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The Yangtze, Yangzi ( or ), or officially Chang Jiang is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains (Tibetan Plateau) and flows in a generally easterly direction to the East China Sea. It is the seventh-largest river by discharge volume in the world. Its drainage basin comprises one-fifth of the land area of China, and is home to nearly one-third of the country's population. The Yangtze has played a major role in the history, culture and economy of China. For thousands of years, the river has been used for water, irrigation, sanitation, transportation, industry, boundary-marking and war. The prosperous Yangtze Delta generates as much as 20% of China's GDP. The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze is the largest hydro-electric power station in the world. In mid-2014, the Chinese government announced it was building a multi-tier transport network, comprising railways, roads and airports, to create a new economic belt alongside the river. The Yangtze flows through a wide array of ecosystems and is habitat to several endemic and threatened species including the Chinese alligator, the narrow-ridged finless porpoise and the Yangtze sturgeon, but also was the home of the extinct Yangtze river dolphin (or baiji) and Chinese paddlefish. In recent years, the river has suffered from industrial pollution, plastic pollution, agricultural runoff, siltation, and loss of wetland and lakes, which exacerbates seasonal flooding. Some sections of the river are now protected as nature reserves. A stretch of the upstream Yangtze flowing through deep gorges in western Yunnan is part of the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Etymology Chinese () is the modern Chinese name for the Yangtze. However, because the source of the Yangtze was not ascertained until modern times, the Chinese have given different names to the upstream sections of the river up to its confluence with the Min River at Yibin, Sichuan. Jinsha River ("Gold Sands River") refers to the 2,308 km (1,434 mi) of the Yangtze from Yibin upstream to the confluence with the Batang River near Yushu in Qinghai, while the Tongtian River ("River that leads to Heaven") describes the 813 km (505 mi) section from Yushu up to the confluence of the Tuotuo River and the Dangqu River. Chang Jiang literally means the "Long River." In Old Chinese, the Yangtze was simply called Jiang/Kiang , a character of phono-semantic compound origin, combining the water radical with the homophone (now pronounced , but *kˤoŋ in Old Chinese). Krong was probably a word in the Austroasiatic language of local peoples such as the Yue. Similar to *krong in Proto-Vietnamese and krung in Mon, all meaning "river", it is related to modern Vietnamese sông (river) and Khmer krung (city on riverside), whence Thai krung (กรุง capital city), not kôngkea (water) which is from the Sanskrit root gáṅgā. By the Han dynasty, had come to mean any river in Chinese, and this river was distinguished as the "Great River" (). The epithet (simplified version ), means "long", was first formally applied to the river during the Six Dynasties period. Various sections of the Yangtze have local names. From Yibin to Yichang, the river through Sichuan and Chongqing Municipality is also known as the () or "Sichuan River." In Hubei, the river is also called the () or the "Jing River" after Jingzhou, one of the Nine Provinces of ancient China. In Anhui, the river takes on the local name after the shorthand name for Anhui, (皖). And () or the "Yangzi River", from which the English name Yangtze is derived, is the local name for the Lower Yangtze in the region of Yangzhou. The name likely comes from an ancient ferry crossing called or (). Europeans who arrived in the Yangtze River Delta region applied this local name to the whole river. The dividing site between upstream and midstream is considered to be at Yichang and that between midstream and downstream at Hukou (Jiujiang). English The river was called Quian () and Quianshui () by Marco Polo and appeared on the earliest English maps as Kian or Kiam, which derives from Cantonese, all recording dialects which preserved forms of the Middle Chinese pronunciation of as Kæwng. By the mid-19th century, these romanizations had standardized as Kiang; Dajiang, e.g., was rendered as "Ta-Kiang." "Keeang-Koo," "Kyang Kew," "Kian-ku," and related names derived from mistaking the Chinese term for the mouth of the Yangtze (, p Jiāngkǒu) as the name of the river itself. The name Blue River began to be applied in the 18th century, apparently owing to a former name of the Dam Chu or Min and to analogy with the Yellow River, but it was frequently explained in early English references as a 'translation' of Jiang, Jiangkou, or Yangzijiang. Very common in 18th- and 19th-century sources, the name fell out of favor due to growing awareness of its lack of any connection to the river's Chinese names and to the irony of its application to such a muddy waterway. Matteo Ricci's 1615 Latin account included descriptions of the "Ianſu" and "Ianſuchian." The posthumous account's translation of the name as Fils de la Mar ("Son of the Ocean") shows that Ricci, who by the end of his life was fluent in literary Chinese, was introduced to it as the homophonic rather than the 'proper' . Further, although railroads and the Shanghai concessions subsequently turned it into a backwater, Yangzhou was the lower river's principal port for much of the Qing dynasty, directing Liangjiang's important salt monopoly and connecting the Yangtze with the Grand Canal to Beijing. (That connection also made it one of the Yellow River's principal ports between the floods of 1344 and the 1850s, during which time the Yellow River ran well south of Shandong and discharged into the ocean a mere few hundred kilometers from the mouth of the Yangtze.) By 1800, English cartographers such as Aaron Arrowsmith had adopted the French style of the name as Yang-tse or Yang-tse Kiang. The British diplomat Thomas Wade emended this to Yang-tzu Chiang as part of his formerly popular romanization of Chinese, based on the Beijing dialect instead of Nanjing's and first published in 1867. The spellings Yangtze and Yangtze Kiang was a compromise between the two methods adopted at the 1906 Imperial Postal Conference in Shanghai, which established postal romanization. Hanyu Pinyin was adopted by the PRC's First Congress in 1958, but it was not widely employed in English outside mainland China prior to the normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States and the PRC in 1979; since that time, the spelling Yangzi has also been used. Tibetan The source and upper reaches of the Yangtze are located in ethnic Tibetan areas of Qinghai. In Tibetan, the Tuotuo headwaters are the Machu (, literally "Red River" or perhaps "Wound-[like Red] River?")). The Tongtian is the Drichu (, ‘Bri Chu}}, literally "River of the Female Yak"; transliterated into ). Geography The river originates from several tributaries in the eastern part of the Tibetan Plateau, two of which are commonly referred to as the "source." Traditionally, the Chinese government has recognized the source as the Tuotuo tributary at the base of a glacier lying on the west of Geladandong Mountain in the Tanggula Mountains. This source is found at and while not the furthest source of the Yangtze, it is the highest source at above sea level. The true source of the Yangtze, hydrologically the longest river distance from the sea, is at Jari Hill at the head of the Dam Qu tributary, approximately southeast of Geladandong. This source was only discovered in the late 20th century and lies in wetlands at and above sea level just southeast of Chadan Township in Zadoi County, Yushu Prefecture, Qinghai. As the historical spiritual source of the Yangtze, the Geladandong source is still commonly referred to as the source of the Yangtze since the discovery of the Jari Hill source. These tributaries join and the river then runs eastward through Qinghai (Tsinghai), turning southward down a deep valley at the border of Sichuan (Szechwan) and Tibet to reach Yunnan. In the course of this valley, the river's elevation drops from above to less than . The headwaters of the Yangtze are situated at an elevation of about . In its descent to sea level, the river falls to an altitude of at Yibin, Sichuan, the head of navigation for riverboats, and to at Chongqing (Chungking). Between Chongqing and Yichang (I-ch'ang), at an altitude of and a distance of about , it passes through the spectacular Yangtze Gorges, which are noted for their natural beauty but are dangerous to shipping. It enters the basin of Sichuan at Yibin. While in the Sichuan basin, it receives several mighty tributaries, increasing its water volume significantly. It then cuts through Mount Wushan bordering Chongqing and Hubei to create the famous Three Gorges. Eastward of the Three Gorges, Yichang is the first city on the Yangtze Plain. After entering Hubei province, the Yangtze receives water from a number of lakes. The largest of these lakes is Dongting Lake, which is located on the border of Hunan and Hubei provinces, and is the outlet for most of the rivers in Hunan. At Wuhan, it receives its biggest tributary, the Han River, bringing water from its northern basin as far as Shaanxi. At the northern tip of Jiangxi province, Lake Poyang, the biggest freshwater lake in China, merges into the river. The river then runs through Anhui and Jiangsu, receiving more water from innumerable smaller lakes and rivers, and finally reaches the East China Sea at Shanghai. Four of China's five main freshwater lakes contribute their waters to the Yangtze River. Traditionally, the upstream part of the Yangtze River refers to the section from Yibin to Yichang; the middle part refers to the section from Yichang to Hukou County, where Lake Poyang meets the river; the downstream part is from Hukou to Shanghai. The origin of the Yangtze River has been dated by some geologists to about 45 million years ago in the Eocene, but this dating has been disputed. Image gallery Characteristics The Yangtze flows into the East China Sea and was navigable by ocean-going vessels up from its mouth even before the Three Gorges Dam was built. The Yangtze is flanked with metallurgical, power, chemical, auto, building materials and machinery industrial belts and high-tech development zones. It is playing an increasingly crucial role in the river valley's economic growth and has become a vital link for international shipping to the inland provinces. The river is a major transportation artery for China, connecting the interior with the coast. The river is one of the world's busiest waterways. Traffic includes commercial traffic transporting bulk goods such as coal as well as manufactured goods and passengers. Cargo transportation reached 795 million tons in 2005. River cruises several days long, especially through the beautiful and scenic Three Gorges area, are becoming popular as the tourism industry grows in China. Flooding along the river has been a major problem. The rainy season in China is May and June in areas south of Yangtze River, and July and August in areas north of it. The huge river system receives water from both southern and northern flanks, which causes its flood season to extend from May to August. Meanwhile, the relatively dense population and rich cities along the river make the floods more deadly and costly. The most recent major floods were the 1998 Yangtze River Floods, but more disastrous were the 1954 Yangtze River Floods, which killed around 30,000 people. History Geologic history Although the mouth of the Yellow River has fluctuated widely north and south of the Shandong peninsula within the historical record, the Yangtze has remained largely static. Based on studies of sedimentation rates, however, it is unlikely that the present discharge site predates the late Miocene ( Ma). Prior to this, its headwaters drained south into the Gulf of Tonkin along or near the course of the present Red River. Early history The Yangtze River is important to the cultural origins of southern China and Japan. Human activity has been verified in the Three Gorges area as far back as 27,000 years ago, and by the 5th millennium BC, the lower Yangtze was a major population center occupied by the Hemudu and Majiabang cultures, both among the earliest cultivators of rice. By the 3rd millennium BC, the successor Liangzhu culture showed evidence of influence from the Longshan peoples of the North China Plain. What is now thought of as Chinese culture developed along the more fertile Yellow River basin; the "Yue" people of the lower Yangtze possessed very different traditions blackening their teeth, cutting their hair short, tattooing their bodies, and living in small settlements among bamboo groves and were considered barbarous by the northerners. The Central Yangtze valley was home to sophisticated Neolithic cultures. Later it became the earliest part of the Yangtze valley to be integrated into the North Chinese cultural sphere. (Northern Chinese were active there since the Bronze Age). In the lower Yangtze, two Yue tribes, the Gouwu in southern Jiangsu and the Yuyue in northern Zhejiang, display increasing Zhou (i.e., North Chinese) influence starting in the 9th century BC. Traditional accounts credit these changes to northern refugees (Taibo and Zhongyong in Wu and Wuyi in Yue) who assumed power over the local tribes, though these are generally assumed to be myths invented to legitimate them to other Zhou rulers. As the kingdoms of Wu and Yue, they were famed as