically. In 1821, Schubert was admitted to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde as a performing member, which helped establish his name among the Viennese citizenry. He gave a concert of his own works to critical acclaim in March 1828, the only time he did so in his career. He died eight months later at the age of 31, the cause officially attributed to typhoid fever, but believed by some historians to be syphilis.
+
+Appreciation of Schubert's music while he was alive was limited to a relatively small circle of admirers in Vienna, but interest in his work increased significantly in the decades following his death. Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms and other 19th-century composers discovered and championed his works. Today, Schubert is ranked among the greatest composers of Western classical music and his music continues to be popular.
+
+Franz Peter Schubert was born in Himmelpfortgrund (now a part of Alsergrund), Vienna, Archduchy of Austria on 31 January 1797, and baptised in the Catholic Church the following day.[1] He was the twelfth child of Franz Theodor Florian Schubert (1763–1830) and Maria Elisabeth Katharina Vietz (1756–1812).[2] Schubert's immediate ancestors came originally from the province of Zuckmantel in Austrian Silesia.[3] His father, the son of a Moravian peasant, was a well-known parish schoolmaster, and his school in Lichtental (in Vienna's ninth district) had numerous students in attendance.[4] He came to Vienna from Zukmantel in 1784 and was appointed schoolmaster two years later.[3] His mother was the daughter of a Silesian master locksmith and had been a housemaid for a Viennese family before marriage. Of Franz Theodor and Elisabeth's fourteen children (one of them illegitimate, born in 1783),[5] nine died in infancy.
+
+At the age of five, Schubert began to receive regular instruction from his father, and a year later was enrolled at his father's school. Although it is not exactly known when Schubert received his first musical instruction, he was given piano lessons by his brother Ignaz, but they lasted for a very short time as Schubert excelled him within a few months.[6] Ignaz later recalled:[7]
+
+I was amazed when Franz told me, a few months after we began, that he had no need of any further instruction from me, and that for the future he would make his own way. And in truth his progress in a short period was so great that I was forced to acknowledge in him a master who had completely distanced and out stripped me, and whom I despaired of overtaking.
+
+His father gave him his first violin lessons when he was eight years old, training him to the point where he could play easy duets proficiently.[8] Soon after, Schubert was given his first lessons outside the family by Michael Holzer, organist and choirmaster of the local parish church in Lichtental. Holzer would often assure Schubert's father, with tears in his eyes, that he had never had such a pupil as Schubert,[7] and the lessons may have largely consisted of conversations and expressions of admiration.[9] Holzer gave the young Schubert instruction in piano and organ as well as in figured bass.[10] According to Holzer, however, he did not give him any real instruction as Schubert would already know anything that he tried to teach him; rather, he looked upon Schubert with "astonishment and silence".[8] The boy seemed to gain more from an acquaintance with a friendly apprentice joiner who took him to a neighbouring pianoforte warehouse where Schubert could practise on better instruments.[11] He also played viola in the family string quartet, with his brothers Ferdinand and Ignaz on first and second violin and his father on the cello. Schubert wrote his earliest string quartets for this ensemble.[12]
+
+Young Schubert first came to the attention of Antonio Salieri, then Vienna's leading musical authority, in 1804, when his vocal talent was recognised.[12] In November 1808, he became a pupil at the Stadtkonvikt (Imperial Seminary) through a choir scholarship. At the Stadtkonvikt, he was introduced to the overtures and symphonies of Mozart, the symphonies of Joseph Haydn and his younger brother Michael Haydn, and the overtures and symphonies of Beethoven, a composer for whom he developed a significant admiration.[13][14] His exposure to these and other works, combined with occasional visits to the opera, laid the foundation for a broader musical education.[15] One important musical influence came from the songs by Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg, an important composer of lieder. The precocious young student "wanted to modernize" Zumsteeg's songs, as reported by Joseph von Spaun, Schubert's friend.[16] Schubert's friendship with Spaun began at the Stadtkonvikt and lasted throughout his short life. In those early days, the financially well-off Spaun furnished the impoverished Schubert with much of his manuscript paper.[15]
+
+In the meantime, Schubert's genius began to show in his compositions; Salieri decided to start training him privately in music theory and even in composition. According to Ferdinand, the boy's first composition for piano was a Fantasy for four hands; his first song, Klagegesang der Hagar, would be written a year later.[17] Schubert was occasionally permitted to lead the Stadtkonvikt's orchestra,[18] and it was the first orchestra he wrote for. He devoted much of the rest of his time at the Stadtkonvikt to composing chamber music, several songs, piano pieces and, more ambitiously, liturgical choral works in the form of a "Salve Regina" (D 27), a "Kyrie" (D 31), in addition to the unfinished "Octet for Winds" (D 72, said to commemorate the 1812 death of his mother),[19] the cantata Wer ist groß? for male voices and orchestra (D 110, for his father's birthday in 1813), and his first symphony (D 82).[20]
+
+At the end of 1813, Schubert left the Stadtkonvikt and returned home for teacher training at the St Anna Normal-hauptschule. In 1814, he entered his father's school as teacher of the youngest pupils. For over two years young Schubert endured severe drudgery;[21] there were, however, compensatory interests even then. He continued to take private lessons in composition from Salieri, who gave Schubert more actual technical training than any of his other teachers, before they parted ways in 1817.[18]
+
+In 1814, Schubert met a young soprano named Therese Grob, daughter of a local silk manufacturer, and wrote several of his liturgical works (including a "Salve Regina" and a "Tantum Ergo") for her; she was also a soloist in the premiere of his Mass No. 1 (D. 105) in September[22] 1814.[21] Schubert wanted to marry her, but was hindered by the harsh marriage-consent law of 1815[23] requiring an aspiring bridegroom to show he had the means to support a family.[24] In November 1816, after failing to gain a musical post in Laibach (now Ljubljana, Slovenia), Schubert sent Grob's brother Heinrich a collection of songs retained by the family into the twentieth century.[25]
+
+One of Schubert's most prolific years was 1815. He composed over 20,000 bars of music, more than half of which were for orchestra, including nine church works (despite being agnostic),[26][27] a symphony, and about 140 Lieder.[28] In that year, he was also introduced to Anselm Hüttenbrenner and Franz von Schober, who would become his lifelong friends. Another friend, Johann Mayrhofer, was introduced to him by Spaun in 1815.[29]
+
+Throughout 1815, Schubert lived with his father at home; his mother died in 1812. He continued to teach at the school and give private musical instruction, earning enough money for his basic needs, including clothing, manuscript paper, pens, and ink, but with little to no money left over for luxuries.[30] Spaun was well aware that Schubert was discontented with his life at the schoolhouse, and was concerned for Schubert's development intellectually and musically. In May 1816, Spaun moved from his apartment in Landskrongasse (in the inner city) to a new home in the Landstraße suburb; one of the first things he did after he settled into the new home was to invite Schubert to spend a few days with him. This was probably Schubert's first visit away from home or school.[31] Schubert's unhappiness during his years as a schoolteacher possibly showed early signs of depression, and it is a virtual certainty that Schubert suffered from cyclothymia throughout his life.[32]
+
+In 1989 the musicologist Maynard Solomon suggested that Schubert was erotically attracted to men,[33] a thesis that has, at times, been heatedly debated.[34][35] The musicologist and Schubert expert Rita Steblin has said that he was "chasing women".[36] The theory of Schubert's sexuality or "Schubert as Other" has continued to influence current scholarship.[37]
+
+Significant changes happened in 1816. Schober, a student and of good family and some means, invited Schubert to room with him at his mother's house. The proposal was particularly opportune, for Schubert had just made the unsuccessful application for the post of kapellmeister at Laibach, and he had also decided not to resume teaching duties at his father's school. By the end of the year, he became a guest in Schober's lodgings.[38] For a time, he attempted to increase the household resources by giving music lessons, but they were soon abandoned, and he devoted himself to composition. "I compose every morning, and when one piece is done, I begin another."[39] During this year, he focused on orchestral and choral works, although he also continued to write Lieder.[40] Much of this work was unpublished, but manuscripts and copies circulated among friends and admirers.[41]
+
+In early 1817, Schober introduced Schubert to Johann Michael Vogl, a prominent baritone twenty years Schubert's senior. Vogl, for whom Schubert went on to write a great many songs, became one of Schubert's main proponents in Viennese musical circles. Schubert also met Joseph Hüttenbrenner (brother of Anselm), who also played a role in promoting his music.[42] These, and an increasing circle of friends and musicians, became responsible for promoting, collecting, and, after his death, preserving his work.[43]
+
+In late 1817, Schubert's father gained a new position at a school in Rossau, not far from Lichtental. Schubert rejoined his father and reluctantly took up teaching duties there. In early 1818, he applied for membership in the prestigious Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, intending to gain admission as an accompanist, but also so that his music, especially the songs, could be performed in the evening concerts. He was rejected on the basis that he was "no amateur", although he had been employed as a schoolteacher at the time and there were professional musicians already among the society's membership.[44][45] However, he began to gain more notice in the press, and the first public performance of a secular work, an overture performed in February 1818, received praise from the press in Vienna and abroad.[46]
+
+Schubert spent the summer of 1818 as a music teacher to the family of Count Johann Karl Esterházy at their château in Zseliz (now Želiezovce, Slovakia). The pay was relatively good, and his duties teaching piano and singing to the two daughters were relatively light, allowing him to compose happily. Schubert may have written his Marche Militaire in D major (D. 733 no. 1) for Marie and Karoline, in addition to other piano duets.[47] On his return from Zseliz, he took up residence with his friend Mayrhofer.[45]
+
+During the early 1820s, Schubert was part of a close-knit circle of artists and students who had social gatherings together that became known as Schubertiads. Many of them took place in Ignaz von Sonnleithner's large apartment in the Gundelhof (Brandstätte 5, Vienna). The tight circle of friends with which Schubert surrounded himself was dealt a blow in early 1820. Schubert and four of his friends were arrested by the Austrian police, who (in the aftermath of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars) were on their guard against revolutionary activities and suspicious of any gathering of youth or students. One of Schubert's friends, Johann Senn, was put on trial, imprisoned for over a year, and then permanently forbidden to enter Vienna. The other four, including Schubert, were "severely reprimanded", in part for "inveighing against [officials] with insulting and opprobrious language".[48] While Schubert never saw Senn again, he did set some of his poems, Selige Welt (D. 743) and Schwanengesang (D 744), to music. The incident may have played a role in a falling-out with Mayrhofer, with whom he was living at the time.[49]
+
+Schubert, who was only a little more than five feet tall,[50] was nicknamed "Schwammerl" by his friends, which Gibbs describes as translating to "Tubby" or "Little Mushroom".[51] "Schwamm" is German (in the Austrian and Bavarian dialects) for mushroom; the ending "-erl" makes it a diminutive. Gibbs also claims he may have occasionally drunk to excess, noting that references to Schubert's heavy drinking "... come not only in later accounts, but also in documents dating from his lifetime."[52]
+
+The compositions of 1819 and 1820 show a marked advance in development and maturity of style.[53] The unfinished oratorio Lazarus (D. 689) was begun in February; later followed, amid a number of smaller works, by the hymn "Der 23. Psalm" (D. 706), the octet "Gesang der Geister über den Wassern" (D. 714), the Quartettsatz in C minor (D. 703), and the Wanderer Fantasy in C major for piano (D. 760). In 1820, two of Schubert's operas were staged: Die Zwillingsbrüder (D. 647) appeared at the Theater am Kärntnertor on 14 June, and Die Zauberharfe (D. 644) appeared at the Theater an der Wien on 21 August.[54] Hitherto, his larger compositions (apart from his masses) had been restricted to the amateur orchestra at the Gundelhof (Brandstätte 5, Vienna), a society which grew out of the quartet-parties at his home. Now he began to assume a more prominent position, addressing a wider public.[54] Publishers, however, remained distant, with Anton Diabelli hesitantly agreeing to print some of his works on commission.[55] The first seven opus numbers (all songs) appeared on these terms; then the commission ceased, and he began to receive parsimonious royalties. The situation improved somewhat in March 1821 when Vogl performed the song "Der Erlkönig" (D. 328) at a concert that was extremely well received.[56] That month, Schubert composed a Variation on a Waltz by Diabelli (D 718), being one of the fifty composers who contributed to the Vaterländischer Künstlerverein publication.
+
+The production of the two operas turned Schubert's attention more firmly than ever in the direction of the stage, where, for a variety of reasons, he was almost completely unsuccessful. All in all, he embarked on twenty stage projects, each of them failures which were quickly forgotten. In 1822, Alfonso und Estrella was refused, partly owing to its libretto (written by Schubert's friend Franz von Schober).[57] In 1823, Fierrabras (D 796) was rejected: Domenico Barbaia, impresario for the court theatres, largely lost interest in new German opera due to the popularity of Rossini and the Italian operatic style, and the failure of Carl Maria von Weber's Euryanthe.[58] Die Verschworenen (The Conspirators, D 787) was prohibited by the censor (apparently on the grounds of its title),[59] and Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern (D 797) was withdrawn after two nights, owing to the poor quality of the play for which Schubert had written incidental music.
+
+Despite his operatic failures, Schubert's reputation was growing steadily on other fronts. In 1821, the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde finally accepted him as a performing member, and the number of performances of his music grew remarkably.[60] These performances helped Schubert's reputation grow rapidly among the members of the Gesellschaft[60] and establish his name among the citizenry.[57] Some of the members of the Gesellschaft, most notably Ignaz von Sonnleithner and his son Leopold von Sonnleithner, had a sizeable influence on the affairs of the society, and as a result of that, and Schubert's growing reputation, his works were included in three major concerts of the Gesellschaft in 1821. In April, one of his male-voice quartets was performed, and in November, his Overture in E minor (D. 648) received its first public performance;[60] on a different concert of the same day as the premiere of the Overture, his song Der Wanderer (D. 489) was performed.[57]
+
+In 1822, Schubert made the acquaintance of both Weber and Beethoven, but little came of it in either case: however, Beethoven is said to have acknowledged the younger man's gifts on a few occasions. On his deathbed, Beethoven is said to have looked into some of the younger man's works and exclaimed: "Truly, the spark of divine genius resides in this Schubert!" Beethoven also reportedly predicted that Schubert "would make a great sensation in the world," and regretted that he had not been more familiar with him earlier; he wished to see his operas and works for piano, but his severe illness prevented him from doing so.[61]
+
+Despite his preoccupation with the stage, and later with his official duties, Schubert found time during these years for a significant amount of composition. He completed the Mass in A-flat major, (D. 678) in 1822, and later that year embarked suddenly on a work which more decisively than almost any other in those years showed his maturing personal vision, the Symphony in B minor, known as the Unfinished Symphony (D. 759).[62] The reason he left it unfinished – after writing two movements and sketches some way into a third – continues to be discussed and written about, and it is also remarkable that he did not mention it to any of his friends, even though, as Brian Newbould notes, he must have felt thrilled by what he was achieving.[63] In 1823, Schubert wrote his first large-scale song cycle, Die schöne Müllerin (D. 795), setting poems by Wilhelm Müller.[64] This series, together with the later cycle Winterreise (D. 911, also setting texts of Müller in 1827) is widely considered one of the pinnacles of Lieder.[65] He also composed the song Du bist die Ruh' (You are rest and peace,[66] D. 776) during this year. Also in that year, symptoms of syphilis first appeared.[67]
+
+In 1824, he wrote the Variations in E minor for flute and piano Trockne Blumen, a song from the cycle Die schöne Müllerin, and several string quartets. He also wrote the Sonata in A minor for arpeggione and piano (D. 821) at the time when there was a minor craze over that instrument.[68] In the spring of that year, he wrote the Octet in F major (D. 803), a sketch for a 'Grand Symphony'; and in the summer went back to Zseliz. There he became attracted to Hungarian musical idiom, and wrote the Divertissement à la hongroise in G minor for piano duet (D. 818) and the String Quartet in A minor Rosamunde (D. 804). It has been said that he held a hopeless passion for his pupil, the Countess Caroline Esterházy,[69] but the only work he dedicated to her was his Fantasia in F minor for piano duet (D. 940).[70] His friend Eduard von Bauernfeld penned the following verse, which appears to reference Schubert's unrequited sentiments:
+
+In love with a Countess of youthful grace,
+—A pupil of Galt's; in desperate case
+Young Schubert surrenders himself to another,
+And fain would avoid such affectionate pother[71]
+
+The setbacks of previous years were compensated by the prosperity and happiness of 1825. Publication had been moving more rapidly, the stress of poverty was for a time lightened, and in the summer he had a pleasant holiday in Upper Austria where he was welcomed with enthusiasm. It was during this tour that he produced the seven-song cycle Fräulein am See, based on Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake, and including "Ellens Gesang III" ("Hymn to the Virgin") (D. 839, Op. 52, No. 6); the lyrics of Adam Storck's German translation of the Scott poem are now frequently replaced by the full text of the traditional Roman Catholic prayer Hail Mary (Ave Maria in Latin), but for which the Schubert melody is not an original setting. The original only opens with the greeting "Ave Maria", which also recurs only in the refrain.[72] In 1825, Schubert also wrote the Piano Sonata in A minor (D 845, first published as op. 42), and began the Symphony in C major (Great C major, D. 944), which was completed the following year.[73]
+
+From 1826 to 1828, Schubert resided continuously in Vienna, except for a brief visit to Graz, Austria, in 1827. In 1826, he dedicated a symphony (D. 944, that later came to be known as the Great C major) to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde and received an honorarium in return.[74] The String Quartet No. 14 in D minor (D. 810), with the variations on Death and the Maiden, was written during the winter of 1825–1826, and first played on 25 January 1826. Later in the year came the String Quartet No. 15 in G major, (D 887, first published as op. 161), the Rondo in B minor for violin and piano (D. 895), Rondeau brillant, and the Piano Sonata in G major, (D 894, first published as Fantasie in G, op. 78). He also produced in 1826 three Shakespearian songs, of which "Ständchen" (D. 889) and "An Sylvia" (D. 891) were allegedly written on the same day, the former at a tavern where he broke his afternoon's walk, the latter on his return to his lodging in the evening.[75]
+
+The works of his last two years reveal a composer entering a new professional and compositional stage.[76] Although parts of Schubert's personality were influenced by his friends, he nurtured an intensely personal dimension in solitude; it was out of this dimension that he wrote his greatest music.[77] The death of Beethoven affected Schubert deeply,[78] and may have motivated Schubert to reach new artistic peaks. In 1827, Schubert wrote the song cycle Winterreise (D. 911), the Fantasy in C major for violin and piano (D. 934, first published as op. post. 159), the Impromptus for piano, and the two piano trios (the first in B-flat major (D. 898), and the second in E-flat major, (D. 929);[79] in 1828 the cantata Mirjams Siegesgesang (Victory Song of Miriam, D 942) on a text by Franz Grillparzer, the Mass in E-flat major (D. 950), the Tantum Ergo (D. 962) in the same key, the String Quintet in C major (D. 956), the second "Benedictus" to the Mass in C major (D. 961), the three final piano sonatas (D. 958, D. 959, and D. 960), and the collection 13 Lieder nach Gedichten von Rellstab und Heine for voice and piano, also known as Schwanengesang (Swan-song, D. 957).[80] (This collection – which includes settings of words by Heinrich Heine, Ludwig Rellstab, and Johann Gabriel Seidl – is not a true song cycle like Die schöne Müllerin or Winterreise.[81]) The Great C major symphony is dated 1828, but Schubert scholars believe that this symphony was largely written in 1825–1826 (being referred to while he was on holiday at Gastein in 1825—that work, once considered lost, is now generally seen as an early stage of his C major symphony) and was revised for prospective performance in 1828. The orchestra of the Gesellschaft reportedly read through the symphony at a rehearsal, but never scheduled a public performance of it. The reasons continue to be unknown, although the difficulty of the symphony is the possible explanation.[82] In the last weeks of his life, he began to sketch three movements for a new Symphony in D major (D 936A);[83] In this work, he anticipates Mahler's use of folksong-like harmonics and bare soundscapes.[84] Schubert expressed the wish, were he to survive his final illness, to further develop his knowledge of harmony and counterpoint, and had actually made appointments for lessons with the counterpoint master Simon Sechter.[85]
+
+On 26 March 1828, the anniversary of Beethoven's death, Schubert gave, for the only time in his career, a public concert of his own works.[86] The concert was a success popularly and financially,[86] even though it would be overshadowed by Niccolò Paganini's first appearances in Vienna shortly after.[87]
+
+In the midst of this creative activity, his health deteriorated. By the late 1820s, Schubert's health was failing and he confided to some friends that he feared that he was near death. In the late summer of 1828, he saw the physician Ernst Rinna, who may have confirmed Schubert's suspicions that he was ill beyond cure and likely to die soon.[88] Some of his symptoms matched those of mercury poisoning (mercury was then a common treatment for syphilis, again suggesting that Schubert suffered from it).[89] At the beginning of November, he again fell ill, experiencing headaches, fever, swollen joints, and vomiting. He was generally unable to retain solid food and his condition worsened. Five days before Schubert's death, his friend, violinist Karl Holz, and his string quartet visited him to play for him. The last musical work he had wished to hear was Beethoven's String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 131; Holz commented: "The King of Harmony has sent the King of Song a friendly bidding to the crossing".[90]
+
+Schubert died in Vienna, aged 31, on 19 November 1828, at the apartment of his brother Ferdinand. The cause of his death was officially diagnosed as typhoid fever, though other theories have been proposed, including the tertiary stage of syphilis.[88] It was near Beethoven, whom he had admired all his life, that Schubert was buried by his own request, in the village cemetery of Währing, Vienna.[91] He had served as a torchbearer at Beethoven's funeral a year before his own death.
+
+In 1872, a memorial to Franz Schubert was erected in Vienna's Stadtpark.[91] In 1888, both Schubert's and Beethoven's graves were moved to the Zentralfriedhof where they can now be found next to those of Johann Strauss II and Johannes Brahms.[92] Anton Bruckner was present at both exhumations, and he reached into both coffins and held the revered skulls in his hands.[93] The cemetery in Währing was converted into a park in 1925, called the Schubert Park, and his former grave site was marked by a bust. His epitaph, written by his friend, the poet Franz Grillparzer, reads: Die Tonkunst begrub hier einen reichen Besitz, aber noch viel schönere Hoffnungen (“The art of music has here interred a precious treasure, but yet far fairer hopes”).
+
+Schubert was remarkably prolific, writing over 1,500 works in his short career. His compositional style progressed rapidly throughout his short life.[94] The largest number of his compositions are songs for solo voice and piano (roughly 630).[95] Schubert also composed a considerable number of secular works for two or more voices, namely part songs, choruses and cantatas. He completed eight orchestral overtures and seven complete symphonies, in addition to fragments of six others. While he composed no concertos, he did write three concertante works for violin and orchestra. Schubert wrote a large body of music for solo piano, including eleven incontrovertibly completed sonatas and at least nine more in varying states of completion,[a] numerous miscellaneous works and many short dances, in addition to producing a large set of works for piano four hands. He also wrote over fifty chamber works, including some fragmentary works. Schubert's sacred output includes seven masses, one oratorio and one requiem, among other mass movements and numerous smaller compositions.[96] He completed only eleven of his twenty stage works.[97]
+
+In July 1947 the Austrian composer Ernst Krenek discussed Schubert's style, abashedly admitting that he had at first "shared the wide-spread opinion that Schubert was a lucky inventor of pleasing tunes ... lacking the dramatic power and searching intelligence which distinguished such 'real' masters as J. S. Bach or Beethoven". Krenek wrote that he reached a completely different assessment after close study of Schubert's pieces at the urging of his friend and fellow composer Eduard Erdmann. Krenek pointed to the piano sonatas as giving "ample evidence that [Schubert] was much more than an easy-going tune-smith who did not know, and did not care, about the craft of composition." Each sonata then in print, according to Krenek, exhibited "a great wealth of technical finesse" and revealed Schubert as "far from satisfied with pouring his charming ideas into conventional moulds; on the contrary he was a thinking artist with a keen appetite for experimentation."[98]
+
+That "appetite for experimentation" manifests itself repeatedly in Schubert's output in a wide variety of forms and genres, including opera, liturgical music, chamber and solo piano music, and symphonic works. Perhaps most familiarly, his adventurousness is reflected in his notably original sense of modulation; for example, the second movement of the String Quintet (D. 956), which is in E major, features a central section in the distant key of F minor.[99] It also appears in unusual choices of instrumentation, as in the Sonata in A minor for arpeggione and piano (D. 821), or the unconventional scoring of the Trout Quintet (D. 667), which is scored for piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass, whereas conventional piano quintets are scored for piano and string quartet.
+
+Although Schubert was clearly influenced by the Classical sonata forms of Beethoven and Mozart, his formal structures and his developments tend to give the impression more of melodic development than of harmonic drama.[100] This combination of Classical form and long-breathed Romantic melody sometimes lends them a discursive style: his Great C major Symphony was described by Robert Schumann as running to "heavenly lengths".[101]
+
+It was in the genre of the Lied that Schubert made his most indelible mark. Leon Plantinga remarks that "in his more than six hundred Lieder he explored and expanded the potentialities of the genre, as no composer before him."[102] Prior to Schubert's influence, Lieder tended toward a strophic, syllabic treatment of text, evoking the folksong qualities engendered by the stirrings of Romantic nationalism.[103]
+
+Among Schubert's treatments of the poetry of Goethe, his settings of "Gretchen am Spinnrade" (D. 118) and "Der Erlkönig" (D. 328) are particularly striking for their dramatic content, forward-looking uses of harmony, and their use of eloquent pictorial keyboard figurations, such as the depiction of the spinning wheel and treadle in the piano in "Gretchen" and the furious and ceaseless gallop in "Erlkönig".[104] He composed music using the poems of a myriad of poets, with Goethe, Mayrhofer and Schiller being top three most frequent, and others including Heinrich Heine, Friedrich Rückert and Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff. Of additional particular note are his two song cycles on the poems of Wilhelm Müller, Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise, which helped to establish the genre and its potential for musical, poetic, and almost operatic dramatic narrative. His last collection of songs published in 1828 after his death, Schwanengesang, is also an innovative contribution to German lieder literature, as it features poems by different poets, namely Ludwig Rellstab, Heine, and Johann Gabriel Seidl. The Wiener Theaterzeitung, writing about Winterreise at the time, commented that it was a work that "none can sing or hear without being deeply moved".[105]
+
+Antonín Dvořák wrote in 1894 that Schubert, whom he considered one of the truly great composers, was clearly influential on shorter works, especially Lieder and shorter piano works: "The tendency of the romantic school has been toward short forms, and although Weber helped to show the way, to Schubert belongs the chief credit of originating the short models of piano forte pieces which the romantic school has preferably cultivated. [...] Schubert created a new epoch with the Lied. [...] All other songwriters have followed in his footsteps."[106]
+
+When Schubert died he had around 100 opus numbers published, mainly songs, chamber music and smaller piano compositions.[107] Publication of smaller pieces continued (including opus numbers up to 173 in the 1860s, 50 instalments with songs published by Diabelli and dozens of first publications Peters),[108] but the manuscripts of many of the longer works, whose existence was not widely known, remained hidden in cabinets and file boxes of Schubert's family, friends, and publishers.[109] Even some of Schubert's friends were unaware of the full scope of what he wrote, and for many years he was primarily recognised as the "prince of song", although there was recognition of some of his larger-scale efforts.[110] In 1838 Robert Schumann, on a visit to Vienna, found the dusty manuscript of the C major Symphony (D. 944) and took it back to Leipzig where it was performed by Felix Mendelssohn and celebrated in the Neue Zeitschrift. An important step towards the recovery of the neglected works was the journey to Vienna which the music historian George Grove and the composer Arthur Sullivan made in October 1867. The travellers unearthed the manuscripts of six of the symphonies, parts of the incidental music to Rosamunde, the Mass No. 1 in F major (D. 105), and the operas Des Teufels Lustschloss (D. 84), Fernardo (D. 220), Der vierjährige Posten (D. 190), and Die Freunde von Salamanka (D. 326), and several other unnamed works. With these discoveries, Grove and Sullivan were able to inform the public of the existence of these works; in addition, they were able to copy the fourth and sixth symphonies, the Rosamunde incidental music, and the overture to Die Freunde von Salamanka.[109] This led to more widespread public interest in Schubert's work.[111]
+
+From 1884 to 1897, Breitkopf & Härtel published Franz Schubert's Works, a critical edition including a contribution made – among others – by Johannes Brahms, editor of the first series containing eight symphonies.[112] The publication of the Neue Schubert-Ausgabe by Bärenreiter started in the second half of the 20th century.[113]
+
+Since relatively few of Schubert's works were published in his lifetime, only a small number of them have opus numbers assigned, and even in those cases, the sequence of the numbers does not give a good indication of the order of composition. Austrian musicologist Otto Erich Deutsch (1883–1967) is known for compiling the first comprehensive catalogue of Schubert's works. This was first published in English in 1951 (Schubert Thematic Catalogue) and subsequently revised for a new edition in German in 1978 (Franz Schubert: Thematisches Verzeichnis seiner Werke in chronologischer Folge – Franz Schubert: Thematic Catalogue of his Works in Chronological Order).[114]
+
+Confusion arose quite early over the numbering of Schubert's late symphonies. Schubert's last completed symphony, the Great C major D 944, was assigned the numbers 7, 8, 9 and 10, depending on publication. Similarly the Unfinished D 759 has been indicated with the numbers 7, 8, and 9.[115]
+
+The order usually followed for these late symphonies by English-language sources is:
+
+An even broader confusion arose over the numbering of the piano sonatas, with numbering systems ranging from 15 to 23 sonatas.
+
+A feeling of regret for the loss of potential masterpieces caused by Schubert's early death at age 31 was expressed in the epitaph on his large tombstone written by Grillparzer: "Here music has buried a treasure, but even fairer hopes."[116] Some prominent musicians share a similar view, including the pianist Radu Lupu, who said: "[Schubert] is the composer for whom I am really most sorry that he died so young. ... Just before he died, when he wrote his beautiful two-cello String Quintet in C, he said very modestly that he was trying to learn a little more about counterpoint, and he was perfectly right. We'll never know in what direction he was going or would have gone."[117] However, others have expressed disagreement with this early view. For instance, Robert Schumann said: "It is pointless to guess at what more [Schubert] might have achieved. He did enough; and let them be honoured who have striven and accomplished as he did",[118] and the pianist András Schiff said that "Schubert lived a very short life, but it was a very concentrated life. In 31 years, he lived more than other people would live in 100 years, and it is needless to speculate what could he have written had he lived another 50 years. It's irrelevant, just like with Mozart; these are the two natural geniuses of music."[119]
+
+The Wiener Schubertbund, one of Vienna's leading choral societies, was founded in 1863, whilst the Gründerzeit was taking place. The Schubertbund quickly became a rallying point for schoolteachers and other members of the Viennese middle class who felt increasingly embattled during the Gründerzeit and the aftermath of the Panic of 1873. In 1872, the dedication of the Schubert Denkmal, a gift to the city from Vienna's leading male chorus, the Wiener Männergesang-Verein [de], took place; the chorus performed at the event.[120] The Denkmal was designed by Austrian sculptor Carl Kundmann and is located in Vienna's Stadtpark.
+
+Schubert's chamber music continues to be popular. In a survey conducted by the ABC Classic FM radio station in 2008, Schubert's chamber works dominated the field, with the Trout Quintet ranked first, the String Quintet in C major ranked second, and the Notturno in E-flat major for piano trio ranked third. Furthermore, eight more of his chamber works were among the 100 ranked pieces: both piano trios, the String Quartet No. 14 (Death and the Maiden), the String Quartet No. 15, the Arpeggione Sonata, the Octet, the Fantasie in F minor for piano four-hands, and the Adagio and Rondo Concertante for piano quartet.[121]
+
+The New York Times' chief music critic Anthony Tommasini, who ranked Schubert as the fourth greatest composer, wrote of him:
+
+You have to love the guy, who died at 31, ill, impoverished and neglected except by a circle of friends who were in awe of his genius. For his hundreds of songs alone – including the haunting cycle Winterreise, which will never release its tenacious hold on singers and audiences – Schubert is central to our concert life... Schubert's first few symphonies may be works in progress. But the Unfinished and especially the Great C major Symphony are astonishing. The latter one paves the way for Bruckner and prefigures Mahler.[122]
+
+From the 1830s through the 1870s, Franz Liszt transcribed and arranged a number of Schubert's works, particularly the songs. Liszt, who was a significant force in spreading Schubert's work after his death, said Schubert was "the most poetic musician who ever lived."[123] Schubert's symphonies were of particular interest to Antonín Dvořák. Hector Berlioz and Anton Bruckner acknowledged the influence of the Great C Major Symphony.[124] It was Robert Schumann who, having seen the manuscript of the Great C Major Symphony in Vienna in 1838, drew it to the attention of Mendelssohn, who led the first performance of the symphony, in a heavily abridged version, in Leipzig in 1839.[125] In the 20th century, composers such as Richard Strauss, Anton Webern, Benjamin Britten, George Crumb, and Hans Zender championed or paid homage to Schubert in some of their works. Britten, an accomplished pianist, accompanied many of Schubert's Lieder and performed many piano solo and duet works.[124]
+
+German electronic music group Kraftwerk has an instrumental piece titled Franz Schubert on their 1977 album Trans-Europe Express.
+
+In 1897, the 100th anniversary of Schubert's birth was marked in the musical world by festivals and performances dedicated to his music. In Vienna, there were ten days of concerts, and the Emperor Franz Joseph gave a speech recognising Schubert as the creator of the art song, and one of Austria's favourite sons.[126][127]
+Karlsruhe saw the first production of his opera Fierrabras.[128]
+
+In 1928, Schubert Week was held in Europe and the United States to mark the centenary of the composer's death. Works by Schubert were performed in churches, in concert halls, and on radio stations. A competition, with top prize money of $10,000 and sponsorship by the Columbia Phonograph Company, was held for "original symphonic works presented as an apotheosis of the lyrical genius of Schubert, and dedicated to his memory".[129] The winning entry was Kurt Atterberg's sixth symphony.[129]
+
+Schubert has featured as a character in a number of films including Schubert's Dream of Spring (1931), Gently My Songs Entreat (1933), Serenade (1940), The Great Awakening (1941), It's Only Love (1947), Franz Schubert (1953), Das Dreimäderlhaus (1958), and Mit meinen heißen Tränen (1986). Schubert's music has also been featured in numerous post-silent era films, including Walt Disney's Fantasia (1940), which features Ave Maria (D. 839);[130] and the biographical film Carrington (1995), which features the second movement of the String Quintet in C major (D. 956)[131], as well as the English version of
+The Adventures of Milo and Otis (1989), which features Serenade and Auf dem Wasser zu singen (D. 774).
+
+Schubert's life was covered in the documentary Franz Peter Schubert: The Greatest Love and the Greatest Sorrow by Christopher Nupen (1994),[132] and in the documentary Schubert – The Wanderer by András Schiff and Mischa Scorer (1997), both produced for the BBC.[119][133]
+
+Works by Otto Erich Deutsch
+
+Otto Erich Deutsch, working in the first half of the 20th century, was probably the preeminent scholar of Schubert's life and music. In addition to the catalogue of Schubert's works, he collected and organized a great deal of material about Schubert, some of which remains in print.
+
+19th- and early 20th-century scholarship
+
+Modern scholarship
+
+Numbering of symphonies
+
+The following sources illustrate the confusion around the numbering of Schubert's late symphonies. The B minor Unfinished Symphony is variously published as No. 7 and No. 8, in both German and English.
+
+List of compositions by Franz Schubert

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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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+in Europe (green and dark grey)
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+Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a country situated in the confluence of Western, Central, and Southern Europe.[10][note 4] It is a federal republic composed of 26 cantons, with federal authorities based in Bern.[1][2][note 1] Switzerland is a landlocked country bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. It is geographically divided among the Swiss Plateau, the Alps, and the Jura, spanning a total area of 41,285 km2 (15,940 sq mi), and land area of 39,997 km2 (15,443 sq mi). While the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, the Swiss population of approximately 8.5 million is concentrated mostly on the plateau, where the largest cities and economic centres are located, among them Zürich, Geneva and Basel, where multiple international organisations are domiciled (such as FIFA, the UN's second-largest Office, and the Bank for International Settlements) and where the main international airports of Switzerland are.
+
+The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the late medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria and Burgundy. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The Federal Charter of 1291 is considered the founding document of Switzerland which is celebrated on Swiss National Day. Since the Reformation of the 16th century, Switzerland has maintained a strong policy of armed neutrality; it has not fought an international war since 1815 and did not join the United Nations until 2002. Nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world.[11] Switzerland is the birthplace of the Red Cross, one of the world's oldest and best known humanitarian organisations, and is home to numerous international organisations, including the United Nations Office at Geneva, which is its second-largest in the world. It is a founding member of the European Free Trade Association, but notably not part of the European Union, the European Economic Area or the Eurozone. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties.
+
+Switzerland occupies the crossroads of Germanic and Romance Europe, as reflected in its four main linguistic and cultural regions: German, French, Italian and Romansh. Although the majority of the population are German-speaking, Swiss national identity is rooted in a common historical background, shared values such as federalism and direct democracy,[12] and Alpine symbolism.[13][14] Due to its linguistic diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names: Schweiz [ˈʃvaɪts] (German);[note 5] Suisse [sɥis(ə)] (French); Svizzera [ˈzvittsera] (Italian); and Svizra [ˈʒviːtsrɐ, ˈʒviːtsʁɐ] (Romansh).[note 6] On coins and stamps, the Latin name, Confoederatio Helvetica – frequently shortened to "Helvetia" – is used instead of the four national languages.
+
+The sovereign state is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult[15] and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product.[16][17] It ranks at or near the top in several international metrics, including economic competitiveness and human development. Zürich, Geneva and Basel have been ranked among the top ten cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with Zürich ranked second globally.[18] In 2019, IMD placed Switzerland first in attracting skilled workers.[19] World Economic Forum ranks it the 5th most competitive country globally.[20]
+
+The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, an obsolete term for the Swiss, which was in use during the 16th to 19th centuries.[21] The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, one of the Waldstätte cantons which formed the nucleus of the Old Swiss Confederacy. The Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for "Confederates", Eidgenossen (literally: comrades by oath), used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica (English: Helvetic Confederation).
+
+The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately perhaps related to swedan ‘to burn’ (cf. Old Norse svíða ‘to singe, burn’), referring to the area of forest that was burned and cleared to build.[22] The name was extended to the area dominated by the canton, and after the Swabian War of 1499 gradually came to be used for the entire Confederation.[23][24]
+The Swiss German name of the country, Schwiiz, is homophonous to that of the canton and the settlement, but distinguished by the use of the definite article (d'Schwiiz for the Confederation,[25] but simply Schwyz for the canton and the town).[26] The long [iː] of Swiss German is historically and still often today spelled ⟨y⟩ rather than ⟨ii⟩, preserving the original identity of the two names even in writing.
+
+The Latin name Confoederatio Helvetica was neologized and introduced gradually after the formation of the federal state in 1848, harking back to the Napoleonic Helvetic Republic, appearing on coins from 1879, inscribed on the Federal Palace in 1902 and after 1948 used in the official seal.[27] (for example, the ISO banking code "CHF" for the Swiss franc, and the country top-level domain ".ch", are both taken from the state's Latin name). Helvetica is derived from the Helvetii, a Gaulish tribe living on the Swiss plateau before the Roman era.
+
+Helvetia appears as a national personification of the Swiss confederacy in the 17th century with a 1672 play by Johann Caspar Weissenbach.[28]
+
+Switzerland has existed as a state in its present form since the adoption of the Swiss Federal Constitution in 1848. The precursors of Switzerland established a protective alliance at the end of the 13th century (1291), forming a loose confederation of states which persisted for centuries.
+
+The oldest traces of hominid existence in Switzerland date back about 150,000 years.[29] The oldest known farming settlements in Switzerland, which were found at Gächlingen, have been dated to around 5300 BC.[29]
+
+The earliest known cultural tribes of the area were members of the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures, named after the archaeological site of La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel. La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age from around 450 BC,[29] possibly under some influence from the Greek and Etruscan civilisations. One of the most important tribal groups in the Swiss region was the Helvetii. Steadily harassed by the Germanic tribes, in 58 BC the Helvetii decided to abandon the Swiss plateau and migrate to western Gallia, but Julius Caesar's armies pursued and defeated them at the Battle of Bibracte, in today's eastern France, forcing the tribe to move back to its original homeland.[29] In 15 BC, Tiberius, who would one day become the second Roman emperor, and his brother Drusus, conquered the Alps, integrating them into the Roman Empire. The area occupied by the Helvetii—the namesakes of the later Confoederatio Helvetica—first became part of Rome's Gallia Belgica province and then of its Germania Superior province, while the eastern portion of modern Switzerland was integrated into the Roman province of Raetia. Sometime around the start of the Common Era, the Romans maintained a large legionary camp called Vindonissa, now a ruin at the confluence of the Aare and Reuss rivers, near the town of Windisch, an outskirt of Brugg.
+
+The first and second century AD was an age of prosperity for the population living on the Swiss plateau. Several towns, like Aventicum, Iulia Equestris and Augusta Raurica, reached a remarkable size, while hundreds of agricultural estates (Villae rusticae) were founded in the countryside.
+
+Around 260 AD, the fall of the Agri Decumates territory north of the Rhine transformed today's Switzerland into a frontier land of the Empire. Repeated raids by the Alamanni tribes provoked the ruin of the Roman towns and economy, forcing the population to find shelter near Roman fortresses, like the Castrum Rauracense near Augusta Raurica. The Empire built another line of defence at the north border (the so-called Donau-Iller-Rhine-Limes), but at the end of the fourth century the increased Germanic pressure forced the Romans to abandon the linear defence concept, and the Swiss plateau was finally open to the settlement of Germanic tribes.
+
+In the Early Middle Ages, from the end of the 4th century, the western extent of modern-day Switzerland was part of the territory of the Kings of the Burgundians. The Alemanni settled the Swiss plateau in the 5th century and the valleys of the Alps in the 8th century, forming Alemannia. Modern-day Switzerland was therefore then divided between the kingdoms of Alemannia and Burgundy.[29] The entire region became part of the expanding Frankish Empire in the 6th century, following Clovis I's victory over the Alemanni at Tolbiac in 504 AD, and later Frankish domination of the Burgundians.[31][32]
+
+Throughout the rest of the 6th, 7th and 8th centuries the Swiss regions continued under Frankish hegemony (Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties). But after its extension under Charlemagne, the Frankish Empire was divided by the Treaty of Verdun in 843.[29] The territories of present-day Switzerland became divided into Middle Francia and East Francia until they were reunified under the Holy Roman Empire around 1000 AD.[29]
+
+By 1200, the Swiss plateau comprised the dominions of the houses of Savoy, Zähringer, Habsburg, and Kyburg.[29] Some regions (Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, later known as Waldstätten) were accorded the Imperial immediacy to grant the empire direct control over the mountain passes. With the extinction of its male line in 1263 the Kyburg dynasty fell in AD 1264; then the Habsburgs under King Rudolph I (Holy Roman Emperor in 1273) laid claim to the Kyburg lands and annexed them extending their territory to the eastern Swiss plateau.[31]
+
+A female who died in about 200 BC was found buried in a carved tree trunk during a construction project at the Kern school complex in March 2017 in Aussersihl. Archaeologists revealed that she was approximately 40 years old when she died and likely carried out little physical labor when she was alive. A sheepskin coat, a belt chain, a fancy wool dress, a scarf and a pendant made of glass and amber beads were also discovered with the woman.[33][34][35][36][37]
+
+The Old Swiss Confederacy was an alliance among the valley communities of the central Alps. The Confederacy, governed by nobles and patricians of various cantons, facilitated management of common interests and ensured peace on the important mountain trade routes. The Federal Charter of 1291 agreed between the rural communes of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden is considered the confederacy's founding document, even though similar alliances are likely to have existed decades earlier.[38][39]
+
+By 1353, the three original cantons had joined with the cantons of Glarus and Zug and the Lucerne, Zürich and Bern city states to form the "Old Confederacy" of eight states that existed until the end of the 15th century. The expansion led to increased power and wealth for the confederation.[39] By 1460, the confederates controlled most of the territory south and west of the Rhine to the Alps and the Jura mountains, particularly after victories against the Habsburgs (Battle of Sempach, Battle of Näfels), over Charles the Bold of Burgundy during the 1470s, and the success of the Swiss mercenaries. The Swiss victory in the Swabian War against the Swabian League of Emperor Maximilian I in 1499 amounted to de facto independence within the Holy Roman Empire.[39] In 1501, Basel and Schaffhausen joined the Old Swiss Confederacy.
+
+The Old Swiss Confederacy had acquired a reputation of invincibility during these earlier wars, but expansion of the confederation suffered a setback in 1515 with the Swiss defeat in the Battle of Marignano. This ended the so-called "heroic" epoch of Swiss history.[39] The success of Zwingli's Reformation in some cantons led to inter-cantonal religious conflicts in 1529 and 1531 (Wars of Kappel). It was not until more than one hundred years after these internal wars that, in 1648, under the Peace of Westphalia, European countries recognised Switzerland's independence from the Holy Roman Empire and its neutrality.[31][32]
+
+During the Early Modern period of Swiss history, the growing authoritarianism of the patriciate families combined with a financial crisis in the wake of the Thirty Years' War led to the Swiss peasant war of 1653. In the background to this struggle, the conflict between Catholic and Protestant cantons persisted, erupting in further violence at the First War of Villmergen, in 1656, and the Toggenburg War (or Second War of Villmergen), in 1712.[39]
+
+In 1798, the revolutionary French government conquered Switzerland and imposed a new unified constitution.[39] This centralised the government of the country, effectively abolishing the cantons: moreover, Mülhausen joined France and the Valtellina valley became part of the Cisalpine Republic, separating from Switzerland. The new regime, known as the Helvetic Republic, was highly unpopular. It had been imposed by a foreign invading army and destroyed centuries of tradition, making Switzerland nothing more than a French satellite state. The fierce French suppression of the Nidwalden Revolt in September 1798 was an example of the oppressive presence of the French Army and the local population's resistance to the occupation.
+
+When war broke out between France and its rivals, Russian and Austrian forces invaded Switzerland. The Swiss refused to fight alongside the French in the name of the Helvetic Republic. In 1803 Napoleon organised a meeting of the leading Swiss politicians from both sides in Paris. The result was the Act of Mediation which largely restored Swiss autonomy and introduced a Confederation of 19 cantons.[39] Henceforth, much of Swiss politics would concern balancing the cantons' tradition of self-rule with the need for a central government.
+
+In 1815 the Congress of Vienna fully re-established Swiss independence and the European powers agreed to permanently recognise Swiss neutrality.[31][32][39] Swiss troops still served foreign governments until 1860 when they fought in the Siege of Gaeta. The treaty also allowed Switzerland to increase its territory, with the admission of the cantons of Valais, Neuchâtel and Geneva. Switzerland's borders have not changed since, except for some minor adjustments.[40]
+
+The restoration of power to the patriciate was only temporary. After a period of unrest with repeated violent clashes, such as the Züriputsch of 1839, civil war (the Sonderbundskrieg) broke out in 1847 when some Catholic cantons tried to set up a separate alliance (the Sonderbund).[39] The war lasted for less than a month, causing fewer than 100 casualties, most of which were through friendly fire. Yet however minor the Sonderbundskrieg appears compared with other European riots and wars in the 19th century, it nevertheless had a major impact on both the psychology and the society of the Swiss and of Switzerland.
+
+The war convinced most Swiss of the need for unity and strength towards its European neighbours. Swiss people from all strata of society, whether Catholic or Protestant, from the liberal or conservative current, realised that the cantons would profit more if their economic and religious interests were merged.
+
+Thus, while the rest of Europe saw revolutionary uprisings, the Swiss drew up a constitution which provided for a federal layout, much of it inspired by the American example. This constitution provided for a central authority while leaving the cantons the right to self-government on local issues. Giving credit to those who favoured the power of the cantons (the Sonderbund Kantone), the national assembly was divided between an upper house (the Council of States, two representatives per canton) and a lower house (the National Council, with representatives elected from across the country). Referendums were made mandatory for any amendment of this constitution.[32] This new constitution also brought a legal end to nobility in Switzerland.[41]
+
+A system of single weights and measures was introduced and in 1850 the Swiss franc became the Swiss single currency. Article 11 of the constitution forbade sending troops to serve abroad, with the exception of serving the Holy See, though the Swiss were still obliged to serve Francis II of the Two Sicilies with Swiss Guards present at the Siege of Gaeta in 1860, marking the end of foreign service.
+
+An important clause of the constitution was that it could be re-written completely if this was deemed necessary, thus enabling it to evolve as a whole rather than being modified one amendment at a time.[42]
+
+This need soon proved itself when the rise in population and the Industrial Revolution that followed led to calls to modify the constitution accordingly. An early draft was rejected by the population in 1872 but modifications led to its acceptance in 1874.[39] It introduced the facultative referendum for laws at the federal level. It also established federal responsibility for defence, trade, and legal matters.
+
+In 1891, the constitution was revised with unusually strong elements of direct democracy, which remain unique even today.[39]
+
+Switzerland was not invaded during either of the world wars. During World War I, Switzerland was home to Vladimir Illych Ulyanov (Vladimir Lenin) and he remained there until 1917.[43] Swiss neutrality was seriously questioned by the Grimm–Hoffmann Affair in 1917, but it was short-lived. In 1920, Switzerland joined the League of Nations, which was based in Geneva, on condition that it was exempt from any military requirements.
+
+During World War II, detailed invasion plans were drawn up by the Germans,[44] but Switzerland was never attacked.[39] Switzerland was able to remain independent through a combination of military deterrence, concessions to Germany, and good fortune as larger events during the war delayed an invasion.[32][45] Under General Henri Guisan, appointed the commander-in-chief for the duration of the war, a general mobilisation of the armed forces was ordered. The Swiss military strategy was changed from one of static defence at the borders to protect the economic heartland, to one of organised long-term attrition and withdrawal to strong, well-stockpiled positions high in the Alps known as the Reduit. Switzerland was an important base for espionage by both sides in the conflict and often mediated communications between the Axis and Allied powers.[45]
+
+Switzerland's trade was blockaded by both the Allies and by the Axis. Economic cooperation and extension of credit to the Third Reich varied according to the perceived likelihood of invasion and the availability of other trading partners. Concessions reached a peak after a crucial rail link through Vichy France was severed in 1942, leaving Switzerland (together with Liechtenstein) entirely isolated from the wider world by Axis controlled territory. Over the course of the war, Switzerland interned over 300,000 refugees[46] and the International Red Cross, based in Geneva, played an important part during the conflict. Strict immigration and asylum policies as well as the financial relationships with Nazi Germany raised controversy, but not until the end of the 20th century.[47]
+
+During the war, the Swiss Air Force engaged aircraft of both sides, shooting down 11 intruding Luftwaffe planes in May and June 1940, then forcing down other intruders after a change of policy following threats from Germany. Over 100 Allied bombers and their crews were interned during the war. Between 1940 and 1945, Switzerland was bombed by the Allies causing fatalities and property damage.[45] Among the cities and towns bombed were Basel, Brusio, Chiasso, Cornol, Geneva, Koblenz, Niederweningen, Rafz, Renens, Samedan, Schaffhausen, Stein am Rhein, Tägerwilen, Thayngen, Vals, and Zürich. Allied forces explained the bombings, which violated the 96th Article of War, resulted from navigation errors, equipment failure, weather conditions, and errors made by bomber pilots. The Swiss expressed fear and concern that the bombings were intended to put pressure on Switzerland to end economic cooperation and neutrality with Nazi Germany.[48] Court-martial proceedings took place in England and the U.S. Government paid 62,176,433.06 in Swiss francs for reparations of the bombings.
+
+Switzerland's attitude towards refugees was complicated and controversial; over the course of the war it admitted as many as 300,000 refugees[46] while refusing tens of thousands more,[49] including Jews who were severely persecuted by the Nazis.
+
+After the war, the Swiss government exported credits through the charitable fund known as the Schweizerspende and also donated to the Marshall Plan to help Europe's recovery, efforts that ultimately benefited the Swiss economy.[50]
+
+During the Cold War, Swiss authorities considered the construction of a Swiss nuclear bomb.[51] Leading nuclear physicists at the Federal Institute of Technology Zürich such as Paul Scherrer made this a realistic possibility. In 1988, the Paul Scherrer Institute was founded in his name to explore the therapeutic uses of neutron scattering technologies. Financial problems with the defence budget and ethical considerations prevented the substantial funds from being allocated, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968 was seen as a valid alternative. All remaining plans for building nuclear weapons were dropped by 1988.[52]
+
+Switzerland was the last Western republic to grant women the right to vote. Some Swiss cantons approved this in 1959, while at the federal level it was achieved in 1971[39][53] and, after resistance, in the last canton Appenzell Innerrhoden (one of only two remaining Landsgemeinde, along with Glarus) in 1990. After obtaining suffrage at the federal level, women quickly rose in political significance, with the first woman on the seven member Federal Council executive being Elisabeth Kopp, who served from 1984 to 1989,[39] and the first female president being Ruth Dreifuss in 1999.
+
+Switzerland joined the Council of Europe in 1963.[32] In 1979 areas from the canton of Bern attained independence from the Bernese, forming the new canton of Jura. On 18 April 1999 the Swiss population and the cantons voted in favour of a completely revised federal constitution.[39]
+
+In 2002 Switzerland became a full member of the United Nations, leaving the Vatican City as the last widely recognised state without full UN membership. Switzerland is a founding member of the EFTA, but is not a member of the European Economic Area. An application for membership in the European Union was sent in May 1992, but not advanced since the EEA was rejected in December 1992[39] when Switzerland was the only country to launch a referendum on the EEA. There have since been several referendums on the EU issue; due to opposition from the citizens, the membership application has been withdrawn. Nonetheless, Swiss law is gradually being adjusted to conform with that of the EU, and the government has signed a number of bilateral agreements with the European Union. Switzerland, together with Liechtenstein, has been completely surrounded by the EU since Austria's entry in 1995. On 5 June 2005, Swiss voters agreed by a 55% majority to join the Schengen treaty, a result that was regarded by EU commentators as a sign of support by Switzerland, a country that is traditionally perceived as independent and reluctant to enter supranational bodies.[32]
+
+Extending across the north and south side of the Alps in west-central Europe, Switzerland encompasses a great diversity of landscapes and climates on a limited area of 41,285 square kilometres (15,940 sq mi).[54] The population is about 8 million, resulting in an average population density of around 195 people per square kilometre (500/sq mi).[54][55] The more mountainous southern half of the country is far more sparsely populated than the northern half.[54] In the largest Canton of Graubünden, lying entirely in the Alps, population density falls to 27 /km² (70 /sq mi).[56]
+
+Switzerland lies between latitudes 45° and 48° N, and longitudes 5° and 11° E. It contains three basic topographical areas: the Swiss Alps to the south, the Swiss Plateau or Central Plateau, and the Jura mountains on the west. The Alps are a high mountain range running across the central-south of the country, constituting about 60% of the country's total area. The majority of the Swiss population live in the Swiss Plateau. Among the high valleys of the Swiss Alps many glaciers are found, totalling an area of 1,063 square kilometres (410 sq mi). From these originate the headwaters of several major rivers, such as the Rhine, Inn, Ticino and Rhône, which flow in the four cardinal directions into the whole of Europe. The hydrographic network includes several of the largest bodies of freshwater in Central and Western Europe, among which are included Lake Geneva (also called le Lac Léman in French), Lake Constance (known as Bodensee in German) and Lake Maggiore. Switzerland has more than 1500 lakes, and contains 6% of Europe's stock of fresh water. Lakes and glaciers cover about 6% of the national territory. The largest lake is Lake Geneva, in western Switzerland shared with France. The Rhône is both the main source and outflow of Lake Geneva. Lake Constance is the second largest Swiss lake and, like the Lake Geneva, an intermediate step by the Rhine at the border to Austria and Germany. While the Rhône flows into the Mediterranean Sea at the French Camargue region and the Rhine flows into the North Sea at Rotterdam in the Netherlands, about 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) apart, both springs are only about 22 kilometres (14 miles) apart from each other in the Swiss Alps.[54][57]
+
+Forty-eight of Switzerland's mountains are 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) above sea in altitude or higher.[54] At 4,634 m (15,203 ft), Monte Rosa is the highest, although the Matterhorn (4,478 m or 14,692 ft) is often regarded as the most famous. Both are located within the Pennine Alps in the canton of Valais, on the border with Italy. The section of the Bernese Alps above the deep glacial Lauterbrunnen valley, containing 72 waterfalls, is well known for the Jungfrau (4,158 m or 13,642 ft) Eiger and Mönch, and the many picturesque valleys in the region. In the southeast the long Engadin Valley, encompassing the St. Moritz area in canton of Graubünden, is also well known; the highest peak in the neighbouring Bernina Alps is Piz Bernina (4,049 m or 13,284 ft).[54]
+
+The more populous northern part of the country, constituting about 30% of the country's total area, is called the Swiss Plateau. It has greater open and hilly landscapes, partly forested, partly open pastures, usually with grazing herds, or vegetables and fruit fields, but it is still hilly. There are large lakes found here and the biggest Swiss cities are in this area of the country.[54]
+
+Within Switzerland there are two small enclaves: Büsingen belongs to Germany, Campione d'Italia belongs to Italy.[58] Switzerland has no exclaves in other countries.
+
+The Swiss climate is generally temperate, but can vary greatly between the localities,[59] from glacial conditions on the mountaintops to the often pleasant near Mediterranean climate at Switzerland's southern tip. There are some valley areas in the southern part of Switzerland where some cold-hardy palm trees are found. Summers tend to be warm and humid at times with periodic rainfall so they are ideal for pastures and grazing. The less humid winters in the mountains may see long intervals of stable conditions for weeks, while the lower lands tend to suffer from inversion, during these periods, thus seeing no sun for weeks.
+
+A weather phenomenon known as the föhn (with an identical effect to the chinook wind) can occur at all times of the year and is characterised by an unexpectedly warm wind, bringing air of very low relative humidity to the north of the Alps during rainfall periods on the southern face of the Alps. This works both ways across the alps but is more efficient if blowing from the south due to the steeper step for oncoming wind from the south. Valleys running south to north trigger the best effect.
+The driest conditions persist in all inner alpine valleys that receive less rain because arriving clouds lose a lot of their content while crossing the mountains before reaching these areas. Large alpine areas such as Graubünden remain drier than pre-alpine areas and as in the main valley of the Valais wine grapes are grown there.[60]
+
+The wettest conditions persist in the high Alps and in the Ticino canton which has much sun yet heavy bursts of rain from time to time.[60] Precipitation tends to be spread moderately throughout the year with a peak in summer. Autumn is the driest season, winter receives less precipitation than summer, yet the weather patterns in Switzerland are not in a stable climate system and can be variable from year to year with no strict and predictable periods.
+
+Switzerland's ecosystems can be particularly fragile, because the many delicate valleys separated by high mountains often form unique ecologies. The mountainous regions themselves are also vulnerable, with a rich range of plants not found at other altitudes, and experience some pressure from visitors and grazing. The climatic, geological and topographical conditions of the alpine region make for a very fragile ecosystem that is particularly sensitive to climate change.[59][62] Nevertheless, according to the 2014 Environmental Performance Index, Switzerland ranks first among 132 nations in safeguarding the environment, due to its high scores on environmental public health, its heavy reliance on renewable sources of energy (hydropower and geothermal energy), and its control of greenhouse gas emissions.[63]
+
+However, access to biocapacity in Switzerland is far lower than world average. In 2016, Switzerland had 1.0 global hectares[64] of biocapacity per person within its territory, 40 percent less than world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In contrast, in 2016, they used 4.6 global hectares of biocapacity - their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they used about 4.6 times as much biocapacity as Switzerland contains. The remainder comes from imports and overusing the global commons (such as the atmosphere through greenhouse gas emissions). As a result, Switzerland is running a biocapacity deficit.[64]
+
+The Federal Constitution adopted in 1848 is the legal foundation of the modern federal state.[65] A new Swiss Constitution was adopted in 1999, but did not introduce notable changes to the federal structure. It outlines basic and political rights of individuals and citizen participation in public affairs, divides the powers between the Confederation and the cantons and defines federal jurisdiction and authority. There are three main governing bodies on the federal level:[66] the bicameral parliament (legislative), the Federal Council (executive) and the Federal Court (judicial).
+
+The Swiss Parliament consists of two houses: the Council of States which has 46 representatives (two from each canton and one from each half-canton) who are elected under a system determined by each canton, and the National Council, which consists of 200 members who are elected under a system of proportional representation, depending on the population of each canton. Members of both houses serve for 4 years and only serve as members of parliament part-time (so-called Milizsystem or citizen legislature).[67] When both houses are in joint session, they are known collectively as the Federal Assembly. Through referendums, citizens may challenge any law passed by parliament and through initiatives, introduce amendments to the federal constitution, thus making Switzerland a direct democracy.[65]
+
+The Federal Council constitutes the federal government, directs the federal administration and serves as collective Head of State. It is a collegial body of seven members, elected for a four-year mandate by the Federal Assembly which also exercises oversight over the Council. The President of the Confederation is elected by the Assembly from among the seven members, traditionally in rotation and for a one-year term; the President chairs the government and assumes representative functions. However, the president is a primus inter pares with no additional powers, and remains the head of a department within the administration.[65]
+
+The Swiss government has been a coalition of the four major political parties since 1959, each party having a number of seats that roughly reflects its share of electorate and representation in the federal parliament.
+The classic distribution of 2 CVP/PDC, 2 SPS/PSS, 2 FDP/PRD and 1 SVP/UDC as it stood from 1959 to 2003 was known as the "magic formula". Following the 2015 Federal Council elections, the seven seats in the Federal Council were distributed as follows:
+
+The function of the Federal Supreme Court is to hear appeals against rulings of cantonal or federal courts. The judges are elected by the Federal Assembly for six-year terms.[68]
+
+Direct democracy and federalism are hallmarks of the Swiss political system.[69] Swiss citizens are subject to three legal jurisdictions: the municipality, canton and federal levels. The 1848 and 1999 Swiss Constitutions define a system of direct democracy (sometimes called half-direct or representative direct democracy because it is aided by the more commonplace institutions of a representative democracy). The instruments of this system at the federal level, known as popular rights (German: Volksrechte, French: droits populaires, Italian: diritti popolari),[70] include the right to submit a federal initiative and a referendum, both of which may overturn parliamentary decisions.[65][71]
+
+By calling a federal referendum, a group of citizens may challenge a law passed by parliament, if they gather 50,000 signatures against the law within 100 days. If so, a national vote is scheduled where voters decide by a simple majority whether to accept or reject the law. Any 8 cantons together can also call a constitutional referendum on a federal law.[65]
+
+Similarly, the federal constitutional initiative allows citizens to put a constitutional amendment to a national vote, if 100,000 voters sign the proposed amendment within 18 months.[note 8] The Federal Council and the Federal Assembly can supplement the proposed amendment with a counter-proposal, and then voters must indicate a preference on the ballot in case both proposals are accepted. Constitutional amendments, whether introduced by initiative or in parliament, must be accepted by a double majority of the national popular vote and the cantonal popular votes.[note 9][69]
+
+The Swiss Confederation consists of 26 cantons:[65][72]
+
+*These cantons are known as half-cantons.
+
+The cantons are federated states, have a permanent constitutional status and, in comparison with the situation in other countries, a high degree of independence. Under the Federal Constitution, all 26 cantons are equal in status, except that 6 (referred to often as the half-cantons) are represented by only one councillor (instead of two) in the Council of States and have only half a cantonal vote with respect to the required cantonal majority in referendums on constitutional amendments. Each canton has its own constitution, and its own parliament, government, police and courts.[72] However, there are considerable differences between the individual cantons, most particularly in terms of population and geographical area. Their populations vary between 16,003 (Appenzell Innerrhoden) and 1,487,969 (Zürich), and their area between 37 km2 (14 sq mi) (Basel-Stadt) and 7,105 km2 (2,743 sq mi) (Grisons).
+
+The cantons comprise a total of 2,222 municipalities as of 2018.
+
+Traditionally, Switzerland avoids alliances that might entail military, political, or direct economic action and has been neutral since the end of its expansion in 1515. Its policy of neutrality was internationally recognised at the Congress of Vienna in 1815.[73][74] Only in 2002 did Switzerland become a full member of the United Nations[73] and it was the first state to join it by referendum. Switzerland maintains diplomatic relations with almost all countries and historically has served as an intermediary between other states.[73] Switzerland is not a member of the European Union; the Swiss people have consistently rejected membership since the early 1990s.[73] However, Switzerland does participate in the Schengen Area.[75] Swiss neutrality has been questioned at times.[76][77][78][79][80]
+
+
+
+Many international institutions have their seats in Switzerland, in part because of its policy of neutrality. Geneva is the birthplace of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the Geneva Conventions and, since 2006, hosts the United Nations Human Rights Council. Even though Switzerland is one of the most recent countries to have joined the United Nations, the Palace of Nations in Geneva is the second biggest centre for the United Nations after New York, and Switzerland was a founding member and home to the League of Nations.
+
+Apart from the United Nations headquarters, the Swiss Confederation is host to many UN agencies, like the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and about 200 other international organisations, including the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization.[73] The annual meetings of the World Economic Forum in Davos bring together top international business and political leaders from Switzerland and foreign countries to discuss important issues facing the world, including health and the environment. Additionally the headquarters of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) are located in Basel since 1930.
+
+Furthermore, many sport federations and organisations are located throughout the country, such as the International Handball Federation in Basel, the
+International Basketball Federation in Geneva, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) in Nyon, the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) and the International Ice Hockey Federation both in Zürich, the International Cycling Union in Aigle, and the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne.[82]
+
+The Swiss Armed Forces, including the Land Forces and the Air Force, are composed mostly of conscripts, male citizens aged from 20 to 34 (in special cases up to 50) years. Being a landlocked country, Switzerland has no navy; however, on lakes bordering neighbouring countries, armed military patrol boats are used. Swiss citizens are prohibited from serving in foreign armies, except for the Swiss Guards of the Vatican, or if they are dual citizens of a foreign country and reside there.
+
+The structure of the Swiss militia system stipulates that the soldiers keep their Army issued equipment, including all personal weapons, at home. Some organisations and political parties find this practice controversial.[83] Women can serve voluntarily. Men usually receive military conscription orders for training at the age of 18.[84] About two thirds of the young Swiss are found suited for service; for those found unsuited, various forms of alternative service exist.[85] Annually, approximately 20,000 persons are trained in recruit centres for a duration from 18 to 21 weeks. The reform "Army XXI" was adopted by popular vote in 2003, it replaced the previous model "Army 95", reducing the effectives from 400,000 to about 200,000. Of those, 120,000 are active in periodic Army training and 80,000 are non-training reserves.[86]
+
+Overall, three general mobilisations have been declared to ensure the integrity and neutrality of Switzerland. The first one was held on the occasion of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. The second was in response to the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. The third mobilisation of the army took place in September 1939 in response to the German attack on Poland; Henri Guisan was elected as the General-in-Chief.
+
+Because of its neutrality policy, the Swiss army does not currently take part in armed conflicts in other countries, but is part of some peacekeeping missions around the world. Since 2000 the armed force department has also maintained the Onyx intelligence gathering system to monitor satellite communications.[87] Switzerland decided not to sign the Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty.[88]
+
+Following the end of the Cold War there have been a number of attempts to curb military activity or even abolish the armed forces altogether. A notable referendum on the subject, launched by an anti-militarist group, was held on 26 November 1989. It was defeated with about two thirds of the voters against the proposal.[89][90] A similar referendum, called for before, but held shortly after the 11 September attacks in the US, was defeated by over 78% of voters.[91]
+
+Gun politics in Switzerland are unique in Europe in that 29% of citizens are legally armed. The large majority of firearms kept at home are issued by the Swiss army, but ammunition is no longer issued.[92][93]
+
+Until 1848 the rather loosely coupled Confederation did not know a central political organisation, but representatives, mayors, and Landammänner met several times a year at the capital of the Lieu presiding the Confederal Diet for one year.
+
+Until 1500 the legates met most of the time in Lucerne, but also in Zürich, Baden, Bern, Schwyz etc., but sometimes also at places outside of the confederation, such as Constance. From the Swabian War in 1499 onwards until Reformation, most conferences met in Zurich. Afterwards the town hall at Baden, where the annual accounts of the common people had been held regularly since 1426, became the most frequent, but not the sole place of assembly. After 1712 Frauenfeld gradually dissolved Baden. From 1526, the Catholic conferences were held mostly in Lucerne, the Protestant conferences from 1528 mostly in Aarau, the one for the legitimation of the French Ambassador in Solothurn. At the same time the syndicate for the Ennetbirgischen Vogteien located in the present Ticino met from 1513 in Lugano and Locarno.[94]
+
+After the Helvetic Republic and during the Mediation from 1803 until 1815 the Confederal Diet of the 19 Lieus met at the capitals of the directoral cantons Fribourg, Berne, Basel, Zurich, Lucerne and Solothurn.[94]
+
+After the Long Diet from 6 April 1814 to 31 August 1815 took place in Zurich to replace the constitution and the enhancement of the Confederation to 22 cantons by the admission of the cantons of Valais, Neuchâtel and Geneva to full members, the directoral cantons of Lucerne, Zurich and Berne took over the diet in two-year turns.[94]
+
+In 1848, the federal constitution provided that details concerning the federal institutions, such as their locations, should be taken care of by the Federal Assembly (BV 1848 Art. 108). Thus on 28 November 1848, the Federal Assembly voted in majority to locate the seat of government in Berne. And, as a prototypical federal compromise, to assign other federal institutions, such as the Federal Polytechnical School (1854, the later ETH) to Zurich, and other institutions to Lucerne, such as the later SUVA (1912) and the Federal Insurance Court (1917). In 1875, a law (RS 112) fixed the compensations owed by the city of Bern for the federal seat.[1] According to these living fundamental federalistic feelings further federal institutions were subsequently attributed to Lausanne (Federal Supreme Court in 1872, and EPFL in 1969), Bellinzona (Federal Criminal Court, 2004), and St. Gallen (Federal Administrative Court and Federal Patent Court, 2012).
+
+The 1999 new constitution, however, does not contain anything concerning any Federal City. In 2002 a tripartite committee has been asked by the Swiss Federal Council to prepare the "creation of a federal law on the status of Bern as a Federal City", and to evaluate the positive and negative aspects for the city and the canton of Bern if this status were awarded. After a first report the work of this committee was suspended in 2004 by the Swiss Federal Council, and work on this subject has not resumed since.[95]
+
+Thus as of today, no city in Switzerland has the official status either of capital or of Federal City, nevertheless Berne is commonly referred to as "Federal City" (German: Bundesstadt, French: ville fédérale, Italian: città federale).
+
+Switzerland has a stable, prosperous and high-tech economy and enjoys great wealth, being ranked as the wealthiest country in the world per capita in multiple rankings, while at the same time being one the least corrupt countries in the world.[97][98][99] It has the world's twentieth largest economy by nominal GDP and the thirty-eighth largest by purchasing power parity. It is the seventeenth largest exporter. Zürich and Geneva are regarded as global cities, ranked as Alpha and Beta respectively. Switzerland has the highest European rating in the Index of Economic Freedom 2010, while also providing large coverage through public services.[100] The nominal per capita GDP is higher than those of the larger Western and Central European economies and Japan.[101] In terms of GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power, Switzerland was ranked 5th in the world in 2018 by World Bank[102] and estimated at 9th by the IMF in 2020[103], as well as 11th by the CIA World Factbook in 2017[104].
+
+The World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report currently ranks Switzerland's economy as the most competitive in the world,[106] while ranked by the European Union as Europe's most innovative country.[107][108] It is a relatively easy place to do business, currently ranking 20th of 189 countries in the Ease of Doing Business Index. The slow growth Switzerland experienced in the 1990s and the early 2000s has brought greater support for economic reforms and harmonisation with the European Union.[109][110]
+
+For much of the 20th century, Switzerland was the wealthiest country in Europe by a considerable margin (by GDP – per capita).[111] Switzerland also has one of the world's largest account balances as a percentage of GDP.[112] In 2018, the canton of Basel-City had the highest GDP per capita in the country, ahead of the cantons of Zug and Geneva.[113] According to Credit Suisse, only about 37% of residents own their own homes, one of the lowest rates of home ownership in Europe. Housing and food price levels were 171% and 145% of the EU-25 index in 2007, compared to 113% and 104% in Germany.[114]
+
+Origin of the capital at the 30 biggest Swiss corporations, 2018[115]
+
+Switzerland is home to several large multinational corporations. The largest Swiss companies by revenue are Glencore, Gunvor, Nestlé, Novartis, Hoffmann-La Roche, ABB, Mercuria Energy Group and Adecco.[116] Also, notable are UBS AG, Zurich Financial Services, Credit Suisse, Barry Callebaut, Swiss Re, Tetra Pak, The Swatch Group and Swiss International Air Lines. Switzerland is ranked as having one of the most powerful economies in the world.[111]
+
+Switzerland's most important economic sector is manufacturing. Manufacturing consists largely of the production of specialist chemicals, health and pharmaceutical goods, scientific and precision measuring instruments and musical instruments. The largest exported goods are chemicals (34% of exported goods), machines/electronics (20.9%), and precision instruments/watches (16.9%).[114] Exported services amount to a third of exports.[114] The service sector – especially banking and insurance, tourism, and international organisations – is another important industry for Switzerland.
+
+Agricultural protectionism—a rare exception to Switzerland's free trade policies—has contributed to high food prices. Product market liberalisation is lagging behind many EU countries according to the OECD.[109] Nevertheless, domestic purchasing power is one of the best in the world.[117][118][119] Apart from agriculture, economic and trade barriers between the European Union and Switzerland are minimal and Switzerland has free trade agreements worldwide. Switzerland is a member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).
+
+Switzerland has an overwhelmingly private sector economy and low tax rates by Western World standards; overall taxation is one of the smallest of developed countries. The Swiss Federal budget had a size of 62.8 billion Swiss francs in 2010, which is an equivalent 11.35% of the country's GDP in that year; however, the regional (canton) budgets and the budgets of the municipalities are not counted as part of the federal budget and the total rate of government spending is closer to 33.8% of GDP. The main sources of income for the federal government are the value-added tax (33%) and the direct federal tax (29%) and the main expenditure is located in the areas of social welfare and finance & tax. The expenditures of the Swiss Confederation have been growing from 7% of GDP in 1960 to 9.7% in 1990 and to 10.7% in 2010. While the sectors social welfare and finance & tax have been growing from 35% in 1990 to 48.2% in 2010, a significant reduction of expenditures has been occurring in the sectors of agriculture and national defence; from 26.5% in to 12.4% (estimation for the year 2015).[120][121]
+
+Slightly more than 5 million people work in Switzerland;[122] about 25% of employees belonged to a trade union in 2004.[123] Switzerland has a more flexible job market than neighbouring countries and the unemployment rate is very low. The unemployment rate increased from a low of 1.7% in June 2000 to a peak of 4.4% in December 2009.[124] The unemployment rate decreased to 3.2% in 2014 and held steady at that level for several years,[125] before further dropping to 2.5% in 2018 and 2.3% in 2019.[126] Population growth from net immigration is quite high, at 0.52% of population in 2004, increased in the following years before falling to 0.54% again in 2017.[114][127] The foreign citizen population was 28.9% in 2015, about the same as in Australia. GDP per hour worked is the world's 16th highest, at 49.46 international dollars in 2012.[128]
+
+In 2016, median monthly gross salary in Switzerland was 6,502 francs per month (equivalent to US$6,597 per month), is just enough to cover the high cost of living. After rent, taxes and social security contributions, plus spending on goods and services, the average household has about 15% of its gross income left for savings. Though 61% of the population made less than the average income, income inequality is relatively low with a Gini coefficient of 29.7, placing Switzerland among the top 20 countries for income equality.
+
+About 8.2% of the population live below the national poverty line, defined in Switzerland as earning less than CHF3,990 per month for a household of two adults and two children, and a further 15% are at risk of poverty. Single-parent families, those with no post-compulsory education and those who are out of work are among the most likely to be living below the poverty line. Although getting a job is considered a way out of poverty, among the gainfully employed, some 4.3% are considered working poor. One in ten jobs in Switzerland is considered low-paid and roughly 12% of Swiss workers hold such jobs, many of them women and foreigners.
+
+Education in Switzerland is very diverse because the constitution of Switzerland delegates the authority for the school system to the cantons.[129] There are both public and private schools, including many private international schools. The minimum age for primary school is about six years in all cantons, but most cantons provide a free "children's school" starting at four or five years old.[129] Primary school continues until grade four, five or six, depending on the school. Traditionally, the first foreign language in school was always one of the other national languages, although recently (2000) English was introduced first in a few cantons.[129]
+
+At the end of primary school (or at the beginning of secondary school), pupils are separated according to their capacities in several (often three) sections. The fastest learners are taught advanced classes to be prepared for further studies and the matura,[129] while students who assimilate a little more slowly receive an education more adapted to their needs.
+
+There are 12 universities in Switzerland, ten of which are maintained at cantonal level and usually offer a range of non-technical subjects. The first university in Switzerland was founded in 1460 in Basel (with a faculty of medicine) and has a tradition of chemical and medical research in Switzerland. It is listed 87th on the 2019 Academic Ranking of World Universities.[130] The largest university in Switzerland is the University of Zurich with nearly 25,000 students.[citation needed]The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) and the University of Zurich are listed 20th and 54th respectively, on the 2015 Academic Ranking of World Universities.[131][132][133]
+
+The two institutes sponsored by the federal government are the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) in Zürich, founded 1855 and the EPFL in Lausanne, founded 1969 as such, which was formerly an institute associated with the University of Lausanne.[note 10][134][135]
+
+In addition, there are various Universities of Applied Sciences. In business and management studies, the University of St. Gallen, (HSG) is ranked 329th in the world according to QS World University Rankings[136] and the International Institute for Management Development (IMD), was ranked first in open programmes worldwide by the Financial Times.[137] Switzerland has the second highest rate (almost 18% in 2003) of foreign students in tertiary education, after Australia (slightly over 18%).[138][139]
+
+As might befit a country that plays home to innumerable international organisations, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, located in Geneva, is not only continental Europe's oldest graduate school of international and development studies, but also widely believed to be one of its most prestigious.[140][141]
+
+Many Nobel Prize laureates have been Swiss scientists. They include the world-famous physicist Albert Einstein[142] in the field of physics, who developed his special relativity while working in Bern. More recently Vladimir Prelog, Heinrich Rohrer, Richard Ernst, Edmond Fischer, Rolf Zinkernagel, Kurt Wüthrich and Jacques Dubochet received Nobel Prizes in the sciences. In total, 114 Nobel Prize winners in all fields stand in relation to Switzerland[143][note 11] and the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded nine times to organisations residing in Switzerland.[144]
+
+Geneva and the nearby French department of Ain co-host the world's largest laboratory, CERN,[146] dedicated to particle physics research. Another important research centre is the Paul Scherrer Institute. Notable inventions include lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), diazepam (Valium), the scanning tunnelling microscope (Nobel prize) and Velcro. Some technologies enabled the exploration of new worlds such as the pressurised balloon of Auguste Piccard and the Bathyscaphe which permitted Jacques Piccard to reach the deepest point of the world's oceans.
+
+Switzerland Space Agency, the Swiss Space Office, has been involved in various space technologies and programmes. In addition it was one of the 10 founders of the European Space Agency in 1975 and is the seventh largest contributor to the ESA budget. In the private sector, several companies are implicated in the space industry such as Oerlikon Space[147] or Maxon Motors[148] who provide spacecraft structures.
+
+Switzerland voted against membership in the European Economic Area in a referendum in December 1992 and has since maintained and developed its relationships with the European Union (EU) and European countries through bilateral agreements. In March 2001, the Swiss people refused in a popular vote to start accession negotiations with the EU.[149] In recent years, the Swiss have brought their economic practices largely into conformity with those of the EU in many ways, in an effort to enhance their international competitiveness. The economy grew at 3% in 2010, 1.9% in 2011, and 1% in 2012.[150] EU membership was a long-term objective of the Swiss government, but there was and remains considerable popular sentiment against membership, which is opposed by the conservative SVP party, the largest party in the National Council, and not currently supported or proposed by several other political parties. The application for membership of the EU was formally withdrawn in 2016, having long been frozen. The western French-speaking areas and the urban regions of the rest of the country tend to be more pro-EU, nonetheless with far from a significant share of the population.[151][152]
+
+The government has established an Integration Office under the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Economic Affairs. To minimise the negative consequences of Switzerland's isolation from the rest of Europe, Bern and Brussels signed seven bilateral agreements to further liberalise trade ties. These agreements were signed in 1999 and took effect in 2001. This first series of bilateral agreements included the free movement of persons. A second series covering nine areas was signed in 2004 and has since been ratified, which includes the Schengen Treaty and the Dublin Convention besides others.[153] They continue to discuss further areas for cooperation.[154]
+
+In 2006, Switzerland approved 1 billion francs of supportive investment in the poorer Southern and Central European countries in support of cooperation and positive ties to the EU as a whole. A further referendum will be needed to approve 300 million francs to support Romania and Bulgaria and their recent admission. The Swiss have also been under EU and sometimes international pressure to reduce banking secrecy and to raise tax rates to parity with the EU. Preparatory discussions are being opened in four new areas: opening up the electricity market, participation in the European GNSS project Galileo, cooperating with the European centre for disease prevention and recognising certificates of origin for food products.[155]
+
+On 27 November 2008, the interior and justice ministers of European Union in Brussels announced Switzerland's accession to the Schengen passport-free zone from 12 December 2008. The land border checkpoints will remain in place only for goods movements, but should not run controls on people, though people entering the country had their passports checked until 29 March 2009 if they originated from a Schengen nation.[156]
+
+On 9 February 2014, Swiss voters narrowly approved by 50.3% a ballot initiative launched by the national conservative Swiss People's Party (SVP/UDC) to restrict immigration, and thus reintroducing a quota system on the influx of foreigners. This initiative was mostly backed by rural (57.6% approvals) and suburban agglomerations (51.2% approvals), and isolated towns (51.3% approvals) of Switzerland as well as by a strong majority (69.2% approval) in the canton of Ticino, while metropolitan centres (58.5% rejection) and the French-speaking part (58.5% rejection) of Switzerland rather rejected it.[157] Some news commentators claim that this proposal de facto contradicts the bilateral agreements on the free movement of persons from these respective countries.[158][159]
+
+In December 2016, a compromise with the European Union was attained effectively canceling quotas on EU citizens but still allowing for favourable treatment of Swiss-based job applicants.[160]
+
+Electricity generated in Switzerland is 56% from hydroelectricity and 39% from nuclear power, resulting in a nearly CO2-free electricity-generating network. On 18 May 2003, two anti-nuclear initiatives were turned down: Moratorium Plus, aimed at forbidding the building of new nuclear power plants (41.6% supported and 58.4% opposed),[161] and Electricity Without Nuclear (33.7% supported and 66.3% opposed) after a previous moratorium expired in 2000.[162] However, as a reaction to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the Swiss government announced in 2011 that it plans to end its use of nuclear energy in the next 2 or 3 decades.[163] In November 2016, Swiss voters rejected a proposal by the Green Party to accelerate the phaseout of nuclear power (45.8% supported and 54.2% opposed).[164] The Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) is the office responsible for all questions relating to energy supply and energy use within the Federal Department of Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC). The agency is supporting the 2000-watt society initiative to cut the nation's energy use by more than half by the year 2050.[165]
+
+The most dense rail network in Europe[53] of 5,250 kilometres (3,260 mi) carries over 596 million passengers annually (as of 2015).[166] In 2015, each Swiss resident travelled on average 2,550 kilometres (1,580 mi) by rail, which makes them the keenest rail users.[166] Virtually 100% of the network is electrified. The vast majority (60%) of the network is operated by the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB CFF FFS). Besides the second largest standard gauge railway company BLS AG two railways companies operating on narrow gauge networks are the Rhaetian Railway (RhB) in the southeastern canton of Graubünden, which includes some World Heritage lines,[167] and the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn (MGB), which co-operates together with RhB the Glacier Express between Zermatt and St. Moritz/Davos. On 31 May 2016 the world's longest and deepest railway tunnel and the first flat, low-level route through the Alps, the 57.1-kilometre long (35.5 mi) Gotthard Base Tunnel, opened as the largest part of the New Railway Link through the Alps (NRLA) project after 17 years of realization. It started its daily business for passenger transport on 11 December 2016 replacing the old, mountainous, scenic route over and through the St Gotthard Massif.
+
+Switzerland has a publicly managed road network without road tolls that is financed by highway permits as well as vehicle and gasoline taxes. The Swiss autobahn/autoroute system requires the purchase of a vignette (toll sticker)—which costs 40 Swiss francs—for one calendar year in order to use its roadways, for both passenger cars and trucks. The Swiss autobahn/autoroute network has a total length of 1,638 km (1,018 mi) (as of 2000) and has, by an area of 41,290 km2 (15,940 sq mi), also one of the highest motorway densities in the world.[168] Zurich Airport is Switzerland's largest international flight gateway, which handled 22.8 million passengers in 2012.[169] The other international airports are Geneva Airport (13.9 million passengers in 2012),[170] EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg which is located in France, Bern Airport, Lugano Airport, St. Gallen-Altenrhein Airport and Sion Airport. Swiss International Air Lines is the flag carrier of Switzerland. Its main hub is Zürich, but it is legally domiciled in Basel.