fishers, shipwrights, and sword-smiths. Adopting Chinese characters, political institutions, and military technology, they were among the most powerful states during the later Zhou. In the middle Yangtze, the state of Jing seems to have begun in the upper Han River valley a minor Zhou polity, but it adapted to native culture as it expanded south and east into the Yangtze valley. In the process, it changed its name to Chu. Whether native or nativizing, the Yangtze states held their own against the northern Chinese homeland: some lists credit them with three of the Spring and Autumn period's Five Hegemons and one of the Warring States' Four Lords. They fell in against themselves, however. Chu's growing power led its rival Jin to support Wu as a counter. Wu successfully sacked Chu's capital Ying in 506 BC, but Chu subsequently supported Yue in its attacks against Wu's southern flank. In 473 BC, King Goujian of Yue fully annexed Wu and moved his court to its eponymous capital at modern Suzhou. In 333 BC, Chu finally united the lower Yangtze by annexing Yue, whose royal family was said to have fled south and established the Minyue kingdom in Fujian. Qin was able to unite China by first subduing Ba and Shu on the upper Yangtze in modern Sichuan, giving them a strong base to attack Chu's settlements along the river. The state of Qin conquered the central Yangtze region, previous heartland of Chu, in 278 BC, and incorporated the region into its expanding empire. Qin then used its connections along the Yangtze River the Xiang River to expand China into Hunan, Jiangxi and Guangdong, setting up military commanderies along the main lines of communication. At the collapse of the Qin Dynasty, these southern commanderies became the independent Nanyue Empire under Zhao Tuo while Chu and Han vied with each other for control of the north. Since the Han dynasty, the region of the Yangtze River grew ever more important to China's economy. The establishment of irrigation systems (the most famous one is Dujiangyan, northwest of Chengdu, built during the Warring States period) made agriculture very stable and productive, eventually exceeding even the Yellow River region. The Qin and Han empires were actively engaged in the agricultural colonization of the Yangtze lowlands, maintaining a system of dikes to protect farmland from seasonal floods. By the Song dynasty, the area along the Yangtze had become among the wealthiest and most developed parts of the country, especially in the lower reaches of the river. Early in the Qing dynasty, the region called Jiangnan (that includes the southern part of Jiangsu, the northern part of Zhejiang, and the southeastern part of Anhui) provided – of the nation's revenues. The Yangtze has long been the backbone of China's inland water transportation system, which remained particularly important for almost two thousand years, until the construction of the national railway network during the 20th century. The Grand Canal connects the lower Yangtze with the major cities of the Jiangnan region south of the river (Wuxi, Suzhou, Hangzhou) and with northern China (all the way from Yangzhou to Beijing). The less well known ancient Lingqu Canal, connecting the upper Xiang River with the headwaters of the Guijiang, allowed a direct water connection from the Yangtze Basin to the Pearl River Delta. Historically, the Yangtze became the political boundary between north China and south China several times (see History of China) because of the difficulty of crossing the river. This occurred notably during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the Southern Song. Many battles took place along the river, the most famous being the Battle of Red Cliffs in 208 AD during the Three Kingdoms period. The Yangtze was the site of naval battles between the Song dynasty and Jurchen Jin during the Jin–Song wars. In the Battle of Caishi of 1161, the ships of the Jin emperor Wanyan Liang clashed with the Song fleet on the Yangtze. Song soldiers fired bombs of lime and sulfur using trebuchets at the Jurchen warships. The battle was a Song victory that halted the invasion by the Jin. The Battle of Tangdao was another Yangtze naval battle in the same year. Politically, Nanjing was the capital of China several times, although most of the time its territory only covered the southeastern part of China, such as the Wu kingdom in the Three Kingdoms period, the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and during the Southern and Northern Dynasties and Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms periods. Only the Ming occupied most parts of China from their capital at Nanjing, though it later moved the capital to Beijing. The ROC capital was located in Nanjing in the periods 1911–12, 1927–37, and 1945–49. Age of steam The first merchant steamer in China, the Jardine, was built to order for the firm of Jardine, Matheson & Co. in 1835. She was a small vessel intended for use as a mail and passenger carrier between Lintin Island, Macao, and Whampoa. However, the Chinese, draconian in their application of the rules relating to foreign vessels, were unhappy about a "fire-ship" steaming up the Canton River. The acting Governor-General of Kwangtung issued an edict warning that she would be fired on if she attempted the trip. On the Jardine's first trial run from Lintin Island the forts on both sides of the Bogue opened fire and she was forced to turn back. The Chinese authorities issued a further warning insisting that the ship leave Chinese waters. The Jardine in any case needed repairs and was sent to Singapore. Subsequently, Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary decided mainly on the "suggestions" of William Jardine to declare war on China. In mid-1840, a large fleet of warships appeared on the China coast, and with the first cannonball fired at a British ship, the Royal Saxon, the British started the first of the Opium Wars. Royal Navy warships destroyed numerous shore batteries and Chinese warships, laying waste to several coastal forts along the way. Eventually, they pushed their way up north close enough to threaten the Imperial Palace in Peking itself. The Chinese imperial government quickly gave in to the demands of the British. British military superiority was clearly evident during the conflict. British warships, constructed using such innovations as steam power combined with sail and the use of iron in shipbuilding, wreaked havoc on Chinese junks; such ships (like the Nemesis) were not only virtually indestructible but also highly mobile and able to support a gun platform with very heavy guns. In addition, the British troops were armed with modern muskets and cannons, unlike the Qing forces. After the British captured Canton, they sailed up the Yangtze and seized the tax barges, a significant blow to the