+
+Switzerland has one of the best environmental records among nations in the developed world;[171] it was one of the countries to sign the Kyoto Protocol in 1998 and ratified it in 2003. With Mexico and the Republic of Korea it forms the Environmental Integrity Group (EIG).[172] The country is heavily active in recycling and anti-littering regulations and is one of the top recyclers in the world, with 66% to 96% of recyclable materials being recycled, depending on the area of the country.[173] The 2014 Global Green Economy Index ranked Switzerland among the top 10 green economies in the world.[174]
+
+Switzerland developed an efficient system to recycle most recyclable materials.[175] Publicly organised collection by volunteers and economical railway transport logistics started as early as 1865 under the leadership of the notable industrialist Hans Caspar Escher (Escher Wyss AG) when the first modern Swiss paper manufacturing plant was built in Biberist.[176]
+
+Switzerland also has an economic system for garbage disposal, which is based mostly on recycling and energy-producing incinerators due to a strong political will to protect the environment.[177] As in other European countries, the illegal disposal of garbage is not tolerated at all and heavily fined. In almost all Swiss municipalities, stickers or dedicated garbage bags need to be purchased that allow for identification of disposable garbage.[178]
+
+In 2018, Switzerland's population slightly exceeded 8.5 million. In common with other developed countries, the Swiss population increased rapidly during the industrial era, quadrupling between 1800 and 1990 and has continued to grow. Like most of Europe, Switzerland faces an ageing population, albeit with consistent annual growth projected into 2035, due mostly to immigration and a fertility rate close to replacement level.[179] Switzerland subsequently has one of the oldest populations in the world, with the average age of 42.5 years.[180]
+
+As of 2019[update], resident foreigners make up 25.2% of the population, one of the largest proportions in the developed world.[5] Most of these (64%) were from European Union or EFTA countries.[181] Italians were the largest single group of foreigners, with 15.6% of total foreign population, followed closely by Germans (15.2%), immigrants from Portugal (12.7%), France (5.6%), Serbia (5.3%), Turkey (3.8%), Spain (3.7%), and Austria (2%). Immigrants from Sri Lanka, most of them former Tamil refugees, were the largest group among people of Asian origin (6.3%).[181]
+
+Additionally, the figures from 2012 show that 34.7% of the permanent resident population aged 15 or over in Switzerland (around 2.33 million), had an immigrant background. A third of this population (853,000) held Swiss citizenship. Four fifths of persons with an immigration background were themselves immigrants (first generation foreigners and native-born and naturalised Swiss citizens), whereas one fifth were born in Switzerland (second generation foreigners and native-born and naturalised Swiss citizens).[182]
+
+In the 2000s, domestic and international institutions expressed concern about what was perceived as an increase in xenophobia, particularly in some political campaigns. In reply to one critical report, the Federal Council noted that "racism unfortunately is present in Switzerland", but stated that the high proportion of foreign citizens in the country, as well as the generally unproblematic integration of foreigners, underlined Switzerland's openness.[183] 
+Follow-up study conducted in 2018 found that 59% considered racism a serious problem in Switzerland. 
+[184]
+The proportion of the population that has reported being targeted by racial discrimination has increased in recent years, from 10% in 2014 to almost 17% in 2018, according to the Federal Statistical Office. [185]
+
+Switzerland has four national languages: mainly German (spoken by 62.8% of the population in 2016); French (22.9%) in the west; and Italian (8.2%) in the south.[187][186] The fourth national language, Romansh (0.5%), is a Romance language spoken locally in the southeastern trilingual canton of Grisons, and is designated by Article 4 of the Federal Constitution as a national language along with German, French, and Italian, and in Article 70 as an official language if the authorities communicate with persons who speak Romansh. However, federal laws and other official acts do not need to be decreed in Romansh.
+
+In 2016, the languages most spoken at home among permanent residents aged 15 and older were Swiss German (59.4%), French (23.5%), Standard German (10.6%), and Italian (8.5%). Other languages spoken at home included English (5.0%), Portuguese (3.8%), Albanian (3.0%), Spanish (2.6%) and Serbian and Croatian (2.5%). 6.9% reported speaking another language at home.[188] In 2014 almost two-thirds (64.4%) of the permanent resident population indicated speaking more than one language regularly.[189]
+
+The federal government is obliged to communicate in the official languages, and in the federal parliament simultaneous translation is provided from and into German, French and Italian.[190]
+
+Aside from the official forms of their respective languages, the four linguistic regions of Switzerland also have their local dialectal forms. The role played by dialects in each linguistic region varies dramatically: in the German-speaking regions, Swiss German dialects have become ever more prevalent since the second half of the 20th century, especially in the media, such as radio and television, and are used as an everyday language for many, while the Swiss variety of Standard German is almost always used instead of dialect for written communication (c.f. diglossic usage of a language).[191] Conversely, in the French-speaking regions the local dialects have almost disappeared (only 6.3% of the population of Valais, 3.9% of Fribourg, and 3.1% of Jura still spoke dialects at the end of the 20th century), while in the Italian-speaking regions dialects are mostly limited to family settings and casual conversation.[191]
+
+The principal official languages (German, French, and Italian) have terms, not used outside of Switzerland, known as Helvetisms. German Helvetisms are, roughly speaking, a large group of words typical of Swiss Standard German, which do not appear either in Standard German, nor in other German dialects. These include terms from Switzerland's surrounding language cultures (German Billett[192] from French), from similar terms in another language (Italian azione used not only as act but also as discount from German Aktion).[193] The French spoken in Switzerland has similar terms, which are equally known as Helvetisms. The most frequent characteristics of Helvetisms are in vocabulary, phrases, and pronunciation, but certain Helvetisms denote themselves as special in syntax and orthography likewise. Duden, the comprehensive German dictionary, contains about 3000 Helvetisms.[193] Current French dictionaries, such as the Petit Larousse, include several hundred Helvetisms.[194]
+
+Learning one of the other national languages at school is compulsory for all Swiss pupils, so many Swiss are supposed to be at least bilingual, especially those belonging to linguistic minority groups.[195]
+
+Swiss residents are universally required to buy health insurance from private insurance companies, which in turn are required to accept every applicant. While the cost of the system is among the highest, it compares well with other European countries in terms of health outcomes; patients have been reported as being, in general, highly satisfied with it.[196][197][198] In 2012, life expectancy at birth was 80.4 years for men and 84.7 years for women[199] — the highest in the world.[200][201] However, spending on health is particularly high at 11.4% of GDP (2010), on par with Germany and France (11.6%) and other European countries, but notably less than spending in the USA (17.6%).[202] From 1990, a steady increase can be observed, reflecting the high costs of the services provided.[203] With an ageing population and new healthcare technologies, health spending will likely continue to rise.[203] Drug use is comparable to other developed countries with 14% of men and 6.5% of women between 20-24 saying they had consumed cannabis in the past 30 days[204] and 5 Swiss cities were listed among the top 10 European cities for cocaine use as measured in wastewater.[205][206]
+
+Between two thirds and three quarters of the population live in urban areas.[207][208] Switzerland has gone from a largely rural country to an urban one in just 70 years. Since 1935 urban development has claimed as much of the Swiss landscape as it did during the previous 2,000 years. This urban sprawl does not only affect the plateau but also the Jura and the Alpine foothills[209] and there are growing concerns about land use.[210] However, from the beginning of the 21st century, the population growth in urban areas is higher than in the countryside.[208]
+
+Switzerland has a dense network of towns, where large, medium and small towns are complementary.[208] The plateau is very densely populated with about 450 people per km2 and the landscape continually shows signs of human presence.[211] The weight of the largest metropolitan areas, which are Zürich, Geneva–Lausanne, Basel and Bern tend to increase.[208] In international comparison the importance of these urban areas is stronger than their number of inhabitants suggests.[208] In addition the three main centres of Zürich, Geneva and Basel are recognised for their particularly great quality of life.[212]
+
+Switzerland has no official state religion, though most of the cantons (except Geneva and Neuchâtel) recognise official churches, which are either the Roman Catholic Church or the Swiss Reformed Church. These churches, and in some cantons also the Old Catholic Church and Jewish congregations, are financed by official taxation of adherents.[214]
+
+Christianity is the predominant religion of Switzerland (about 67% of resident population in 2016-2018[3] and 75% of Swiss citizens[215]), divided between the Roman Catholic Church (35.8% of the population), the Swiss Reformed Church (23.8%), further Protestant churches (2.2%), Eastern Orthodoxy (2.5%), and other Christian denominations (2.2%).[3] Immigration has established Islam (5.3%) as a sizeable minority religion.[3]
+
+26.3% of Swiss permanent residents are not affiliated with any religious community (Atheism, Agnosticism, and others).[3]
+
+As of the 2000 census other Christian minority communities included Neo-Pietism (0.44%), Pentecostalism (0.28%, mostly incorporated in the Schweizer Pfingstmission), Methodism (0.13%), the New Apostolic Church (0.45%), Jehovah's Witnesses (0.28%), other Protestant denominations (0.20%), the Old Catholic Church (0.18%), other Christian denominations (0.20%). Non-Christian religions are Hinduism (0.38%), Buddhism (0.29%), Judaism (0.25%) and others (0.11%); 4.3% did not make a statement.[216]
+
+The country was historically about evenly balanced between Catholic and Protestant, with a complex patchwork of majorities over most of the country. Switzerland played an exceptional role during the Reformation as it became home to many reformers. Geneva converted to Protestantism in 1536, just before John Calvin arrived there. In 1541, he founded the Republic of Geneva on his own ideals. It became known internationally as the Protestant Rome, and housed such reformers as Theodore Beza, William Farel or Pierre Viret. Zürich became another stronghold around the same time, with Huldrych Zwingli and Heinrich Bullinger taking the lead there. Anabaptists Felix Manz and Conrad Grebel also operated there. They were later joined by the fleeing Peter Martyr Vermigli and Hans Denck. Other centres included Basel (Andreas Karlstadt and Johannes Oecolampadius), Berne (Berchtold Haller and Niklaus Manuel), and St. Gallen (Joachim Vadian). One canton, Appenzell, was officially divided into Catholic and Protestant sections in 1597. The larger cities and their cantons (Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, Zürich and Basel) used to be predominantly Protestant. Central Switzerland, the Valais, the Ticino, Appenzell Innerrhodes, the Jura, and Fribourg are traditionally Catholic. The Swiss Constitution of 1848, under the recent impression of the clashes of Catholic vs. Protestant cantons that culminated in the Sonderbundskrieg, consciously defines a consociational state, allowing the peaceful co-existence of Catholics and Protestants. A 1980 initiative calling for the complete separation of church and state was rejected by 78.9% of the voters.[217] Some traditionally Protestant cantons and cities nowadays have a slight Catholic majority, not because they were growing in members, quite the contrary, but only because since about 1970 a steadily growing minority became not affiliated with any church or other religious body (21.4% in Switzerland, 2012) especially in traditionally Protestant regions, such as Basel-City (42%), canton of Neuchâtel (38%), canton of Geneva (35%), canton of Vaud (26%), or Zürich city (city: >25%; canton: 23%).[218]
+
+Three of Europe's major languages are official in Switzerland. Swiss culture is characterised by diversity, which is reflected in a wide range of traditional customs.[219] A region may be in some ways strongly culturally connected to the neighbouring country that shares its language, the country itself being rooted in western European culture.[220] The linguistically isolated Romansh culture in Graubünden in eastern Switzerland constitutes an exception, it survives only in the upper valleys of the Rhine and the Inn and strives to maintain its rare linguistic tradition.
+
+Switzerland is home to many notable contributors to literature, art, architecture, music and sciences. In addition the country attracted a number of creative persons during time of unrest or war in Europe.[221]
+Some 1000 museums are distributed through the country; the number has more than tripled since 1950.[222] Among the most important cultural performances held annually are the Paléo Festival, Lucerne Festival,[223] the Montreux Jazz Festival,[224] the Locarno International Film Festival and the Art Basel.[225]
+
+Alpine symbolism has played an essential role in shaping the history of the country and the Swiss national identity.[13][226] Nowadays some concentrated mountain areas have a strong highly energetic ski resort culture in winter, and a hiking (German: das Wandern) or Mountain biking culture in summer. Other areas throughout the year have a recreational culture that caters to tourism, yet the quieter seasons are spring and autumn when there are fewer visitors. A traditional farmer and herder culture also predominates in many areas and small farms are omnipresent outside the towns. Folk art is kept alive in organisations all over the country. In Switzerland it is mostly expressed in music, dance, poetry, wood carving and embroidery. The alphorn, a trumpet-like musical instrument made of wood, has become alongside yodeling and the accordion an epitome of traditional Swiss music.[227][228]
+
+As the Confederation, from its foundation in 1291, was almost exclusively composed of German-speaking regions, the earliest forms of literature are in German. In the 18th century, French became the fashionable language in Bern and elsewhere, while the influence of the French-speaking allies and subject lands was more marked than before.[230]
+
+Among the classic authors of Swiss German literature are Jeremias Gotthelf (1797–1854) and Gottfried Keller (1819–1890). The undisputed giants of 20th-century Swiss literature are Max Frisch (1911–91) and Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–90), whose repertoire includes Die Physiker (The Physicists) and Das Versprechen (The Pledge), released in 2001 as a Hollywood film.[231]
+
+Famous French-speaking writers were Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) and Germaine de Staël (1766–1817). More recent authors include Charles Ferdinand Ramuz (1878–1947), whose novels describe the lives of peasants and mountain dwellers, set in a harsh environment and Blaise Cendrars (born Frédéric Sauser, 1887–1961).[231] Italian and Romansh-speaking authors also contributed to the Swiss literary landscape, but generally in more modest ways given their small number.
+
+Probably the most famous Swiss literary creation, Heidi, the story of an orphan girl who lives with her grandfather in the Alps, is one of the most popular children's books ever and has come to be a symbol of Switzerland. Her creator, Johanna Spyri (1827–1901), wrote a number of other books on similar themes.[231]
+
+The freedom of the press and the right to free expression is guaranteed in the federal constitution of Switzerland.[232] The Swiss News Agency (SNA) broadcasts information around-the-clock in three of the four national languages—on politics, economics, society and culture. The SNA supplies almost all Swiss media and a couple dozen foreign media services with its news.[232]
+
+Switzerland has historically boasted the greatest number of newspaper titles published in proportion to its population and size.[233] The most influential newspapers are the German-language Tages-Anzeiger and Neue Zürcher Zeitung NZZ, and the French-language Le Temps, but almost every city has at least one local newspaper. The cultural diversity accounts for a variety of newspapers.[233]
+
+The government exerts greater control over broadcast media than print media, especially due to finance and licensing.[233] The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, whose name was recently changed to SRG SSR, is charged with the production and broadcast of radio and television programmes. SRG SSR studios are distributed throughout the various language regions. Radio content is produced in six central and four regional studios while the television programmes are produced in Geneva, Zürich, and Lugano. An extensive cable network also allows most Swiss to access the programmes from neighbouring countries.[233]
+
+Skiing, snowboarding and mountaineering are among the most popular sports in Switzerland, the nature of the country being particularly suited for such activities.[234] Winter sports are practised by the natives and tourists since the second half of the 19th century with the invention of bobsleigh in St. Moritz.[235] The first world ski championships were held in Mürren (1931) and St. Moritz (1934). The latter town hosted the second Winter Olympic Games in 1928 and the fifth edition in 1948. Among the most successful skiers and world champions are Pirmin Zurbriggen and Didier Cuche.
+
+The most prominently watched sports in Switzerland are football, ice hockey, Alpine skiing, "Schwingen", and tennis.[236]
+
+The headquarters of the international football's and ice hockey's governing bodies, the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) and International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), are located in Zürich. Actually many other headquarters of international sports federations are located in Switzerland. For example, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), IOC's Olympic Museum and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) are located in Lausanne.
+
+Switzerland hosted the 1954 FIFA World Cup, and was the joint host, with Austria, of the UEFA Euro 2008 tournament. The Swiss Super League is the nation's professional football club league. Europe's highest football pitch, at 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) above sea level, is located in Switzerland and is named the Ottmar Hitzfeld Stadium.[237]
+
+Many Swiss also follow ice hockey and support one of the 12 teams of the National League, which is the most attended league in Europe.[239] In 2009, Switzerland hosted the IIHF World Championship for the 10th time.[240] It also became World Vice-Champion in 2013 and 2018. The numerous lakes make Switzerland an attractive place for sailing. The largest, Lake Geneva, is the home of the sailing team Alinghi which was the first European team to win the America's Cup in 2003 and which successfully defended the title in 2007. Tennis has become an increasingly popular sport, and Swiss players such as Martina Hingis, Roger Federer, and Stanislas Wawrinka have won multiple Grand Slams.
+
+Motorsport racecourses and events were banned in Switzerland following the 1955 Le Mans disaster with exception to events such as Hillclimbing. During this period, the country still produced successful racing drivers such as Clay Regazzoni, Sébastien Buemi, Jo Siffert, Dominique Aegerter, successful World Touring Car Championship driver Alain Menu, 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Marcel Fässler and 2015 24 Hours Nürburgring winner Nico Müller. Switzerland also won the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport in 2007–08 with driver Neel Jani. Swiss motorcycle racer Thomas Lüthi won the 2005 MotoGP World Championship in the 125cc category. In June 2007 the Swiss National Council, one house of the Federal Assembly of Switzerland, voted to overturn the ban, however the other house, the Swiss Council of States rejected the change and the ban remains in place.[241][242]
+
+Traditional sports include Swiss wrestling or "Schwingen". It is an old tradition from the rural central cantons and considered the national sport by some. Hornussen is another indigenous Swiss sport, which is like a cross between baseball and golf.[243] Steinstossen is the Swiss variant of stone put, a competition in throwing a heavy stone. Practised only among the alpine population since prehistoric times, it is recorded to have taken place in Basel in the 13th century. It is also central to the Unspunnenfest, first held in 1805, with its symbol the 83.5 stone named Unspunnenstein.[244]
+
+The cuisine of Switzerland is multifaceted. While some dishes such as fondue, raclette or rösti are omnipresent through the country, each region developed its own gastronomy according to the differences of climate and languages.[245][246] Traditional Swiss cuisine uses ingredients similar to those in other European countries, as well as unique dairy products and cheeses such as Gruyère or Emmental, produced in the valleys of Gruyères and Emmental. The number of fine-dining establishments is high, particularly in western Switzerland.[247][248]
+
+Chocolate has been made in Switzerland since the 18th century but it gained its reputation at the end of the 19th century with the invention of modern techniques such as conching and tempering which enabled its production on a high quality level. Also a breakthrough was the invention of solid milk chocolate in 1875 by Daniel Peter. The Swiss are the world's largest consumers of chocolate.[249][250]
+
+Due to the popularisation of processed foods at the end of the 19th century, Swiss health food pioneer Maximilian Bircher-Benner created the first nutrition-based therapy in form of the well-known rolled oats cereal dish, called Birchermüesli.
+
+The most popular alcoholic drink in Switzerland is wine. Switzerland is notable for the variety of grapes grown because of the large variations in terroirs, with their specific mixes of soil, air, altitude and light. Swiss wine is produced mainly in Valais, Vaud (Lavaux), Geneva and Ticino, with a small majority of white wines. Vineyards have been cultivated in Switzerland since the Roman era, even though certain traces can be found of a more ancient origin. The most widespread varieties are the Chasselas (called Fendant in Valais) and Pinot noir. The Merlot is the main variety produced in Ticino.[251][252]
+
+Coordinates: 46°50′N 8°20′E / 46.833°N 8.333°E / 46.833; 8.333
+

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+Science (from the Latin word scientia, meaning "knowledge")[1] is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.[2][3][4]
+
+The earliest roots of science can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3500 to 3000 BCE.[5][6] Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes.[5][6] After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of the Middle Ages[7] but was preserved in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age.[8] The recovery and assimilation of Greek works and Islamic inquiries into Western Europe from the 10th to 13th century revived "natural philosophy",[7][9] which was later transformed by the Scientific Revolution that began in the 16th century[10] as new ideas and discoveries departed from previous Greek conceptions and traditions.[11][12][13][14] The scientific method soon played a greater role in knowledge creation and it was not until the 19th century that many of the institutional and professional features of science began to take shape;[15][16][17] along with the changing of "natural philosophy" to "natural science."[18]
+
+Modern science is typically divided into three major branches that consist of the natural sciences (e.g., biology, chemistry, and physics), which study nature in the broadest sense; the social sciences (e.g., economics, psychology, and sociology), which study individuals and societies; and the formal sciences (e.g., logic, mathematics, and theoretical computer science), which study abstract concepts. There is disagreement,[19][20][21] however, on whether the formal sciences actually constitute a science as they do not rely on empirical evidence.[22][20] Disciplines that use existing scientific knowledge for practical purposes, such as engineering and medicine, are described as applied sciences.[23][24][25][26]
+
+Science is based on research, which is commonly conducted in academic and research institutions as well as in government agencies and companies. The practical impact of scientific research has led to the emergence of science policies that seek to influence the scientific enterprise by prioritizing the development of commercial products, armaments, health care, and environmental protection.
+
+Science in a broad sense existed before the modern era and in many historical civilizations.[27] Modern science is distinct in its approach and successful in its results, so it now defines what science is in the strictest sense of the term.[3][5][28] Science in its original sense was a word for a type of knowledge, rather than a specialized word for the pursuit of such knowledge. In particular, it was the type of knowledge which people can communicate to each other and share. For example, knowledge about the working of natural things was gathered long before recorded history and led to the development of complex abstract thought. This is shown by the construction of complex calendars, techniques for making poisonous plants edible, public works at national scale, such as those which harnessed the floodplain of the Yangtse with reservoirs,[29] dams, and dikes, and buildings such as the Pyramids. However, no consistent conscious distinction was made between knowledge of such things, which are true in every community, and other types of communal knowledge, such as mythologies and legal systems. Metallurgy was known in prehistory, and the Vinča culture was the earliest known producer of bronze-like alloys. It is thought that early experimentation with heating and mixing of substances over time developed into alchemy.
+
+Neither the words nor the concepts "science" and "nature" were part of the conceptual landscape in the ancient near east.[30] The ancient Mesopotamians used knowledge about the properties of various natural chemicals for manufacturing pottery, faience, glass, soap, metals, lime plaster, and waterproofing;[31] they also studied animal physiology, anatomy, and behavior for divinatory purposes[31] and made extensive records of the movements of astronomical objects for their study of astrology.[32] The Mesopotamians had intense interest in medicine[31] and the earliest medical prescriptions appear in Sumerian during the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2112 BCE – c. 2004 BCE).[33] Nonetheless, the Mesopotamians seem to have had little interest in gathering information about the natural world for the mere sake of gathering information[31] and mainly only studied scientific subjects which had obvious practical applications or immediate relevance to their religious system.[31]
+
+In classical antiquity, there is no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, well-educated, usually upper-class, and almost universally male individuals performed various investigations into nature whenever they could afford the time.[34] Before the invention or discovery of the concept of "nature" (ancient Greek phusis) by the Pre-Socratic philosophers, the same words tend to be used to describe the natural "way" in which a plant grows,[35] and the "way" in which, for example, one tribe worships a particular god. For this reason, it is claimed these men were the first philosophers in the strict sense, and also the first people to clearly distinguish "nature" and "convention."[36]:209 Natural philosophy, the precursor of natural science, was thereby distinguished as the knowledge of nature and things which are true for every community, and the name of the specialized pursuit of such knowledge was philosophy – the realm of the first philosopher-physicists. They were mainly speculators or theorists, particularly interested in astronomy. In contrast, trying to use knowledge of nature to imitate nature (artifice or technology, Greek technē) was seen by classical scientists as a more appropriate interest for artisans of lower social class.[37]
+
+The early Greek philosophers of the Milesian school, which was founded by Thales of Miletus and later continued by his successors Anaximander and Anaximenes, were the first to attempt to explain natural phenomena without relying on the supernatural.[38] The Pythagoreans developed a complex number philosophy[39]:467–68 and contributed significantly to the development of mathematical science.[39]:465 The theory of atoms was developed by the Greek philosopher Leucippus and his student Democritus.[40][41] The Greek doctor Hippocrates established the tradition of systematic medical science[42][43] and is known as "The Father of Medicine".[44]
+
+A turning point in the history of early philosophical science was Socrates' example of applying philosophy to the study of human matters, including human nature, the nature of political communities, and human knowledge itself. The Socratic method as documented by Plato's dialogues is a dialectic method of hypothesis elimination: better hypotheses are found by steadily identifying and eliminating those that lead to contradictions. This was a reaction to the Sophist emphasis on rhetoric. The Socratic method searches for general, commonly held truths that shape beliefs and scrutinizes them to determine their consistency with other beliefs.[46] Socrates criticized the older type of study of physics as too purely speculative and lacking in self-criticism. Socrates was later, in the words of his Apology, accused of corrupting the youth of Athens because he did "not believe in the gods the state believes in, but in other new spiritual beings". Socrates refuted these claims,[47] but was sentenced to death.[48]:30e
+
+Aristotle later created a systematic programme of teleological philosophy: Motion and change is described as the actualization of potentials already in things, according to what types of things they are. In his physics, the Sun goes around the Earth, and many things have it as part of their nature that they are for humans. Each thing has a formal cause, a final cause, and a role in a cosmic order with an unmoved mover. The Socratics also insisted that philosophy should be used to consider the practical question of the best way to live for a human being (a study Aristotle divided into ethics and political philosophy). Aristotle maintained that man knows a thing scientifically "when he possesses a conviction arrived at in a certain way, and when the first principles on which that conviction rests are known to him with certainty".[49]
+
+The Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos (310–230 BCE) was the first to propose a heliocentric model of the universe, with the Sun at the center and all the planets orbiting it.[50] Aristarchus's model was widely rejected because it was believed to violate the laws of physics.[50] The inventor and mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse made major contributions to the beginnings of calculus[51] and has sometimes been credited as its inventor,[51] although his proto-calculus lacked several defining features.[51] Pliny the Elder was a Roman writer and polymath, who wrote the seminal encyclopedia Natural History,[52][53][54] dealing with history, geography, medicine, astronomy, earth science, botany, and zoology.[52]
+Other scientists or proto-scientists in Antiquity were Theophrastus, Euclid, Herophilos, Hipparchus, Ptolemy, and Galen.
+
+Because of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire due to the Migration Period an intellectual decline took place in the western part of Europe in the 400s. In contrast, the Byzantine Empire resisted the attacks from invaders, and preserved and improved upon the learning. John Philoponus, a Byzantine scholar in the 500s, questioned Aristotle's teaching of physics and to note its flaws.[56]:pp.307, 311, 363, 402 John Philoponus' criticism of Aristotelian principles of physics served as an inspiration to medieval scholars as well as to Galileo Galilei who ten centuries later, during the Scientific Revolution, extensively cited Philoponus in his works while making the case for why Aristotelian physics was flawed.[56][57]
+
+During late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, the Aristotelian approach to inquiries on natural phenomena was used. Aristotle's four causes prescribed that four "why" questions should be answered in order to explain things scientifically.[58] Some ancient knowledge was lost, or in some cases kept in obscurity, during the fall of the Western Roman Empire and periodic political struggles. However, the general fields of science (or "natural philosophy" as it was called) and much of the general knowledge from the ancient world remained preserved through the works of the early Latin encyclopedists like Isidore of Seville.[59] However, Aristotle's original texts were eventually lost in Western Europe, and only one text by Plato was widely known, the Timaeus, which was the only Platonic dialogue, and one of the few original works of classical natural philosophy, available to Latin readers in the early Middle Ages. Another original work that gained influence in this period was Ptolemy's Almagest, which contains a geocentric description of the solar system.
+
+During late antiquity, in the Byzantine empire many Greek classical texts were preserved. Many Syriac translations were done by groups such as the Nestorians and Monophysites.[60] They played a role when they translated Greek classical texts into Arabic under the Caliphate, during which many types of classical learning were preserved and in some cases improved upon.[60][a] In addition, the neighboring Sassanid Empire established the medical Academy of Gondeshapur where Greek, Syriac and Persian physicians established the most important medical center of the ancient world during the 6th and 7th centuries.[61]
+
+The House of Wisdom was established in Abbasid-era Baghdad, Iraq,[62]
+where the Islamic study of Aristotelianism flourished. Al-Kindi (801–873) was the first of the Muslim Peripatetic philosophers, and is known for his efforts to introduce Greek and Hellenistic philosophy to the Arab world.[63] The Islamic Golden Age flourished from this time until the Mongol invasions of the 13th century. Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), as well as his predecessor Ibn Sahl, was familiar with Ptolemy's Optics, and used experiments as a means to gain knowledge.[b][64][65]:463–65 Alhazen disproved Ptolemy's theory of vision,[66] but did not make any corresponding changes to Aristotle's metaphysics. Furthermore, doctors and alchemists such as the Persians Avicenna and Al-Razi also greatly developed the science of Medicine with the former writing the Canon of Medicine, a medical encyclopedia used until the 18th century and the latter discovering multiple compounds like alcohol. Avicenna's canon is considered to be one of the most important publications in medicine and they both contributed significantly to the practice of experimental medicine, using clinical trials and experiments to back their claims.[67]
+
+In Classical antiquity, Greek and Roman taboos had meant that dissection was usually banned in ancient times, but in Middle Ages it changed: medical teachers and students at Bologna began to open human bodies, and Mondino de Luzzi (c. 1275–1326) produced the first known anatomy textbook based on human dissection.[68][69]
+
+By the eleventh century most of Europe had become Christian; stronger monarchies emerged; borders were restored; technological developments and agricultural innovations were made which increased the food supply and population. In addition, classical Greek texts started to be translated from Arabic and Greek into Latin, giving a higher level of scientific discussion in Western Europe.[7]
+
+By 1088, the first university in Europe (the University of Bologna) had emerged from its clerical beginnings. Demand for Latin translations grew (for example, from the Toledo School of Translators); western Europeans began collecting texts written not only in Latin, but also Latin translations from Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew. Manuscript copies of Alhazen's Book of Optics also propagated across Europe before 1240,[70]:Intro. p. xx as evidenced by its incorporation into Vitello's Perspectiva. Avicenna's Canon was translated into Latin.[71] In particular, the texts of Aristotle, Ptolemy,[c] and Euclid, preserved in the Houses of Wisdom and also in the Byzantine Empire,[72] were sought amongst Catholic scholars. The influx of ancient texts caused the Renaissance of the 12th century and the flourishing of a synthesis of Catholicism and Aristotelianism known as Scholasticism in western Europe, which became a new geographic center of science. An experiment in this period would be understood as a careful process of observing, describing, and classifying.[73] One prominent scientist in this era was Roger Bacon. Scholasticism had a strong focus on revelation and dialectic reasoning, and gradually fell out of favour over the next centuries, as alchemy's focus on experiments that include direct observation and meticulous documentation slowly increased in importance.
+
+New developments in optics played a role in the inception of the Renaissance, both by challenging long-held metaphysical ideas on perception, as well as by contributing to the improvement and development of technology such as the camera obscura and the telescope. Before what we now know as the Renaissance started, Roger Bacon, Vitello, and John Peckham each built up a scholastic ontology upon a causal chain beginning with sensation, perception, and finally apperception of the individual and universal forms of Aristotle.[74] A model of vision later known as perspectivism was exploited and studied by the artists of the Renaissance. This theory uses only three of Aristotle's four causes: formal, material, and final.[75]
+
+In the sixteenth century, Copernicus formulated a heliocentric model of the solar system unlike the geocentric model of Ptolemy's Almagest. This was based on a theorem that the orbital periods of the planets are longer as their orbs are farther from the centre of motion, which he found not to agree with Ptolemy's model.[76]
+
+Kepler and others challenged the notion that the only function of the eye is perception, and shifted the main focus in optics from the eye to the propagation of light.[75][77]:102 Kepler modelled the eye as a water-filled glass sphere with an aperture in front of it to model the entrance pupil. He found that all the light from a single point of the scene was imaged at a single point at the back of the glass sphere. The optical chain ends on the retina at the back of the eye.[d] Kepler is best known, however, for improving Copernicus' heliocentric model through the discovery of Kepler's laws of planetary motion. Kepler did not reject Aristotelian metaphysics, and described his work as a search for the Harmony of the Spheres.
+
+Galileo made innovative use of experiment and mathematics. However, he became persecuted after Pope Urban VIII blessed Galileo to write about the Copernican system. Galileo had used arguments from the Pope and put them in the voice of the simpleton in the work "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems", which greatly offended Urban VIII.[79]
+
+In Northern Europe, the new technology of the printing press was widely used to publish many arguments, including some that disagreed widely with contemporary ideas of nature. René Descartes and Francis Bacon published philosophical arguments in favor of a new type of non-Aristotelian science. Descartes emphasized individual thought and argued that mathematics rather than geometry should be used in order to study nature. Bacon emphasized the importance of experiment over contemplation. Bacon further questioned the Aristotelian concepts of formal cause and final cause, and promoted the idea that science should study the laws of "simple" natures, such as heat, rather than assuming that there is any specific nature, or "formal cause", of each complex type of thing. This new science began to see itself as describing "laws of nature". This updated approach to studies in nature was seen as mechanistic. Bacon also argued that science should aim for the first time at practical inventions for the improvement of all human life.
+
+As a precursor to the Age of Enlightenment, Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz succeeded in developing a new physics, now referred to as classical mechanics, which could be confirmed by experiment and explained using mathematics (Newton (1687), Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica). Leibniz also incorporated terms from Aristotelian physics, but now being used in a new non-teleological way, for example, "energy" and "potential" (modern versions of Aristotelian "energeia and potentia"). This implied a shift in the view of objects: Where Aristotle had noted that objects have certain innate goals that can be actualized, objects were now regarded as devoid of innate goals. In the style of Francis Bacon, Leibniz assumed that different types of things all work according to the same general laws of nature, with no special formal or final causes for each type of thing.[80] It is during this period that the word "science" gradually became more commonly used to refer to a type of pursuit of a type of knowledge, especially knowledge of nature – coming close in meaning to the old term "natural philosophy."
+
+During this time, the declared purpose and value of science became producing wealth and inventions that would improve human lives, in the materialistic sense of having more food, clothing, and other things. In Bacon's words, "the real and legitimate goal of sciences is the endowment of human life with new inventions and riches", and he discouraged scientists from pursuing intangible philosophical or spiritual ideas, which he believed contributed little to human happiness beyond "the fume of subtle, sublime, or pleasing speculation".[81]
+
+Science during the Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies[82] and academies, which had largely replaced universities as centres of scientific research and development. Societies and academies were also the backbone of the maturation of the scientific profession. Another important development was the popularization of science among an increasingly literate population. Philosophes introduced the public to many scientific theories, most notably through the Encyclopédie and the popularization of Newtonianism by Voltaire as well as by Émilie du Châtelet, the French translator of Newton's Principia.
+
+Some historians have marked the 18th century as a drab period in the history of science;[83] however, the century saw significant advancements in the practice of medicine, mathematics, and physics; the development of biological taxonomy; a new understanding of magnetism and electricity; and the maturation of chemistry as a discipline, which established the foundations of modern chemistry.
+
+Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors – Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally – as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of nature and natural law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded.[84]
+
+The nineteenth century is a particularly important period in the history of science since during this era many distinguishing characteristics of contemporary modern science began to take shape such as: transformation of the life and physical sciences, frequent use of precision instruments, emergence of terms like "biologist", "physicist", "scientist"; slowly moving away from antiquated labels like "natural philosophy" and "natural history", increased professionalization of those studying nature lead to reduction in amateur naturalists, scientists gained cultural authority over many dimensions of society, economic expansion and industrialization of numerous countries, thriving of popular science writings and emergence of science journals.[17]
+
+Early in the 19th century, John Dalton suggested the modern atomic theory, based on Democritus's original idea of individible particles called atoms.
+
+Both John Herschel and William Whewell systematized methodology: the latter coined the term scientist.[85] When Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species he established evolution as the prevailing explanation of biological complexity. His theory of natural selection provided a natural explanation of how species originated, but this only gained wide acceptance a century later.
+
+The laws of conservation of energy, conservation of momentum and conservation of mass suggested a highly stable universe where there could be little loss of resources. With the advent of the steam engine and the industrial revolution, there was, however, an increased understanding that all forms of energy as defined in physics were not equally useful： they did not have the same energy quality. This realization led to the development of the laws of thermodynamics, in which the free energy of the universe is seen as constantly declining: the entropy of a closed universe increases over time.
+
+The electromagnetic theory was also established in the 19th century, and raised new questions which could not easily be answered using Newton's framework. The phenomena that would allow the deconstruction of the atom were discovered in the last decade of the 19th century: the discovery of X-rays inspired the discovery of radioactivity. In the next year came the discovery of the first subatomic particle, the electron.
+
+Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and the development of quantum mechanics led to the replacement of classical mechanics with a new physics which contains two parts that describe different types of events in nature.
+
+In the first half of the century, the development of antibiotics and artificial fertilizer made global human population growth possible. At the same time, the structure of the atom and its nucleus was discovered, leading to the release of "atomic energy" (nuclear power). In addition, the extensive use of technological innovation stimulated by the wars of this century led to revolutions in transportation (automobiles and aircraft), the development of ICBMs, a space race, and a nuclear arms race.
+
+The molecular structure of DNA was discovered in 1953. The discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964 led to a rejection of the Steady State theory of the universe in favour of the Big Bang theory of Georges Lemaître.
+
+The development of spaceflight in the second half of the century allowed the first astronomical measurements done on or near other objects in space, including manned landings on the Moon. Space telescopes lead to numerous discoveries in astronomy and cosmology.
+
+Widespread use of integrated circuits in the last quarter of the 20th century combined with communications satellites led to a revolution in information technology and the rise of the global internet and mobile computing, including smartphones. The need for mass systematization of long, intertwined causal chains and large amounts of data led to the rise of the fields of systems theory and computer-assisted scientific modelling, which are partly based on the Aristotelian paradigm.[86]
+
+Harmful environmental issues such as ozone depletion, acidification, eutrophication and climate change came to the public's attention in the same period, and caused the onset of environmental science and environmental technology.
+
+The Human Genome Project was completed in 2003, determining the sequence of nucleotide base pairs that make up human DNA, and identifying and mapping all of the genes of the human genome.[87] Induced pluripotent stem cells were developed in 2006, a technology allowing adult cells to be transformed into stem cells capable of giving rise to any cell type found in the body, potentially of huge importance to the field of regenerative medicine.[88]
+
+With the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, the last particle predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics was found. In 2015, gravitational waves, predicted by general relativity a century before, were first observed.[89][90]
+
+Modern science is commonly divided into three major branches: natural science, social science, and formal science. Each of these branches comprises various specialized yet overlapping scientific disciplines that often possess their own nomenclature and expertise.[91] Both natural and social sciences are empirical sciences,[92] as their knowledge is based on empirical observations and is capable of being tested for its validity by other researchers working under the same conditions.[93]
+
+There are also closely related disciplines that use science, such as engineering and medicine, which are sometimes described as applied sciences. The relationships between the branches of science are summarized by the following table.
+
+Natural science is concerned with the description, prediction, and understanding of natural phenomena based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. It can be divided into two main branches: life science (or biological science) and physical science. These two branches may be further divided into more specialized disciplines. Physical science is subdivided into branches, including physics, chemistry, astronomy and earth science. Modern natural science is the successor to the natural philosophy that began in Ancient Greece. Galileo, Descartes, Bacon, and Newton debated the benefits of using approaches which were more mathematical and more experimental in a methodical way. Still, philosophical perspectives, conjectures, and presuppositions, often overlooked, remain necessary in natural science.[94] Systematic data collection, including discovery science, succeeded natural history, which emerged in the 16th century by describing and classifying plants, animals, minerals, and so on.[95] Today, "natural history" suggests observational descriptions aimed at popular audiences.[96]
+
+Social science is concerned with society and the relationships among individuals within a society. It has many branches that include, but are not limited to, anthropology, archaeology, communication studies, economics, history, human geography, jurisprudence, linguistics, political science, psychology, public health, and sociology. Social scientists may adopt various philosophical theories to study individuals and society. For example, positivist social scientists use methods resembling those of the natural sciences as tools for understanding society, and so define science in its stricter modern sense. Interpretivist social scientists, by contrast, may use social critique or symbolic interpretation rather than constructing empirically falsifiable theories, and thus treat science in its broader sense. In modern academic practice, researchers are often eclectic, using multiple methodologies (for instance, by combining both quantitative and qualitative research). The term "social research" has also acquired a degree of autonomy as practitioners from various disciplines share in its aims and methods.
+
+Formal science is involved in the study of formal systems. It includes mathematics,[97][98] systems theory, and theoretical computer science. The formal sciences share similarities with the other two branches by relying on objective, careful, and systematic study of an area of knowledge. They are, however, different from the empirical sciences as they rely exclusively on deductive reasoning, without the need for empirical evidence, to verify their abstract concepts.[22][99][93] The formal sciences are therefore a priori disciplines and because of this, there is disagreement on whether they actually constitute a science.[19][21] Nevertheless, the formal sciences play an important role in the empirical sciences. Calculus, for example, was initially invented to understand motion in physics.[100] Natural and social sciences that rely heavily on mathematical applications include mathematical physics, mathematical chemistry, mathematical biology, mathematical finance, and mathematical economics.
+
+Scientific research can be labeled as either basic or applied research. Basic research is the search for knowledge and applied research is the search for solutions to practical problems using this knowledge. Although some scientific research is applied research into specific problems, a great deal of our understanding comes from the curiosity-driven undertaking of basic research. This leads to options for technological advance that were not planned or sometimes even imaginable. This point was made by Michael Faraday when allegedly in response to the question "what is the use of basic research?" he responded: "Sir, what is the use of a new-born child?".[101] For example, research into the effects of red light on the human eye's rod cells did not seem to have any practical purpose; eventually, the discovery that our night vision is not troubled by red light would lead search and rescue teams (among others) to adopt red light in the cockpits of jets and helicopters.[102] Finally, even basic research can take unexpected turns, and there is some sense in which the scientific method is built to harness luck.
+
+Scientific research involves using the scientific method, which seeks to objectively explain the events of nature in a reproducible way.[103] An explanatory thought experiment or hypothesis is put forward as explanation using principles such as parsimony (also known as "Occam's Razor") and are generally expected to seek consilience – fitting well with other accepted facts related to the phenomena.[104] This new explanation is used to make falsifiable predictions that are testable by experiment or observation. The predictions are to be posted before a confirming experiment or observation is sought, as proof that no tampering has occurred. Disproof of a prediction is evidence of progress.[e][f][103][105] This is done partly through observation of natural phenomena, but also through experimentation that tries to simulate natural events under controlled conditions as appropriate to the discipline (in the observational sciences, such as astronomy or geology, a predicted observation might take the place of a controlled experiment). Experimentation is especially important in science to help establish causal relationships (to avoid the correlation fallacy).
+
+When a hypothesis proves unsatisfactory, it is either modified or discarded.[106] If the hypothesis survived testing, it may become adopted into the framework of a scientific theory, a logically reasoned, self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of certain natural phenomena. A theory typically describes the behavior of much broader sets of phenomena than a hypothesis; commonly, a large number of hypotheses can be logically bound together by a single theory. Thus a theory is a hypothesis explaining various other hypotheses. In that vein, theories are formulated according to most of the same scientific principles as hypotheses. In addition to testing hypotheses, scientists may also generate a model, an attempt to describe or depict the phenomenon in terms of a logical, physical or mathematical representation and to generate new hypotheses that can be tested, based on observable phenomena.[107]
+
+While performing experiments to test hypotheses, scientists may have a preference for one outcome over another, and so it is important to ensure that science as a whole can eliminate this bias.[108][109] This can be achieved by careful experimental design, transparency, and a thorough peer review process of the experimental results as well as any conclusions.[110][111] After the results of an experiment are announced or published, it is normal practice for independent researchers to double-check how the research was performed, and to follow up by performing similar experiments to determine how dependable the results might be.[112] Taken in its entirety, the scientific method allows for highly creative problem solving while minimizing any effects of subjective bias on the part of its users (especially the confirmation bias).[113]
+
+John Ziman points out that intersubjective verifiability is fundamental to the creation of all scientific knowledge.[114] Ziman shows how scientists can identify patterns to each other across centuries; he refers to this ability as "perceptual consensibility."[114] He then makes consensibility, leading to consensus, the touchstone of reliable knowledge.[115]
+
+Mathematics is essential in the formation of hypotheses, theories, and laws[116] in the natural and social sciences. For example, it is used in quantitative scientific modeling, which can generate new hypotheses and predictions to be tested. It is also used extensively in observing and collecting measurements. Statistics, a branch of mathematics, is used to summarize and analyze data, which allow scientists to assess the reliability and variability of their experimental results.