Imperial government as it slashed the revenue of the imperial court in Beijing to just a small fraction of what it had been. In 1842 the Qing authorities sued for peace, which concluded with the Treaty of Nanking signed on a warship in the river, negotiated in August of that year and ratified in 1843. In the treaty, China was forced to pay an indemnity to Britain, open five treaty ports to all foreign nations, and cede Hong Kong to Queen Victoria. In the supplementary Treaty of the Bogue, the Qing Empire also recognized Britain as an equal to China and gave British subjects extraterritorial privileges in treaty ports. The China Navigation Company was an early shipping company founded in 1876 in London, initially to trade up the Yangtze River from their Shanghai base with passengers and cargo. Chinese coastal trade started shortly after, and in 1883 a regular service to Australia was initiated. U.S. and French conflicts The US, at the same time, wanting to protect its interests and expand trade, ventured the six hundred miles up the river to Hankow sometime in the 1860s, while the , a sidewheeler, made her way up the river to Yichang in 1874. The first , a sidewheel gunboat, began charting the Yangtze River in 1871. The first , an armed tug, was on Asiatic Station into 1891, cruising the Chinese and Japanese coasts, visiting the open treaty ports and making occasional voyages up the Yangtze River. From June to September 1891, anti-foreign riots up the Yangtze forced the warship to make an extended voyage as far as Hankou, 600 miles upriver. Stopping at each open treaty port, the gunboat cooperated with naval vessels of other nations and repairing damage. She then operated along the north and central China coast and on the lower Yangtze until June 1892. The cessation of bloodshed with the Taiping Rebellion, Europeans put more steamers on the river. The French engaged the Chinese in war over the rule of Vietnam. The Sino-French Wars of the 1880s emerged with the Battle of Shipu having French cruisers in the lower Yangtze. The China Navigation Company was an early shipping company founded in 1876 in London, initially to trade up the Yangtze River from their Shanghai base with passengers and cargo. Chinese coastal trade started shortly after and in 1883 a regular service to Australia was initiated. Most of the company's ships were seized by Japan in 1941 and services did not resume until 1946. Robert Dollar was a later shipping magnate, who became enormously influential moving Californian and Canadian lumber to the Chinese and Japanese market. Yichang, or Ichang, from the sea, is the head of navigation for river steamers; oceangoing vessels may navigate the river to Hankow, a distance of almost from the sea. For about inland from its mouth, the river is virtually at sea level. The Chinese Government, too, had steamers. It had its own naval fleet, the Nanyang Fleet, which fell prey to the French fleet. The Chinese would rebuild its fleet, only to be ravaged by another war with Japan (1895), Revolution (1911) and ongoing inefficiency and corruption. Chinese companies ran their own steamers, but were second tier to European operations at the time. Navigation on the upper river Steamers came late to the upper river, the section stretching from Yichang to Chongqing. Freshets from Himalayan snowmelt created treacherous seasonal currents. But summer was better navigationally and the three gorges, described as an "150-mile passage which is like the narrow throat of an hourglass," posed hazardous threats of crosscurrents, whirlpools and eddies, creating significant challenges to steamship efforts. Furthermore, Chongqing is 700 – 800 feet above sea level, requiring powerful engines to make the upriver climb. Junk travel accomplished the upriver feat by employing 70–80 trackers, men hitched to hawsers who physically pulled ships upriver through some of the most risky and deadly sections of the three gorges. Achibald John Little took an interest in Upper Yangtze navigation when in 1876, the Chefoo Convention opened Chongqing to consular residence but stipulated that foreign trade might only commence once steamships had succeeded in ascending the river to that point. Little formed the Upper Yangtze Steam Navigation Co., Ltd. and built Kuling but his attempts to take the vessel further upriver than Yichang were thwarted by the Chinese authorities who were concerned about the potential loss of transit duties, competition to their native junk trade and physical damage to their crafts caused by steamship wakes. Kuling was sold to China Merchants Steam Navigation Company for lower river service. In 1890, the Chinese government agreed to open Chongqing to foreign trade as long as it was restricted to native crafts. In 1895, the Treaty of Shimonoseki provided a provision which opened Chongqing fully to foreign trade. Little took up residence in Chongqing and built Leechuan, to tackle the gorges in 1898. In March Leechuan completed the upriver journey to Chongqing but not without the assistance of trackers. Leechuan was not designed for cargo or passengers and if Little wanted to take his vision one step further, he required an expert pilot. In 1898, Little persuaded Captain Samuel Cornell Plant to come out to China to lend his expertise. Captain Plant had just completed navigation of Persia's Upper Karun River and took up Little's offer to assess the Upper Yangtze on Leechuan at the end of 1898. With Plant's design input, Little had SS Pioneer built with Plant in command. In June 1900, Plant was the first to successfully pilot a merchant steamer on the Upper Yangtze from Yichang to Chongqing. Pioneer was sold to Royal Navy after its first run due to threat from the Boxer Rebellion and renamed HMS Kinsha. Germany's steamship effort that same year on SS Suixing ended in catastrophe. On Suixing's maiden voyage, the vessel hit a rock and sunk, killing its captain and ending realistic hopes of regular commercial steam service on the Upper Yangtze. In 1908, local Sichuan merchants and their government partnered with Captain Plant to form Sichuan Steam Navigation Company becoming the first successful service between Yichang and Chongqing. Captain Plant designed and commanded its two ships, SS Shutung and SS Shuhun. Other Chinese vessels came onto the run and by 1915, foreign ships expressed their interest too. Plant was appointed by Chinese Maritime Customs Service as First Senior River Inspector in 1915. In this role, Plant installed navigational marks and established signaling systems. He also wrote Handbook for the Guidance of Shipmasters on the Ichang-Chungking Section of the Yangtze River, a detailed and illustrated account of the Upper Yangtze's currents, rocks, and other hazards with navigational instruction. Plant trained hundreds of Chinese and foreign pilots and issued licenses and worked with the Chinese government to make the river safer in 1917 by removing some of the most difficult obstacles and threats with explosives. In August 1917, British Asiatic Petroleum became the first foreign merchant steamship on the Upper Yangtze. Commercial firms, Robert Dollar Company, Jardine Matheson, Butterfield and Swire and Standard Oil added their own steamers on the river between 1917 and 1919. Between 1918 and 1919, Sichuan warlord violence and escalating civil war put Sichuan Steam Navigational Company out of business. Shutung was commandeered by warlords and Shuhun was brought down river to Shanghai for safekeeping. In 1921, when Captain Plant died tragically at sea while returning home to England, a Plant Memorial Fund was established to perpetuate Plant's name and contributions to Upper Yangtze navigation. The largest shipping companies in service, Butterfield & Swire, Jardine Matheson, Standard Oil, Mackenzie & Co., Asiatic Petroleum, Robert Dollar, China Merchants S.N. Co. and British-American Tobacco Co., contributed alongside international friends and Chinese pilots. In 1924, a 50-foot granite pyramidal obelisk was erected in Xintan, on the site of Captain Plant's home, in a Chinese community of pilots and junk owners. One face of the monument is inscribed in Chinese and another in English. Though recently relocated to higher ground ahead of the Three Gorges Dam, the monument still stands overlooking the Upper Yangtze River near Yichang, a rare collective tribute to a westerner in China. Until 1881, the India and China coastal and river services were operated by several companies. In that year, however, these were merged into the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company Ltd, a public company under the management of Jardine's. The Jardine company pushed inland up the Yangtsze River on which a specially designed fleet was built to meet all requirements of the river trade. Jardine's established an enviable reputation for the efficient handling of shipping. As a result, the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company invited the firm to attend to the Agency of their Shire Line, which operated in the Far East. Standard Oil ran the tankers Mei Ping, Mei An and Mei Hsia, which were collectively destroyed on December 12, 1937, when Japanese warplanes bombed and sank the U.S.S. Panay. One of the Standard Oil captains who survived this attack had served on the Upper River for 14 years. Navy ships With the Treaty Ports, the European powers and Japan were allowed to sail navy ships into China's waters. The British, Americans, and French did this. A full international fleet featured on Chinese waters: Austro-Hungarian, Portuguese, Italian, Russian and German navy ships came to Shanghai and the treaty ports. The Japanese engaged in open warfare with the Chinese over conquest of the Chinese Qing Empire in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894–1895, and with Russia over Qing Empire territory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. Incidentally, both the French and Japanese navies were heavily involved in running opium and narcotics to Shanghai, where it was refined into morphine. It was then transhipped by liner back to Marseille and France (i.e. French Connection) for processing in Germany and eventual sale in the U.S. or Europe. In 1909 the gunboat changed station to Shanghai, where she regularly patrolled the lower Yangtze River up to Nanking and Wuhu. Following an anti-foreign riots in Changsha in April 1910, which destroyed a number of missions and merchant warehouses, Samar sailed up the Yangtze River to Hankow and then Changsa to show the flag and help restore order. The gunboat was also administratively assigned to the Asiatic Fleet that year, which had been reestablished by the Navy to better protect, in the words of the Bureau of Navigation, "American interests in the Orient." After returning to Shanghai in August, she sailed up river again the following summer, passing Wuhu in June but then running aground off Kichau on July 1, 1911. After staying stuck in the mud for two weeks, Samar broke free and sailed back down river to coal ship. Returning upriver, the gunboat reached Hankow in August and Ichang in September where she wintered over owing to both the dry season and the outbreak of rebellion at Wuchang in October 1911. Tensions eased and the gunboat turned downriver in July 1912, arriving at Shanghai in October. Samar patrolled the lower Yangtze after fighting broke out in the summer 1913, a precursor to a decade of conflict between provincial warlords in China. In 1919, she was placed on the disposal list at Shanghai following a collision with a Yangtze River steamer that damaged her bow. The Spanish boats were replaced in the 1920s by and were the largest, and next in size, and and the smallest. China in the first fifty years of the 20th century, was in low-grade chaos. Warlords, revolutions, natural disasters, civil war and invasions contributed. Yangtze boats were involved in the Nanking incident of 1927 when the Communists and Nationalists broke into open war. The Chiang Kai-shek's massacre of the Communists in Shanghai in 1927 furthered the unrest, U.S. Marines with tanks were landed. River steamers were popular targets for both Nationalists and Communists, and peasants who would take periodic pot-shots at vessels. During the course of service the second protected American interests in China down the entire length of the Yangtze, at times convoying U.S. and foreign vessels on the river, evacuating American citizens during periods of disturbance and in general giving credible presence to U.S. consulates and residences in various Chinese cities. In the period of great unrest in central China in the 1920s, Palos was especially busy patrolling the upper Yangtze against bands of warlord soldiers and outlaws. The warship engaged in continuous patrol operations between Ichang and Chungking throughout 1923, supplying armed guards to merchant ships, and protecting Americans at Chungking while that city was under siege by a warlord army. The Royal Navy had a series of Insect-class gunboats which patrolled between Chungking and Shanghai. Cruisers and destroyers and Fly-class gunboats also patrolled. The most infamous incident was when Panay and in 1937, were divebombed by Japanese airplanes during the notorious Nanking massacre. Westerners were forced to leave areas neighboring the Yangtze River with the Japanese takeover in 1941. The former steamers were either sabotaged or pressed into Japanese or Chinese service. Probably the most curious incident involved in 1949 during the Chinese Civil War between Kuomintang and People's Liberation Army forces; and led to the award of the Dickin Medal to the ship's cat Simon. Contemporary