+
+Computational science applies computing power to simulate real-world situations, enabling a better understanding of scientific problems than formal mathematics alone can achieve. According to the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, computation is now as important as theory and experiment in advancing scientific knowledge.[117]
+
+Scientists usually take for granted a set of basic assumptions that are needed to justify the scientific method: (1) that there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers; (2) that this objective reality is governed by natural laws; (3) that these laws can be discovered by means of systematic observation and experimentation.[3] Philosophy of science seeks a deep understanding of what these underlying assumptions mean and whether they are valid.
+
+The belief that scientific theories should and do represent metaphysical reality is known as realism. It can be contrasted with anti-realism, the view that the success of science does not depend on it being accurate about unobservable entities such as electrons. One form of anti-realism is idealism, the belief that the mind or consciousness is the most basic essence, and that each mind generates its own reality.[g] In an idealistic world view, what is true for one mind need not be true for other minds.
+
+There are different schools of thought in philosophy of science. The most popular position is empiricism,[h] which holds that knowledge is created by a process involving observation and that scientific theories are the result of generalizations from such observations.[118] Empiricism generally encompasses inductivism, a position that tries to explain the way general theories can be justified by the finite number of observations humans can make and hence the finite amount of empirical evidence available to confirm scientific theories. This is necessary because the number of predictions those theories make is infinite, which means that they cannot be known from the finite amount of evidence using deductive logic only. Many versions of empiricism exist, with the predominant ones being Bayesianism[119] and the hypothetico-deductive method.[118]
+
+Empiricism has stood in contrast to rationalism, the position originally associated with Descartes, which holds that knowledge is created by the human intellect, not by observation.[120] Critical rationalism is a contrasting 20th-century approach to science, first defined by Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper. Popper rejected the way that empiricism describes the connection between theory and observation. He claimed that theories are not generated by observation, but that observation is made in the light of theories and that the only way a theory can be affected by observation is when it comes in conflict with it.[121] Popper proposed replacing verifiability with falsifiability as the landmark of scientific theories and replacing induction with falsification as the empirical method.[121] Popper further claimed that there is actually only one universal method, not specific to science: the negative method of criticism, trial and error.[122] It covers all products of the human mind, including science, mathematics, philosophy, and art.[123]
+
+Another approach, instrumentalism, colloquially termed "shut up and multiply,"[124] emphasizes the utility of theories as instruments for explaining and predicting phenomena.[125] It views scientific theories as black boxes with only their input (initial conditions) and output (predictions) being relevant. Consequences, theoretical entities, and logical structure are claimed to be something that should simply be ignored and that scientists should not make a fuss about (see interpretations of quantum mechanics). Close to instrumentalism is constructive empiricism, according to which the main criterion for the success of a scientific theory is whether what it says about observable entities is true.
+
+Thomas Kuhn argued that the process of observation and evaluation takes place within a paradigm, a logically consistent "portrait" of the world that is consistent with observations made from its framing. He characterized normal science as the process of observation and "puzzle solving" which takes place within a paradigm, whereas revolutionary science occurs when one paradigm overtakes another in a paradigm shift.[126] Each paradigm has its own distinct questions, aims, and interpretations. The choice between paradigms involves setting two or more "portraits" against the world and deciding which likeness is most promising. A paradigm shift occurs when a significant number of observational anomalies arise in the old paradigm and a new paradigm makes sense of them. That is, the choice of a new paradigm is based on observations, even though those observations are made against the background of the old paradigm. For Kuhn, acceptance or rejection of a paradigm is a social process as much as a logical process. Kuhn's position, however, is not one of relativism.[127]
+
+Finally, another approach often cited in debates of scientific skepticism against controversial movements like "creation science" is methodological naturalism. Its main point is that a difference between natural and supernatural explanations should be made and that science should be restricted methodologically to natural explanations.[128][i] That the restriction is merely methodological (rather than ontological) means that science should not consider supernatural explanations itself, but should not claim them to be wrong either. Instead, supernatural explanations should be left a matter of personal belief outside the scope of science. Methodological naturalism maintains that proper science requires strict adherence to empirical study and independent verification as a process for properly developing and evaluating explanations for observable phenomena.[129] The absence of these standards, arguments from authority, biased observational studies and other common fallacies are frequently cited by supporters of methodological naturalism as characteristic of the non-science they criticize.
+
+A scientific theory is empirical[h][130] and is always open to falsification if new evidence is presented. That is, no theory is ever considered strictly certain as science accepts the concept of fallibilism.[j] The philosopher of science Karl Popper sharply distinguished truth from certainty. He wrote that scientific knowledge "consists in the search for truth," but it "is not the search for certainty ... All human knowledge is fallible and therefore uncertain.[131]
+
+New scientific knowledge rarely results in vast changes in our understanding. According to psychologist Keith Stanovich, it may be the media's overuse of words like "breakthrough" that leads the public to imagine that science is constantly proving everything it thought was true to be false.[102] While there are such famous cases as the theory of relativity that required a complete reconceptualization, these are extreme exceptions. Knowledge in science is gained by a gradual synthesis of information from different experiments by various researchers across different branches of science; it is more like a climb than a leap.[102] Theories vary in the extent to which they have been tested and verified, as well as their acceptance in the scientific community.[k] For example, heliocentric theory, the theory of evolution, relativity theory, and germ theory still bear the name "theory" even though, in practice, they are considered factual.[132]
+Philosopher Barry Stroud adds that, although the best definition for "knowledge" is contested, being skeptical and entertaining the possibility that one is incorrect is compatible with being correct. Therefore, scientists adhering to proper scientific approaches will doubt themselves even once they possess the truth.[133] The fallibilist C. S. Peirce argued that inquiry is the struggle to resolve actual doubt and that merely quarrelsome, verbal, or hyperbolic doubt is fruitless[134] – but also that the inquirer should try to attain genuine doubt rather than resting uncritically on common sense.[135] He held that the successful sciences trust not to any single chain of inference (no stronger than its weakest link) but to the cable of multiple and various arguments intimately connected.[136]
+
+Stanovich also asserts that science avoids searching for a "magic bullet"; it avoids the single-cause fallacy. This means a scientist would not ask merely "What is the cause of ...", but rather "What are the most significant causes of ...". This is especially the case in the more macroscopic fields of science (e.g. psychology, physical cosmology).[102] Research often analyzes few factors at once, but these are always added to the long list of factors that are most important to consider.[102] For example, knowing the details of only a person's genetics, or their history and upbringing, or the current situation may not explain a behavior, but a deep understanding of all these variables combined can be very predictive.
+
+Scientific research is published in an enormous range of scientific literature.[137] Scientific journals communicate and document the results of research carried out in universities and various other research institutions, serving as an archival record of science. The first scientific journals, Journal des Sçavans followed by the Philosophical Transactions, began publication in 1665. Since that time the total number of active periodicals has steadily increased. In 1981, one estimate for the number of scientific and technical journals in publication was 11,500.[138] The United States National Library of Medicine currently indexes 5,516 journals that contain articles on topics related to the life sciences. Although the journals are in 39 languages, 91 percent of the indexed articles are published in English.[139]
+
+Most scientific journals cover a single scientific field and publish the research within that field; the research is normally expressed in the form of a scientific paper. Science has become so pervasive in modern societies that it is generally considered necessary to communicate the achievements, news, and ambitions of scientists to a wider populace.
+
+Science magazines such as New Scientist, Science & Vie, and Scientific American cater to the needs of a much wider readership and provide a non-technical summary of popular areas of research, including notable discoveries and advances in certain fields of research. Science books engage the interest of many more people. Tangentially, the science fiction genre, primarily fantastic in nature, engages the public imagination and transmits the ideas, if not the methods, of science.
+
+Recent efforts to intensify or develop links between science and non-scientific disciplines such as literature or more specifically, poetry, include the Creative Writing Science resource developed through the Royal Literary Fund.[140]
+
+Discoveries in fundamental science can be world-changing. For example:
+
+The replication crisis is an ongoing methodological crisis primarily affecting parts of the social and life sciences in which scholars have found that the results of many scientific studies are difficult or impossible to replicate or reproduce on subsequent investigation, either by independent researchers or by the original researchers themselves.[141][142] The crisis has long-standing roots; the phrase was coined in the early 2010s[143] as part of a growing awareness of the problem. The replication crisis represents an important body of research in metascience, which aims to improve the quality of all scientific research while reducing waste.[144]
+
+An area of study or speculation that masquerades as science in an attempt to claim a legitimacy that it would not otherwise be able to achieve is sometimes referred to as pseudoscience, fringe science, or junk science.[m] Physicist Richard Feynman coined the term "cargo cult science" for cases in which researchers believe they are doing science because their activities have the outward appearance of science but actually lack the "kind of utter honesty" that allows their results to be rigorously evaluated.[145] Various types of commercial advertising, ranging from hype to fraud, may fall into these categories. Science has been described as "the most important tool" for separating valid claims from invalid ones.[146]
+
+There can also be an element of political or ideological bias on all sides of scientific debates. Sometimes, research may be characterized as "bad science," research that may be well-intended but is actually incorrect, obsolete, incomplete, or over-simplified expositions of scientific ideas. The term "scientific misconduct" refers to situations such as where researchers have intentionally misrepresented their published data or have purposely given credit for a discovery to the wrong person.[147]
+
+The scientific community is a group of all interacting scientists, along with their respective societies and institutions.
+
+Scientists are individuals who conduct scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of interest.[148][149] The term scientist was coined by William Whewell in 1833. In modern times, many professional scientists are trained in an academic setting and upon completion, attain an academic degree, with the highest degree being a doctorate such as a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).[150] Many scientists pursue careers in various sectors of the economy such as academia, industry, government, and nonprofit organizations.[151][152][153]
+
+Scientists exhibit a strong curiosity about reality, with some scientists having a desire to apply scientific knowledge for the benefit of health, nations, environment, or industries. Other motivations include recognition by their peers and prestige. The Nobel Prize, a widely regarded prestigious award,[154] is awarded annually to those who have achieved scientific advances in the fields of medicine, physics, chemistry, and economics.
+
+Science has historically been a male-dominated field, with some notable exceptions.[n] Women faced considerable discrimination in science, much as they did in other areas of male-dominated societies, such as frequently being passed over for job opportunities and denied credit for their work.[o] For example, Christine Ladd (1847–1930) was able to enter a PhD program as "C. Ladd"; Christine "Kitty" Ladd completed the requirements in 1882, but was awarded her degree only in 1926, after a career which spanned the algebra of logic (see truth table), color vision, and psychology. Her work preceded notable researchers like Ludwig Wittgenstein and Charles Sanders Peirce. The achievements of women in science have been attributed to their defiance of their traditional role as laborers within the domestic sphere.[156]
+
+In the late 20th century, active recruitment of women and elimination of institutional discrimination on the basis of sex greatly increased the number of women scientists, but large gender disparities remain in some fields; in the early 21st century over half of new biologists were female, while 80% of PhDs in physics are given to men.[citation needed] In the early part of the 21st century, women in the United States earned 50.3% of bachelor's degrees, 45.6% of master's degrees, and 40.7% of PhDs in science and engineering fields. They earned more than half of the degrees in psychology (about 70%), social sciences (about 50%), and biology (about 50-60%) but earned less than half the degrees in the physical sciences, earth sciences, mathematics, engineering, and computer science.[157] Lifestyle choice also plays a major role in female engagement in science; women with young children are 28% less likely to take tenure-track positions due to work-life balance issues,[158] and female graduate students' interest in careers in research declines dramatically over the course of graduate school, whereas that of their male colleagues remains unchanged.[159]
+
+Learned societies for the communication and promotion of scientific thought and experimentation have existed since the Renaissance.[160] Many scientists belong to a learned society that promotes their respective scientific discipline, profession, or group of related disciplines.[161] Membership may be open to all, may require possession of some scientific credentials, or may be an honor conferred by election.[162] Most scientific societies are non-profit organizations, and many are professional associations. Their activities typically include holding regular conferences for the presentation and discussion of new research results and publishing or sponsoring academic journals in their discipline. Some also act as professional bodies, regulating the activities of their members in the public interest or the collective interest of the membership. Scholars in the sociology of science[who?] argue that learned societies are of key importance and their formation assists in the emergence and development of new disciplines or professions.
+
+The professionalization of science, begun in the 19th century, was partly enabled by the creation of distinguished academy of sciences in a number of countries such as the Italian Accademia dei Lincei in 1603,[163] the British Royal Society in 1660, the French Académie des Sciences in 1666,[164] the American National Academy of Sciences in 1863, the German Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in 1911, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1928. International scientific organizations, such as the International Council for Science, have since been formed to promote cooperation between the scientific communities of different nations.
+
+Science policy is an area of public policy concerned with the policies that affect the conduct of the scientific enterprise, including research funding, often in pursuance of other national policy goals such as technological innovation to promote commercial product development, weapons development, health care and environmental monitoring. Science policy also refers to the act of applying scientific knowledge and consensus to the development of public policies. Science policy thus deals with the entire domain of issues that involve the natural sciences. In accordance with public policy being concerned about the well-being of its citizens, science policy's goal is to consider how science and technology can best serve the public.
+
+State policy has influenced the funding of public works and science for thousands of years, particularly within civilizations with highly organized governments such as imperial China and the Roman Empire. Prominent historical examples include the Great Wall of China, completed over the course of two millennia through the state support of several dynasties, and the Grand Canal of the Yangtze River, an immense feat of hydraulic engineering begun by Sunshu Ao (孫叔敖 7th c. BCE), Ximen Bao (西門豹 5th c.BCE), and Shi Chi (4th c. BCE). This construction dates from the 6th century BCE under the Sui Dynasty and is still in use today. In China, such state-supported infrastructure and scientific research projects date at least from the time of the Mohists, who inspired the study of logic during the period of the Hundred Schools of Thought and the study of defensive fortifications like the Great Wall of China during the Warring States period.
+
+Public policy can directly affect the funding of capital equipment and intellectual infrastructure for industrial research by providing tax incentives to those organizations that fund research. Vannevar Bush, director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development for the United States government, the forerunner of the National Science Foundation, wrote in July 1945 that "Science is a proper concern of government."[165]
+
+Scientific research is often funded through a competitive process in which potential research projects are evaluated and only the most promising receive funding. Such processes, which are run by government, corporations, or foundations, allocate scarce funds. Total research funding in most developed countries is between 1.5% and 3% of GDP.[166] In the OECD, around two-thirds of research and development in scientific and technical fields is carried out by industry, and 20% and 10% respectively by universities and government. The government funding proportion in certain industries is higher, and it dominates research in social science and humanities. Similarly, with some exceptions (e.g. biotechnology) government provides the bulk of the funds for basic scientific research. Many governments have dedicated agencies to support scientific research. Prominent scientific organizations include the National Science Foundation in the United States, the National Scientific and Technical Research Council in Argentina, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia, Centre national de la recherche scientifique in France, the Max Planck Society and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in Germany, and CSIC in Spain. In commercial research and development, all but the most research-oriented corporations focus more heavily on near-term commercialisation possibilities rather than "blue-sky" ideas or technologies (such as nuclear fusion).
+
+The public awareness of science relates to the attitudes, behaviors, opinions, and activities that make up the relations between science and the general public. it integrates various themes and activities such as science communication, science museums, science festivals, science fairs, citizen science, and science in popular culture. Social scientists have devised various metrics to measure the public understanding of science such as factual knowledge, self-reported knowledge, and structural knowledge.[167][168]
+
+The mass media face a number of pressures that can prevent them from accurately depicting competing scientific claims in terms of their credibility within the scientific community as a whole. Determining how much weight to give different sides in a scientific debate may require considerable expertise regarding the matter.[169] Few journalists have real scientific knowledge, and even beat reporters who know a great deal about certain scientific issues may be ignorant about other scientific issues that they are suddenly asked to cover.[170][171]
+
+Politicization of science occurs when government, business, or advocacy groups use legal or economic pressure to influence the findings of scientific research or the way it is disseminated, reported, or interpreted. Many factors can act as facets of the politicization of science such as populist anti-intellectualism, perceived threats to religious beliefs, postmodernist subjectivism, and fear for business interests.[172] Politicization of science is usually accomplished when scientific information is presented in a way that emphasizes the uncertainty associated with the scientific evidence.[173] Tactics such as shifting conversation, failing to acknowledge facts, and capitalizing on doubt of scientific consensus have been used to gain more attention for views that have been undermined by scientific evidence.[174] Examples of issues that have involved the politicization of science include the global warming controversy, health effects of pesticides, and health effects of tobacco.[174][175]
+
+Publications
+
+Resources

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+The Ballets Russes (French: [balɛ ʁys]) was an itinerant ballet company based in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. After its initial Paris season, the company had no formal ties there.[1]
+
+Originally conceived by impresario Sergei Diaghilev, the Ballets Russes is widely regarded as the most influential ballet company of the 20th century,[2] in part because it promoted ground-breaking artistic collaborations among young choreographers, composers, designers, and dancers, all at the forefront of their several fields. Diaghilev commissioned works from composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy, Sergei Prokofiev, Erik Satie, and Maurice Ravel, artists such as Vasily Kandinsky, Alexandre Benois, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse, and costume designers Léon Bakst and Coco Chanel.
+
+The company's productions created a huge sensation, completely reinvigorating the art of performing dance, bringing many visual artists to public attention, and significantly affecting the course of musical composition. It also introduced European and American audiences to tales, music, and design motifs drawn from Russian folklore. The influence of the Ballets Russes lasts to the present day.
+
+The French plural form of the name, “Ballets Russes,” specifically refers to the company founded by Sergei Diaghilev and active during his lifetime.  (In some publicity the company was advertised as Les Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghileff.)  In English, the company is now commonly referred to as "the Ballets Russes" (plural, without italics), although in the early part of the 20th century, it was sometimes referred to as “The Russian Ballet” or “Diaghilev’s Russian Ballet.”  To add to the confusion, some publicity material spelled the name in the singular.
+
+The names Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo” and the Original Ballet Russe (using the singular) refer to companies that formed after Diaghilev's death in 1929.
+
+Sergei Diaghilev, the company's impresario (or "artistic director" in modern terms), was chiefly responsible for its success. He was uniquely prepared for the role; born into a wealthy Russian family of vodka distillers (though they went bankrupt when he was 18), he was accustomed to moving in the upper-class circles that provided the company's patrons and benefactors.
+
+In 1890, he enrolled at the Faculty of Law, St. Petersburg, to prepare for a career in the civil service like many Russian young men of his class.[3] There he was introduced (through his cousin Dmitry Filosofov) to a student clique of artists and intellectuals calling themselves The Nevsky Pickwickians whose most influential member was Alexandre Benois; others included Léon Bakst, Walter Nouvel, and Konstantin Somov.[4] From childhood, Diaghilev had been passionately interested in music. However, his ambition to become a composer was dashed in 1894 when Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov told him he had no talent.[5]
+
+In 1898, several members of The Pickwickians founded the journal Mir iskusstva (World of Art) under the editorship of Diaghilev.[6] As early as 1902, Mir iskusstva included reviews of concerts, operas, and ballets in Russia. The latter were chiefly written by Benois, who exerted considerable influence on Diaghilev's thinking.[7] Mir iskusstva also sponsored exhibitions of Russian art in St. Petersburg, culminating in Diaghilev's important 1905 show of Russian portraiture at the Tauride Palace.[8]
+
+Frustrated by the extreme conservatism of the Russian art world, Diaghilev organized the groundbreaking Exhibition of Russian Art at the Petit Palais in Paris in 1906, the first major showing of Russian art in the West. Its enormous success created a Parisian fascination with all things Russian. Diaghilev organized a 1907 season of Russian music at the Paris Opéra. In 1908, Diaghilev returned to the Paris Opéra with six performances of Modest Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov, starring basso Fyodor Chaliapin. This was Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's 1908 version (with additional cuts and re-arrangement of the scenes). The performances were a sensation, though the costs of producing grand opera were crippling.
+
+In 1909, Diaghilev presented his first Paris "Saison Russe" devoted exclusively to ballet (although the company did not use the name "Ballets Russes" until the following year). Most of this original company were resident performers at the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg, hired by Diaghilev to perform in Paris during the Imperial Ballet's summer holidays. The first season's repertory featured a variety of works chiefly choreographed by Michel Fokine, including Le Pavillon d'Armide, the Polovtsian Dances (from Prince Igor), Les Sylphides, and Cléopâtre. The season also included Le Festin, a pastiche set by several choreographers (including Fokine) to music by several Russian composers.
+
+The principal productions are shown in the table below.
+
+Léon Bakst (costumes)
+
+Alexandre Benois (costumes)
+
+Ivan Bilibin (costumes)
+
+Edvard Grieg (Småtroll, op.71/3, from Lyric Pieces, Book X) (orch. Igor Stravinsky for "Variation")
+
+Michel Fokine
+
+Léon Bakst (costumes)
+
+Léon Bakst (costumes)
+
+Alexander Golovin (sets and costumes)
+
+Natalia Goncharova (costumes)
+
+Gabrielle Chanel (costumes)
+
+Pablo Picasso (sets)
+
+Joan Miró (sets and costumes)
+
+Coco Chanel (costumes)
+
+Juan Gris (costumes)
+
+When Sergei Diaghilev died of diabetes in Venice on 19 August 1929, the Ballets Russes was left with substantial debts. As the Great Depression began, its property was claimed by its creditors and the company of dancers dispersed.
+
+In 1931, Colonel Wassily de Basil (a Russian émigré entrepreneur from Paris) and René Blum (ballet director at the Monte Carlo Opera) founded the Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo, giving its first performances there in 1932.[9] Diaghilev alumni Léonide Massine and George Balanchine worked as choreographers with the company and Tamara Toumanova was a principal dancer.
+
+Artistic differences led to a split between Blum and de Basil,[10] after which de Basil renamed his company initially "Ballets Russes de Colonel W. de Basil".[11] Blum retained the name "Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo", while de Basil created a new company. In 1938, he called it "The Covent Garden Russian Ballet"[11] and then renamed it the "Original Ballet Russe" in 1939.[11][12]
+
+After World War II began, the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo left Europe and toured extensively in the United States and South America. As dancers retired and left the company, they often founded dance studios in the United States or South America or taught at other former company dancers' studios.  With Balanchine's founding of the School of American Ballet, and later the New York City Ballet, many outstanding former Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo dancers went to New York to teach in his school. When they toured the United States, Cyd Charisse, the film actress and dancer, was taken into the cast.
+
+The Original Ballet Russe toured mostly in Europe. Its alumni were influential in teaching classical Russian ballet technique in European schools.
+
+The successor companies were the subject of the 2005 documentary film Ballets Russes.
+
+The Ballets Russes was noted for the high standard of its dancers, most of whom had been classically trained at the great Imperial schools in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Their high technical standards contributed a great deal to the company's success in Paris, where dance technique had declined markedly since the 1830s.
+
+Principal female dancers included: Anna Pavlova, Tamara Karsavina, Olga Spessivtseva, Mathilde Kschessinska, Ida Rubinstein, Bronislava Nijinska, Lydia Lopokova, Diana Gould, Sophie Pflanz, and Alicia Markova, among others; many earned international renown with the company, including Ekaterina Galanta and Valentina Kachouba.[13][14] Prima ballerina Xenia Makletzova was dismissed from the company in 1916 and sued by Diaghilev; she countersued for breach of contract, and won $4500 in a Massachusetts court.[15][16]
+
+The Ballets Russes was even more remarkable for raising the status of the male dancer, largely ignored by choreographers and ballet audiences since the early 19th century. Among the male dancers were Michel Fokine, Serge Lifar, Léonide Massine, Anton Dolin, George Balanchine, Valentin Zeglovsky, Theodore Kosloff, Adolph Bolm, and the legendary Vaslav Nijinsky, considered the most popular and talented dancer in the company's history.
+
+After the Russian Revolution of 1917, in later years, younger dancers were taken from those trained in Paris by former Imperial dancers, within the large community of Russian exiles. Recruits were even accepted from America and included a young Ruth Page who joined the troupe in Monte Carlo during 1925.[17][18][19]
+
+The company featured and premiered now-famous (and sometimes notorious) works by the great choreographers Marius Petipa and Michel Fokine, as well as new works by Vaslav Nijinsky, Bronislava Nijinska, Léonide Massine, and the young George Balanchine at the start of his career.
+
+The choreography of Michel Fokine was of paramount importance in the initial success of the Ballets Russes.  Fokine had graduated from the Imperial Ballet School in Saint Petersburg in 1898, and eventually become First Soloist at the Mariinsky Theater.  In 1907, Fokine choreographed his first work for the Imperial Russian Ballet, Le Pavillon d'Armide. In the same year, he created Chopiniana to piano music by the composer Frédéric Chopin as orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov. This was an early example of creating choreography to an existing score rather than to music specifically written for the ballet, a departure from the normal practice at the time.
+
+Fokine established an international reputation with his works choreographed during the first four seasons (1909–1912) of the Ballets Russes. These included the Polovtsian Dances (from Prince Igor), Le Pavillon d'Armide (a revival of his 1907 production for the Imperial Russian Ballet), Les Sylphides (a reworking of his earlier Chopiniana), The Firebird, Le Spectre de la Rose, Petrushka, and Daphnis and Chloé . After a longstanding tumultuous relationship with Diaghilev, Fokine left the Ballets Russes at the end of the 1912 season.[20]
+
+Vaslav Nijinsky had attended the Imperial Ballet School, St. Petersburg since the age of eight.  He graduated in 1907 and joined the Imperial Ballet where he immediately began to take starring roles. Diaghilev invited him to join the Ballets Russes for its first Paris season.
+
+In 1912, Diaghilev gave Nijinsky his first opportunity as a choreographer, for his production of L'Après-midi d'un faune to Claude Debussy's symphonic poem Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune.  Featuring Nijinsky himself as the Faun, the ballet's frankly erotic nature caused a sensation.[citation needed] The following year, Nijinsky choreographed a new work by Debussy composed expressly for the Ballets Russes, Jeux. Indifferently received by the public, Jeux was eclipsed two weeks later by the premiere of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring (Le Sacre du printemps), also choreographed by Nijinsky.
+
+Nijinsky eventually retired from dance and choreography, after he was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1919.
+
+Léonide Massine was born in Moscow,[21] where he studied both acting and dancing at the Imperial School.  On the verge of becoming an actor, Massine was invited by Sergei Diaghilev to join the Ballets Russes, as he was seeking a replacement for Vaslav Nijinsky. Diaghilev encouraged Massine's creativity and his entry into choreography.
+
+Massine's most famous creations for the Ballets Russes were Parade, El sombrero de tres picos, and Pulcinella.  In all three of these works, he collaborated with Pablo Picasso, who designed the sets and costumes.
+
+Massine extended Fokine's choreographic innovations, especially those relating to narrative and character.  His ballets incorporated both folk dance and demi-charactère dance, a style using classical technique to perform character dance. Massine created contrasts in his choreography, such as synchronized yet individual movement, or small-group dance patterns within the corps de ballet.
+
+Bronislava Nijinska was the younger sister of Vaslav Nijinsky. She trained at the Imperial Ballet School in St. Petersburg, joining the Imperial Ballet company in 1908. From 1909, she (like her brother) was a member of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes.
+
+In 1915, Nijinska and her husband fled to Kiev to escape World War I.  There, she founded the École de movement, where she trained Ukrainian artists in modern dance.  Her most prominent pupil was Serge Lifar (who later joined the Ballets Russes in 1923).
+
+Following the Russian Revolution, Nijinska fled again to Poland, and then, in 1921, re-joined the Ballets Russes in Paris.  In 1923, Diaghilev assigned her the choreography of Stravinsky's Les Noces.  The result combines elements of her brother's choreography for The Rite of Spring with more traditional aspects of ballet, such as dancing en pointe. The following year, she choreographed three new works for the company: Les biches, Les Fâcheux, and Le train bleu.
+
+Born Giorgi Melitonovitch Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, George Balanchine was trained at the Imperial School of Ballet.  His education there was interrupted by the Russian Revolution of 1917.  Balanchine graduated in 1921, after the school reopened.  He subsequently studied music theory, composition, and advanced piano at the Petrograd Conservatory, graduating in 1923. During this time, he worked with the corps de ballet of the Mariinsky Theater.  In 1924, Balanchine (and his first wife, ballerina Tamara Geva) fled to Paris while on tour of Germany with the Soviet State Dancers.  He was invited by Sergei Diaghilev to join the Ballets Russes as a choreographer.[22]
+
+Diaghilev invited the collaboration of contemporary fine artists in the design of sets and costumes.  These included Alexandre Benois, Léon Bakst, Nicholas Roerich, Georges Braque, Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, Pablo Picasso, Coco Chanel, Henri Matisse, André Derain, Joan Miró, Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dalí, Ivan Bilibin, Pavel Tchelitchev, Maurice Utrillo, and Georges Rouault.
+
+Their designs contributed to the groundbreaking excitement of the company's productions. The scandal caused by the premiere performance in Paris of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring has been partly attributed to the provocative aesthetic of the costumes of the Ballets Russes.[23]
+
+Alexandre Benois had been the most influential member of The Nevsky Pickwickians and was one of the original founders (with Bakst and Diaghilev) of Mir iskusstva. His particular interest in ballet as an art form strongly influenced Diaghilev and was seminal in the formation of the Ballets Russes. In addition, Benois contributed scenic and costume designs to several of the company's earlier productions: Le Pavillon d'Armide, portions of Le Festin, and Giselle. Benois also participated with Igor Stravinsky and Michel Fokine in the creation of Petrushka, to which he contributed much of the scenario as well as the stage sets and costumes.
+
+Léon Bakst was also an original member of both The Nevsky Pickwickians and Mir iskusstva. He participated as designer in productions of the Ballets Russes from its beginning in 1909 until 1921, creating sets and costumes for Scheherazade, The Firebird, Les Orientales, Le Spectre de la rose, L'Après-midi d'une faune, and Daphnis et Chloé, among other productions.
+
+In 1917, Pablo Picasso designed sets and costumes in the Cubist style for three Diaghilev ballets, all with choreography by Léonide Massine:  Parade, El sombrero de tres picos, and Pulcinella.
+
+Natalia Goncharova was born in 1881 near Tula, Russia. Her art was inspired by Russian folk art, Fauvism, and cubism. She began designing for the Ballets Russes in 1921.
+
+Although the Ballets Russes firmly established the 20th-century tradition of fine art theatre design, the company was not unique in its employment of fine artists.  For instance, Savva Mamontov's Private Opera Company had made a policy of employing fine artists, such as Konstantin Korovin and Golovin, who went on to work for the Ballets Russes.
+
+For his new productions, Diaghilev commissioned the foremost composers of the 20th century, including: Debussy, Milhaud, Poulenc, Prokofiev, Ravel, Satie, Respighi, Stravinsky, de Falla, and Strauss. He was also responsible for commissioning the first two significant British-composed ballets: Romeo and Juliet (composed in 1925 by nineteen-year-old Constant Lambert) and The Triumph of Neptune (composed in 1926 by Lord Berners).
+
+The impresario also engaged conductors who were or became eminent in their field during the 20th century, including Pierre Monteux (1911–16 and 1924), Ernest Ansermet (1915–23), Edward Clark (1919–20) and Roger Désormière (1925–29).[24]
+
+Diaghilev hired the young Stravinsky at a time when he was virtually unknown to compose the music for The Firebird, after the composer Anatoly Lyadov proved unreliable, and this was instrumental in launching Stravinsky's career in Europe and the United States of America.
+
+Stravinsky's early ballet scores were the subject of much discussion. The Firebird (1910) was seen as an astonishingly accomplished work for such a young artist (Debussy is said to have remarked drily: "Well, you've got to start somewhere!"). Many contemporary audiences found Petrushka (1911) to be almost unbearably dissonant and confused. The Rite of Spring (1913) nearly caused an audience riot. It stunned people because of its willful rhythms and aggressive dynamics. The audience's negative reaction to it is now regarded as a theatrical scandal as notorious as the failed runs of Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser at Paris in 1861 and Jean-Georges Noverre's Les Fêtes Chinoises in London on the eve of the Seven Years' War. However, Stravinsky's early ballet scores are now widely considered masterpieces of the genre.[25]
+
+Diaghilev always maintained that no camera could ever do justice to the artistry of his dancers, and it was long believed there was no film legacy of the Ballets Russes.  However, in 2011 a 30-second newsreel film of a performance in Montreux, Switzerland, in June 1928 came to light.  The ballet was Les Sylphides and the lead dancer was identified as Serge Lifar.[26]
+
+Paris, 2008: In September 2008, on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the creation of the Ballets Russes, Sotheby's announced the staging of an exceptional exhibition of works lent mainly by French, British and Russian private collectors, museums and foundations. Some 150 paintings, designs, costumes, theatre decors, drawings, sculptures, photographs, manuscripts, and programs were exhibited in Paris, retracing the key moments in the history of the Ballets Russes. On display were costumes designed by André Derain (La Boutique fantasque, 1919) and Henri Matisse (Le chant du rossignol, 1920), and Léon Bakst.
+
+Posters recalling the surge of creativity that surrounded the Ballets Russes included Pablo Picasso's iconic image of the Chinese Conjuror for the audacious production of Parade and Jean Cocteau's poster for Le Spectre de la rose. Costumes and stage designs presented included works by Alexander Benois, for Le Pavillon d'Armide and Petrushka; Léon Bakst, for La Péri and Le Dieu bleu; Mikhail Larionov, for Le Soleil à Minuit; and Natalia Goncharova, for The Firebird (1925 version). The exhibition also included important contemporary artists, whose works reflected the visual heritage of the Ballets Russes – notably an installation made of colorfully painted paper by the renowned Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave, and items from the Imperial Porcelain Factory in St. Petersburg.[27]
+
+Monte-Carlo, 2009: In May, in Monaco, two postage stamps "Centenary of Ballets Russians of Diaghilev" went out, created by Georgy Shishkin.
+
+London, 2010–11: London's Victoria and Albert Museum presented a special exhibition entitled Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, 1909–1929 at the V&A South Kensington between 5 September 2010 and 9 January 2011.
+
+Canberra, 2010–11: An exhibition of the company's costumes held by the National Gallery of Australia was held from 10 December 2010 – 1 May 2011 at the Gallery in Canberra. Entitled Ballets Russes: The Art of Costume, it included 150 costumes and accessories from 34 productions from 1909 to 1939; one third of the costumes had not been seen since they were last worn on stage. Along with costumes by Natalia Goncharova, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, André Derain, Georges Braque, André Masson and Giorgio de Chirico, the exhibition also featured photographs, film, music and artists’ drawings.[28]
+
+Washington, DC, 2013: Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909–1929: When Art Danced with Music. National Gallery of Art, East Building Mezzanine. 12 May— 2 September 2013. Organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art, Washington.[1]
+
+Stockholm, 2014–2015: Sleeping Beauties – Dreams and Costumes. The Dance Museum in Stockholm owns about 250 original costumes from the Ballets Russes, in this exhibition about fifty of them are shown. (www.dansmuseet.se)

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+
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+Science (from the Latin word scientia, meaning "knowledge")[1] is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.[2][3][4]
+
+The earliest roots of science can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3500 to 3000 BCE.[5][6] Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes.[5][6] After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of the Middle Ages[7] but was preserved in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age.[8] The recovery and assimilation of Greek works and Islamic inquiries into Western Europe from the 10th to 13th century revived "natural philosophy",[7][9] which was later transformed by the Scientific Revolution that began in the 16th century[10] as new ideas and discoveries departed from previous Greek conceptions and traditions.[11][12][13][14] The scientific method soon played a greater role in knowledge creation and it was not until the 19th century that many of the institutional and professional features of science began to take shape;[15][16][17] along with the changing of "natural philosophy" to "natural science."[18]
+
+Modern science is typically divided into three major branches that consist of the natural sciences (e.g., biology, chemistry, and physics), which study nature in the broadest sense; the social sciences (e.g., economics, psychology, and sociology), which study individuals and societies; and the formal sciences (e.g., logic, mathematics, and theoretical computer science), which study abstract concepts. There is disagreement,[19][20][21] however, on whether the formal sciences actually constitute a science as they do not rely on empirical evidence.[22][20] Disciplines that use existing scientific knowledge for practical purposes, such as engineering and medicine, are described as applied sciences.[23][24][25][26]
+
+Science is based on research, which is commonly conducted in academic and research institutions as well as in government agencies and companies. The practical impact of scientific research has led to the emergence of science policies that seek to influence the scientific enterprise by prioritizing the development of commercial products, armaments, health care, and environmental protection.
+
+Science in a broad sense existed before the modern era and in many historical civilizations.[27] Modern science is distinct in its approach and successful in its results, so it now defines what science is in the strictest sense of the term.[3][5][28] Science in its original sense was a word for a type of knowledge, rather than a specialized word for the pursuit of such knowledge. In particular, it was the type of knowledge which people can communicate to each other and share. For example, knowledge about the working of natural things was gathered long before recorded history and led to the development of complex abstract thought. This is shown by the construction of complex calendars, techniques for making poisonous plants edible, public works at national scale, such as those which harnessed the floodplain of the Yangtse with reservoirs,[29] dams, and dikes, and buildings such as the Pyramids. However, no consistent conscious distinction was made between knowledge of such things, which are true in every community, and other types of communal knowledge, such as mythologies and legal systems. Metallurgy was known in prehistory, and the Vinča culture was the earliest known producer of bronze-like alloys. It is thought that early experimentation with heating and mixing of substances over time developed into alchemy.
+
+Neither the words nor the concepts "science" and "nature" were part of the conceptual landscape in the ancient near east.[30] The ancient Mesopotamians used knowledge about the properties of various natural chemicals for manufacturing pottery, faience, glass, soap, metals, lime plaster, and waterproofing;[31] they also studied animal physiology, anatomy, and behavior for divinatory purposes[31] and made extensive records of the movements of astronomical objects for their study of astrology.[32] The Mesopotamians had intense interest in medicine[31] and the earliest medical prescriptions appear in Sumerian during the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2112 BCE – c. 2004 BCE).[33] Nonetheless, the Mesopotamians seem to have had little interest in gathering information about the natural world for the mere sake of gathering information[31] and mainly only studied scientific subjects which had obvious practical applications or immediate relevance to their religious system.[31]
+
+In classical antiquity, there is no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, well-educated, usually upper-class, and almost universally male individuals performed various investigations into nature whenever they could afford the time.[34] Before the invention or discovery of the concept of "nature" (ancient Greek phusis) by the Pre-Socratic philosophers, the same words tend to be used to describe the natural "way" in which a plant grows,[35] and the "way" in which, for example, one tribe worships a particular god. For this reason, it is claimed these men were the first philosophers in the strict sense, and also the first people to clearly distinguish "nature" and "convention."[36]:209 Natural philosophy, the precursor of natural science, was thereby distinguished as the knowledge of nature and things which are true for every community, and the name of the specialized pursuit of such knowledge was philosophy – the realm of the first philosopher-physicists. They were mainly speculators or theorists, particularly interested in astronomy. In contrast, trying to use knowledge of nature to imitate nature (artifice or technology, Greek technē) was seen by classical scientists as a more appropriate interest for artisans of lower social class.[37]
+
+The early Greek philosophers of the Milesian school, which was founded by Thales of Miletus and later continued by his successors Anaximander and Anaximenes, were the first to attempt to explain natural phenomena without relying on the supernatural.[38] The Pythagoreans developed a complex number philosophy[39]:467–68 and contributed significantly to the development of mathematical science.[39]:465 The theory of atoms was developed by the Greek philosopher Leucippus and his student Democritus.[40][41] The Greek doctor Hippocrates established the tradition of systematic medical science[42][43] and is known as "The Father of Medicine".[44]
+
+A turning point in the history of early philosophical science was Socrates' example of applying philosophy to the study of human matters, including human nature, the nature of political communities, and human knowledge itself. The Socratic method as documented by Plato's dialogues is a dialectic method of hypothesis elimination: better hypotheses are found by steadily identifying and eliminating those that lead to contradictions. This was a reaction to the Sophist emphasis on rhetoric. The Socratic method searches for general, commonly held truths that shape beliefs and scrutinizes them to determine their consistency with other beliefs.[46] Socrates criticized the older type of study of physics as too purely speculative and lacking in self-criticism. Socrates was later, in the words of his Apology, accused of corrupting the youth of Athens because he did "not believe in the gods the state believes in, but in other new spiritual beings". Socrates refuted these claims,[47] but was sentenced to death.[48]:30e
+
+Aristotle later created a systematic programme of teleological philosophy: Motion and change is described as the actualization of potentials already in things, according to what types of things they are. In his physics, the Sun goes around the Earth, and many things have it as part of their nature that they are for humans. Each thing has a formal cause, a final cause, and a role in a cosmic order with an unmoved mover. The Socratics also insisted that philosophy should be used to consider the practical question of the best way to live for a human being (a study Aristotle divided into ethics and political philosophy). Aristotle maintained that man knows a thing scientifically "when he possesses a conviction arrived at in a certain way, and when the first principles on which that conviction rests are known to him with certainty".[49]
+
+The Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos (310–230 BCE) was the first to propose a heliocentric model of the universe, with the Sun at the center and all the planets orbiting it.[50] Aristarchus's model was widely rejected because it was believed to violate the laws of physics.[50] The inventor and mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse made major contributions to the beginnings of calculus[51] and has sometimes been credited as its inventor,[51] although his proto-calculus lacked several defining features.[51] Pliny the Elder was a Roman writer and polymath, who wrote the seminal encyclopedia Natural History,[52][53][54] dealing with history, geography, medicine, astronomy, earth science, botany, and zoology.[52]
+Other scientists or proto-scientists in Antiquity were Theophrastus, Euclid, Herophilos, Hipparchus, Ptolemy, and Galen.
+
+Because of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire due to the Migration Period an intellectual decline took place in the western part of Europe in the 400s. In contrast, the Byzantine Empire resisted the attacks from invaders, and preserved and improved upon the learning. John Philoponus, a Byzantine scholar in the 500s, questioned Aristotle's teaching of physics and to note its flaws.[56]:pp.307, 311, 363, 402 John Philoponus' criticism of Aristotelian principles of physics served as an inspiration to medieval scholars as well as to Galileo Galilei who ten centuries later, during the Scientific Revolution, extensively cited Philoponus in his works while making the case for why Aristotelian physics was flawed.[56][57]
+
+During late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, the Aristotelian approach to inquiries on natural phenomena was used. Aristotle's four causes prescribed that four "why" questions should be answered in order to explain things scientifically.[58] Some ancient knowledge was lost, or in some cases kept in obscurity, during the fall of the Western Roman Empire and periodic political struggles. However, the general fields of science (or "natural philosophy" as it was called) and much of the general knowledge from the ancient world remained preserved through the works of the early Latin encyclopedists like Isidore of Seville.[59] However, Aristotle's original texts were eventually lost in Western Europe, and only one text by Plato was widely known, the Timaeus, which was the only Platonic dialogue, and one of the few original works of classical natural philosophy, available to Latin readers in the early Middle Ages. Another original work that gained influence in this period was Ptolemy's Almagest, which contains a geocentric description of the solar system.