events In August 2019, Welsh adventurer Ash Dykes became the first person to complete the 4,000-mile (6,437 km) trek along the course of the river, walking for 352 days from its source to its mouth. Hydrology Periodic floods Tens of millions of people live in the floodplain of the Yangtze valley, an area that naturally floods every summer and is habitable only because it is protected by river dikes. The floods large enough to overflow the dikes have caused great distress to those who live and farm there. Floods of note include those of 1931, 1954, and 1998. The 1931 Central China floods or the Central China floods of 1931 were a series of floods that occurred in the Republic of China. The floods are generally considered among the deadliest natural disasters ever recorded, and almost certainly the deadliest of the 20th century (when pandemics and famines are discounted). Estimates of the total death toll range from 145,000 to between 3.7 million and 4 million. The Yangtze again flooded in 1935, causing great loss of life. From June to September 1954, the Yangtze River Floods were a series of catastrophic floodings that occurred mostly in Hubei Province. Due to unusually high volume of precipitation as well as an extraordinarily long rainy season in the middle stretch of the Yangtze River late in the spring of 1954, the river started to rise above its usual level in around late June. Despite efforts to open three important flood gates to alleviate the rising water by diverting it, the flood level continued to rise until it hit the historic high of 44.67 m in Jingzhou, Hubei and 29.73 m in Wuhan. The number of dead from this flood was estimated at around 33,000, including those who died of plague in the aftermath of the disaster. The 1998 Yangtze River floods were a series of major floods that lasted from middle of June to the beginning of September 1998 along the Yangtze. In the summer of 1998, China experienced massive flooding of parts of the Yangtze River, resulting in 3,704 dead, 15 million homeless and $26 billion in economic loss. Other sources report a total loss of 4150 people, and 180 million people were affected. A staggering were evacuated, 13.3 million houses were damaged or destroyed. The floods caused $26 billion in damages. The 2016 China floods caused US$22 billion in damages. In 2020, The Yangtze river saw the heaviest rainfall since 1961, with a 79% increase in June and July compared to the average for the period over the previous 41 years. A new theory suggested that abrupt reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, caused by shutdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic, was a key cause of the intense downpours. Over the past decades rainfall had decreased due to increase of aerosols in the atmosphere, and lower greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 caused the opposite effect - a major increase in rain. Such a dramatic reduction of aerosols caused a dramatic change in the various components of the climate system, but such sudden change of the climate system would be very different from changes in response to continuous but gradual policy-driven emissions reductions. Degradation of the river Beginning in the 1950s, dams and dikes were built for flood control, land reclamation, irrigation, and control of diseases vectors such as blood flukes that caused Schistosomiasis. More than a hundred lakes were thusly cut off from the main river. There were gates between the lakes that could be opened during floods. However, farmers and settlements encroached on the land next to the lakes although it was forbidden to settle there. When floods came, it proved impossible to open the gates since it would have caused substantial destruction. Thus the lakes partially or completely dried up. For example, Baidang Lake shrunk from in the 1950s to in 2005. Zhangdu Lake dwindled to one quarter of its original size. Natural fisheries output in the two lakes declined sharply. Only a few large lakes, such as Poyang Lake and Dongting Lake, remained connected to the Yangtze. Cutting off the other lakes that had served as natural buffers for floods increased the damage done by floods further downstream. Furthermore, the natural flow of migratory fish was obstructed and biodiversity across the whole basin decreased dramatically. Intensive farming of fish in ponds spread using one type of carp who thrived in eutrophic water conditions and who feeds on algae, causing widespread pollution. The pollution was exacerbated by the discharge of waste from pig farms as well as of untreated industrial and municipal sewage. In September 2012, the Yangtze river near Chongqing turned red from pollution. The erection of the Three Gorges Dam has created an impassable "iron barrier" that has led to a great reduction in the biodiversity of the river. Yangtze sturgeon use seasonal changes in the flow of the river to signal when is it time to migrate. However, these seasonal changes will be greatly reduced by dams and diversions. Other animals facing immediate threat of extinction are the baiji dolphin, narrow-ridged finless porpoise and the Yangtze alligator. These animals numbers went into freefall from the combined effects of accidental catches during fishing, river traffic, habitat loss and pollution. In 2006 the baiji dolphin became extinct; the world lost an entire genus. In 2020, a sweeping law was passed by the Chinese government to protect the ecology of the river. The new laws include strengthening ecological protection rules for hydropower projects along the river, banning chemical plants within 1 kilometer of the river, relocating polluting industries, severely restricting sand mining as well as a complete fishing ban on all the natural waterways of the river, including all its major tributaries and lakes. Contribution to ocean pollution The Yangtze River produces more ocean plastic pollution than any other, according to The Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch environmental research foundation that focuses on ocean pollution. Together with 9 other rivers, the Yangtze transports 90% of all the plastic that reaches the oceans. Reconnecting lakes In 2002 a pilot program was initiated to reconnect lakes to the Yangtze with the objective to increase biodiversity and to alleviate flooding. The first lakes to be reconnected in 2004 were Zhangdu Lake, Honghu Lake, and Tian'e-Zhou in Hubei on the middle Yangtze. In 2005 Baidang Lake in Anhui was also reconnected. Reconnecting the lakes improved water quality and fish were able to migrate from the river into the lake, replenishing their numbers and genetic stock. The trial also showed that reconnecting the lake reduced flooding. The new approach also benefitted the farmers economically. Pond farmers switched to natural fish feed, which