+
+During late antiquity, in the Byzantine empire many Greek classical texts were preserved. Many Syriac translations were done by groups such as the Nestorians and Monophysites.[60] They played a role when they translated Greek classical texts into Arabic under the Caliphate, during which many types of classical learning were preserved and in some cases improved upon.[60][a] In addition, the neighboring Sassanid Empire established the medical Academy of Gondeshapur where Greek, Syriac and Persian physicians established the most important medical center of the ancient world during the 6th and 7th centuries.[61]
+
+The House of Wisdom was established in Abbasid-era Baghdad, Iraq,[62]
+where the Islamic study of Aristotelianism flourished. Al-Kindi (801–873) was the first of the Muslim Peripatetic philosophers, and is known for his efforts to introduce Greek and Hellenistic philosophy to the Arab world.[63] The Islamic Golden Age flourished from this time until the Mongol invasions of the 13th century. Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), as well as his predecessor Ibn Sahl, was familiar with Ptolemy's Optics, and used experiments as a means to gain knowledge.[b][64][65]:463–65 Alhazen disproved Ptolemy's theory of vision,[66] but did not make any corresponding changes to Aristotle's metaphysics. Furthermore, doctors and alchemists such as the Persians Avicenna and Al-Razi also greatly developed the science of Medicine with the former writing the Canon of Medicine, a medical encyclopedia used until the 18th century and the latter discovering multiple compounds like alcohol. Avicenna's canon is considered to be one of the most important publications in medicine and they both contributed significantly to the practice of experimental medicine, using clinical trials and experiments to back their claims.[67]
+
+In Classical antiquity, Greek and Roman taboos had meant that dissection was usually banned in ancient times, but in Middle Ages it changed: medical teachers and students at Bologna began to open human bodies, and Mondino de Luzzi (c. 1275–1326) produced the first known anatomy textbook based on human dissection.[68][69]
+
+By the eleventh century most of Europe had become Christian; stronger monarchies emerged; borders were restored; technological developments and agricultural innovations were made which increased the food supply and population. In addition, classical Greek texts started to be translated from Arabic and Greek into Latin, giving a higher level of scientific discussion in Western Europe.[7]
+
+By 1088, the first university in Europe (the University of Bologna) had emerged from its clerical beginnings. Demand for Latin translations grew (for example, from the Toledo School of Translators); western Europeans began collecting texts written not only in Latin, but also Latin translations from Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew. Manuscript copies of Alhazen's Book of Optics also propagated across Europe before 1240,[70]:Intro. p. xx as evidenced by its incorporation into Vitello's Perspectiva. Avicenna's Canon was translated into Latin.[71] In particular, the texts of Aristotle, Ptolemy,[c] and Euclid, preserved in the Houses of Wisdom and also in the Byzantine Empire,[72] were sought amongst Catholic scholars. The influx of ancient texts caused the Renaissance of the 12th century and the flourishing of a synthesis of Catholicism and Aristotelianism known as Scholasticism in western Europe, which became a new geographic center of science. An experiment in this period would be understood as a careful process of observing, describing, and classifying.[73] One prominent scientist in this era was Roger Bacon. Scholasticism had a strong focus on revelation and dialectic reasoning, and gradually fell out of favour over the next centuries, as alchemy's focus on experiments that include direct observation and meticulous documentation slowly increased in importance.
+
+New developments in optics played a role in the inception of the Renaissance, both by challenging long-held metaphysical ideas on perception, as well as by contributing to the improvement and development of technology such as the camera obscura and the telescope. Before what we now know as the Renaissance started, Roger Bacon, Vitello, and John Peckham each built up a scholastic ontology upon a causal chain beginning with sensation, perception, and finally apperception of the individual and universal forms of Aristotle.[74] A model of vision later known as perspectivism was exploited and studied by the artists of the Renaissance. This theory uses only three of Aristotle's four causes: formal, material, and final.[75]
+
+In the sixteenth century, Copernicus formulated a heliocentric model of the solar system unlike the geocentric model of Ptolemy's Almagest. This was based on a theorem that the orbital periods of the planets are longer as their orbs are farther from the centre of motion, which he found not to agree with Ptolemy's model.[76]
+
+Kepler and others challenged the notion that the only function of the eye is perception, and shifted the main focus in optics from the eye to the propagation of light.[75][77]:102 Kepler modelled the eye as a water-filled glass sphere with an aperture in front of it to model the entrance pupil. He found that all the light from a single point of the scene was imaged at a single point at the back of the glass sphere. The optical chain ends on the retina at the back of the eye.[d] Kepler is best known, however, for improving Copernicus' heliocentric model through the discovery of Kepler's laws of planetary motion. Kepler did not reject Aristotelian metaphysics, and described his work as a search for the Harmony of the Spheres.
+
+Galileo made innovative use of experiment and mathematics. However, he became persecuted after Pope Urban VIII blessed Galileo to write about the Copernican system. Galileo had used arguments from the Pope and put them in the voice of the simpleton in the work "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems", which greatly offended Urban VIII.[79]
+
+In Northern Europe, the new technology of the printing press was widely used to publish many arguments, including some that disagreed widely with contemporary ideas of nature. René Descartes and Francis Bacon published philosophical arguments in favor of a new type of non-Aristotelian science. Descartes emphasized individual thought and argued that mathematics rather than geometry should be used in order to study nature. Bacon emphasized the importance of experiment over contemplation. Bacon further questioned the Aristotelian concepts of formal cause and final cause, and promoted the idea that science should study the laws of "simple" natures, such as heat, rather than assuming that there is any specific nature, or "formal cause", of each complex type of thing. This new science began to see itself as describing "laws of nature". This updated approach to studies in nature was seen as mechanistic. Bacon also argued that science should aim for the first time at practical inventions for the improvement of all human life.
+
+As a precursor to the Age of Enlightenment, Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz succeeded in developing a new physics, now referred to as classical mechanics, which could be confirmed by experiment and explained using mathematics (Newton (1687), Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica). Leibniz also incorporated terms from Aristotelian physics, but now being used in a new non-teleological way, for example, "energy" and "potential" (modern versions of Aristotelian "energeia and potentia"). This implied a shift in the view of objects: Where Aristotle had noted that objects have certain innate goals that can be actualized, objects were now regarded as devoid of innate goals. In the style of Francis Bacon, Leibniz assumed that different types of things all work according to the same general laws of nature, with no special formal or final causes for each type of thing.[80] It is during this period that the word "science" gradually became more commonly used to refer to a type of pursuit of a type of knowledge, especially knowledge of nature – coming close in meaning to the old term "natural philosophy."
+
+During this time, the declared purpose and value of science became producing wealth and inventions that would improve human lives, in the materialistic sense of having more food, clothing, and other things. In Bacon's words, "the real and legitimate goal of sciences is the endowment of human life with new inventions and riches", and he discouraged scientists from pursuing intangible philosophical or spiritual ideas, which he believed contributed little to human happiness beyond "the fume of subtle, sublime, or pleasing speculation".[81]
+
+Science during the Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies[82] and academies, which had largely replaced universities as centres of scientific research and development. Societies and academies were also the backbone of the maturation of the scientific profession. Another important development was the popularization of science among an increasingly literate population. Philosophes introduced the public to many scientific theories, most notably through the Encyclopédie and the popularization of Newtonianism by Voltaire as well as by Émilie du Châtelet, the French translator of Newton's Principia.
+
+Some historians have marked the 18th century as a drab period in the history of science;[83] however, the century saw significant advancements in the practice of medicine, mathematics, and physics; the development of biological taxonomy; a new understanding of magnetism and electricity; and the maturation of chemistry as a discipline, which established the foundations of modern chemistry.
+
+Enlightenment philosophers chose a short history of scientific predecessors – Galileo, Boyle, and Newton principally – as the guides and guarantors of their applications of the singular concept of nature and natural law to every physical and social field of the day. In this respect, the lessons of history and the social structures built upon it could be discarded.[84]
+
+The nineteenth century is a particularly important period in the history of science since during this era many distinguishing characteristics of contemporary modern science began to take shape such as: transformation of the life and physical sciences, frequent use of precision instruments, emergence of terms like "biologist", "physicist", "scientist"; slowly moving away from antiquated labels like "natural philosophy" and "natural history", increased professionalization of those studying nature lead to reduction in amateur naturalists, scientists gained cultural authority over many dimensions of society, economic expansion and industrialization of numerous countries, thriving of popular science writings and emergence of science journals.[17]
+
+Early in the 19th century, John Dalton suggested the modern atomic theory, based on Democritus's original idea of individible particles called atoms.
+
+Both John Herschel and William Whewell systematized methodology: the latter coined the term scientist.[85] When Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species he established evolution as the prevailing explanation of biological complexity. His theory of natural selection provided a natural explanation of how species originated, but this only gained wide acceptance a century later.
+
+The laws of conservation of energy, conservation of momentum and conservation of mass suggested a highly stable universe where there could be little loss of resources. With the advent of the steam engine and the industrial revolution, there was, however, an increased understanding that all forms of energy as defined in physics were not equally useful： they did not have the same energy quality. This realization led to the development of the laws of thermodynamics, in which the free energy of the universe is seen as constantly declining: the entropy of a closed universe increases over time.
+
+The electromagnetic theory was also established in the 19th century, and raised new questions which could not easily be answered using Newton's framework. The phenomena that would allow the deconstruction of the atom were discovered in the last decade of the 19th century: the discovery of X-rays inspired the discovery of radioactivity. In the next year came the discovery of the first subatomic particle, the electron.
+
+Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and the development of quantum mechanics led to the replacement of classical mechanics with a new physics which contains two parts that describe different types of events in nature.
+
+In the first half of the century, the development of antibiotics and artificial fertilizer made global human population growth possible. At the same time, the structure of the atom and its nucleus was discovered, leading to the release of "atomic energy" (nuclear power). In addition, the extensive use of technological innovation stimulated by the wars of this century led to revolutions in transportation (automobiles and aircraft), the development of ICBMs, a space race, and a nuclear arms race.
+
+The molecular structure of DNA was discovered in 1953. The discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1964 led to a rejection of the Steady State theory of the universe in favour of the Big Bang theory of Georges Lemaître.
+
+The development of spaceflight in the second half of the century allowed the first astronomical measurements done on or near other objects in space, including manned landings on the Moon. Space telescopes lead to numerous discoveries in astronomy and cosmology.
+
+Widespread use of integrated circuits in the last quarter of the 20th century combined with communications satellites led to a revolution in information technology and the rise of the global internet and mobile computing, including smartphones. The need for mass systematization of long, intertwined causal chains and large amounts of data led to the rise of the fields of systems theory and computer-assisted scientific modelling, which are partly based on the Aristotelian paradigm.[86]
+
+Harmful environmental issues such as ozone depletion, acidification, eutrophication and climate change came to the public's attention in the same period, and caused the onset of environmental science and environmental technology.
+
+The Human Genome Project was completed in 2003, determining the sequence of nucleotide base pairs that make up human DNA, and identifying and mapping all of the genes of the human genome.[87] Induced pluripotent stem cells were developed in 2006, a technology allowing adult cells to be transformed into stem cells capable of giving rise to any cell type found in the body, potentially of huge importance to the field of regenerative medicine.[88]
+
+With the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, the last particle predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics was found. In 2015, gravitational waves, predicted by general relativity a century before, were first observed.[89][90]
+
+Modern science is commonly divided into three major branches: natural science, social science, and formal science. Each of these branches comprises various specialized yet overlapping scientific disciplines that often possess their own nomenclature and expertise.[91] Both natural and social sciences are empirical sciences,[92] as their knowledge is based on empirical observations and is capable of being tested for its validity by other researchers working under the same conditions.[93]
+
+There are also closely related disciplines that use science, such as engineering and medicine, which are sometimes described as applied sciences. The relationships between the branches of science are summarized by the following table.
+
+Natural science is concerned with the description, prediction, and understanding of natural phenomena based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. It can be divided into two main branches: life science (or biological science) and physical science. These two branches may be further divided into more specialized disciplines. Physical science is subdivided into branches, including physics, chemistry, astronomy and earth science. Modern natural science is the successor to the natural philosophy that began in Ancient Greece. Galileo, Descartes, Bacon, and Newton debated the benefits of using approaches which were more mathematical and more experimental in a methodical way. Still, philosophical perspectives, conjectures, and presuppositions, often overlooked, remain necessary in natural science.[94] Systematic data collection, including discovery science, succeeded natural history, which emerged in the 16th century by describing and classifying plants, animals, minerals, and so on.[95] Today, "natural history" suggests observational descriptions aimed at popular audiences.[96]
+
+Social science is concerned with society and the relationships among individuals within a society. It has many branches that include, but are not limited to, anthropology, archaeology, communication studies, economics, history, human geography, jurisprudence, linguistics, political science, psychology, public health, and sociology. Social scientists may adopt various philosophical theories to study individuals and society. For example, positivist social scientists use methods resembling those of the natural sciences as tools for understanding society, and so define science in its stricter modern sense. Interpretivist social scientists, by contrast, may use social critique or symbolic interpretation rather than constructing empirically falsifiable theories, and thus treat science in its broader sense. In modern academic practice, researchers are often eclectic, using multiple methodologies (for instance, by combining both quantitative and qualitative research). The term "social research" has also acquired a degree of autonomy as practitioners from various disciplines share in its aims and methods.
+
+Formal science is involved in the study of formal systems. It includes mathematics,[97][98] systems theory, and theoretical computer science. The formal sciences share similarities with the other two branches by relying on objective, careful, and systematic study of an area of knowledge. They are, however, different from the empirical sciences as they rely exclusively on deductive reasoning, without the need for empirical evidence, to verify their abstract concepts.[22][99][93] The formal sciences are therefore a priori disciplines and because of this, there is disagreement on whether they actually constitute a science.[19][21] Nevertheless, the formal sciences play an important role in the empirical sciences. Calculus, for example, was initially invented to understand motion in physics.[100] Natural and social sciences that rely heavily on mathematical applications include mathematical physics, mathematical chemistry, mathematical biology, mathematical finance, and mathematical economics.
+
+Scientific research can be labeled as either basic or applied research. Basic research is the search for knowledge and applied research is the search for solutions to practical problems using this knowledge. Although some scientific research is applied research into specific problems, a great deal of our understanding comes from the curiosity-driven undertaking of basic research. This leads to options for technological advance that were not planned or sometimes even imaginable. This point was made by Michael Faraday when allegedly in response to the question "what is the use of basic research?" he responded: "Sir, what is the use of a new-born child?".[101] For example, research into the effects of red light on the human eye's rod cells did not seem to have any practical purpose; eventually, the discovery that our night vision is not troubled by red light would lead search and rescue teams (among others) to adopt red light in the cockpits of jets and helicopters.[102] Finally, even basic research can take unexpected turns, and there is some sense in which the scientific method is built to harness luck.
+
+Scientific research involves using the scientific method, which seeks to objectively explain the events of nature in a reproducible way.[103] An explanatory thought experiment or hypothesis is put forward as explanation using principles such as parsimony (also known as "Occam's Razor") and are generally expected to seek consilience – fitting well with other accepted facts related to the phenomena.[104] This new explanation is used to make falsifiable predictions that are testable by experiment or observation. The predictions are to be posted before a confirming experiment or observation is sought, as proof that no tampering has occurred. Disproof of a prediction is evidence of progress.[e][f][103][105] This is done partly through observation of natural phenomena, but also through experimentation that tries to simulate natural events under controlled conditions as appropriate to the discipline (in the observational sciences, such as astronomy or geology, a predicted observation might take the place of a controlled experiment). Experimentation is especially important in science to help establish causal relationships (to avoid the correlation fallacy).
+
+When a hypothesis proves unsatisfactory, it is either modified or discarded.[106] If the hypothesis survived testing, it may become adopted into the framework of a scientific theory, a logically reasoned, self-consistent model or framework for describing the behavior of certain natural phenomena. A theory typically describes the behavior of much broader sets of phenomena than a hypothesis; commonly, a large number of hypotheses can be logically bound together by a single theory. Thus a theory is a hypothesis explaining various other hypotheses. In that vein, theories are formulated according to most of the same scientific principles as hypotheses. In addition to testing hypotheses, scientists may also generate a model, an attempt to describe or depict the phenomenon in terms of a logical, physical or mathematical representation and to generate new hypotheses that can be tested, based on observable phenomena.[107]
+
+While performing experiments to test hypotheses, scientists may have a preference for one outcome over another, and so it is important to ensure that science as a whole can eliminate this bias.[108][109] This can be achieved by careful experimental design, transparency, and a thorough peer review process of the experimental results as well as any conclusions.[110][111] After the results of an experiment are announced or published, it is normal practice for independent researchers to double-check how the research was performed, and to follow up by performing similar experiments to determine how dependable the results might be.[112] Taken in its entirety, the scientific method allows for highly creative problem solving while minimizing any effects of subjective bias on the part of its users (especially the confirmation bias).[113]
+
+John Ziman points out that intersubjective verifiability is fundamental to the creation of all scientific knowledge.[114] Ziman shows how scientists can identify patterns to each other across centuries; he refers to this ability as "perceptual consensibility."[114] He then makes consensibility, leading to consensus, the touchstone of reliable knowledge.[115]
+
+Mathematics is essential in the formation of hypotheses, theories, and laws[116] in the natural and social sciences. For example, it is used in quantitative scientific modeling, which can generate new hypotheses and predictions to be tested. It is also used extensively in observing and collecting measurements. Statistics, a branch of mathematics, is used to summarize and analyze data, which allow scientists to assess the reliability and variability of their experimental results.
+
+Computational science applies computing power to simulate real-world situations, enabling a better understanding of scientific problems than formal mathematics alone can achieve. According to the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, computation is now as important as theory and experiment in advancing scientific knowledge.[117]
+
+Scientists usually take for granted a set of basic assumptions that are needed to justify the scientific method: (1) that there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers; (2) that this objective reality is governed by natural laws; (3) that these laws can be discovered by means of systematic observation and experimentation.[3] Philosophy of science seeks a deep understanding of what these underlying assumptions mean and whether they are valid.
+
+The belief that scientific theories should and do represent metaphysical reality is known as realism. It can be contrasted with anti-realism, the view that the success of science does not depend on it being accurate about unobservable entities such as electrons. One form of anti-realism is idealism, the belief that the mind or consciousness is the most basic essence, and that each mind generates its own reality.[g] In an idealistic world view, what is true for one mind need not be true for other minds.
+
+There are different schools of thought in philosophy of science. The most popular position is empiricism,[h] which holds that knowledge is created by a process involving observation and that scientific theories are the result of generalizations from such observations.[118] Empiricism generally encompasses inductivism, a position that tries to explain the way general theories can be justified by the finite number of observations humans can make and hence the finite amount of empirical evidence available to confirm scientific theories. This is necessary because the number of predictions those theories make is infinite, which means that they cannot be known from the finite amount of evidence using deductive logic only. Many versions of empiricism exist, with the predominant ones being Bayesianism[119] and the hypothetico-deductive method.[118]
+
+Empiricism has stood in contrast to rationalism, the position originally associated with Descartes, which holds that knowledge is created by the human intellect, not by observation.[120] Critical rationalism is a contrasting 20th-century approach to science, first defined by Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper. Popper rejected the way that empiricism describes the connection between theory and observation. He claimed that theories are not generated by observation, but that observation is made in the light of theories and that the only way a theory can be affected by observation is when it comes in conflict with it.[121] Popper proposed replacing verifiability with falsifiability as the landmark of scientific theories and replacing induction with falsification as the empirical method.[121] Popper further claimed that there is actually only one universal method, not specific to science: the negative method of criticism, trial and error.[122] It covers all products of the human mind, including science, mathematics, philosophy, and art.[123]
+
+Another approach, instrumentalism, colloquially termed "shut up and multiply,"[124] emphasizes the utility of theories as instruments for explaining and predicting phenomena.[125] It views scientific theories as black boxes with only their input (initial conditions) and output (predictions) being relevant. Consequences, theoretical entities, and logical structure are claimed to be something that should simply be ignored and that scientists should not make a fuss about (see interpretations of quantum mechanics). Close to instrumentalism is constructive empiricism, according to which the main criterion for the success of a scientific theory is whether what it says about observable entities is true.
+
+Thomas Kuhn argued that the process of observation and evaluation takes place within a paradigm, a logically consistent "portrait" of the world that is consistent with observations made from its framing. He characterized normal science as the process of observation and "puzzle solving" which takes place within a paradigm, whereas revolutionary science occurs when one paradigm overtakes another in a paradigm shift.[126] Each paradigm has its own distinct questions, aims, and interpretations. The choice between paradigms involves setting two or more "portraits" against the world and deciding which likeness is most promising. A paradigm shift occurs when a significant number of observational anomalies arise in the old paradigm and a new paradigm makes sense of them. That is, the choice of a new paradigm is based on observations, even though those observations are made against the background of the old paradigm. For Kuhn, acceptance or rejection of a paradigm is a social process as much as a logical process. Kuhn's position, however, is not one of relativism.[127]
+
+Finally, another approach often cited in debates of scientific skepticism against controversial movements like "creation science" is methodological naturalism. Its main point is that a difference between natural and supernatural explanations should be made and that science should be restricted methodologically to natural explanations.[128][i] That the restriction is merely methodological (rather than ontological) means that science should not consider supernatural explanations itself, but should not claim them to be wrong either. Instead, supernatural explanations should be left a matter of personal belief outside the scope of science. Methodological naturalism maintains that proper science requires strict adherence to empirical study and independent verification as a process for properly developing and evaluating explanations for observable phenomena.[129] The absence of these standards, arguments from authority, biased observational studies and other common fallacies are frequently cited by supporters of methodological naturalism as characteristic of the non-science they criticize.
+
+A scientific theory is empirical[h][130] and is always open to falsification if new evidence is presented. That is, no theory is ever considered strictly certain as science accepts the concept of fallibilism.[j] The philosopher of science Karl Popper sharply distinguished truth from certainty. He wrote that scientific knowledge "consists in the search for truth," but it "is not the search for certainty ... All human knowledge is fallible and therefore uncertain.[131]
+
+New scientific knowledge rarely results in vast changes in our understanding. According to psychologist Keith Stanovich, it may be the media's overuse of words like "breakthrough" that leads the public to imagine that science is constantly proving everything it thought was true to be false.[102] While there are such famous cases as the theory of relativity that required a complete reconceptualization, these are extreme exceptions. Knowledge in science is gained by a gradual synthesis of information from different experiments by various researchers across different branches of science; it is more like a climb than a leap.[102] Theories vary in the extent to which they have been tested and verified, as well as their acceptance in the scientific community.[k] For example, heliocentric theory, the theory of evolution, relativity theory, and germ theory still bear the name "theory" even though, in practice, they are considered factual.[132]
+Philosopher Barry Stroud adds that, although the best definition for "knowledge" is contested, being skeptical and entertaining the possibility that one is incorrect is compatible with being correct. Therefore, scientists adhering to proper scientific approaches will doubt themselves even once they possess the truth.[133] The fallibilist C. S. Peirce argued that inquiry is the struggle to resolve actual doubt and that merely quarrelsome, verbal, or hyperbolic doubt is fruitless[134] – but also that the inquirer should try to attain genuine doubt rather than resting uncritically on common sense.[135] He held that the successful sciences trust not to any single chain of inference (no stronger than its weakest link) but to the cable of multiple and various arguments intimately connected.[136]
+
+Stanovich also asserts that science avoids searching for a "magic bullet"; it avoids the single-cause fallacy. This means a scientist would not ask merely "What is the cause of ...", but rather "What are the most significant causes of ...". This is especially the case in the more macroscopic fields of science (e.g. psychology, physical cosmology).[102] Research often analyzes few factors at once, but these are always added to the long list of factors that are most important to consider.[102] For example, knowing the details of only a person's genetics, or their history and upbringing, or the current situation may not explain a behavior, but a deep understanding of all these variables combined can be very predictive.
+
+Scientific research is published in an enormous range of scientific literature.[137] Scientific journals communicate and document the results of research carried out in universities and various other research institutions, serving as an archival record of science. The first scientific journals, Journal des Sçavans followed by the Philosophical Transactions, began publication in 1665. Since that time the total number of active periodicals has steadily increased. In 1981, one estimate for the number of scientific and technical journals in publication was 11,500.[138] The United States National Library of Medicine currently indexes 5,516 journals that contain articles on topics related to the life sciences. Although the journals are in 39 languages, 91 percent of the indexed articles are published in English.[139]
+
+Most scientific journals cover a single scientific field and publish the research within that field; the research is normally expressed in the form of a scientific paper. Science has become so pervasive in modern societies that it is generally considered necessary to communicate the achievements, news, and ambitions of scientists to a wider populace.
+
+Science magazines such as New Scientist, Science & Vie, and Scientific American cater to the needs of a much wider readership and provide a non-technical summary of popular areas of research, including notable discoveries and advances in certain fields of research. Science books engage the interest of many more people. Tangentially, the science fiction genre, primarily fantastic in nature, engages the public imagination and transmits the ideas, if not the methods, of science.
+
+Recent efforts to intensify or develop links between science and non-scientific disciplines such as literature or more specifically, poetry, include the Creative Writing Science resource developed through the Royal Literary Fund.[140]
+
+Discoveries in fundamental science can be world-changing. For example:
+
+The replication crisis is an ongoing methodological crisis primarily affecting parts of the social and life sciences in which scholars have found that the results of many scientific studies are difficult or impossible to replicate or reproduce on subsequent investigation, either by independent researchers or by the original researchers themselves.[141][142] The crisis has long-standing roots; the phrase was coined in the early 2010s[143] as part of a growing awareness of the problem. The replication crisis represents an important body of research in metascience, which aims to improve the quality of all scientific research while reducing waste.[144]
+
+An area of study or speculation that masquerades as science in an attempt to claim a legitimacy that it would not otherwise be able to achieve is sometimes referred to as pseudoscience, fringe science, or junk science.[m] Physicist Richard Feynman coined the term "cargo cult science" for cases in which researchers believe they are doing science because their activities have the outward appearance of science but actually lack the "kind of utter honesty" that allows their results to be rigorously evaluated.[145] Various types of commercial advertising, ranging from hype to fraud, may fall into these categories. Science has been described as "the most important tool" for separating valid claims from invalid ones.[146]
+
+There can also be an element of political or ideological bias on all sides of scientific debates. Sometimes, research may be characterized as "bad science," research that may be well-intended but is actually incorrect, obsolete, incomplete, or over-simplified expositions of scientific ideas. The term "scientific misconduct" refers to situations such as where researchers have intentionally misrepresented their published data or have purposely given credit for a discovery to the wrong person.[147]
+
+The scientific community is a group of all interacting scientists, along with their respective societies and institutions.
+
+Scientists are individuals who conduct scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of interest.[148][149] The term scientist was coined by William Whewell in 1833. In modern times, many professional scientists are trained in an academic setting and upon completion, attain an academic degree, with the highest degree being a doctorate such as a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).[150] Many scientists pursue careers in various sectors of the economy such as academia, industry, government, and nonprofit organizations.[151][152][153]
+
+Scientists exhibit a strong curiosity about reality, with some scientists having a desire to apply scientific knowledge for the benefit of health, nations, environment, or industries. Other motivations include recognition by their peers and prestige. The Nobel Prize, a widely regarded prestigious award,[154] is awarded annually to those who have achieved scientific advances in the fields of medicine, physics, chemistry, and economics.
+
+Science has historically been a male-dominated field, with some notable exceptions.[n] Women faced considerable discrimination in science, much as they did in other areas of male-dominated societies, such as frequently being passed over for job opportunities and denied credit for their work.[o] For example, Christine Ladd (1847–1930) was able to enter a PhD program as "C. Ladd"; Christine "Kitty" Ladd completed the requirements in 1882, but was awarded her degree only in 1926, after a career which spanned the algebra of logic (see truth table), color vision, and psychology. Her work preceded notable researchers like Ludwig Wittgenstein and Charles Sanders Peirce. The achievements of women in science have been attributed to their defiance of their traditional role as laborers within the domestic sphere.[156]
+
+In the late 20th century, active recruitment of women and elimination of institutional discrimination on the basis of sex greatly increased the number of women scientists, but large gender disparities remain in some fields; in the early 21st century over half of new biologists were female, while 80% of PhDs in physics are given to men.[citation needed] In the early part of the 21st century, women in the United States earned 50.3% of bachelor's degrees, 45.6% of master's degrees, and 40.7% of PhDs in science and engineering fields. They earned more than half of the degrees in psychology (about 70%), social sciences (about 50%), and biology (about 50-60%) but earned less than half the degrees in the physical sciences, earth sciences, mathematics, engineering, and computer science.[157] Lifestyle choice also plays a major role in female engagement in science; women with young children are 28% less likely to take tenure-track positions due to work-life balance issues,[158] and female graduate students' interest in careers in research declines dramatically over the course of graduate school, whereas that of their male colleagues remains unchanged.[159]
+
+Learned societies for the communication and promotion of scientific thought and experimentation have existed since the Renaissance.[160] Many scientists belong to a learned society that promotes their respective scientific discipline, profession, or group of related disciplines.[161] Membership may be open to all, may require possession of some scientific credentials, or may be an honor conferred by election.[162] Most scientific societies are non-profit organizations, and many are professional associations. Their activities typically include holding regular conferences for the presentation and discussion of new research results and publishing or sponsoring academic journals in their discipline. Some also act as professional bodies, regulating the activities of their members in the public interest or the collective interest of the membership. Scholars in the sociology of science[who?] argue that learned societies are of key importance and their formation assists in the emergence and development of new disciplines or professions.
+
+The professionalization of science, begun in the 19th century, was partly enabled by the creation of distinguished academy of sciences in a number of countries such as the Italian Accademia dei Lincei in 1603,[163] the British Royal Society in 1660, the French Académie des Sciences in 1666,[164] the American National Academy of Sciences in 1863, the German Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in 1911, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1928. International scientific organizations, such as the International Council for Science, have since been formed to promote cooperation between the scientific communities of different nations.
+
+Science policy is an area of public policy concerned with the policies that affect the conduct of the scientific enterprise, including research funding, often in pursuance of other national policy goals such as technological innovation to promote commercial product development, weapons development, health care and environmental monitoring. Science policy also refers to the act of applying scientific knowledge and consensus to the development of public policies. Science policy thus deals with the entire domain of issues that involve the natural sciences. In accordance with public policy being concerned about the well-being of its citizens, science policy's goal is to consider how science and technology can best serve the public.
+
+State policy has influenced the funding of public works and science for thousands of years, particularly within civilizations with highly organized governments such as imperial China and the Roman Empire. Prominent historical examples include the Great Wall of China, completed over the course of two millennia through the state support of several dynasties, and the Grand Canal of the Yangtze River, an immense feat of hydraulic engineering begun by Sunshu Ao (孫叔敖 7th c. BCE), Ximen Bao (西門豹 5th c.BCE), and Shi Chi (4th c. BCE). This construction dates from the 6th century BCE under the Sui Dynasty and is still in use today. In China, such state-supported infrastructure and scientific research projects date at least from the time of the Mohists, who inspired the study of logic during the period of the Hundred Schools of Thought and the study of defensive fortifications like the Great Wall of China during the Warring States period.
+
+Public policy can directly affect the funding of capital equipment and intellectual infrastructure for industrial research by providing tax incentives to those organizations that fund research. Vannevar Bush, director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development for the United States government, the forerunner of the National Science Foundation, wrote in July 1945 that "Science is a proper concern of government."[165]
+
+Scientific research is often funded through a competitive process in which potential research projects are evaluated and only the most promising receive funding. Such processes, which are run by government, corporations, or foundations, allocate scarce funds. Total research funding in most developed countries is between 1.5% and 3% of GDP.[166] In the OECD, around two-thirds of research and development in scientific and technical fields is carried out by industry, and 20% and 10% respectively by universities and government. The government funding proportion in certain industries is higher, and it dominates research in social science and humanities. Similarly, with some exceptions (e.g. biotechnology) government provides the bulk of the funds for basic scientific research. Many governments have dedicated agencies to support scientific research. Prominent scientific organizations include the National Science Foundation in the United States, the National Scientific and Technical Research Council in Argentina, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia, Centre national de la recherche scientifique in France, the Max Planck Society and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in Germany, and CSIC in Spain. In commercial research and development, all but the most research-oriented corporations focus more heavily on near-term commercialisation possibilities rather than "blue-sky" ideas or technologies (such as nuclear fusion).
+
+The public awareness of science relates to the attitudes, behaviors, opinions, and activities that make up the relations between science and the general public. it integrates various themes and activities such as science communication, science museums, science festivals, science fairs, citizen science, and science in popular culture. Social scientists have devised various metrics to measure the public understanding of science such as factual knowledge, self-reported knowledge, and structural knowledge.[167][168]
+
+The mass media face a number of pressures that can prevent them from accurately depicting competing scientific claims in terms of their credibility within the scientific community as a whole. Determining how much weight to give different sides in a scientific debate may require considerable expertise regarding the matter.[169] Few journalists have real scientific knowledge, and even beat reporters who know a great deal about certain scientific issues may be ignorant about other scientific issues that they are suddenly asked to cover.[170][171]
+
+Politicization of science occurs when government, business, or advocacy groups use legal or economic pressure to influence the findings of scientific research or the way it is disseminated, reported, or interpreted. Many factors can act as facets of the politicization of science such as populist anti-intellectualism, perceived threats to religious beliefs, postmodernist subjectivism, and fear for business interests.[172] Politicization of science is usually accomplished when scientific information is presented in a way that emphasizes the uncertainty associated with the scientific evidence.[173] Tactics such as shifting conversation, failing to acknowledge facts, and capitalizing on doubt of scientific consensus have been used to gain more attention for views that have been undermined by scientific evidence.[174] Examples of issues that have involved the politicization of science include the global warming controversy, health effects of pesticides, and health effects of tobacco.[174][175]
+
+Publications
+
+Resources

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+A scientist is someone who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of interest.[1][2]
+
+In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosophical study of nature called natural philosophy, a precursor of natural science.[3] It was not until the 19th century that the term scientist came into regular use after it was coined by the theologian, philosopher, and historian of science William Whewell in 1833.[4][5]
+
+In modern times, many scientists have advanced degrees[6] in an area of science and pursue careers in various sectors of the economy such as academia, industry, government, and nonprofit environments.[7][8][9]
+
+The roles of "scientists", and their predecessors before the emergence of modern scientific disciplines, have evolved considerably over time.  Scientists of different eras (and before them, natural philosophers, mathematicians, natural historians, natural theologians, engineers, and others who contributed to the development of science) have had widely different places in society, and the social norms, ethical values, and epistemic virtues associated with scientists—and expected of them—have changed over time as well. Accordingly, many different historical figures can be identified as early scientists, depending on which characteristics of modern science are taken to be essential.
+
+Some historians point to the Scientific Revolution that began in 16th century as the period when science in a recognizably modern form developed. It wasn't until the 19th century that sufficient socioeconomic changes occurred for scientists to emerge as a major profession.[11]
+
+Knowledge about nature in classical antiquity was pursued by many kinds of scholars. Greek contributions to science—including works of geometry and mathematical astronomy, early accounts of biological processes and catalogs of plants and animals, and theories of knowledge and learning—were produced by philosophers and physicians, as well as practitioners of various trades.  These roles, and their associations with scientific knowledge, spread with the Roman Empire and, with the spread of Christianity, became closely linked to religious institutions in most of European countries. Astrology and astronomy became an important area of knowledge, and the role of astronomer/astrologer developed with the support of political and religious patronage.  By the time of the medieval university system, knowledge was divided into the trivium—philosophy, including natural philosophy—and the quadrivium—mathematics, including astronomy.  Hence, the medieval analogs of scientists were often either philosophers or mathematicians. Knowledge of plants and animals was broadly the province of physicians.
+
+Science in medieval Islam generated some new modes of developing natural knowledge, although still within the bounds of existing social roles such as philosopher and mathematician. Many proto-scientists from the Islamic Golden Age are considered polymaths, in part because of the lack of anything corresponding to modern scientific disciplines. Many of these early polymaths were also religious priests and theologians: for example, Alhazen and al-Biruni were mutakallimiin; the physician Avicenna was a hafiz; the physician Ibn al-Nafis was a hafiz, muhaddith and ulema; the botanist Otto Brunfels was a theologian and historian of Protestantism; the astronomer and physician Nicolaus Copernicus was a priest. During the Italian Renaissance scientists like Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Galileo Galilei and Gerolamo Cardano have been considered as the most recognizable polymaths.
+
+During the Renaissance, Italians made substantial contributions in science. Leonardo Da Vinci made significant discoveries in paleontology and anatomy. The Father of modern Science,[12][13]
+Galileo Galilei, made key improvements on the thermometer and telescope which allowed him to observe and clearly describe the solar system. Descartes was not only a pioneer of analytic geometry but formulated a theory of mechanics[14] and advanced ideas about the origins of animal movement and perception. Vision interested the physicists Young and Helmholtz, who also studied optics, hearing and music. Newton extended Descartes' mathematics by inventing calculus (at the same time as Leibniz). He provided a comprehensive formulation of classical mechanics and investigated light and optics. Fourier founded a new branch of mathematics — infinite, periodic series — studied heat flow and infrared radiation, and discovered the greenhouse effect. Girolamo Cardano, Blaise Pascal Pierre de Fermat, Von Neumann, Turing, Khinchin, Markov and Wiener, all mathematicians, made major contributions to science and probability theory, including the ideas behind computers, and some of the foundations of statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics. Many mathematically inclined scientists, including Galileo, were also musicians.
+
+There are many compelling stories in medicine and biology, such as the development of ideas about the circulation of blood from Galen to Harvey.
+
+During the age of Enlightenment, Luigi Galvani, the pioneer of the bioelectromagnetics, discovered the animal electricity. He discovered that a charge applied to the spinal cord of a frog could generate muscular spasms throughout its body. Charges could make frog legs jump even if the legs were no longer attached to a frog. While cutting a frog leg, Galvani's steel scalpel touched a brass hook that was holding the leg in place. The leg twitched. Further experiments confirmed this effect, and Galvani was convinced that he was seeing the effects of what he called animal electricity, the life force within the muscles of the frog. At the University of Pavia, Galvani's colleague Alessandro Volta was able to reproduce the results, but was sceptical of Galvani's explanation.[15]
+
+Lazzaro Spallanzani is one of the most influential figures in experimental physiology and the natural sciences. His investigations have exerted a lasting influence on the medical sciences. He made important contributions to the experimental study of bodily functions and animal reproduction.[16]
+
+Francesco Redi discovered that microorganisms can cause disease.
+
+Until the late 19th or early 20th century, scientists were still referred to as "natural philosophers" or "men of science".[17][18][19][20]
+
+English philosopher and historian of science William Whewell coined the term scientist in 1833, and it first appeared in print in Whewell's anonymous 1834 review of Mary Somerville's On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences published in the Quarterly Review.[21] Whewell's suggestion of the term was partly satirical, a response to changing conceptions of science itself in which natural knowledge was increasingly seen as distinct from other forms of knowledge.  Whewell wrote of "an increasing proclivity of separation and dismemberment" in the sciences; while highly specific terms proliferated—chemist, mathematician, naturalist—the broad term "philosopher" was no longer satisfactory to group together those who pursued science, without the caveats of "natural" or "experimental" philosopher.  Members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science had been complaining about the lack of a good term at recent meetings, Whewell reported in his review; alluding to himself, he noted that "some ingenious gentleman proposed that, by analogy with artist, they might form [the word] scientist, and added that there could be no scruple in making free with this term since we already have such words as economist, and atheist—but this was not generally palatable".[22]
+
+Whewell proposed the word again more seriously (and not anonymously) in his 1840[23] The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences:
+
+The terminations ize (rather than ise), ism, and ist, are applied to words of all origins: thus we have to pulverize, to colonize, Witticism, Heathenism, Journalist, Tobacconist. Hence we may make such words when they are wanted. As we cannot use physician for a cultivator of physics, I have called him a Physicist. We need very much a name to describe a cultivator of science in general. I should incline to call him a Scientist. Thus we might say, that as an Artist is a Musician, Painter, or Poet, a Scientist is a Mathematician, Physicist, or Naturalist.
+
+He also proposed the term physicist at the same time, as a counterpart to the French word physicien.  Neither term gained wide acceptance until decades later; scientist became a common term in the late 19th century in the United States and around the turn of the 20th century in Great Britain.[21][24][25] By the twentieth century, the modern notion of science as a special brand of information about the world, practiced by a distinct group and pursued through a unique method, was essentially in place.
+
+Ramón y Cajal won the Nobel Prize in 1906 for his remarkable observations in neuroanatomy.
+
+Marie Curie became the first female to win the Nobel Prize and the first person to win it twice. Her efforts led to the development of nuclear energy and Radiotherapy for the treatment of cancer. In 1922, she was appointed a member of the International Commission on Intellectual Co-operation by the Council of the League of Nations. She campaigned for scientist's right to patent their discoveries and inventions. She also campaigned for free access to international scientific literature and for internationally recognized scientific symbols.
+
+As a profession, the scientist of today is widely recognized.
+
+In modern times, many professional scientists are trained in an academic setting (e.g., universities and research institutes), mostly at the level of graduate schools. Upon completion, they would normally attain an academic degree, with the highest degree being a doctorate such as a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).[6] Although graduate education for scientists varies among institutions and countries, some common training requirements include specializing in an  area of interest,[26] publishing research findings in peer-reviewed scientific journals[27] and presenting them at scientific conferences,[28] giving lectures or teaching,[28] and defending a thesis (or dissertation) during an oral examination.[6] To aid them in this endeavor, graduate students often work under the guidance of a mentor, usually a senior scientist, which may continue after the completion of their doctorates whereby they work as postdoctoral researchers.[29]
+
+After the completion of their training, many scientists pursue careers in a variety of work settings and conditions.[7] In 2017, the British scientific journal Nature published the results of a large-scale survey of more than 5,700 doctoral students worldwide, asking them which sectors of the economy they would like to work in. A little over half of the respondents wanted to pursue a career in academia, with smaller proportions hoping to work in industry, government, and nonprofit environments.[8][9]
+
+Scientists are motivated to work in several ways. Many have a desire to understand why the world is as we see it and how it came to be. They exhibit a strong curiosity about reality. Other motivations are recognition by their peers and prestige. The Nobel Prize, a widely regarded prestigious award,[30] is awarded annually to those who have achieved scientific advances in the fields of medicine, physics, chemistry, and economics.
+
+Some scientists have a desire to apply scientific knowledge for the benefit of people's health, the nations, the world, nature, or industries (academic scientist and industrial scientist). Scientists tend to be less motivated by direct financial reward for their work than other careers. As a result, scientific researchers often accept lower average salaries when compared with many other professions which require a similar amount of training and qualification.[31]
+
+Although there have been exceptions, most scientists tend to do their best research when they are relatively young, in their 30s.[32]
+
+Scientists include experimentalists who mainly perform experiments to test hypotheses, and theoreticians who mainly develop models to explain existing data and predict new results. There is a continuum between two activities and the division between them is not clear-cut, with many scientists performing both tasks.
+
+Those considering science as a career often look to the frontiers. These include cosmology and biology, especially molecular biology and the human genome project. Other areas of active research include the exploration of matter at the scale of elementary particles as described by high-energy physics, and materials science, which seeks to discover and design new materials. Although there have been remarkable discoveries with regard to brain function and neurotransmitters, the nature of the mind and human thought still remains unknown.
+
+The number of scientists is vastly different from country to country. For instance, there are only four full-time scientists per 10,000 workers in India, while this number is 79 for the United Kingdom, and 85 for the United States.[33]
+
+According to the National Science Foundation, 4.7 million people with science degrees worked in the United States in 2015, across all disciplines and employment sectors. The figure included twice as many men as women. Of that total, 17% worked in academia, that is, at universities and undergraduate institutions, and men held 53% of those positions. 5% of scientists worked for the federal government, and about 3.5% were self-employed. Of the latter two groups, two-thirds were men. 59% of scientists in the United States were employed in industry or business, and another 6% worked in non-profit positions.[34]
+
+Scientist and engineering statistics are usually intertwined, but they indicate that women enter the field far less than men, though this gap is narrowing. The number of science and engineering doctorates awarded to women rose from a mere 7 percent in 1970 to 34 percent in 1985 and in engineering alone the numbers of bachelor's degrees awarded to women rose from only 385 in 1975 to more than 11000 in 1985.[35][clarification needed]

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+
+
+The Scout movement, also known as Scouting or the Scouts, is a voluntary non-political educational movement for young people open to all without distinction of gender, origin, race or creed, in accordance with the purpose, principles and method conceived by the founder, Lord Baden-Powell. The purpose of the Scout Movement is to contribute to the development of young people in achieving their full physical, intellectual, emotional, social and spiritual potentials as individuals, as responsible citizens and as members of their local, national and international communities.
+During the first half of the twentieth century, the movement grew to encompass three major age groups for boys (Cub Scout, Boy Scout, Rover Scout) and, in 1910, a new organization, Girl Guides, was created for girls (Brownie Guide, Girl Guide and Girl Scout, Ranger Guide). It is one of several worldwide youth organizations.
+
+In 1906 and 1907 Robert Baden-Powell, a lieutenant general in the British Army, wrote a book for boys about reconnaissance and scouting. This book, Scouting for Boys, was based on his earlier books about military scouting, with influence and support of Frederick Russell Burnham (Chief of Scouts in British Africa), Ernest Thompson Seton of the Woodcraft Indians, William Alexander Smith of the Boys' Brigade, and his publisher Pearson. In mid-1907 Baden-Powell held a camp on Brownsea Island in England to test ideas for his book. This camp and the publication of  Scouting for Boys (London, 1908) are generally regarded as the start of the Scout movement.
+
+The movement employs the Scout method, a programme of informal education with an emphasis on practical outdoor activities, including camping, woodcraft, aquatics, hiking, backpacking, and sports. Another widely recognized movement characteristic is the Scout uniform, by intent hiding all differences of social standing in a country and making for equality, with neckerchief and campaign hat or comparable headwear. Distinctive uniform insignia include the fleur-de-lis and the trefoil, as well as badges and other patches.
+
+The two largest umbrella organizations are the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM), for boys-only and co-educational organizations, and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), primarily for girls-only organizations but also accepting co-educational organizations. The year 2007 marked the centenary of Scouting worldwide, and member organizations planned events to celebrate the occasion.
+
+The trigger for the Scouting movement was the 1908 publication of Scouting for Boys written by Robert Baden-Powell.[1][2] At Charterhouse, one of England's most famous public schools, Baden-Powell had an interest in the outdoors.[3] Later, as a military officer, Baden-Powell was stationed in British India in the 1880s where he took an interest in military scouting and in 1884 he published Reconnaissance and Scouting.[4]
+
+In 1896, Baden-Powell was assigned to the Matabeleland region in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) as Chief of Staff to Gen. Frederick Carrington during the Second Matabele War. In June 1896 he met here and began a lifelong friendship with Frederick Russell Burnham, the American-born Chief of Scouts for the British Army in Africa.[5][6] This was a formative experience for Baden-Powell not only because he had the time of his life commanding reconnaissance missions into enemy territory, but because many of his later Boy Scout ideas originated here.[7] During their joint scouting patrols into the Matobo Hills, Burnham augmented Baden-Powell's woodcraft skills, inspiring him and sowing seeds for both the programme and for the code of honour later published in Scouting for Boys.[8][9] Practised by frontiersmen of the American Old West and indigenous peoples of the Americas, woodcraft was generally little known to the British Army but well known to the American scout Burnham.[5] These skills eventually formed the basis of what is now called scoutcraft, the fundamentals of Scouting. Both men recognised that wars in Africa were changing markedly and the British Army needed to adapt; so during their joint scouting missions, Baden-Powell and Burnham discussed the concept of a broad training programme in woodcraft for young men, rich in exploration, tracking, fieldcraft, and self-reliance.[10] During this time in the Matobo Hills Baden-Powell first started to wear his signature campaign hat[11] like the one worn by Burnham, and acquired his kudu horn, the Ndebele war instrument he later used every morning at Brownsea Island to wake the first Boy Scouts and to call them together in training courses.[12][13][14]
+
+Three years later, in South Africa during the Second Boer War, Baden-Powell was besieged in the small town of Mafikeng (Mafeking) by a much larger Boer army.[15] The Mafeking Cadet Corps was a group of youths that supported the troops by carrying messages, which freed the men for military duties and kept the boys occupied during the long siege. The Cadet Corps performed well, helping in the defence of the town (1899–1900), and were one of the many factors that inspired Baden-Powell to form the Scouting movement.[16][17][18] Each member received a badge that illustrated a combined compass point and spearhead. The badge's logo was similar to the fleur-de-lis shaped arrowhead that Scouting later adopted as its international symbol.[19] The Siege of Mafeking was the first time since his own childhood that Baden-Powell, a regular serving soldier, had come into the same orbit as "civilians"—women and children—and discovered for himself the usefulness of well-trained boys.
+
+In the United Kingdom, the public, through newspapers, followed Baden-Powell's struggle to hold Mafeking, and when the siege was broken he had become a national hero. This rise to fame fuelled the sales of the small instruction book he had written in 1899 about military scouting and wilderness survival, Aids to Scouting,[20] that owed much to what he had learned from discussions with Burnham.[21]
+
+On his return to England, Baden-Powell noticed that boys showed considerable interest in Aids to Scouting, which was unexpectedly used by teachers and youth organizations as their first Scouting handbook.[21] He was urged to rewrite this book for boys, especially during an inspection of the Boys' Brigade, a large youth movement drilled with military precision. Baden-Powell thought this would not be attractive and suggested that the Boys' Brigade could grow much larger were Scouting to be used.[22] He studied other schemes, parts of which he used for Scouting.
+
+In July 1906 Ernest Thompson Seton sent Baden-Powell a copy of his 1902 book The Birchbark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians.[23] Seton, a British-born Canadian-American living in the United States, met Baden-Powell in October 1906, and they shared ideas about youth training programs.[24][25] In 1907 Baden-Powell wrote a draft called Boy Patrols. In the same year, to test his ideas, he gathered 21 boys of mixed social backgrounds (from boy's schools in the London area and a section of boys from the Poole, Parkstone, Hamworthy, Bournemouth, and Winton Boys' Brigade units) and held a week-long camp in August on Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour, Dorset.[26] His organizational method, now known as the Patrol System and a key part of Scouting training, allowed the boys to organize themselves into small groups with an elected patrol leader.[27]
+
+In late 1907, Baden-Powell went on an extensive speaking tour arranged by his publisher, Arthur Pearson, to promote his forthcoming book, Scouting for Boys. He had not simply rewritten his Aids to Scouting; he omitted the military aspects and transferred the techniques (mainly survival skills) to non-military heroes: backwoodsmen, explorers (and later on, sailors and airmen).[28] He also added innovative educational principles (the Scout method) by which he extended the attractive game to a personal mental education.[25]
+
+At the beginning of 1908, Baden-Powell published Scouting for Boys in six fortnightly parts, setting out activities and programmes which existing youth organisations could use.[29] The reaction was phenomenal, and quite unexpected. In a very short time, Scout Patrols were created up and down the country, all following the principles of Baden-Powell's book. In 1909, the first Scout Rally was held at Crystal Palace in London, to which 11,000 Scouts came—and some girls dressed as Scouts and calling themselves "Girl Scouts". Baden-Powell retired from the Army and, in 1910, he formed The Boy Scouts Association, and later The Girl Guides. By the time of The Boy Scouts Association's first census in 1910, it had over 100,000 Scouts.[29]
+
+Scouting for Boys was published in England later in 1908 in book form. The book is now the fourth-bestselling title of all time,[30] and was the basis for the later American version of the Boy Scout Handbook.[31]
+
+At the time, Baden-Powell intended that the scheme would be used by established organizations, in particular the Boys' Brigade, from the founder William A. Smith.[32] However, because of the popularity of his person and the adventurous outdoor games he wrote about, boys spontaneously formed Scout patrols and flooded Baden-Powell with requests for assistance. He encouraged them, and the Scouting movement developed momentum. In 1910 Baden-Powell formed The Boy Scouts Association in the United Kingdom. As the movement grew, Sea Scouts, Air Scouts, and other specialized units were added to the program.[33][34]
+
+The scouts law is for boys, as follows;
+
+In his original book on boy scouting, General Baden-Powell introduced the Scout promise, as follows:[35]
+“Before he becomes a scout, a boy must take the scout's oath, thus:
+
+On my honour I promise that---
+
+While taking this oath the scout will stand, holding his right hand raised level with his shoulder, palm to the front, thumb resting on the nail of the little finger and the other three fingers upright, pointing upwards:--- This is the scout's salute and secret sign.
+
+The Boy Scout Movement swiftly established itself throughout the British Empire soon after the publication of Scouting for Boys. By 1908, Scouting was established in Gibraltar, Malta, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. In 1909 Chile was the first country outside the British dominions to have a Scouting organization recognized by Baden-Powell. The first Scout rally, held in 1909 at the Crystal Palace in London, attracted 10,000 boys and a number of girls. By 1910, Argentina, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Malaya, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States had Boy Scouts.[36][37]
+
+The program initially focused on boys aged 11 to 18, but as the movement grew the need became apparent for leader training and programs for younger boys, older boys, and girls. The first Cub Scout and Rover Scout programs were in place by the late 1910s. They operated independently until they obtained official recognition from their home country's Scouting organization. In the United States, attempts at Cub programs began as early as 1911, but official recognition was not obtained until 1930.[37][38][39]
+
+Girls wanted to become part of the movement almost as soon as it began. Baden-Powell and his sister Agnes Baden-Powell introduced the Girl Guides in 1910, a parallel movement for girls, sometimes named Girl Scouts. Agnes Baden-Powell became the first president of the Girl Guides when it was formed in 1910, at the request of the girls who attended the Crystal Palace Rally. In 1914, she started Rosebuds—later renamed Brownies—for younger girls. She stepped down as president of the Girl Guides in 1920 in favor of Robert's wife Olave Baden-Powell, who was named Chief Guide (for England) in 1918 and World Chief Guide in 1930. At that time, girls were expected to remain separate from boys because of societal standards, though co-educational youth groups did exist. By the 1990s, two-thirds of the Scout organizations belonging to WOSM had become co-educational.[40]
+
+Baden-Powell could not single-handedly advise all groups who requested his assistance. Early Scoutmaster training camps were held in London and Yorkshire in 1910 and 1911. Baden-Powell wanted the training to be as practical as possible to encourage other adults to take leadership roles, so the Wood Badge course was developed to recognize adult leadership training. The development of the training was delayed by World War I, and the first Wood Badge course was not held until 1919.[41] Wood Badge is used by Boy Scout associations and combined Boy Scout and Girl Guide associations in many countries. Gilwell Park near London was purchased in 1919 on behalf of The Scout Association as an adult training site and Scouting campsite.[42] Baden-Powell wrote a book, Aids to Scoutmastership, to help Scouting Leaders, and wrote other handbooks for the use of the new Scouting sections, such as Cub Scouts and Girl Guides. One of these was Rovering to Success, written for Rover Scouts in 1922. A wide range of leader training exists in 2007, from basic to program-specific, including the Wood Badge training.
+
+Important elements of traditional Scouting have their origins in Baden-Powell's experiences in education and military training. He was a 50-year-old retired army general when he founded Scouting, and his revolutionary ideas inspired thousands of young people, from all parts of society, to get involved in activities that most had never contemplated. Comparable organizations in the English-speaking world are the Boys' Brigade and the non-militaristic Woodcraft Folk; however, they never matched the development and growth of Scouting.[43]
+
+Aspects of Scouting practice have been criticized as too militaristic.[44]
+
+Local influences have also been a strong part of Scouting. By adopting and modifying local ideologies, Scouting has been able to find acceptance in a wide variety of cultures. In the United States, Scouting uses images drawn from the U.S. frontier experience. This includes not only its selection of animal badges for Cub Scouts, but the underlying assumption that American native peoples are more closely connected with nature and therefore have special wilderness survival skills which can be used as part of the training program. By contrast, British Scouting makes use of imagery drawn from the Indian subcontinent, because that region was a significant focus in the early years of Scouting. Baden-Powell's personal experiences in India led him to adopt Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book as a major influence for the Cub Scouts; for example, the name used for the Cub Scout leader, Akela (whose name was also appropriated for the Webelos), is that of the leader of the wolf pack in the book.[45]
+
+The name "Scouting" seems to have been inspired by the important and romantic role played by military scouts performing reconnaissance in the wars of the time. In fact, Baden-Powell wrote his original military training book, Aids To Scouting, because he saw the need for the improved training of British military-enlisted scouts, particularly in initiative, self-reliance, and observational skills. The book's popularity with young boys surprised him. As he adapted the book as Scouting for Boys, it seems natural that the movement adopted the names Scouting and Boy Scouts.[46]
+
+"Duty to God" is a principle of Scouting, though it is applied differently in various countries.[47][48] The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) take a strong position, excluding atheists.[49] The Scout Association in the United Kingdom permits variations to its Promise, in order to accommodate different religious obligations.[50] While for example in the predominantly atheist Czech Republic the Scout oath doesn't mention God altogether with the organization being strictly irreligious,[51] in 2014, United Kingdom Scouts were given the choice of being able to make a variation of the Promise that replaced "duty to God" with "uphold our Scout values",[52] Scouts Canada defines Duty to God broadly in terms of "adherence to spiritual principles" and leaves it to the individual member or leader whether they can follow a Scout Promise that includes Duty to God.[53] Worldwide, roughly one in three Scouts are Muslim.[54]
+
+Scouting is taught using the Scout method, which incorporates an informal educational system that emphasizes practical activities in the outdoors. Programs exist for Scouts ranging in age from 6 to 25 (though age limits vary slightly by country), and program specifics target Scouts in a manner appropriate to their age.[55][56]
+
+The Scout method is the principal method by which the Scouting organizations, boy and girl, operate their units. WOSM describes Scouting as "a voluntary nonpolitical educational movement for young people open to all without distinction of origin, race or creed, in accordance with the purpose, principles and method conceived by the Founder".[55] It is the goal of Scouting "to contribute to the development of young people in achieving their full physical, intellectual, social and spiritual potentials as individuals, as responsible citizens and as members of their local, national and international communities."[55]
+
+The principles of Scouting describe a code of behavior for all members, and characterize the movement. The Scout method is a progressive system designed to achieve these goals, comprising seven elements: law and promise, learning by doing, team system, symbolic framework, personal progression, nature, and adult support.[57] While community service is a major element of both the WOSM and WAGGGS programs, WAGGGS includes it as an extra element of the Scout method: service in the community.[58]
+
+The Scout Law and Promise embody the joint values of the Scouting movement worldwide, and bind all Scouting associations together. The emphasis on "learning by doing" provides experiences and hands-on orientation as a practical method of learning and building self-confidence. Small groups build unity, camaraderie, and a close-knit fraternal atmosphere. These experiences, along with an emphasis on trustworthiness and personal honor, help to develop responsibility, character, self-reliance, self-confidence, reliability, and readiness; which eventually lead to collaboration and leadership. A program with a variety of progressive and attractive activities expands a Scout's horizon and bonds the Scout even more to the group. Activities and games provide an enjoyable way to develop skills such as dexterity. In an outdoor setting, they also provide contact with the natural environment.[56]
+
+Since the birth of Scouting, Scouts worldwide have taken a Scout Promise to live up to ideals of the movement, and subscribe to the Scout Law. The form of the promise and laws have varied slightly by country and over time, but must fulfil the requirements of the WOSM to qualify a National Scout Association for membership.[55]
+
+The Scout Motto, 'Be Prepared', has been used in various languages by millions of Scouts since 1907. Less well-known is the Scout Slogan, 'Do a good turn daily'.[59]
+
+Common ways to implement the Scout method include having Scouts spending time together in small groups with shared experiences, rituals, and activities, and emphasizing 'good citizenship'[60] and decision-making by young people in an age-appropriate manner. Weekly meetings often take place in local centres known as Scout dens. Cultivating a love and appreciation of the outdoors and outdoor activities is a key element. Primary activities include camping, woodcraft, aquatics, hiking, backpacking, and sports.[61][62]
+
+Camping is most often arranged at the unit level, such as one Scout troop, but there are periodic camps (known in the US as "camporees") and "jamborees". Camps occur a few times a year and may involve several groups from a local area or region camping together for a weekend. The events usually have a theme, such as pioneering. World Scout Moots are gatherings, originally for Rover Scouts, but mainly focused on Scout Leaders. Jamborees are large national or international events held every four years, during which thousands of Scouts camp together for one or two weeks. Activities at these events will include games, Scoutcraft competitions, badge, pin or patch trading, aquatics, woodcarving, archery and activities related to the theme of the event.[63]
+
+In some countries a highlight of the year for Scouts is spending at least a week in the summer engaging in an outdoor activity. This can be a camping, hiking, sailing, or other trip with the unit, or a summer camp with broader participation (at the council, state, or provincial level). Scouts attending a summer camp work on Scout badges, advancement, and perfecting Scoutcraft skills. Summer camps can operate specialty programs for older Scouts, such as sailing, backpacking, canoeing and whitewater, caving, and fishing.[64][65]
+
+At an international level Scouting perceives one of its roles as the promotion of international harmony and peace.[66] Various initiatives are in train towards achieving this aim including the development of activities that benefit the wider community, challenge prejudice and encourage tolerance of diversity. Such programs include co-operation with non-Scouting organisations including various NGOs, the United Nations and religious institutions as set out in The Marrakech Charter.[67]
+
+The Scout uniform is a widely recognized characteristic of Scouting. In the words of Baden-Powell at the 1937 World Jamboree, it "hides all differences of social standing in a country and makes for equality; but, more important still, it covers differences of country and race and creed, and makes all feel that they are members with one another of the one great brotherhood".[68] The original uniform, still widely recognized, consisted of a khaki button-up shirt, shorts, and a broad-brimmed campaign hat. Baden-Powell also wore shorts, because he believed that being dressed like a Scout helped to reduce the age-imposed distance between adult and youth. Uniform shirts are now frequently blue, orange, red or green and shorts are frequently replaced by long trousers all year or only under cold weather.
+
+While designed for smartness and equality, the Scout uniform is also practical. Shirts traditionally have thick seams to make them ideal for use in makeshift stretchers—Scouts were trained to use them in this way with their staves, a traditional but deprecated item. The leather straps and toggles of the campaign hats or Leaders' Wood Badges could be used as emergency tourniquets, or anywhere that string was needed in a hurry. Neckerchiefs were chosen as they could easily be used as a sling or triangular bandage by a Scout in need. Scouts were encouraged to use their garters for shock cord where necessary.[68]
+
+Distinctive insignia for all are Scout uniforms, recognized and worn the world over, include the Wood Badge and the World Membership Badge. Scouting has two internationally known symbols: the trefoil is used by members of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) and the fleur-de-lis by member organizations of the WOSM and most other Scouting organizations.[69][70]
+
+The swastika was used as an early symbol by the Boy Scouts Association of the United Kingdom and others. Its earliest use in Scouting was on the Thanks Badge introduced in 1911.[71] Lord Baden-Powell's 1922 design for the Medal of Merit added a swastika to the Scout Arrowhead to symbolize good luck for the recipient. In 1934, Scouters requested a change to the design because of the connection of the swastika with its more recent use by the German National Socialist Workers (Nazi) Party. A new Medal of Merit was issued by the Boy Scouts Association in 1935.[71]
+
+Scouting and Guiding movements are generally divided into sections by age or school grade, allowing activities to be tailored to the maturity of the group's members. These age divisions have varied over time as they adapt to the local culture and environment.[72]
+
+Scouting was originally developed for adolescents—youths between the ages of 11 and 17. In most member organizations, this age group composes the Scout or Guide section. Programs were developed to meet the needs of young children (generally ages 6 to 10) and young adults (originally 18 and older, and later up to 25). Scouts and Guides were later split into "junior" and "senior" sections in many member organizations, and some organizations dropped the young adults' section. The exact age ranges for programs vary by country and association.[73][74][75]
+
+The national programs for younger children include Tiger Cubs, Cub Scouts, Brownies, Daisies, Rainbow Guides, Beaver Scouts, Joey Scouts, Keas, and Teddies. Programs for post-adolescents and young adults include the Senior Section,[76] Rover Scouts, Senior Scouts, Venture Scouts, Explorer Scouts, and the Scout Network. Many organizations also have a program for members with special needs. This is usually known as Extension Scouting, but sometimes has other names, such as Scoutlink. The Scout Method has been adapted to specific programs such as Air Scouts, Sea Scouts, Rider Guides and Scoutingbands .[77]
+
+In many countries, Scouting is organized into neighborhood Scout Groups, or Districts, which contain one or more sections. Under the umbrella of the Scout Group, sections are divided according to age, each having their own terminology and leadership structure.[78]
+
+Adults interested in Scouting or Guiding, including former Scouts and Guides, often join organizations such as the International Scout and Guide Fellowship. In the United States and the Philippines, university students might join the co-ed service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega. In the United Kingdom, university students might join the Student Scout and Guide Organisation, and after graduation, the Scout and Guide Graduate Association.
+
+Scout units are usually operated by adult volunteers, such as parents and carers, former Scouts, students, and community leaders, including teachers and religious leaders. Scout Leadership positions are often divided into 'uniform' and 'lay' positions. Uniformed leaders have received formal training, such as the Wood Badge, and have received a warrant for a rank within the organization. Lay members commonly hold part-time roles such as meeting helpers, committee members and advisors, though there are a small number of full-time lay professionals.[79]
+
+A unit has uniformed positions—such as the Scoutmaster and assistants—whose titles vary among countries. In some countries, units are supported by lay members, who range from acting as meeting helpers to being members of the unit's committee. In some Scout associations, the committee members may also wear uniforms and be registered Scout leaders.[80]
+
+Above the unit are further uniformed positions, called Commissioners, at levels such as district, county, council or province, depending on the structure of the national organization. Commissioners work with lay teams and professionals. Training teams and related functions are often formed at these levels. In the UK and in other countries, the national Scout organization appoints the Chief Scout, the most senior uniformed member.[81][82][83]
+
+Following its foundation in the United Kingdom, Scouting spread around the globe. The first association outside the British Empire was founded in Chile in May 21, 1909 after a visit by Baden Powell.[84] In most countries of the world, there is now at least one Scouting (or Guiding) organization. Each is independent, but international cooperation continues to be seen as part of the Scout Movement. In 1922 the WOSM started as the governing body on policy for the national Scouting organizations (then male only). In addition to being the governing policy body, it organizes the World Scout Jamboree every four years.[85]
+
+In 1928 the WAGGGS started as the equivalent to WOSM for the then female-only national Scouting/Guiding organizations. It is also responsible for its four international centres: Our Cabaña in Mexico, Our Chalet in Switzerland, Pax Lodge in the United Kingdom, and Sangam in India.[86]
+
+Today at the international level, the two largest umbrella organizations are:
+
+There have been different approaches to co-educational Scouting. Some countries have maintained separate Scouting organizations for boys and girls,[87] In other countries, especially within Europe, Scouting and Guiding have merged, and there is a single organization for boys and girls, which is a member of both the WOSM and the WAGGGS.[88][89] The United States-based Boy Scouts of America permitted girls to join in early 2018.[90] In others, such as Australia and the United Kingdom, the national Scout association has opted to admit both boys and girls, but is only a member of the WOSM, while the national Guide association has remained as a separate movement and member of the WAGGGS. In some countries like Greece, Slovenia and Spain there are separate associations of Scouts (members of WOSM) and guides (members of WAGGGS), both admitting boys and girls.[91]
+
+The Scout Association in the United Kingdom has been co-educational at all levels since 1991, and this was optional for groups until the year 2000 when new sections were required to accept girls. The Scout Association transitioned all Scout groups and sections across the UK to become co-educational by January 2007, the year of Scouting's centenary.[92] The traditional Baden-Powell Scouts' Association has been co-educational since its formation in 1970.
+
+In the United States, the Cub Scout and Boy Scout programs of the BSA were for boys only until 2018; it has changed its policies and is now inviting girls to join, as local packs organize all-girl dens (same uniform, same book, same activities). For youths age 14 and older, Venturing has been co-educational since the 1930s. The Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) is an independent organization for girls and young women only. Adult leadership positions in the BSA and GSUSA are open to both men and women.[93][94]
+
+In 2006, of the 155 WOSM member National Scout Organizations (representing 155 countries), 122 belonged only to WOSM, and 34 belonged to both WOSM and WAGGGS. Of the 122 which belonged only to WOSM, 95 were open to boys and girls in some or all program sections, and 20 were only for boys. All 34 that belonged to both WOSM and WAGGGS were open to boys and girls.[95]
+
+WAGGGS had 144 Member Organizations in 2007 and 110 of them belonged only to WAGGGS. Of these 110, 17 were coeducational and 93 admitted only girls.[96][97][98]
+
+As of 2019, there are over 50 million registered Scouts[99] and as of 2006 10 million registered Guides[100] around the world, from 216 countries and territories.
+
+Fifteen years passed between the first publication of Scouting for Boys and the creation of the current largest supranational Scout organization, WOSM, and millions of copies had been sold in dozens of languages. By that point, Scouting was the purview of the world's youth, and several Scout associations had already formed in many countries.[103][104]
+
+Alternative groups have formed since the original formation of the Scouting "Boy Patrols". They can be a result of groups or individuals who maintain that the WOSM and WAGGGS are more political and less youth-based than envisioned by Lord Baden-Powell. They believe that Scouting in general has moved away from its original intent because of political machinations that happen to longstanding organizations, and want to return to the earliest, simplest methods.[105][106] Others do not want to follow all the original ideals of Scouting but still desire to participate in Scout-like activities.[107]
+
+In 2008, there were at least 539 independent Scouting organizations around the world,[97] 367 of them were a member of either WAGGGS or WOSM. About half of the remaining 172 Scouting organizations are only local or national oriented. About 90 national or regional Scouting associations have created their own international Scouting organizations. Those are served by five international Scouting organizations:[97]
+
+Some Scout-like organizations are also served by international organizations, many with religious elements, for example:
+
+After the inception of Scouting in the early 1900s, some nations' programs have taken part in social movements such as the nationalist resistance movements in India. Although Scouting was introduced to Africa by British officials as a way to strengthen their rule, the values they based Scouting on helped to challenge the legitimacy of British imperialism. Likewise, African Scouts used the Scout Law's principle that a Scout is a brother to all other Scouts to collectively claim full imperial citizenship.[108][109]
+
+A study has found a strong link between participating in Scouting and Guiding as a young person, and having significantly better mental health.[110] The data, from almost 10,000 individuals, came from a lifelong UK-wide study of people born in November 1958, known as the National Child Development Study.
+
+In the United Kingdom, The Scout Association had been criticised for its insistence on the use of a religious promise,[111] leading the organization to introduce an alternative in January 2014 for those not wanting to mention a god in their promise. This change made the organisation entirely non-discriminatory on the grounds of race, gender, sexuality, and religion (or lack thereof).[112]
+
+The Boy Scouts of America was the focus of criticism in the United States for not allowing the open participation of homosexuals until removing the prohibition in 2013.[113]
+
+Authoritarian communist regimes such as the Soviet Union in 1920[114] and fascist regimes like Nazi Germany in 1934[115] often either absorbed the Scout movement into government-controlled organizations, or banned Scouting entirely.
+
+Scouting has been a facet of culture during most of the twentieth century in many countries; numerous films and artwork focus on the subject.[116] Movie critic Roger Ebert mentioned the scene in which the young Boy Scout, Indiana Jones, discovers the Cross of Coronado in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, as "when he discovers his life mission".[117]
+
+The works of painters Ernest Stafford Carlos, Norman Rockwell, Pierre Joubert and Joseph Csatari and the 1966 film Follow Me, Boys! are prime examples of this ethos. Scouting is often dealt with in a humorous manner, as in the 1989 film Troop Beverly Hills, the 2005 film Down and Derby, and the film Scout Camp. In 1980, Scottish singer and songwriter Gerry Rafferty recorded I was a Boy Scout as part of his Snakes and Ladders album.[118]
+

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+
+
+The Scout movement, also known as Scouting or the Scouts, is a voluntary non-political educational movement for young people open to all without distinction of gender, origin, race or creed, in accordance with the purpose, principles and method conceived by the founder, Lord Baden-Powell. The purpose of the Scout Movement is to contribute to the development of young people in achieving their full physical, intellectual, emotional, social and spiritual potentials as individuals, as responsible citizens and as members of their local, national and international communities.
+During the first half of the twentieth century, the movement grew to encompass three major age groups for boys (Cub Scout, Boy Scout, Rover Scout) and, in 1910, a new organization, Girl Guides, was created for girls (Brownie Guide, Girl Guide and Girl Scout, Ranger Guide). It is one of several worldwide youth organizations.
+
+In 1906 and 1907 Robert Baden-Powell, a lieutenant general in the British Army, wrote a book for boys about reconnaissance and scouting. This book, Scouting for Boys, was based on his earlier books about military scouting, with influence and support of Frederick Russell Burnham (Chief of Scouts in British Africa), Ernest Thompson Seton of the Woodcraft Indians, William Alexander Smith of the Boys' Brigade, and his publisher Pearson. In mid-1907 Baden-Powell held a camp on Brownsea Island in England to test ideas for his book. This camp and the publication of  Scouting for Boys (London, 1908) are generally regarded as the start of the Scout movement.
+
+The movement employs the Scout method, a programme of informal education with an emphasis on practical outdoor activities, including camping, woodcraft, aquatics, hiking, backpacking, and sports. Another widely recognized movement characteristic is the Scout uniform, by intent hiding all differences of social standing in a country and making for equality, with neckerchief and campaign hat or comparable headwear. Distinctive uniform insignia include the fleur-de-lis and the trefoil, as well as badges and other patches.
+
+The two largest umbrella organizations are the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM), for boys-only and co-educational organizations, and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS), primarily for girls-only organizations but also accepting co-educational organizations. The year 2007 marked the centenary of Scouting worldwide, and member organizations planned events to celebrate the occasion.
+
+The trigger for the Scouting movement was the 1908 publication of Scouting for Boys written by Robert Baden-Powell.[1][2] At Charterhouse, one of England's most famous public schools, Baden-Powell had an interest in the outdoors.[3] Later, as a military officer, Baden-Powell was stationed in British India in the 1880s where he took an interest in military scouting and in 1884 he published Reconnaissance and Scouting.[4]
+
+In 1896, Baden-Powell was assigned to the Matabeleland region in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) as Chief of Staff to Gen. Frederick Carrington during the Second Matabele War. In June 1896 he met here and began a lifelong friendship with Frederick Russell Burnham, the American-born Chief of Scouts for the British Army in Africa.[5][6] This was a formative experience for Baden-Powell not only because he had the time of his life commanding reconnaissance missions into enemy territory, but because many of his later Boy Scout ideas originated here.[7] During their joint scouting patrols into the Matobo Hills, Burnham augmented Baden-Powell's woodcraft skills, inspiring him and sowing seeds for both the programme and for the code of honour later published in Scouting for Boys.[8][9] Practised by frontiersmen of the American Old West and indigenous peoples of the Americas, woodcraft was generally little known to the British Army but well known to the American scout Burnham.[5] These skills eventually formed the basis of what is now called scoutcraft, the fundamentals of Scouting. Both men recognised that wars in Africa were changing markedly and the British Army needed to adapt; so during their joint scouting missions, Baden-Powell and Burnham discussed the concept of a broad training programme in woodcraft for young men, rich in exploration, tracking, fieldcraft, and self-reliance.[10] During this time in the Matobo Hills Baden-Powell first started to wear his signature campaign hat[11] like the one worn by Burnham, and acquired his kudu horn, the Ndebele war instrument he later used every morning at Brownsea Island to wake the first Boy Scouts and to call them together in training courses.[12][13][14]
+
+Three years later, in South Africa during the Second Boer War, Baden-Powell was besieged in the small town of Mafikeng (Mafeking) by a much larger Boer army.[15] The Mafeking Cadet Corps was a group of youths that supported the troops by carrying messages, which freed the men for military duties and kept the boys occupied during the long siege. The Cadet Corps performed well, helping in the defence of the town (1899–1900), and were one of the many factors that inspired Baden-Powell to form the Scouting movement.[16][17][18] Each member received a badge that illustrated a combined compass point and spearhead. The badge's logo was similar to the fleur-de-lis shaped arrowhead that Scouting later adopted as its international symbol.[19] The Siege of Mafeking was the first time since his own childhood that Baden-Powell, a regular serving soldier, had come into the same orbit as "civilians"—women and children—and discovered for himself the usefulness of well-trained boys.
+
+In the United Kingdom, the public, through newspapers, followed Baden-Powell's struggle to hold Mafeking, and when the siege was broken he had become a national hero. This rise to fame fuelled the sales of the small instruction book he had written in 1899 about military scouting and wilderness survival, Aids to Scouting,[20] that owed much to what he had learned from discussions with Burnham.[21]
+
+On his return to England, Baden-Powell noticed that boys showed considerable interest in Aids to Scouting, which was unexpectedly used by teachers and youth organizations as their first Scouting handbook.[21] He was urged to rewrite this book for boys, especially during an inspection of the Boys' Brigade, a large youth movement drilled with military precision. Baden-Powell thought this would not be attractive and suggested that the Boys' Brigade could grow much larger were Scouting to be used.[22] He studied other schemes, parts of which he used for Scouting.
+
+In July 1906 Ernest Thompson Seton sent Baden-Powell a copy of his 1902 book The Birchbark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians.[23] Seton, a British-born Canadian-American living in the United States, met Baden-Powell in October 1906, and they shared ideas about youth training programs.[24][25] In 1907 Baden-Powell wrote a draft called Boy Patrols. In the same year, to test his ideas, he gathered 21 boys of mixed social backgrounds (from boy's schools in the London area and a section of boys from the Poole, Parkstone, Hamworthy, Bournemouth, and Winton Boys' Brigade units) and held a week-long camp in August on Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour, Dorset.[26] His organizational method, now known as the Patrol System and a key part of Scouting training, allowed the boys to organize themselves into small groups with an elected patrol leader.[27]
+
+In late 1907, Baden-Powell went on an extensive speaking tour arranged by his publisher, Arthur Pearson, to promote his forthcoming book, Scouting for Boys. He had not simply rewritten his Aids to Scouting; he omitted the military aspects and transferred the techniques (mainly survival skills) to non-military heroes: backwoodsmen, explorers (and later on, sailors and airmen).[28] He also added innovative educational principles (the Scout method) by which he extended the attractive game to a personal mental education.[25]
+
+At the beginning of 1908, Baden-Powell published Scouting for Boys in six fortnightly parts, setting out activities and programmes which existing youth organisations could use.[29] The reaction was phenomenal, and quite unexpected. In a very short time, Scout Patrols were created up and down the country, all following the principles of Baden-Powell's book. In 1909, the first Scout Rally was held at Crystal Palace in London, to which 11,000 Scouts came—and some girls dressed as Scouts and calling themselves "Girl Scouts". Baden-Powell retired from the Army and, in 1910, he formed The Boy Scouts Association, and later The Girl Guides. By the time of The Boy Scouts Association's first census in 1910, it had over 100,000 Scouts.[29]
+
+Scouting for Boys was published in England later in 1908 in book form. The book is now the fourth-bestselling title of all time,[30] and was the basis for the later American version of the Boy Scout Handbook.[31]
+
+At the time, Baden-Powell intended that the scheme would be used by established organizations, in particular the Boys' Brigade, from the founder William A. Smith.[32] However, because of the popularity of his person and the adventurous outdoor games he wrote about, boys spontaneously formed Scout patrols and flooded Baden-Powell with requests for assistance. He encouraged them, and the Scouting movement developed momentum. In 1910 Baden-Powell formed The Boy Scouts Association in the United Kingdom. As the movement grew, Sea Scouts, Air Scouts, and other specialized units were added to the program.[33][34]
+
+The scouts law is for boys, as follows;
+
+In his original book on boy scouting, General Baden-Powell introduced the Scout promise, as follows:[35]
+“Before he becomes a scout, a boy must take the scout's oath, thus:
+
+On my honour I promise that---
+
+While taking this oath the scout will stand, holding his right hand raised level with his shoulder, palm to the front, thumb resting on the nail of the little finger and the other three fingers upright, pointing upwards:--- This is the scout's salute and secret sign.
+
+The Boy Scout Movement swiftly established itself throughout the British Empire soon after the publication of Scouting for Boys. By 1908, Scouting was established in Gibraltar, Malta, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. In 1909 Chile was the first country outside the British dominions to have a Scouting organization recognized by Baden-Powell. The first Scout rally, held in 1909 at the Crystal Palace in London, attracted 10,000 boys and a number of girls. By 1910, Argentina, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Malaya, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the United States had Boy Scouts.[36][37]
+
+The program initially focused on boys aged 11 to 18, but as the movement grew the need became apparent for leader training and programs for younger boys, older boys, and girls. The first Cub Scout and Rover Scout programs were in place by the late 1910s. They operated independently until they obtained official recognition from their home country's Scouting organization. In the United States, attempts at Cub programs began as early as 1911, but official recognition was not obtained until 1930.[37][38][39]
+
+Girls wanted to become part of the movement almost as soon as it began. Baden-Powell and his sister Agnes Baden-Powell introduced the Girl Guides in 1910, a parallel movement for girls, sometimes named Girl Scouts. Agnes Baden-Powell became the first president of the Girl Guides when it was formed in 1910, at the request of the girls who attended the Crystal Palace Rally. In 1914, she started Rosebuds—later renamed Brownies—for younger girls. She stepped down as president of the Girl Guides in 1920 in favor of Robert's wife Olave Baden-Powell, who was named Chief Guide (for England) in 1918 and World Chief Guide in 1930. At that time, girls were expected to remain separate from boys because of societal standards, though co-educational youth groups did exist. By the 1990s, two-thirds of the Scout organizations belonging to WOSM had become co-educational.[40]
+
+Baden-Powell could not single-handedly advise all groups who requested his assistance. Early Scoutmaster training camps were held in London and Yorkshire in 1910 and 1911. Baden-Powell wanted the training to be as practical as possible to encourage other adults to take leadership roles, so the Wood Badge course was developed to recognize adult leadership training. The development of the training was delayed by World War I, and the first Wood Badge course was not held until 1919.[41] Wood Badge is used by Boy Scout associations and combined Boy Scout and Girl Guide associations in many countries. Gilwell Park near London was purchased in 1919 on behalf of The Scout Association as an adult training site and Scouting campsite.[42] Baden-Powell wrote a book, Aids to Scoutmastership, to help Scouting Leaders, and wrote other handbooks for the use of the new Scouting sections, such as Cub Scouts and Girl Guides. One of these was Rovering to Success, written for Rover Scouts in 1922. A wide range of leader training exists in 2007, from basic to program-specific, including the Wood Badge training.