helped them breed better-quality fish that can be sold for more, increasing their income by 30%. Based on the successful pilot project, other provincial governments emulated the experience and also reestablished connections to lakes that had previously been cut off from the river. In 2005 a Yangtze Forum has been established bringing together 13 riparian provincial governments to manage the river from source to sea. In 2006 China's Ministry of Agriculture made it a national policy to reconnect the Yangtze River with its lakes. As of 2010, provincial governments in five provinces and Shanghai set up a network of 40 effective protected areas, covering . As a result, populations of 47 threatened species increased, including the critically endangered Yangtze alligator. In the Shanghai area, reestablished wetlands now protect drinking water sources for the city. It is envisaged to extend the network throughout the entire Yangtze to eventually cover 102 areas and . The mayor of Wuhan announced that six huge, stagnating urban lakes including the East Lake (Wuhan) would be reconnected at the cost of US$2.3 billion creating China's largest urban wetland landscape. Major cities along the river Yushu Panzhihua Yibin Luzhou Hejiang Chongqing Fuling Fengdu Wanzhou Yichang Yidu Jingzhou Shashi Shishou Yueyang Xianning Wuhan Ezhou Huangshi Huanggang Chaohu Chizhou Jiujiang Anqing Tongling Wuhu Chuzhou Ma'anshan Taizhou Yangzhou Zhenjiang Nanjing Changzhou Nantong Shanghai Crossings Until 1957, there were no bridges across the Yangtze River from Yibin to Shanghai. For millennia, travelers crossed the river by ferry. On occasions, the crossing may have been dangerous, as evidenced by the Zhong'anlun disaster (October 15, 1945). The river stood as a major geographic barrier dividing northern and southern China. In the first half of the 20th century, rail passengers from Beijing to Guangzhou and Shanghai had to disembark, respectively, at Hanyang and Pukou, and cross the river by steam ferry before resuming journeys by train from Wuchang or Nanjing West. After the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, Soviet engineers assisted in the design and construction of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, a dual-use road-rail bridge, built from 1955 to 1957. It was the first bridge across the Yangtze River. The second bridge across the river that was built was a single-track railway bridge built upstream in Chongqing in 1959. The Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, also a road-rail bridge, was the first bridge to cross the lower reaches of the Yangtze, in Nanjing. It was built after the Sino-Soviet Split and did not receive foreign assistance. Road-rail bridges were then built in Zhicheng (1971) and Chongqing (1980). Bridge-building slowed in the 1980s before resuming in the 1990s and accelerating in the first decade of the 21st century. The Jiujiang Yangtze River Bridge was built in 1992 as part of the Beijing-Jiujiang Railway. A second bridge in Wuhan was completed in 1995. By 2005, there were a total of 56 bridges and one tunnel across the Yangtze River between Yibin and Shanghai. These include some of the longest suspension and cable-stayed bridges in the world on the Yangtze Delta: Jiangyin Suspension Bridge (1,385 m, opened in 1999), Runyang Bridge (1,490 m, opened 2005), Sutong Bridge (1,088 m, opened 2008). The rapid pace of bridge construction has continued. The city of Wuhan now has six bridges and one tunnel across the Yangtze. A number of power line crossings have also been built across the river. Dams As of 2007, there are two dams built on the Yangtze river: Three Gorges Dam and Gezhouba Dam. The Three Gorges Dam is the largest power station in the world by installed capacity, at 22.5 GW. Several dams are operating or are being constructed on the upper portion of the river, the Jinsha River. Among them, the Xiluodu Dam is the third largest power station in the world, and the Baihetan Dam, planned to be commissioned in 2021, will be the second largest after the Three Gorges Dam. Tributaries The Yangtze River has over 700 tributaries. The major tributaries (listed from upstream to downstream) with the locations of where they join the Yangtze are: Yalong River (Panzhihua, Sichuan) Min River (Yibin, Sichuan) Tuo River (Luzhou, Sichuan) Chishui River (Hejiang, Sichuan) Jialing River (Chongqing) Wu River (Fuling, Chongqing) Qing River (Yidu, Hubei) Yuan River (via Dongting Lake) Lishui River (via Dongting Lake) Zi River (via Dongting Lake) Xiang River (Yueyang, Hunan) Han River (Wuhan, Hubei) Gan River (near Jiujiang, Jiangxi) Shuiyang River (Dangtu, Anhui) Qingyi River (Wuhu, Anhui) Chao Lake water system (Chaohu, Anhui) Lake Tai water system (Shanghai) The Huai River flowed into the Yellow Sea until the 20th century, but now primarily discharges into the Yangtze. Protected areas Sanjiangyuan ("Three Rivers' Sources") National Nature Reserve in Qinghai Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Wildlife The Yangtze River has a high species richness, including many endemics. A high percentage of these are seriously threatened by human activities. Fish , 416 fish species are known from the Yangtze basin, including 362 that strictly are freshwater species. The remaining are also known from salt or brackish waters, such as the river's estuary or the East China Sea. This makes it one of the most species-rich rivers in Asia and by far the most species-rich in China (in comparison, the Pearl River has almost 300 fish species and the Yellow River 160). 178 fish species are endemic to the Yangtze River Basin. Many are only found in some section of the river basin and especially the upper reach (above Yichang, but below the headwaters in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau) is rich with 279 species, including 147 Yangtze endemics and 97 strict endemics (found only in this part of the basin). In contrast, the headwaters, where the average altitude is above , are only home to 14 highly specialized species, but 8 of these are endemic to the river. The largest orders in the Yangtze are Cypriniformes (280 species, including 150 endemics), Siluriformes (40 species, including 20 endemics), Perciformes (50 species, including 4 endemics), Tetraodontiformes (12 species, including 1 endemic) and Osmeriformes (8 species, including 1 endemic). No other order has more than four species in the river and one endemic. Many Yangtze fish species have declined drastically and 65 were recognized as threatened in the 2009 Chinese red list. Among these are three that are considered entirely extinct (Chinese paddlefish, Anabarilius liui liui and Atrilinea macrolepis), two that are extinct in the wild (Anabarilius polylepis, Schizothorax parvus), four that are critically endangered Euchiloglanis