+
+Important elements of traditional Scouting have their origins in Baden-Powell's experiences in education and military training. He was a 50-year-old retired army general when he founded Scouting, and his revolutionary ideas inspired thousands of young people, from all parts of society, to get involved in activities that most had never contemplated. Comparable organizations in the English-speaking world are the Boys' Brigade and the non-militaristic Woodcraft Folk; however, they never matched the development and growth of Scouting.[43]
+
+Aspects of Scouting practice have been criticized as too militaristic.[44]
+
+Local influences have also been a strong part of Scouting. By adopting and modifying local ideologies, Scouting has been able to find acceptance in a wide variety of cultures. In the United States, Scouting uses images drawn from the U.S. frontier experience. This includes not only its selection of animal badges for Cub Scouts, but the underlying assumption that American native peoples are more closely connected with nature and therefore have special wilderness survival skills which can be used as part of the training program. By contrast, British Scouting makes use of imagery drawn from the Indian subcontinent, because that region was a significant focus in the early years of Scouting. Baden-Powell's personal experiences in India led him to adopt Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book as a major influence for the Cub Scouts; for example, the name used for the Cub Scout leader, Akela (whose name was also appropriated for the Webelos), is that of the leader of the wolf pack in the book.[45]
+
+The name "Scouting" seems to have been inspired by the important and romantic role played by military scouts performing reconnaissance in the wars of the time. In fact, Baden-Powell wrote his original military training book, Aids To Scouting, because he saw the need for the improved training of British military-enlisted scouts, particularly in initiative, self-reliance, and observational skills. The book's popularity with young boys surprised him. As he adapted the book as Scouting for Boys, it seems natural that the movement adopted the names Scouting and Boy Scouts.[46]
+
+"Duty to God" is a principle of Scouting, though it is applied differently in various countries.[47][48] The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) take a strong position, excluding atheists.[49] The Scout Association in the United Kingdom permits variations to its Promise, in order to accommodate different religious obligations.[50] While for example in the predominantly atheist Czech Republic the Scout oath doesn't mention God altogether with the organization being strictly irreligious,[51] in 2014, United Kingdom Scouts were given the choice of being able to make a variation of the Promise that replaced "duty to God" with "uphold our Scout values",[52] Scouts Canada defines Duty to God broadly in terms of "adherence to spiritual principles" and leaves it to the individual member or leader whether they can follow a Scout Promise that includes Duty to God.[53] Worldwide, roughly one in three Scouts are Muslim.[54]
+
+Scouting is taught using the Scout method, which incorporates an informal educational system that emphasizes practical activities in the outdoors. Programs exist for Scouts ranging in age from 6 to 25 (though age limits vary slightly by country), and program specifics target Scouts in a manner appropriate to their age.[55][56]
+
+The Scout method is the principal method by which the Scouting organizations, boy and girl, operate their units. WOSM describes Scouting as "a voluntary nonpolitical educational movement for young people open to all without distinction of origin, race or creed, in accordance with the purpose, principles and method conceived by the Founder".[55] It is the goal of Scouting "to contribute to the development of young people in achieving their full physical, intellectual, social and spiritual potentials as individuals, as responsible citizens and as members of their local, national and international communities."[55]
+
+The principles of Scouting describe a code of behavior for all members, and characterize the movement. The Scout method is a progressive system designed to achieve these goals, comprising seven elements: law and promise, learning by doing, team system, symbolic framework, personal progression, nature, and adult support.[57] While community service is a major element of both the WOSM and WAGGGS programs, WAGGGS includes it as an extra element of the Scout method: service in the community.[58]
+
+The Scout Law and Promise embody the joint values of the Scouting movement worldwide, and bind all Scouting associations together. The emphasis on "learning by doing" provides experiences and hands-on orientation as a practical method of learning and building self-confidence. Small groups build unity, camaraderie, and a close-knit fraternal atmosphere. These experiences, along with an emphasis on trustworthiness and personal honor, help to develop responsibility, character, self-reliance, self-confidence, reliability, and readiness; which eventually lead to collaboration and leadership. A program with a variety of progressive and attractive activities expands a Scout's horizon and bonds the Scout even more to the group. Activities and games provide an enjoyable way to develop skills such as dexterity. In an outdoor setting, they also provide contact with the natural environment.[56]
+
+Since the birth of Scouting, Scouts worldwide have taken a Scout Promise to live up to ideals of the movement, and subscribe to the Scout Law. The form of the promise and laws have varied slightly by country and over time, but must fulfil the requirements of the WOSM to qualify a National Scout Association for membership.[55]
+
+The Scout Motto, 'Be Prepared', has been used in various languages by millions of Scouts since 1907. Less well-known is the Scout Slogan, 'Do a good turn daily'.[59]
+
+Common ways to implement the Scout method include having Scouts spending time together in small groups with shared experiences, rituals, and activities, and emphasizing 'good citizenship'[60] and decision-making by young people in an age-appropriate manner. Weekly meetings often take place in local centres known as Scout dens. Cultivating a love and appreciation of the outdoors and outdoor activities is a key element. Primary activities include camping, woodcraft, aquatics, hiking, backpacking, and sports.[61][62]
+
+Camping is most often arranged at the unit level, such as one Scout troop, but there are periodic camps (known in the US as "camporees") and "jamborees". Camps occur a few times a year and may involve several groups from a local area or region camping together for a weekend. The events usually have a theme, such as pioneering. World Scout Moots are gatherings, originally for Rover Scouts, but mainly focused on Scout Leaders. Jamborees are large national or international events held every four years, during which thousands of Scouts camp together for one or two weeks. Activities at these events will include games, Scoutcraft competitions, badge, pin or patch trading, aquatics, woodcarving, archery and activities related to the theme of the event.[63]
+
+In some countries a highlight of the year for Scouts is spending at least a week in the summer engaging in an outdoor activity. This can be a camping, hiking, sailing, or other trip with the unit, or a summer camp with broader participation (at the council, state, or provincial level). Scouts attending a summer camp work on Scout badges, advancement, and perfecting Scoutcraft skills. Summer camps can operate specialty programs for older Scouts, such as sailing, backpacking, canoeing and whitewater, caving, and fishing.[64][65]
+
+At an international level Scouting perceives one of its roles as the promotion of international harmony and peace.[66] Various initiatives are in train towards achieving this aim including the development of activities that benefit the wider community, challenge prejudice and encourage tolerance of diversity. Such programs include co-operation with non-Scouting organisations including various NGOs, the United Nations and religious institutions as set out in The Marrakech Charter.[67]
+
+The Scout uniform is a widely recognized characteristic of Scouting. In the words of Baden-Powell at the 1937 World Jamboree, it "hides all differences of social standing in a country and makes for equality; but, more important still, it covers differences of country and race and creed, and makes all feel that they are members with one another of the one great brotherhood".[68] The original uniform, still widely recognized, consisted of a khaki button-up shirt, shorts, and a broad-brimmed campaign hat. Baden-Powell also wore shorts, because he believed that being dressed like a Scout helped to reduce the age-imposed distance between adult and youth. Uniform shirts are now frequently blue, orange, red or green and shorts are frequently replaced by long trousers all year or only under cold weather.
+
+While designed for smartness and equality, the Scout uniform is also practical. Shirts traditionally have thick seams to make them ideal for use in makeshift stretchers—Scouts were trained to use them in this way with their staves, a traditional but deprecated item. The leather straps and toggles of the campaign hats or Leaders' Wood Badges could be used as emergency tourniquets, or anywhere that string was needed in a hurry. Neckerchiefs were chosen as they could easily be used as a sling or triangular bandage by a Scout in need. Scouts were encouraged to use their garters for shock cord where necessary.[68]
+
+Distinctive insignia for all are Scout uniforms, recognized and worn the world over, include the Wood Badge and the World Membership Badge. Scouting has two internationally known symbols: the trefoil is used by members of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) and the fleur-de-lis by member organizations of the WOSM and most other Scouting organizations.[69][70]
+
+The swastika was used as an early symbol by the Boy Scouts Association of the United Kingdom and others. Its earliest use in Scouting was on the Thanks Badge introduced in 1911.[71] Lord Baden-Powell's 1922 design for the Medal of Merit added a swastika to the Scout Arrowhead to symbolize good luck for the recipient. In 1934, Scouters requested a change to the design because of the connection of the swastika with its more recent use by the German National Socialist Workers (Nazi) Party. A new Medal of Merit was issued by the Boy Scouts Association in 1935.[71]
+
+Scouting and Guiding movements are generally divided into sections by age or school grade, allowing activities to be tailored to the maturity of the group's members. These age divisions have varied over time as they adapt to the local culture and environment.[72]
+
+Scouting was originally developed for adolescents—youths between the ages of 11 and 17. In most member organizations, this age group composes the Scout or Guide section. Programs were developed to meet the needs of young children (generally ages 6 to 10) and young adults (originally 18 and older, and later up to 25). Scouts and Guides were later split into "junior" and "senior" sections in many member organizations, and some organizations dropped the young adults' section. The exact age ranges for programs vary by country and association.[73][74][75]
+
+The national programs for younger children include Tiger Cubs, Cub Scouts, Brownies, Daisies, Rainbow Guides, Beaver Scouts, Joey Scouts, Keas, and Teddies. Programs for post-adolescents and young adults include the Senior Section,[76] Rover Scouts, Senior Scouts, Venture Scouts, Explorer Scouts, and the Scout Network. Many organizations also have a program for members with special needs. This is usually known as Extension Scouting, but sometimes has other names, such as Scoutlink. The Scout Method has been adapted to specific programs such as Air Scouts, Sea Scouts, Rider Guides and Scoutingbands .[77]
+
+In many countries, Scouting is organized into neighborhood Scout Groups, or Districts, which contain one or more sections. Under the umbrella of the Scout Group, sections are divided according to age, each having their own terminology and leadership structure.[78]
+
+Adults interested in Scouting or Guiding, including former Scouts and Guides, often join organizations such as the International Scout and Guide Fellowship. In the United States and the Philippines, university students might join the co-ed service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega. In the United Kingdom, university students might join the Student Scout and Guide Organisation, and after graduation, the Scout and Guide Graduate Association.
+
+Scout units are usually operated by adult volunteers, such as parents and carers, former Scouts, students, and community leaders, including teachers and religious leaders. Scout Leadership positions are often divided into 'uniform' and 'lay' positions. Uniformed leaders have received formal training, such as the Wood Badge, and have received a warrant for a rank within the organization. Lay members commonly hold part-time roles such as meeting helpers, committee members and advisors, though there are a small number of full-time lay professionals.[79]
+
+A unit has uniformed positions—such as the Scoutmaster and assistants—whose titles vary among countries. In some countries, units are supported by lay members, who range from acting as meeting helpers to being members of the unit's committee. In some Scout associations, the committee members may also wear uniforms and be registered Scout leaders.[80]
+
+Above the unit are further uniformed positions, called Commissioners, at levels such as district, county, council or province, depending on the structure of the national organization. Commissioners work with lay teams and professionals. Training teams and related functions are often formed at these levels. In the UK and in other countries, the national Scout organization appoints the Chief Scout, the most senior uniformed member.[81][82][83]
+
+Following its foundation in the United Kingdom, Scouting spread around the globe. The first association outside the British Empire was founded in Chile in May 21, 1909 after a visit by Baden Powell.[84] In most countries of the world, there is now at least one Scouting (or Guiding) organization. Each is independent, but international cooperation continues to be seen as part of the Scout Movement. In 1922 the WOSM started as the governing body on policy for the national Scouting organizations (then male only). In addition to being the governing policy body, it organizes the World Scout Jamboree every four years.[85]
+
+In 1928 the WAGGGS started as the equivalent to WOSM for the then female-only national Scouting/Guiding organizations. It is also responsible for its four international centres: Our Cabaña in Mexico, Our Chalet in Switzerland, Pax Lodge in the United Kingdom, and Sangam in India.[86]
+
+Today at the international level, the two largest umbrella organizations are:
+
+There have been different approaches to co-educational Scouting. Some countries have maintained separate Scouting organizations for boys and girls,[87] In other countries, especially within Europe, Scouting and Guiding have merged, and there is a single organization for boys and girls, which is a member of both the WOSM and the WAGGGS.[88][89] The United States-based Boy Scouts of America permitted girls to join in early 2018.[90] In others, such as Australia and the United Kingdom, the national Scout association has opted to admit both boys and girls, but is only a member of the WOSM, while the national Guide association has remained as a separate movement and member of the WAGGGS. In some countries like Greece, Slovenia and Spain there are separate associations of Scouts (members of WOSM) and guides (members of WAGGGS), both admitting boys and girls.[91]
+
+The Scout Association in the United Kingdom has been co-educational at all levels since 1991, and this was optional for groups until the year 2000 when new sections were required to accept girls. The Scout Association transitioned all Scout groups and sections across the UK to become co-educational by January 2007, the year of Scouting's centenary.[92] The traditional Baden-Powell Scouts' Association has been co-educational since its formation in 1970.
+
+In the United States, the Cub Scout and Boy Scout programs of the BSA were for boys only until 2018; it has changed its policies and is now inviting girls to join, as local packs organize all-girl dens (same uniform, same book, same activities). For youths age 14 and older, Venturing has been co-educational since the 1930s. The Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) is an independent organization for girls and young women only. Adult leadership positions in the BSA and GSUSA are open to both men and women.[93][94]
+
+In 2006, of the 155 WOSM member National Scout Organizations (representing 155 countries), 122 belonged only to WOSM, and 34 belonged to both WOSM and WAGGGS. Of the 122 which belonged only to WOSM, 95 were open to boys and girls in some or all program sections, and 20 were only for boys. All 34 that belonged to both WOSM and WAGGGS were open to boys and girls.[95]
+
+WAGGGS had 144 Member Organizations in 2007 and 110 of them belonged only to WAGGGS. Of these 110, 17 were coeducational and 93 admitted only girls.[96][97][98]
+
+As of 2019, there are over 50 million registered Scouts[99] and as of 2006 10 million registered Guides[100] around the world, from 216 countries and territories.
+
+Fifteen years passed between the first publication of Scouting for Boys and the creation of the current largest supranational Scout organization, WOSM, and millions of copies had been sold in dozens of languages. By that point, Scouting was the purview of the world's youth, and several Scout associations had already formed in many countries.[103][104]
+
+Alternative groups have formed since the original formation of the Scouting "Boy Patrols". They can be a result of groups or individuals who maintain that the WOSM and WAGGGS are more political and less youth-based than envisioned by Lord Baden-Powell. They believe that Scouting in general has moved away from its original intent because of political machinations that happen to longstanding organizations, and want to return to the earliest, simplest methods.[105][106] Others do not want to follow all the original ideals of Scouting but still desire to participate in Scout-like activities.[107]
+
+In 2008, there were at least 539 independent Scouting organizations around the world,[97] 367 of them were a member of either WAGGGS or WOSM. About half of the remaining 172 Scouting organizations are only local or national oriented. About 90 national or regional Scouting associations have created their own international Scouting organizations. Those are served by five international Scouting organizations:[97]
+
+Some Scout-like organizations are also served by international organizations, many with religious elements, for example:
+
+After the inception of Scouting in the early 1900s, some nations' programs have taken part in social movements such as the nationalist resistance movements in India. Although Scouting was introduced to Africa by British officials as a way to strengthen their rule, the values they based Scouting on helped to challenge the legitimacy of British imperialism. Likewise, African Scouts used the Scout Law's principle that a Scout is a brother to all other Scouts to collectively claim full imperial citizenship.[108][109]
+
+A study has found a strong link between participating in Scouting and Guiding as a young person, and having significantly better mental health.[110] The data, from almost 10,000 individuals, came from a lifelong UK-wide study of people born in November 1958, known as the National Child Development Study.
+
+In the United Kingdom, The Scout Association had been criticised for its insistence on the use of a religious promise,[111] leading the organization to introduce an alternative in January 2014 for those not wanting to mention a god in their promise. This change made the organisation entirely non-discriminatory on the grounds of race, gender, sexuality, and religion (or lack thereof).[112]
+
+The Boy Scouts of America was the focus of criticism in the United States for not allowing the open participation of homosexuals until removing the prohibition in 2013.[113]
+
+Authoritarian communist regimes such as the Soviet Union in 1920[114] and fascist regimes like Nazi Germany in 1934[115] often either absorbed the Scout movement into government-controlled organizations, or banned Scouting entirely.
+
+Scouting has been a facet of culture during most of the twentieth century in many countries; numerous films and artwork focus on the subject.[116] Movie critic Roger Ebert mentioned the scene in which the young Boy Scout, Indiana Jones, discovers the Cross of Coronado in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, as "when he discovers his life mission".[117]
+
+The works of painters Ernest Stafford Carlos, Norman Rockwell, Pierre Joubert and Joseph Csatari and the 1966 film Follow Me, Boys! are prime examples of this ethos. Scouting is often dealt with in a humorous manner, as in the 1989 film Troop Beverly Hills, the 2005 film Down and Derby, and the film Scout Camp. In 1980, Scottish singer and songwriter Gerry Rafferty recorded I was a Boy Scout as part of his Snakes and Ladders album.[118]
+

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+
+
+Scratch is a block-based visual programming language and website targeted primarily at children.[5][6] Users of the site can create online projects using a block-like interface. The service is developed by the MIT Media Lab, has been translated into 70+ languages, and is used in most parts of the world.[7] Scratch is taught and used in after-school centers, schools, and colleges, as well as other public knowledge institutions. As of April 2020, community statistics on the language's official website show more than 52 million projects shared by over 54 million users, and almost 55 million monthly website visits.[7]
+
+Scratch takes its name from a technique used by disk jockeys called "scratching", where vinyl records are clipped together and manipulated on a turntable to produce different sound effects and music. Like scratching, the website lets users mix together different media (including graphics, sound, and other programs) in creative ways by creating and remixing projects, like video games and animations.[8][9]
+
+The Scratch interface has three main sections: a stage area, block palette, and a coding area to place and arrange the blocks into scripts that can be ran by pressing the green flag or clicking on the code itself.
+Users may also create their own code blocks and they will appear in "My Blocks".
+
+The stage area features the results (e.g., animations, turtle graphics, either in a small or normal size, with a full-screen option also available) and all sprites thumbnails being listed in the bottom area. The stage uses x and y coordinates, with 0,0 being the stage center.[10]
+
+With a sprite selected at the bottom of the staging area, blocks of commands can be applied to it by dragging them from the block palette into the coding area. The Costumes tab allows users to change the look of the sprite in order to create various effects, including animation.[10] The Sounds tab allows attaching sounds and music to a sprite.[11]
+
+When creating sprites and backgrounds, users can draw their own sprite manually,[10] choose a Sprite from a library, or upload an existing image.[11]
+
+The table below shows the categories of the programming blocks:
+
+An offline "desktop editor" is available for Microsoft Windows 10 and Apple's macOS 10.13;[12] this allows the creation and playing of Scratch programs locally, without an Internet connection. The offline editor can also be downloaded in previous versions, such as Scratch 2.0 and Scratch 1.4.
+
+In Scratch, extensions add extra blocks and features that can be used in projects. In Scratch 2.0 and 3.0, the extensions were all hardware-based. Software-based extensions were added in Scratch 3.0, such as text-to-speech voices, along with some new hardware-based extensions like the micro:bit.
+
+Many of the digital extensions in Scratch 3.0 used to be regular block categories that were moved to the extensions section to reduce clutter. These include:
+
+New digital extensions have also been added in collaborations with commercial companies. These include:
+
+Users can also create their own extensions for Scratch 3.0 using JavaScript.[13]
+
+Scratch 3.0 is a completely new JavaScript-based codebase made up of multiple components such as "Scratch-GUI", now based on a library from Blockly,[14] "Scratch-VM", which interprets code, and "Scratch-Render", the rendering engine.[15] The Scratch Blocks are made using Blockly.[16]
+
+Scratch is used in many different settings: schools,[17] museums,[18] libraries,[8] community centers, and homes. Although Scratch's main user age group is 8–16[19] years of age, Scratch has also been created for educators and parents. This wide outreach has created many surrounding communities, both physical and digital.[7] In April 2020, the Tiobe ranking of the world’s programming languages included Scratch into the top 20. According to TIOBE, there are 50 million projects written in Scratch, and every month one million new projects are added.[20]
+
+Scratch is popular in the United Kingdom and United States through Code Clubs. Scratch is used as the introductory language because the creation of interesting programs is relatively easy, and skills learned can be applied to other programming languages such as Python and Java.
+
+Scratch is not exclusively for creating games. With the provided visuals, programmers can create animations, text, stories, music, and more. There are already many programs which students can use to learn topics in math, history, and even photography. Scratch allows teachers to create conceptual and visual lessons and science lab assignments with animations that help visualize difficult concepts. Within the social sciences, instructors can create quizzes, games, and tutorials with interactive elements. Using Scratch allows young people to understand the logic of programming and how to creatively build and collaborate.[21]
+
+Scratch is taught to more than 800 schools and 70 colleges of DAV organization in India and across the world.[22][23]
+
+In higher education, Scratch is used in the first week of Harvard University's CS50 introductory computer science course.[24][25]
+
+On Scratch, members have the capability to share their projects and get feedback. Projects can be uploaded directly from the development environment to the Scratch website and any member of the community can download the full source code to study or to remix into new projects.[26][27] Members can also create project studios, comment, tag, favorite, and "love" others' projects, follow other members to see their projects and activity, and share ideas. Projects range from games to animations to practical tools. Additionally, to encourage creation and sharing amongst users, the website frequently establishes "Scratch Design Studio" challenges.[28]
+
+The MIT Scratch Team works to ensure that this community maintains a friendly and respectful environment for all people.[29][30]
+
+Educators have their own online community called ScratchEd, developed and supported by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In this community, Scratch educators share stories, exchange resources, and ask questions.[31]
+
+The Scratch Wiki is a support resource for Scratch and its website, history, and phenomena surrounding it. Although supported by the Scratch Team (developers of Scratch), it is primarily written by Scratchers (users of Scratch) for information regarding the program and website.[32]
+
+Scratch Educators can gather in person at Scratch Educator Meetups. At these gatherings, Scratch Educators learn from each other and share ideas and strategies that support computational creativity.[33]
+
+An annual "Scratch Day" is declared in May each year. Community members are encouraged to host an event on or around this day, large or small, that celebrates Scratch. These events are held worldwide, and a listing can be found on the Scratch Day website.[34]
+
+The MIT Media Lab's Lifelong Kindergarten group, led by Mitchel Resnick, in partnership with the Montreal-based consulting firm, the Playful Invention Company, co-founded by Brian Silverman and Paula Bonta, together developed the first desktop-only version of Scratch in 2003. It started as a basic coding language, with no labeled categories and no green flag.[35] Scratch was made with the intention to teach kids to code.[35]
+
+The philosophy of Scratch encourages the sharing, reuse, and combination of code, as indicated by the team slogan, "Imagine, Program, Share".[36] Users can make their own projects, or they may choose to "remix" someone else's project. Projects created and remixed with Scratch are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.[37] Scratch automatically gives credit to the user who created the original project and program in the top part[8]
+
+Scratch was developed based on ongoing interaction with youth and staff at Computer Clubhouses. The use of Scratch at Computer Clubhouses served as a model for other after-school centers demonstrating how informal learning settings can support the development of technological fluency.[38]
+
+Scratch 2.0 was released on May 9, 2013.[10] The update changed the look of the site and included both an online project editor and an offline editor.[39] Custom blocks could now be defined within projects, along with several other improvements.[40] The Scratch 2.0 Offline editor could be downloaded for Windows, Mac and Linux directly from Scratch's website, although support for Linux was later dropped. The unofficial mobile version had to be downloaded from the Scratch forums.[41][42]
+
+Scratch 3.0 was first announced by the Scratch Team in 2016. Several public alpha versions were released between then and January 2018, after which the pre-beta "Preview" versions were released.[43] A beta version of Scratch 3.0 was released on 1 August 2018[44] for use on most browsers; with the notable exception of Internet Explorer.[45]
+
+Scratch 3.0, the first 3.x release version, was released on 2 January 2019.
+
+In version 1.4. an .sb file was the file format used to store projects.[46]
+
+An .sb file is divided into four sections:
+
+Version 2.0 uses the .sb2 file format. These are zip files containing a .json file as well as the contents of the Scratch project including sounds (stored as .wav) and images (stored as .png).[47] Each filetype, excluding the project.json, is stored as a number, starting at 0 and counting up with each additional file. The image file labeled '0.png' is always a 480x360 white image, but '0.wav' will still be the earliest non-deleted file.
+
+The ScratchX experimental version of Scratch used the .sbx file format.[48]
+
+Scratch 3.0 uses the .sb3 format, which is very similar to .sb2.[49]
+
+Although the main Scratch website now runs only the current version (3.0), the offline editors for Scratch 2.0 (and the earlier 1.4) are still available for download[50] and can be used to create and run games locally.[citation needed][51] You can still upload projects from the 2.0 launcher.[citation needed]
+
+Scratch 2.0 relied on Adobe Flash for the online version, and Adobe AIR for the offline editor. These have fallen out of favor,[52] and Adobe is dropping support for them at the end of 2020.[53]
+
+In Scratch 2.0, the stage area is on the left side, with the programming blocks palette in the middle the coding area on the right. Extensions are in the "More blocks" section of palette.[6]
+
+The blocks palette in Scratch 2.0 is made of discrete sections that are not scrollable from one to the next; the table below shows the different sections:
+
+In Scratch 2.0, extensions were all hardware based.
+
+Scratch uses event-driven programming with multiple active objects called sprites.[10] Sprites can be drawn, as vector or bitmap graphics, from scratch in a simple editor that is part of Scratch, or can be imported from external sources. Scratch 3 only supports one-dimensional arrays, known as "lists", and floating point scalars and strings are supported, but with limited string manipulation ability. There is a strong contrast between the powerful multimedia functions and multi-threaded programming style and the rather limited scope of the Scratch programming language.
+
+The 2.0 version of Scratch does not treat procedures as first class structures and has limited file I/O options with Scratch 2.0 Extension Protocol, an experimental extension feature that allows interaction between Scratch 2.0 and other programs.[54] The Extension protocol allows interfacing with hardware boards such as Lego Mindstorms[55] or Arduino.[56] Version 2 of Scratch was implemented in ActionScript, with an experimental JavaScript-based interpreter being developed in parallel.[57]
+
+Version 1.4 of Scratch was based on Squeak, which is based on Smalltalk-80. A number of Scratch derivatives[58] called Scratch Modifications have been created using the source code of Scratch version 1.4. These programs are a variant of Scratch that normally include a few extra blocks or changes to the GUI.[59]
+
+A more advanced visual programming language inspired by Scratch is Snap!, featuring first class procedures (their mathematical foundations are called also lambda calculus), first class lists (including lists of lists), and first class truly object oriented sprites with prototyping inheritance, and nestable sprites, which are not part of Scratch.[60] Snap! (previously "BYOB") was developed by Jens Mönig[61][62] with documentation provided by Brian Harvey[63][64] from University of California, Berkeley and has been used to teach "The Beauty and Joy of Computing" introductory course in CS for non-CS-major students.[65] Both of them were members of the Scratch Team before designing "Snap!".[66] [6]
+
+In July 2014, ScratchJr was released for iPad, and in 2016, ScratchJr for Android. Although heavily inspired by Scratch and co-led by Mitch Resnick, it is nonetheless a complete rewrite designed for younger children—targeting ages 5-8.[67]
+
+Youth computing projects from MIT's Lifelong Kindergarten Group:

en/5315.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
+
+
+Scratch is a block-based visual programming language and website targeted primarily at children.[5][6] Users of the site can create online projects using a block-like interface. The service is developed by the MIT Media Lab, has been translated into 70+ languages, and is used in most parts of the world.[7] Scratch is taught and used in after-school centers, schools, and colleges, as well as other public knowledge institutions. As of April 2020, community statistics on the language's official website show more than 52 million projects shared by over 54 million users, and almost 55 million monthly website visits.[7]
+
+Scratch takes its name from a technique used by disk jockeys called "scratching", where vinyl records are clipped together and manipulated on a turntable to produce different sound effects and music. Like scratching, the website lets users mix together different media (including graphics, sound, and other programs) in creative ways by creating and remixing projects, like video games and animations.[8][9]
+
+The Scratch interface has three main sections: a stage area, block palette, and a coding area to place and arrange the blocks into scripts that can be ran by pressing the green flag or clicking on the code itself.
+Users may also create their own code blocks and they will appear in "My Blocks".
+
+The stage area features the results (e.g., animations, turtle graphics, either in a small or normal size, with a full-screen option also available) and all sprites thumbnails being listed in the bottom area. The stage uses x and y coordinates, with 0,0 being the stage center.[10]
+
+With a sprite selected at the bottom of the staging area, blocks of commands can be applied to it by dragging them from the block palette into the coding area. The Costumes tab allows users to change the look of the sprite in order to create various effects, including animation.[10] The Sounds tab allows attaching sounds and music to a sprite.[11]
+
+When creating sprites and backgrounds, users can draw their own sprite manually,[10] choose a Sprite from a library, or upload an existing image.[11]
+
+The table below shows the categories of the programming blocks:
+
+An offline "desktop editor" is available for Microsoft Windows 10 and Apple's macOS 10.13;[12] this allows the creation and playing of Scratch programs locally, without an Internet connection. The offline editor can also be downloaded in previous versions, such as Scratch 2.0 and Scratch 1.4.
+
+In Scratch, extensions add extra blocks and features that can be used in projects. In Scratch 2.0 and 3.0, the extensions were all hardware-based. Software-based extensions were added in Scratch 3.0, such as text-to-speech voices, along with some new hardware-based extensions like the micro:bit.
+
+Many of the digital extensions in Scratch 3.0 used to be regular block categories that were moved to the extensions section to reduce clutter. These include:
+
+New digital extensions have also been added in collaborations with commercial companies. These include:
+
+Users can also create their own extensions for Scratch 3.0 using JavaScript.[13]
+
+Scratch 3.0 is a completely new JavaScript-based codebase made up of multiple components such as "Scratch-GUI", now based on a library from Blockly,[14] "Scratch-VM", which interprets code, and "Scratch-Render", the rendering engine.[15] The Scratch Blocks are made using Blockly.[16]
+
+Scratch is used in many different settings: schools,[17] museums,[18] libraries,[8] community centers, and homes. Although Scratch's main user age group is 8–16[19] years of age, Scratch has also been created for educators and parents. This wide outreach has created many surrounding communities, both physical and digital.[7] In April 2020, the Tiobe ranking of the world’s programming languages included Scratch into the top 20. According to TIOBE, there are 50 million projects written in Scratch, and every month one million new projects are added.[20]
+
+Scratch is popular in the United Kingdom and United States through Code Clubs. Scratch is used as the introductory language because the creation of interesting programs is relatively easy, and skills learned can be applied to other programming languages such as Python and Java.
+
+Scratch is not exclusively for creating games. With the provided visuals, programmers can create animations, text, stories, music, and more. There are already many programs which students can use to learn topics in math, history, and even photography. Scratch allows teachers to create conceptual and visual lessons and science lab assignments with animations that help visualize difficult concepts. Within the social sciences, instructors can create quizzes, games, and tutorials with interactive elements. Using Scratch allows young people to understand the logic of programming and how to creatively build and collaborate.[21]
+
+Scratch is taught to more than 800 schools and 70 colleges of DAV organization in India and across the world.[22][23]
+
+In higher education, Scratch is used in the first week of Harvard University's CS50 introductory computer science course.[24][25]
+
+On Scratch, members have the capability to share their projects and get feedback. Projects can be uploaded directly from the development environment to the Scratch website and any member of the community can download the full source code to study or to remix into new projects.[26][27] Members can also create project studios, comment, tag, favorite, and "love" others' projects, follow other members to see their projects and activity, and share ideas. Projects range from games to animations to practical tools. Additionally, to encourage creation and sharing amongst users, the website frequently establishes "Scratch Design Studio" challenges.[28]
+
+The MIT Scratch Team works to ensure that this community maintains a friendly and respectful environment for all people.[29][30]
+
+Educators have their own online community called ScratchEd, developed and supported by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In this community, Scratch educators share stories, exchange resources, and ask questions.[31]
+
+The Scratch Wiki is a support resource for Scratch and its website, history, and phenomena surrounding it. Although supported by the Scratch Team (developers of Scratch), it is primarily written by Scratchers (users of Scratch) for information regarding the program and website.[32]
+
+Scratch Educators can gather in person at Scratch Educator Meetups. At these gatherings, Scratch Educators learn from each other and share ideas and strategies that support computational creativity.[33]
+
+An annual "Scratch Day" is declared in May each year. Community members are encouraged to host an event on or around this day, large or small, that celebrates Scratch. These events are held worldwide, and a listing can be found on the Scratch Day website.[34]
+
+The MIT Media Lab's Lifelong Kindergarten group, led by Mitchel Resnick, in partnership with the Montreal-based consulting firm, the Playful Invention Company, co-founded by Brian Silverman and Paula Bonta, together developed the first desktop-only version of Scratch in 2003. It started as a basic coding language, with no labeled categories and no green flag.[35] Scratch was made with the intention to teach kids to code.[35]
+
+The philosophy of Scratch encourages the sharing, reuse, and combination of code, as indicated by the team slogan, "Imagine, Program, Share".[36] Users can make their own projects, or they may choose to "remix" someone else's project. Projects created and remixed with Scratch are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.[37] Scratch automatically gives credit to the user who created the original project and program in the top part[8]
+
+Scratch was developed based on ongoing interaction with youth and staff at Computer Clubhouses. The use of Scratch at Computer Clubhouses served as a model for other after-school centers demonstrating how informal learning settings can support the development of technological fluency.[38]
+
+Scratch 2.0 was released on May 9, 2013.[10] The update changed the look of the site and included both an online project editor and an offline editor.[39] Custom blocks could now be defined within projects, along with several other improvements.[40] The Scratch 2.0 Offline editor could be downloaded for Windows, Mac and Linux directly from Scratch's website, although support for Linux was later dropped. The unofficial mobile version had to be downloaded from the Scratch forums.[41][42]
+
+Scratch 3.0 was first announced by the Scratch Team in 2016. Several public alpha versions were released between then and January 2018, after which the pre-beta "Preview" versions were released.[43] A beta version of Scratch 3.0 was released on 1 August 2018[44] for use on most browsers; with the notable exception of Internet Explorer.[45]
+
+Scratch 3.0, the first 3.x release version, was released on 2 January 2019.
+
+In version 1.4. an .sb file was the file format used to store projects.[46]
+
+An .sb file is divided into four sections:
+
+Version 2.0 uses the .sb2 file format. These are zip files containing a .json file as well as the contents of the Scratch project including sounds (stored as .wav) and images (stored as .png).[47] Each filetype, excluding the project.json, is stored as a number, starting at 0 and counting up with each additional file. The image file labeled '0.png' is always a 480x360 white image, but '0.wav' will still be the earliest non-deleted file.
+
+The ScratchX experimental version of Scratch used the .sbx file format.[48]
+
+Scratch 3.0 uses the .sb3 format, which is very similar to .sb2.[49]
+
+Although the main Scratch website now runs only the current version (3.0), the offline editors for Scratch 2.0 (and the earlier 1.4) are still available for download[50] and can be used to create and run games locally.[citation needed][51] You can still upload projects from the 2.0 launcher.[citation needed]
+
+Scratch 2.0 relied on Adobe Flash for the online version, and Adobe AIR for the offline editor. These have fallen out of favor,[52] and Adobe is dropping support for them at the end of 2020.[53]
+
+In Scratch 2.0, the stage area is on the left side, with the programming blocks palette in the middle the coding area on the right. Extensions are in the "More blocks" section of palette.[6]
+
+The blocks palette in Scratch 2.0 is made of discrete sections that are not scrollable from one to the next; the table below shows the different sections:
+
+In Scratch 2.0, extensions were all hardware based.
+
+Scratch uses event-driven programming with multiple active objects called sprites.[10] Sprites can be drawn, as vector or bitmap graphics, from scratch in a simple editor that is part of Scratch, or can be imported from external sources. Scratch 3 only supports one-dimensional arrays, known as "lists", and floating point scalars and strings are supported, but with limited string manipulation ability. There is a strong contrast between the powerful multimedia functions and multi-threaded programming style and the rather limited scope of the Scratch programming language.
+
+The 2.0 version of Scratch does not treat procedures as first class structures and has limited file I/O options with Scratch 2.0 Extension Protocol, an experimental extension feature that allows interaction between Scratch 2.0 and other programs.[54] The Extension protocol allows interfacing with hardware boards such as Lego Mindstorms[55] or Arduino.[56] Version 2 of Scratch was implemented in ActionScript, with an experimental JavaScript-based interpreter being developed in parallel.[57]
+
+Version 1.4 of Scratch was based on Squeak, which is based on Smalltalk-80. A number of Scratch derivatives[58] called Scratch Modifications have been created using the source code of Scratch version 1.4. These programs are a variant of Scratch that normally include a few extra blocks or changes to the GUI.[59]
+
+A more advanced visual programming language inspired by Scratch is Snap!, featuring first class procedures (their mathematical foundations are called also lambda calculus), first class lists (including lists of lists), and first class truly object oriented sprites with prototyping inheritance, and nestable sprites, which are not part of Scratch.[60] Snap! (previously "BYOB") was developed by Jens Mönig[61][62] with documentation provided by Brian Harvey[63][64] from University of California, Berkeley and has been used to teach "The Beauty and Joy of Computing" introductory course in CS for non-CS-major students.[65] Both of them were members of the Scratch Team before designing "Snap!".[66] [6]
+
+In July 2014, ScratchJr was released for iPad, and in 2016, ScratchJr for Android. Although heavily inspired by Scratch and co-led by Mitch Resnick, it is nonetheless a complete rewrite designed for younger children—targeting ages 5-8.[67]
+
+Youth computing projects from MIT's Lifelong Kindergarten Group:

en/5318.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,243 @@
+
+
+Poverty is not  having enough material possessions or income for a person's needs.[2]  Poverty may include social, economic, and political elements.
+
+Absolute poverty is the complete lack of the means necessary to meet basic personal needs, such as food, clothing, and shelter.[3]  The threshold at which absolute poverty is defined is always about the same, independent of the person's permanent location or era.
+
+On the other hand, relative poverty occurs when a person cannot meet a minimum level of living standards, compared to others in the same time and place. Therefore, the threshold at which relative poverty is defined varies from one country to another, or from one society to another.[4]  For example, a person who cannot afford housing better than a small tent in an open field would be said to live in relative poverty if almost everyone else in that area lives in modern brick homes, but not if everyone else also lives in small tents in open fields (for example, in a nomadic tribe).
+
+Governments and non-governmental organizations try to reduce poverty.  Providing basic needs to people who are unable to earn a sufficient income can be hampered by constraints on government's ability to deliver services, such as corruption, tax avoidance, debt and loan conditionalities and by the brain drain of health care and educational professionals. Strategies of increasing income to make basic needs more affordable typically include welfare, economic freedoms and providing financial services.[5]
+
+The word poverty comes from the old (Norman) French word poverté (Modern French: pauvreté), from Latin paupertās from pauper (poor).[6]
+
+There are several definitions of poverty depending on the context of the situation it is placed in, and the views of the person giving the definition.
+
+United Nations: Fundamentally, poverty is the inability of having choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society. It means not having enough to feed and clothe a family, not having a school or clinic to go to, not having the land on which to grow one's food or a job to earn one's living, not having access to credit. It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities. It means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living in marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or sanitation.[7]
+
+World Bank: Poverty is pronounced deprivation in well-being, and comprises many dimensions. It includes low incomes and the inability to acquire the basic goods and services necessary for survival with dignity. Poverty also encompasses low levels of health and education, poor access to clean water and sanitation, inadequate physical security, lack of voice, and insufficient capacity and opportunity to better one's life.[8]
+
+Absolute poverty refers to a set standard which is consistent over time and between countries. First introduced in 1990, the dollar a day poverty line measured absolute poverty by the standards of the world's poorest countries. The World Bank defined the new international poverty line as $1.25 a day in 2008 for 2005 (equivalent to $1.00 a day in 1996 US prices).[9][10] In October 2015, they reset it to $1.90 a day.[11]
+
+Absolute poverty, extreme poverty, or abject poverty is "a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services."[12] The term 'absolute poverty', when used in this fashion, is usually synonymous with 'extreme poverty': Robert McNamara, the former president of the World Bank, described absolute or extreme poverty as, "a condition so limited by malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, squalid surroundings, high infant mortality, and low life expectancy as to be beneath any reasonable definition of human decency."[13][notes 1][14] Australia is one of the world's wealthier nations. In his article published in Australian Policy Online, Robert Tanton notes that, "While this amount is appropriate for third world countries, in Australia, the amount required to meet these basic needs will naturally be much higher because prices of these basic necessities are higher."
+
+However, as the amount of wealth required for survival is not the same in all places and time periods, particularly in highly developed countries where few people would fall below the World Bank Group's poverty lines, countries often develop their own national poverty lines.
+
+An absolute poverty line was calculated in Australia for the Henderson poverty inquiry in 1973. It was $62.70 a week, which was the disposable income required to support the basic needs of a family of two adults and two dependent children at the time. This poverty line has been updated regularly by the Melbourne Institute according to increases in average incomes; for a single employed person it was $391.85 per week (including housing costs) in March 2009.[15] In Australia the OECD poverty would equate to a "disposable income of less than $358 per week for a single adult (higher for larger households to take account of their greater costs).[16] in 2015 Australia implemented the Individual Deprivation Measure which address gender disparities in poverty.[17]
+
+For a few years starting 1990, the World Bank anchored absolute poverty line as $1 per day. This was revised in 1993, and through 2005, absolute poverty was $1.08 a day for all countries on a purchasing power parity basis, after adjusting for inflation to the 1993 U.S. dollar. In 2005, after extensive studies of cost of living across the world, The World Bank raised the measure for global poverty line to reflect the observed higher cost of living.[18] In 2015, the World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than US$1.90 (PPP) per day, and moderate poverty[citation needed] as less than $2 or $5 a day (but note that a person or family with access to subsistence resources, e.g., subsistence farmers, may have a low cash income without a correspondingly low standard of living – they are not living "on" their cash income but using it as a top up). It estimated that "in 2001, 1.1 billion people had consumption levels below $1 a day and 2.7 billion lived on less than $2 a day."[19] A 'dollar a day', in nations that do not use the U.S. dollar as currency, does not translate to living a day on the equivalent amount of local currency as determined by the exchange rate.[20] Rather, it is determined by the purchasing power parity rate, which would look at how much local currency is needed to buy the same things that a dollar could buy in the United States.[20] Usually, this would translate to less local currency than the exchange rate in poorer countries as the United States is a relatively more expensive country.[20]
+
+The poverty line threshold of $1.90 per day, as set by the World Bank, is controversial. Each nation has its own threshold for absolute poverty line; in the United States, for example, the absolute poverty line was US$15.15 per day in 2010 (US$22,000 per year for a family of four),[21] while in India it was US$1.0 per day[22] and in China the absolute poverty line was US$0.55 per day, each on PPP basis in 2010.[23] These different poverty lines make data comparison between each nation's official reports qualitatively difficult. Some scholars argue that the World Bank method sets the bar too high, others argue it is too low. Still others suggest that poverty line misleads as it measures everyone below the poverty line the same, when in reality someone living on $1.20 per day is in a different state of poverty than someone living on $0.20 per day. In other words, the depth and intensity of poverty varies across the world and in any regional populations, and $1.25 per day poverty line and head counts are inadequate measures.[22][24][25]
+
+Relative poverty views poverty as socially defined and dependent on social context, hence relative poverty is a measure of income inequality. Usually, relative poverty is measured as the percentage of the population with income less than some fixed proportion of median income. There are several other different income inequality metrics, for example, the Gini coefficient or the Theil Index.
+
+Relative poverty is the "most useful measure for ascertaining poverty rates in wealthy developed nations".[26][27][28][29][30] Relative poverty measure is used by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Canadian poverty researchers.[26][27][28][29][30] In the European Union, the "relative poverty measure is the most prominent and most-quoted of the EU social inclusion indicators".[31]
+
+"Relative poverty reflects better the cost of social inclusion and equality of opportunity in a specific time and space."[32]
+
+"Once economic development has progressed beyond a certain minimum level, the rub of the poverty problem – from the point of view of both the poor individual and of the societies in which they live – is not so much the effects of poverty in any absolute form but the effects of the contrast, daily perceived, between the lives of the poor and the lives of those around them. For practical purposes, the problem of poverty in the industrialized nations today is a problem of relative poverty (page 9)."[32][33]
+
+In 1776 Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations argued that poverty is the inability to afford, "not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of life but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without".[34][35]
+
+In 1958 J. K. Galbraith argued that "People are poverty stricken when their income, even if adequate for survival, falls markedly behind that of their community."[35][36]
+
+In 1964 in a joint committee economic President's report in the United States, Republicans endorsed the concept of relative poverty. "No objective definition of poverty exists... The definition varies from place to place and time to time. In America as our standard of living rises, so does our idea of what is substandard."[35][37]
+
+In 1965 Rose Friedman argued for the use of relative poverty claiming that the definition of poverty changes with general living standards. Those labeled as poor in 1995 would have had "a higher standard of living than many labeled not poor" in 1965.[35][38]
+
+In 1979, British sociologist, Peter Townsend published his famous definition, "individuals ... can be said to be in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the types of diet, participate in the activities and have the living conditions and amenities which are customary, or are at least widely encouraged or approved, in the societies to which they belong (page 31)".[39]
+
+Brian Nolan and Christopher T. Whelan of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) in Ireland explained that "Poverty has to be seen in terms of the standard of living of the society in question."[40]
+
+Relative poverty measures are used as official poverty rates by the European Union, UNICEF, and the OECD. The main poverty line used in the OECD and the European Union is based on "economic distance", a level of income set at 60% of the median household income.[41]
+
+Many wealthy nations have seen an increase in relative poverty rates ever since the Great Recession, in particular among children from impoverished families who often reside in substandard housing and find educational opportunities out of reach.[42]
+
+Poverty rate is a calculation of the percentage of people whose family household income falls below the Poverty Line. The United States federal government typically regulates this line, and typically the cost of the line is set to three times the cost an adequate meal. This line is subject to change based on the level of price changes and size of the family. According to census, poverty rate helped determine that around 14.8% of U.S population had household incomes that was below the poverty line for their family size in 2014.[43]
+
+Secondary poverty refers to those that earn enough income to not be impoverished, but who spend their income on unnecessary pleasures, such as alcoholic beverages, thus placing them below it in practice.[44]
+
+In 18th- and 19th-century Great Britain, the practice of temperance among Methodists, as well as their rejection of gambling, allowed them to eliminate secondary poverty and accumulate capital.[45]
+
+Economic aspects of poverty focus on material needs, typically including the necessities of daily living, such as food, clothing, shelter, or safe drinking water. Poverty in this sense may be understood as a condition in which a person or community is lacking in the basic needs for a minimum standard of well-being and life, particularly as a result of a persistent lack of income. The increase in poverty runs parallel sides with unemployment, hunger, and higher crime rate.
+
+Analysis of social aspects of poverty links conditions of scarcity to aspects of the distribution of resources and power in a society and recognizes that poverty may be a function of the diminished "capability" of people to live the kinds of lives they value. The social aspects of poverty may include lack of access to information, education, health care, social capital or political power.[46][47]
+
+Poverty levels are snapshot pictures in time that omits the transitional dynamics between levels. Mobility statistics supply additional information about the fraction who leave the poverty level. For example, one study finds that in a sixteen-year period (1975 to 1991 in the U.S.) only 5% of those in the lower fifth of the income level were still at that level, while 95% transitioned to a higher income category.[48] Poverty levels can remain the same while those who rise out of poverty are replaced by others. The transient poor and chronic poor differ in each society. In a nine-year period ending in 2005 for the U.S., 50% of the poorest quintile transitioned to a higher quintile.[49]
+
+Poverty may also be understood as an aspect of unequal social status and inequitable social relationships, experienced as social exclusion, dependency, and diminished capacity to participate, or to develop meaningful connections with other people in society.[50][51][39] Such social exclusion can be minimized through strengthened connections with the mainstream, such as through the provision of relational care to those who are experiencing poverty.
+
+The World Bank's "Voices of the Poor," based on research with over 20,000 poor people in 23 countries, identifies a range of factors which poor people identify as part of poverty. These include:
+
+David Moore, in his book The World Bank, argues that some analysis of poverty reflect pejorative, sometimes racial, stereotypes of impoverished people as powerless victims and passive recipients of aid programs.[52]
+
+Ultra-poverty, a term apparently coined by Michael Lipton,[53] connotes being amongst poorest of the poor in low-income countries. Lipton defined ultra-poverty as receiving less than 80 percent of minimum caloric intake whilst spending more than 80% of income on food. Alternatively a 2007 report issued by International Food Policy Research Institute defined ultra-poverty as living on less than 54 cents per day.[54]
+
+Asset poverty is an economic and social condition that is more persistent and prevalent than income poverty.[55] It can be defined as a household's inability to access wealth resources that are enough to provide for basic needs for a period of three months. Basic needs refer to the minimum standards for consumption and acceptable needs.Wealth resources consist of home ownership, other real estate (second home, rented properties, etc.), net value of farm and business assets, stocks, checking and savings accounts, and other savings (money in savings bonds, life insurance policy cash values, etc.). Wealth is measured in three forms: net worth, net worth minus home equity, and liquid assets. Net worth consists of all the aspects mentioned above. Net worth minus home equity is the same except it does not include home ownership in asset calculations. Liquid assets are resources that are readily available such as cash, checking and savings accounts, stocks, and other sources of savings. There are two types of assets: tangible and intangible. Tangible assets most closely resemble liquid assets in that they include stocks, bonds, property, natural resources, and hard assets not in the form of real estate. Intangible assets are simply the access to credit, social capital, cultural capital, political capital, and human capital.
+
+The absolute poverty measure trends are supported by human development indicators, which have also been improving. Life expectancy has greatly increased in the developing world since World War II and is starting to close the gap to the developed world.[citation needed] Child mortality has decreased in every developing region of the world.[56] The proportion of the world's population living in countries where per-capita food supplies are less than 2,200 calories (9,200 kilojoules) per day decreased from 56% in the mid-1960s to below 10% by the 1990s. Similar trends can be observed for literacy, access to clean water and electricity and basic consumer items.[57]
+
+In the United Kingdom, the second Cameron ministry came under attack for their redefinition of poverty; poverty is no longer classified by a family's income, but as to whether a family is in work or not.[58] Considering that two-thirds of people who found work were accepting wages that are below the living wage (according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation[59]) this has been criticised by anti-poverty campaigners as an unrealistic view of poverty in the United Kingdom.[58]
+
+The share of the world's population living in absolute poverty fell from 43% in 1981 to 14% in 2011.[19] The absolute number of people in poverty fell from 1.95 billion in 1981 to 1.01 billion in 2011.[60] The economist Max Roser estimates that the number of people in poverty is therefore roughly the same as 200 years ago.[60] This is the case since the world population was just little more than 1 billion in 1820 and the majority (84% to 94%[61]) of the world population was living poverty.
+The proportion of the developing world's population living in extreme economic poverty fell from 28 percent in 1990 to 21 percent in 2001.[19] Most of this improvement has occurred in East and South Asia.[62] In East Asia the World Bank reported that "The poverty headcount rate at the $2-a-day level is estimated to have fallen to about 27 percent [in 2007], down from 29.5 percent in 2006 and 69 percent in 1990."[63] In Sub-Saharan Africa extreme poverty went up from 41 percent in 1981 to 46 percent in 2001,[64] which combined with growing population increased the number of people living in extreme poverty from 231 million to 318 million.[65]
+
+In the early 1990s some of the transition economies of Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia experienced a sharp drop in income.[66] The collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in large declines in GDP per capita, of about 30 to 35% between 1990 and the through year of 1998 (when it was at its minimum). As a result, poverty rates tripled,[67] excess mortality increased,[68] and life expectancy declined.[69] In subsequent years as per capita incomes recovered the poverty rate dropped from 31.4% of the population to 19.6%.[70][71] The average post-communist country had returned to 1989 levels of per-capita GDP by 2005,[72] although as of 2015 some are still far behind that.[73] According to an article in Foreign Affairs, there were generally three paths to economic reform taken post Soviet collapse.  Those nations that took a "radical" or "gradual" reform rate have GDP per capita similar to other nations in their stage of economic development at generally 150% of their transition year (1991) GDP.  Nations that took a "slow" approach (an approach that limited free market reforms generally) had much slower, and lower economic growth, higher Gini coefficients, and poorer health outcomes.  Currently, those nations sit at 125% of their transition year GDP per capita.[74] A 2009 study published in The Lancet suggested that radical economic changes and the resulting short term unemployment led to temporary increases in the mortality rate of adult males.[75]
+
+World Bank data shows that the percentage of the population living in households with consumption or income per person below the poverty line has decreased in each region of the world except Middle East and North Africa since 1990:[76][77]
+
+According to Chen and Ravallion, about 1.76 billion people in developing world lived above $1.25 per day and 1.9 billion people lived below $1.25 per day in 1981. The world's population increased over the next 25 years. In 2005, about 4.09 billion people in developing world lived above $1.25 per day and 1.4 billion people lived below $1.25 per day (both 1981 and 2005 data are on inflation adjusted basis).[80][81] Some scholars caution that these trends are subject to various assumptions and not certain. Additionally, they note that the poverty reduction is not uniform across the world; economically prospering countries such as China, India and Brazil have made more progress in absolute poverty reduction than countries in other regions of the world.[82]
+
+In 2012 it was estimated that, using a poverty line of $1.25 a day, 1.2 billion people lived in poverty.[83] Given the current economic model, built on GDP, it would take 100 years to bring the world's poorest up to the poverty line of $1.25 a day.[84] UNICEF estimates half the world's children (or 1.1 billion) live in poverty.[85]
+
+The World Bank forecasted in 2015 that 702.1 million people were living in extreme poverty, down from 1.75 billion in 1990.[86] Extreme poverty is observed in all parts of the world, including developed economies.[87][88] Of the 2015 population, about 347.1 million people (35.2%) lived in Sub-Saharan Africa and 231.3 million (13.5%) lived in South Asia. According to the World Bank, between 1990 and 2015, the percentage of the world's population living in extreme poverty fell from 37.1% to 9.6%, falling below 10% for the first time.[89] The People's Republic of China accounts for over three quarters of global poverty reduction from 1990 to 2005.  Though, as noted, China accounted for nearly half of all extreme poverty in 1990.[90] In public opinion around the world people surveyed tend to incorrectly think extreme poverty has not decreased.[91][92]
+
+During the 2013 to 2015 period The World Bank reported that extreme poverty fell from 11% to 10%, however they also noted that the rate of decline had slowed by nearly half from the 25 year average with parts of sub-saharan Africa returning to early 2000 levels.[93][94] The World Bank attributed this to increasing violence following the Arab Spring, population increases in Sub-Saharan Africa, and general African inflationary pressures and economic malaise were the primary drivers for this slow down.[95][96]
+
+There is disagreement among experts as to what would be considered a realistic poverty rate with one considering it "an inaccurately measured and arbitrary cut off".[97] Some contend that a higher poverty line is needed, such as a minimum of $7.40 or even $10 to $15 a day.  They argue that these levels would better reflect the cost of basic needs and normal life expectancy.[98] One estimate places the true scale of poverty much higher than the World Bank, with an estimated 4.3 billion people (59% of the world's population) living with less than $5 a day and unable to meet basic needs adequately.[99] It has been argued by some academics that the neoliberal policies promoted by global financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank are actually exacerbating both inequality and poverty.[100][101]
+
+An data based scientific empirical research, which studied the impact of dynastic politics on the level of poverty of the provinces, found a positive correlation between dynastic politics and poverty i.e. the higher proportion of dynastic politicians in power in a province leads to higher poverty rate.[102] There is significant evidence that these political dynasties use their political dominance over their respective regions to enrich themselves, using methods such as graft or outright bribery of legislators.[103]
+
+According to Philip Alston's final report as UN's special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights (July 2020), the World Bank’s international poverty line of $1.90 a day is fundamentally flawed, and has allowed for "self congratulatory" triumphalism in the fight against extreme global poverty, which he asserts is "completely off track" with opportunities being squandered, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Alston, nearly half of the global population, or 3.4 billion, lives on less than $5.50 a day, and this number has barely moved since 1990.[104]
+
+The effects of poverty may also be causes as listed above, thus creating a "poverty cycle" operating across multiple levels, individual, local, national and global.
+
+One third of deaths around the world – some 18 million people a year or 50,000 per day – are due to poverty-related causes. People living in developing nations, among them women and children, are over represented among the global poor and these effects of severe poverty.[105][106][107] Those living in poverty suffer disproportionately from hunger or even starvation and disease, as well as lower life expectancy.[108][109] According to the World Health Organization, hunger and malnutrition are the single gravest threats to the world's public health and malnutrition is by far the biggest contributor to child mortality, present in half of all cases.[110]
+
+Almost 90% of maternal deaths during childbirth occur in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, compared to less than 1% in the developed world.[111] Those who live in poverty have also been shown to have a far greater likelihood of having or incurring a disability within their lifetime.[112] Infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis can perpetuate poverty by diverting health and economic resources from investment and productivity; malaria decreases GDP growth by up to 1.3% in some developing nations and AIDS decreases African growth by 0.3–1.5% annually.[113][114][115]
+
+Poverty has been shown to impede cognitive function. One way in which this may happen is that financial worries put a severe burden on one's mental resources so that they are no longer fully available for solving complicated problems. The reduced capability for problem solving can lead to suboptimal decisions and further perpetuate poverty.[116] Many other pathways from poverty to compromised cognitive capacities have been noted, from poor nutrition and environmental toxins to the effects of stress on parenting behavior, all of which lead to suboptimal psychological development.[117][118] Neuroscientists have documented the impact of poverty on brain structure and function throughout the lifespan.[119]
+
+Infectious diseases continue to blight the lives of the poor across the world. 36.8 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, with 954,492 deaths in 2017.[120] Every year there are 350–500 million cases of malaria, with 1 million fatalities: Africa accounts for 90 percent of malarial deaths and African children account for over 80 percent of malaria victims worldwide.[121]
+
+Poor people often are more prone to severe diseases due to the lack of health care, and due to living in non-optimal conditions. Among the poor, girls tend to suffer even more due to gender discrimination. Economic stability is paramount in a poor household otherwise they go in an endless loop of negative income trying to treat diseases. Often time when a person in a poor household falls ill it is up to the family members to take care of their family members due to limited access to health care and lack of health insurance. The household members oftentimes have to give up their income or stop seeking further education to tend to the sick member. There is a greater opportunity cost imposed on the poor to tend to someone compared to someone with better financial stability.[122]
+
+Rises in the costs of living make poor people less able to afford items. Poor people spend a greater portion of their budgets on food than wealthy people. As a result, poor households and those near the poverty threshold can be particularly vulnerable to increases in food prices. For example, in late 2007 increases in the price of grains[123] led to food riots in some countries.[124][125][126] The World Bank warned that 100 million people were at risk of sinking deeper into poverty.[127] Threats to the supply of food may also be caused by drought and the water crisis.[128] Intensive farming often leads to a vicious cycle of exhaustion of soil fertility and decline of agricultural yields.[129] Approximately 40% of the world's agricultural land is seriously degraded.[130][131] In Africa, if current trends of soil degradation continue, the continent might be able to feed just 25% of its population by 2025, according to United Nations University's Ghana-based Institute for Natural Resources in Africa.[132] Every year nearly 11 million children living in poverty die before their fifth birthday. 1.02 billion people go to bed hungry every night.[133]
+
+According to the Global Hunger Index, Sub-Saharan Africa had the highest child malnutrition rate of the world's regions over the 2001–2006 period.[134]
+
+The Associated Press reports that people gather every evening in downtown Caracas in search of food thrown out on sidewalks due to 90% of Venezuela's population living in poverty.[135]
+
+As part of the Sustainable Development Goals the global community has made the elimination of hunger and undernutrition a priority for the coming years. While the Goal 2 of the SDGs aims to reach this goal by 2030[136] a number of initiatives aim to achieve the goal 5 years earlier, by 2025:
+
+Research has found that there is a high risk of educational underachievement for children who are from low-income housing circumstances. This is often a process that begins in primary school for some less fortunate children. Instruction in the US educational system, as well as in most other countries, tends to be geared towards those students who come from more advantaged backgrounds. As a result, children in poverty are at a higher risk than advantaged children for retention in their grade, special deleterious placements during the school's hours and even not completing their high school education.[142] Advantage breeds advantage.[143] There are indeed many explanations for why students tend to drop out of school. One is the conditions of which they attend school. Schools in poverty-stricken areas have conditions that hinder children from learning in a safe environment. Researchers have developed a name for areas like this: an urban war zone is a poor, crime-laden district in which deteriorated, violent, even war-like conditions and underfunded, largely ineffective schools promote inferior academic performance, including irregular attendance and disruptive or non-compliant classroom behavior.[144] Because of poverty, "Students from low-income families are 2.4 times more likely to drop out than middle-income kids, and over 10 times more likely than high-income peers to drop out"[145]
+
+For children with low resources, the risk factors are similar to others such as juvenile delinquency rates, higher levels of teenage pregnancy, and the economic dependency upon their low-income parent or parents.[142]
+Families and society who submit low levels of investment in the education and development of less fortunate children end up with less favorable results for the children who see a life of parental employment reduction and low wages. Higher rates of early childbearing with all the connected risks to family, health and well-being are major important issues to address since education from preschool to high school are both identifiably meaningful in a life.[142]
+
+Poverty often drastically affects children's success in school. A child's "home activities, preferences, mannerisms" must align with the world and in the cases that they do not do these, students are at a disadvantage in the school and, most importantly, the classroom.[146] Therefore, it is safe to state that children who live at or below the poverty level will have far less success educationally than children who live above the poverty line. Poor children have a great deal less healthcare and this ultimately results in many absences from the academic year. Additionally, poor children are much more likely to suffer from hunger, fatigue, irritability, headaches, ear infections, flu, and colds.[146] These illnesses could potentially restrict a child or student's focus and concentration.[147]
+
+For a child to grow up emotionally healthy, the children under three need "A strong, reliable primary caregiver who provides consistent and unconditional love, guidance, and support. Safe, predictable, stable environments. Ten to 20 hours each week of harmonious, reciprocal interactions. This process, known as attunement, is most crucial during the first 6–24 months of infants' lives and helps them develop a wider range of healthy emotions, including gratitude, forgiveness, and empathy. Enrichment through personalized, increasingly complex activities".
+
+Harmful spending habits mean that the poor typically spend about 2 percent of their income educating their children but larger percentages of alcohol and tobacco (For example, 6 percent in Indonesia and 8 percent in Mexico).[148]
+
+In general, the interaction of gender with poverty or location tends to work to the disadvantage of girls in poorer countries with low completion rates and social expectations that they marry early, and to the disadvantage of boys in richer countries with high completion rates but social expectations that they enter the labour force early.[149] At the primary education level, most countries with a completion rate below 60% exhibit gender disparity at girls’ expense, particularly poor and rural girls. In Mauritania, the adjusted gender parity index is 0.86 on average, but only 0.63 for the poorest 20%, while there is parity among the richest 20%. In countries with completion rates between 60% and 80%, gender disparity is generally smaller, but disparity at the expense of poor girls is especially marked in Cameroon, Nigeria and Yemen. Exceptions in the opposite direction are observed in countries with pastoralist economies that rely on boys’ labour, such as the Kingdom of Eswatini, Lesotho and Namibia.[149]
+
+Poverty increases the risk of homelessness.[151] Slum-dwellers, who make up a third of the world's urban population, live in a poverty no better, if not worse, than rural people, who are the traditional focus of the poverty in the developing world, according to a report by the United Nations.[152]
+
+There are over 100 million street children worldwide.[153] Most of the children living in institutions around the world have a surviving parent or close relative, and they most commonly entered orphanages because of poverty.[150] It is speculated that, flush with money, orphanages are increasing and push for children to join even though demographic data show that even the poorest extended families usually take in children whose parents have died.[150] Experts and child advocates maintain that orphanages are expensive and often harm children's development by separating them from their families and that it would be more effective and cheaper to aid close relatives who want to take in the orphans.[150]
+
+As of 2012, 2.5 billion people lack access to sanitation services and 15% practice open defecation.[154] The most noteworthy example is Bangladesh, which has half the GDP per capita of India but has a lower mortality from diarrhea than India or the world average, with diarrhea deaths declining by 90% since the 1990s. Even while providing latrines is a challenge, people still do not use them even when available. By strategically providing pit latrines to the poorest, charities in Bangladesh sparked a cultural change as those better off perceived it as an issue of status to not use one. The vast majority of the latrines built were then not from charities but by villagers themselves.[155]
+
+Water utility subsidies tend to subsidize water consumption by those connected to the supply grid, which is typically skewed towards the richer and urban segment of the population and those outside informal housing. As a result of heavy consumption subsidies, the price of water decreases to the extent that only 30%, on average, of the supplying costs in developing countries is covered.[156][157]
+This results in a lack of incentive to maintain delivery systems, leading to losses from leaks annually that are enough for 200 million people.[156][158]
+This also leads to a lack of incentive to invest in expanding the network, resulting in much of the poor population being unconnected to the network. Instead, the poor buy water from water vendors for, on average, about five to 16 times the metered price.[156][159] However, subsidies for laying new connections to the network rather than for consumption have shown more promise for the poor.[157]
+
+Similarly, the poorest fifth receive 0.1% of the world's lighting but pay a fifth of total spending on light, accounting for 25 to 30 percent of their income.[160] Indoor air pollution from burning fuels kills 2 million, with almost half the deaths from pneumonia in children under 5.[161] Fuel from Bamboo burns more cleanly and also matures much faster than wood, thus also reducing deforestation.[161] Additionally, using solar panels is promoted as being cheaper over the products' lifetime even if upfront costs are higher.[160] Thus, payment schemes such as lend-to-own programs are promoted and up to 14% of Kenyan households use solar as their primary energy source.[162]
+
+According to experts, many women become victims of trafficking, the most common form of which is prostitution, as a means of survival and economic desperation.[163] Deterioration of living conditions can often compel children to abandon school to contribute to the family income, putting them at risk of being exploited.[164] For example, in Zimbabwe, a number of girls are turning to sex in return for food to survive because of the increasing poverty.[165] According to studies, as poverty decreases there will be fewer and fewer instances of violence.[166]
+
+In one survey, 67% of children from disadvantaged inner cities said they had witnessed a serious assault, and 33% reported witnessing a homicide.[167] 51% of fifth graders from New Orleans (median income for a household: $27,133) have been found to be victims of violence, compared to 32% in Washington, DC (mean income for a household: $40,127).[168]
+
+Max Weber and some schools of modernization theory suggest that cultural values could affect economic success.[169][170] However, researchers[who?] have gathered evidence that suggest that values are not as deeply ingrained and that changing economic opportunities explain most of the movement into and out of poverty, as opposed to shifts in values.[171] Studies have shown that poverty changes the personalities of children who live in it. The Great Smoky Mountains Study was a ten-year study that was able to demonstrate this. During the study, about one-quarter of the families saw a dramatic and unexpected increase in income. The study showed that among these children, instances of behavioral and emotional disorders decreased, and conscientiousness and agreeableness increased.[172]
+
+One 2012 paper, based on a sampling of 9,646 U.S, adults, claimed that poverty tends to correlate with laziness and other such traits.[173][need quotation to verify] A 2018 report on poverty in the United States by UN special rapporteur Philip Alston asserts that caricatured narratives about the rich and the poor, that "the rich are industrious, entrepreneurial, patriotic and the drivers of economic success. The poor are wasters, losers and scammers" are largely inaccurate, as "the poor are overwhelmingly those born into poverty, or those thrust there by circumstances largely beyond their control, such as physical or mental disabilities, divorce, family breakdown, illness, old age, unliveable wages or discrimination in the job market."[174]
+
+A psychological study has been conducted by four scientists during inaugural Convention of Psychological Science. The results find that people who thrive with financial stability or fall under low socioeconomic status (SES), tend to perform worse cognitively due to external pressure imposed upon them. The research found that stressors such as low income, inadequate health care, discrimination, exposure to criminal activities all contribute to mental disorders. This study also found that it slows cognitive thinking in children when they are exposed to poverty stricken environments.[175] In kids it is seen that kids perform better under the care and nourishment from their parents, and found that children tend to adopt speaking language at a younger age. Since being in poverty from childhood is especially more harmful than it is for an adult, therefore it is seen that children in poor households tend to fall behind in certain cognitive abilities compared to other average families.[176]
+
+Cultural factors, such as discrimination of various kinds, can negatively affect productivity such as age discrimination, stereotyping,[177] discrimination against people with physical disability,[178] gender discrimination, racial discrimination, and caste discrimination. Women are the group suffering from the highest rate of poverty after children; 14.5% of women and 22% of children are poor in the United States. In addition, the fact that women are more likely to be caregivers, regardless of income level, to either the generations before or after them, exacerbates the burdens of their poverty.[179]
+Marking the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty Philip Alston warned in a statement that, “The world’s poor are at disproportionate risk of torture, arrest, early death and domestic violence, but their civil and political rights are being airbrushed out of the picture.” ... people in lower socio-economic classes are much more likely to get killed, tortured or experience an invasion of their privacy, and are far less likely to realize their right to vote, or otherwise participate in the political process.”[180]
+
+Causes of poverty is a highly ideologically charged subject, as different causes point to different remedies. Very broadly speaking, the socialist tradition locates the roots of poverty in problems of distribution and the use of the means of production as capital benefiting individuals, and calls for re-distribution of wealth as the solution, whereas the neoliberal school of thought is dedicated the idea that creating conditions for profitable private investment is the solutions. Neoliberal think tanks have received extensive funding,[181] and the ability to apply many of their ideas in highly indebted countries in the global South as a condition for receiving emergency loans from the International Monetary Fund.
+
+Various poverty reduction strategies are broadly categorized based on whether they make more of the basic human needs available or whether they increase the disposable income needed to purchase those needs. Some strategies such as building roads can both bring access to various basic needs, such as fertilizer or healthcare from urban areas, as well as increase incomes, by bringing better access to urban markets. Statistics of 2018 shows population living in extreme conditions has declined by more than 1 billion in the last 25 years. As per the report published by the world bank on 19 September 2018 world poverty falls below 750 million.[182]
+
+Agricultural technologies such as nitrogen fertilizers, pesticides, new seed varieties and new irrigation methods have dramatically reduced food shortages in modern times by boosting yields past previous constraints.[183]
+
+Before the Industrial Revolution, poverty had been mostly accepted as inevitable as economies produced little, making wealth scarce.[184] Geoffrey Parker wrote that "In Antwerp and Lyon, two of the largest cities in western Europe, by 1600 three-quarters of the total population were too poor to pay taxes, and therefore likely to need relief in times of crisis."[185] The initial industrial revolution led to high economic growth and eliminated mass absolute poverty in what is now considered the developed world.[186] Mass production of goods in places such as rapidly industrializing China has made what were once considered luxuries, such as vehicles and computers, inexpensive and thus accessible to many who were otherwise too poor to afford them.[187][188]
+
+Even with new products, such as better seeds, or greater volumes of them, such as industrial production, the poor still require access to these products. Improving road and transportation infrastructure helps solve this major bottleneck.  In Africa, it costs more to move fertilizer from an African seaport 60 miles inland than to ship it from the United States to Africa because of sparse, low-quality roads, leading to fertilizer costs two to six times the world average.[189] Microfranchising models such as door to door distributors who earn commission-based income or Coca-Cola's successful distribution system[190][191] are used to disseminate basic needs to remote areas for below market prices.[192][193]
+
+Nations do not necessarily need wealth to gain health.[194] For example, Sri Lanka had a maternal mortality rate of 2% in the 1930s, higher than any nation today.[195] It reduced it to 0.5–0.6% in the 1950s and to 0.6% today while spending less each year on maternal health because it learned what worked and what did not.[195] Knowledge on the cost effectiveness of healthcare interventions can be elusive and educational measures have been made to disseminate what works, such as the Copenhagen Consensus.[196] Cheap water filters and promoting hand washing are some of the most cost effective health interventions and can cut deaths from diarrhea and pneumonia.[197][198]
+
+Strategies to provide education cost effectively include deworming children, which costs about 50 cents per child per year and reduces non-attendance from anemia, illness and malnutrition, while being only a twenty-fifth as expensive as increasing school attendance by constructing schools.[199] Schoolgirl absenteeism could be cut in half by simply providing free sanitary towels.[200] Fortification with micronutrients was ranked the most cost effective aid strategy by the Copenhagen Consensus.[201] For example, iodised salt costs 2 to 3 cents per person a year while even moderate iodine deficiency in pregnancy shaves off 10 to 15 IQ points.[202] Paying for school meals is argued to be an efficient strategy in increasing school enrollment, reducing absenteeism and increasing student attention.[203]
+
+Desirable actions such as enrolling children in school or receiving vaccinations can be encouraged by a form of aid known as conditional cash transfers.[204] In Mexico, for example, dropout rates of 16- to 19-year-olds in rural area dropped by 20% and children gained half an inch in height.[205] Initial fears that the program would encourage families to stay at home rather than work to collect benefits have proven to be unfounded. Instead, there is less excuse for neglectful behavior as, for example, children stopped begging on the streets instead of going to school because it could result in suspension from the program.[205]
+
+Government revenue can be diverted away from basic services by corruption.[206][207] Funds from aid and natural resources are often sent by government individuals for money laundering to overseas banks which insist on bank secrecy, instead of spending on the poor.[208] A Global Witness report asked for more action from Western banks as they have proved capable of stanching the flow of funds linked to terrorism.[208]
+
+Illicit capital flight from the developing world is estimated at ten times the size of aid it receives and twice the debt service it pays,[209] with one estimate that most of Africa would be developed if the taxes owed were paid.[210] About 60 per cent of illicit capital flight from Africa is from transfer mispricing, where a subsidiary in a developing nation sells to another subsidiary or shell company in a tax haven at an artificially low price to pay less tax.[211] An African Union report estimates that about 30% of sub-Saharan Africa's GDP has been moved to tax havens.[212] Solutions include corporate "country-by-country reporting" where corporations disclose activities in each country and thereby prohibit the use of tax havens where no effective economic activity occurs.[211]
+
+Developing countries' debt service to banks and governments from richer countries can constrain government spending on the poor.[213] For example, Zambia spent 40% of its total budget to repay foreign debt, and only 7% for basic state services in 1997.[214] One of the proposed ways to help poor countries has been debt relief. Zambia began offering services, such as free health care even while overwhelming the health care infrastructure, because of savings that resulted from a 2005 round of debt relief.[215]
+
+The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as primary holders of developing countries' debt, attach structural adjustment conditionalities in return for loans which are generally geared toward loan repayment with austerity measures such as the elimination of state subsidies and the privatization of state services. For example, the World Bank presses poor nations to eliminate subsidies for fertilizer even while many farmers cannot afford them at market prices.[216] In Malawi, almost five million of its 13 million people used to need emergency food aid but after the government changed policy and subsidies for fertilizer and seed were introduced, farmers produced record-breaking corn harvests in 2006 and 2007 as Malawi became a major food exporter.[216] A major proportion of aid from donor nations is tied, mandating that a receiving nation spend on products and expertise originating only from the donor country.[217] US law requires food aid be spent on buying food at home, instead of where the hungry live, and, as a result, half of what is spent is used on transport.[218]
+
+Distressed securities funds, also known as vulture funds, buy up the debt of poor nations cheaply and then sue countries for the full value of the debt plus interest which can be ten or 100 times what they paid.[219] They may pursue any companies which do business with their target country to force them to pay to the fund instead.[219] Considerable resources are diverted on costly court cases. For example, a court in Jersey ordered the Democratic Republic of the Congo to pay an American speculator $100 million in 2010.[219] Now, the UK, Isle of Man and Jersey have banned such payments.[219]
+
+The loss of basic needs providers emigrating from impoverished countries has a damaging effect.[220] As of 2004, there were more Ethiopia-trained doctors living in Chicago than in Ethiopia.[221] Proposals to mitigate the problem include compulsory government service for graduates of public medical and nursing schools[220] and promoting medical tourism so that health care personnel have more incentive to practice in their home countries.[222] It is very easy for Ugandan doctors to emigrate to other countries. It is seen that only 69 percent of the health care jobs were filled in Uganda. Other Ugandan doctors were seeking jobs in other countries leaving inadequate or less skilled doctors to stay in Uganda.[223]
+
+Some argue that overpopulation and lack of access to birth control can lead to population increase to exceed food production and other resources.[224][65][225][226] Better education for both men and women, and more control of their lives, reduces population growth due to family planning.[227] According to United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), by giving better education to men and women, they can earn money for their lives and can help them to strengthen economic security.[228]
+
+The following are strategies used or proposed to increase personal incomes among the poor. Raising farm incomes is described as the core of the antipoverty effort as three-quarters of the poor today are farmers.[229] Estimates show that growth in the agricultural productivity of small farmers is, on average, at least twice as effective in benefiting the poorest half of a country's population as growth generated in nonagricultural sectors.[230]
+
+A guaranteed minimum income ensures that every citizen will be able to purchase a desired level of basic needs. A basic income (or negative income tax) is a system of social security, that periodically provides each citizen, rich or poor, with a sum of money that is sufficient to live on. Studies of large cash-transfer programs in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Malawi show that the programs can be effective in increasing consumption, schooling, and nutrition, whether they are tied to such conditions or not.[231][232][233] Proponents argue that a basic income is more economically efficient than a minimum wage and unemployment benefits, as the minimum wage effectively imposes a high marginal tax on employers, causing losses in efficiency. In 1968, Paul Samuelson, John Kenneth Galbraith and another 1,200 economists signed a document calling for the US Congress to introduce a system of income guarantees.[234] Winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics, with often diverse political convictions, who support a basic income include Herbert A. Simon,[235] Friedrich Hayek,[236] Robert Solow,[235] Milton Friedman,[237] Jan Tinbergen,[235] James Tobin[238][239][240]
+and James Meade.[235]
+
+Income grants are argued to be vastly more efficient in extending basic needs to the poor than subsidizing supplies whose effectiveness in poverty alleviation is diluted by the non-poor who enjoy the same subsidized prices.[241] With cars and other appliances, the wealthiest 20% of Egypt uses about 93% of the country's fuel subsidies.[242] In some countries, fuel subsidies are a larger part of the budget than health and education.[242][243] A 2008 study concluded that the money spent on in-kind transfers in India in a year could lift all India's poor out of poverty for that year if transferred directly.[244] The primary obstacle argued against direct cash transfers is the impractically for poor countries of such large and direct transfers. In practice, payments determined by complex iris scanning are used by war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan,[245] while India is phasing out its fuel subsidies in favor of direct transfers.[246] Additionally, in aid models, the famine relief model increasingly used by aid groups calls for giving cash or cash vouchers to the hungry to pay local farmers instead of buying food from donor countries, often required by law, as it wastes money on transport costs.[247][248]
+
+Corruption often leads to many civil services being treated by governments as employment agencies to loyal supporters[249] and so it could mean going through 20 procedures, paying $2,696 in fees, and waiting 82 business days to start a business in Bolivia, while in Canada it takes two days, two registration procedures, and $280 to do the same.[250] Such costly barriers favor big firms at the expense of small enterprises, where most jobs are created.[251] Often, businesses have to bribe government officials even for routine activities, which is, in effect, a tax on business.[252] Noted reductions in poverty in recent decades has occurred in China and India mostly as a result of the abandonment of collective farming in China and the ending of the central planning model known as the License Raj in India.[253][254][255]
+
+The World Bank concludes that governments and feudal elites extending to the poor the right to the land that they live and use are 'the key to reducing poverty' citing that land rights greatly increase poor people's wealth, in some cases doubling it.[256] Although approaches varied, the World Bank said the key issues were security of tenure and ensuring land transactions costs were low.[256]
+
+Greater access to markets brings more income to the poor. Road infrastructure has a direct impact on poverty.[257][258] Additionally, migration from poorer countries resulted in $328 billion sent from richer to poorer countries in 2010, more than double the $120 billion in official aid flows from OECD members. In 2011, India got $52 billion from its diaspora, more than it took in foreign direct investment.[259]
+
+Microloans, made famous by the Grameen Bank, is where small amounts of money are loaned to farmers or villages, mostly women, who can then obtain physical capital to increase their economic rewards. However, microlending has been criticized for making hyperprofits off the poor even from its founder, Muhammad Yunus,[260] and in India, Arundhati Roy asserts that some 250,000 debt-ridden farmers have been driven to suicide.[261][262][263]
+
+There has been significant rise of agriculture and small business that started booming up after the introduction of Grameen Banking especially in the rural areas. While making the foundation of this loan, from 1984 to 1989 loan recovery decreased from 99.4 percent to 96.9 percent.[264]
+
+Those in poverty place overwhelming importance on having a safe place to save money, much more so than receiving loans.[265] Additionally, a large part of microfinance loans are spent not on investments but on products that would usually be paid by a checking or savings account.[265] Microsavings are designs to make savings products available for the poor, who make small deposits. Mobile banking utilizes the wide availability of mobile phones to address the problem of the heavy regulation and costly maintenance of saving accounts.[265] This usually involves a network of agents of mostly shopkeepers, instead of bank branches, would take deposits in cash and translate these onto a virtual account on customers' phones. Cash transfers can be done between phones and issued back in cash with a small commission, making remittances safer.[266]
+
+In USA there are abundance of payday loan companies that strive to serve those people whose credit scores are much below the standard credit score in order to take an eligible loan. While these companies initially gives money to people who would likely default from traditional loans, many still frown on these loan services due to charging astonishingly high interest rates.
+
+Poverty can also be reduced as an improved economic policy is developed by the governing authorities to facilitate a more equitable distribution of the nation's wealth. Oxfam has called for an international movement to end extreme wealth concentration as a significant step towards ameliorating global poverty. The group stated that the $240 billion added to the fortunes of the world's richest billionaires in 2012 was enough to end extreme poverty four times over. Oxfam argues that the "concentration of resources in the hands of the top 1% depresses economic activity and makes life harder for everyone else – particularly those at the bottom of the economic ladder."[267][268] It has been reported that only 1% of the world population controls 50% of the wealth today, and the other 99% is having access to the remaining 50% only, and the gap has sharply increased in the recent past.[269] In 2018, Oxfam reported that the gains of the world's billionaires in 2017, which amounted to $762 billion, was enough to end extreme global poverty seven times over.[270]
+
+José Antonio Ocampo, professor at Columbia University and former finance minister of Colombia, and Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona, former UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, argue that global tax reform is integral to human development and fighting poverty, as corporate tax avoidance has disproportionately impacted those mired in poverty, noting that "the human impact is devastatingly real. When profits are shifted out, the tax revenues from those profits that could be available to fund healthcare, schools, water sanitation and other public goods vanish from the ledger, leaving women and men, boys and girls without pathways to a better future."[271]
+
+Raghuram G. Rajan, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business has blamed the ever-widening gulf between the rich and the poor especially in the US to be one of the main Fault Lines which caused the financial institutions to pump money into subprime mortgages – on political behest, as a palliative and not a remedy, for poverty – causing the financial crisis of 2007–2009. In Rajan's view the main cause of increasing gap between the high income and low income earners, was lack of equal access to high class education for the latter.[272]
+
+The existence of inequality is in part due to a set of self-reinforcing behaviors that all together constitute one aspect of the cycle of poverty. These behaviors, in addition to unfavorable, external circumstances, also explain the existence of the Matthew effect, which not only exacerbates existing inequality, but is more likely to make it multigenerational. Widespread, multigenerational poverty is an important contributor to civil unrest and political instability.[273]
+
+The concept of business serving the world's poorest four billion or so people has been popular since CK Prahalad introduced the idea through his book  Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits in 2004, among many business corporations and business schools.[274][275] Kash Rangan, John Quelch, and other faculty members at the Global Poverty Project at Harvard Business School "believe that in pursuing its own self-interest in opening and expanding the BoP market, business can make a profit while serving the poorest of consumers and contributing to development."[276] According to Rangan "For business, the bulk of emerging markets worldwide is at the bottom of the pyramid so it makes good business sense – not a sense of do-gooding – to go after it.".[276]
+
+In their 2013 book, "The Business Solution to Poverty," Paul Polak and Mal Warwick directly addressed the criticism leveled against Prahalad's concept.[277] They noted that big business often failed to create products that actually met the needs and desires of the customers who lived at the bottom-of-the-pyramid. Their answer was that a business that wanted to succeed in that market had to spend time talking to and understanding those customers. Polak had previously promoted this approach in his previous book, "Out of Poverty," that described the work of International Development Enterprises (iDE), which he had formed in 1982.[278] Polak and Warwick provided practical advice: a product needed to affect at least a billion people (i.e., have universal appeal), it had to be able to be delivered to customers living where there was not a FedEx office or even a road, and it had to be "radically affordable" to attract someone who earned less than $2 a day.
+
+Rather than encouraging multinational businesses to meet the needs of the poor, some organizations such as iDE, the World Resources Institute, and the United Nations Development Programme began to focus on working directly with helping bottom-of-the-pyramid populations become local, small-scale entrepreneurs.[280] Since so much of this population is engaged in agriculture, these NGOs have addressed market gaps that enable small-scale (i.e., plots less than 2 hectares) farmers to increase their production and find markets for their harvests. This is done by increasing the availability of farming equipment (e.g., pumps, tillers, seeders) and better quality seed and fertilizer, as well as expanding access for training in farming best practices (e.g., crop rotation).
+
+Creating entrepreneurs through microfinance can produce unintended outcomes: Some entrepreneurial borrowers become informal intermediaries between microfinance initiatives and poorer micro-entrepreneurs. Those who more easily qualify for microfinance split loans into smaller credit to even poorer borrowers. Informal intermediation ranges from casual intermediaries at the good or benign end of the spectrum to 'loan sharks' at the professional and sometimes criminal end of the spectrum.[281]
+
+Milton Friedman argues that the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits only,[282] thus, it needs to be examined whether business in BoP markets is capable of achieving the dual objective of making a profit while serving the poorest of consumers and contributing to development? Erik Simanis has reported that the model has a fatal flaw. According to Erik "Despite achieving healthy penetration rates of 5% to 10% in four test markets, for instance, Procter & Gamble couldn't generate a competitive return on its Pur water-purification powder after launching the product on a large scale in 2001...DuPont ran into similar problems with a venture piloted from 2006 to 2008 in Andhra Pradesh, India, by its subsidiary Solae, a global manufacturer of soy protein ... Because the high costs of doing business among the very poor demand a high contribution per transaction, companies must embrace the reality that high margins and price points aren't just a top-of-the-pyramid phenomenon; they're also a necessity for ensuring sustainable businesses at the bottom of the pyramid."[283] Marc Gunther states that "The bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) market leader, arguably, is Unilever ... Its signature BOP product is Pureit, a countertop water-purification system sold in India, Africa and Latin America. It's saving lives, but it's not making money for shareholders."[275] This leaves the ideal of eradicating poverty through profits or with a good business sense – not a sense of do-gooding rather questionable.
+
+Others have noted that relying on BoP consumers to choose to purchase items that increase their incomes is naive. Poor consumers may spend their income disproportionately on events or goods and services that offer short-term benefits rather than invest in things that could change their lives in the long-term.[284]
+
+A report published in 2013 by the World Bank, with support from the Climate & Development Knowledge Network, found that climate change was likely to hinder future attempts to reduce poverty. The report presented the likely impacts of present day, 2 °C and 4 °C warming on agricultural production, water resources, coastal ecosystems and cities across Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and South East Asia. The impacts of a temperature rise of 2 °C included: regular food shortages in Sub-Saharan Africa; shifting rain patterns in South Asia leaving some parts under water and others without enough water for power generation, irrigation or drinking; degradation and loss of reefs in South East Asia, resulting in reduced fish stocks; and coastal communities and cities more vulnerable to increasingly violent storms.[285] In 2016, a UN report claimed that by 2030, an additional 122 million more people could be driven to extreme poverty because of climate change.[286]
+
+Many think that poverty is the cause of environmental degradation, while there are others who claim that rather the poor are the worst sufferers of environmental degradation caused by reckless exploitation of natural resources by the rich.[287] A Delhi-based environment organisation, the Centre for Science and Environment, points out that if the poor world were to develop and consume in the same manner as the West to achieve the same living standards, "we would need two additional planet Earths to produce resources and absorb wastes.", reports Anup Shah (2003). in his article Poverty and the Environment on Global Issues.[288]
+
+Among some individuals, poverty is considered a necessary or desirable condition, which must be embraced to reach certain spiritual, moral, or intellectual states. Poverty is often understood to be an essential element of renunciation in religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism (only for monks, not for lay persons) and Jainism, whilst in Roman Catholicism it is one of the evangelical counsels.  The main aim of giving up things of the materialistic world is to withdraw oneself from sensual pleasures (as they are considered illusionary and only temporary in some religions – such as the concept of dunya in Islam). This self-invited poverty (or giving up pleasures) is different from the one caused by economic imbalance.
+
+Some Christian communities, such as the Simple Way, the Bruderhof, and the Amish value voluntary poverty;[289] some even take a vow of poverty, similar to that of the traditional Catholic orders, in order to live a more complete life of discipleship.[290]
+
+Benedict XVI distinguished "poverty chosen" (the poverty of spirit proposed by Jesus), and "poverty to be fought" (unjust and imposed poverty). He considered that the moderation implied in the former favors solidarity, and is a necessary condition so as to fight effectively to eradicate the abuse of the latter.[291]
+
+As it was indicated above the reduction of poverty results from religion, but also can result from solidarity.[292]
+
+This article incorporates text from a free content work.  Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO Global education monitoring report 2019: gender report: Building bridges for gender equality,  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.