kishinouyei, Megalobrama elongata, Schizothorax longibarbus and Leiocassis longibarbus). Additionally, both the Yangtze sturgeon and Chinese sturgeon are considered critically endangered by the IUCN. The survival of these two sturgeon may rely on the continued release of captive bred specimens. Although still listed as critically endangered rather than extinct by both the Chinese red list and IUCN, recent reviews have found that the Chinese paddlefish is extinct. Surveys conducted between 2006 and 2008 by ichthyologists failed to catch any, but two probable specimens were recorded with hydroacoustic signals. The last definite record was an individual that was accidentally captured near Yibin in 2003 and released after having been radio tagged. The Chinese sturgeon is the largest fish in the river and among the largest freshwater fish in the world, reaching a length of ; the extinct Chinese paddlefish reputedly reached as much as , but its maximum size is labeled with considerable uncertainty. The largest threats to the Yangtze native fish are overfishing and habitat loss (such as building of dams and land reclamation), but pollution, destructive fishing practices (such as fishing with dynamite or poison) and introduced species also cause problems. About of the total freshwater fisheries in China are in the Yangtze Basin, but a drastic decline in size of several important species has been recorded, as highlighted by data from lakes in the river basin. In 2015, some experts recommend a 10-year fishing moratorium to allow the remaining populations to recover, and in January 2020 China imposed a 10-year fishing moratorium on 332 sites along the Yangtze. Dams present another serious problem, as several species in the river perform breeding migrations and most of these are non-jumpers, meaning that normal fish ladders designed for salmon are ineffective. For example, the Gezhouba Dam blocked the migration of the paddlerfish and two sturgeon, while also effectively splitting the Chinese high fin banded shark population into two and causing the extirpation of the Yangtze population of the Japanese eel. In an attempt of minimizing the effect of the dams, the Three Gorges Dam has released water to mimic the (pre-dam) natural flooding and trigger the breeding of carp species downstream. In addition to dams already built in the Yangtze basin, several large dams are planned and these may present further problems for the native fauna. While many fish species native to the Yangtze are seriously threatened, others have become important in fish farming and introduced widely outside their native range. A total of 26 native fish species of the Yangtze basin are farmed. Among the most important are four Asian carp: grass carp, black carp, silver carp and bighead carp. Other species that support important fisheries include northern snakehead, Chinese perch, Takifugu pufferfish (mainly in the lowermost sections) and predatory carp. Other animals Due to commercial use of the river, tourism, and pollution, the Yangtze is home to several seriously threatened species of large animals (in addition to fish): the narrow-ridged finless porpoise, baiji (Yangtze river dolphin), Chinese alligator, Yangtze giant softshell turtle and Chinese giant salamander. This is the only other place besides the United States that is native to an alligator and paddlefish species. In 2010, the Yangtze population of finless porpoise was 1000 individuals. In December 2006, the Yangtze river dolphin was declared functionally extinct after an extensive search of the river revealed no signs of the dolphin's inhabitance. In 2007, a large, white animal was sighted and photographed in the lower Yangtze and was tentatively presumed to be a baiji. However, as there have been no confirmed sightings since 2004, the baiji is presumed to be functionally extinct at this time. "Baijis were the last surviving species of a large lineage dating back seventy million years and one of only six species of freshwater dolphins." It has been argued that the extinction of the Yangtze river dolphin was a result of the completion of the Three Gorges Dam, a project that has affected many species of animals and plant life found only in the gorges area. Numerous species of land mammals are found in the Yangtze valley, but most of these are not directly associated with the river. Three exceptions are the semi-aquatic Eurasian otter, water deer and Père David's deer. In addition to the very large and exceptionally rare Yangtze giant softshell turtle, several smaller turtle species are found in the Yangtze basin, its delta and valleys. These include the Chinese box turtle, yellow-headed box turtle, Pan's box turtle, Yunnan box turtle, yellow pond turtle, Chinese pond turtle, Chinese stripe-necked turtle and Chinese softshell turtle, which all are considered threatened. More than 160 amphibian species are known from the Yangtze basin, including the world's largest, the critically endangered Chinese giant salamander. It has declined drastically due to hunting (it is considered a delicacy), habitat loss and pollution. The polluted Dian Lake, which is part of the upper Yangtze watershed (via Pudu River), is home to several highly threatened fish, but was also home to the Yunnan lake newt. This newt has not been seen since 1979 and is considered extinct. In contrast, the Chinese fire belly newt from the lower Yangtze basin is one of the few Chinese salamander species to remain common and it is considered least concern by the IUCN. The Yangtze basin contains a large number of freshwater crab species, including several endemics. A particularly rich genus in the river basin is the potamid Sinopotamon. The Chinese mitten crab is catadromous (migrates between fresh and saltwater) and it has been recorded up to up the Yangtze, which is the largest river in its native range. It is a commercially important species in its native range where it is farmed, but the Chinese mitten crab has also been spread to Europe and North America where considered invasive. The freshwater jellyfish Craspedacusta sowerbii, now an invasive species in large parts of the world, originates from the Yangtze. See also Category: Tributaries of the Yangtze River List of rivers in China Northern and Southern China, traditionally divided by the Huai River but sometimes considered to separate at the Yangtze Rediscovering the Yangtze River Ship lifts in China South-North Water Transfer Project Steamboats on the Yangtze River Yangtze River Crossing Yangtze Service Medal References Further reading Carles, William Richard, "The Yangtse Chiang", The Geographical Journal, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Sep. 1898), pp. 225–240; Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Danielson, Eric N. 2004. Nanjing and the Lower Yangzi, From Past to Present, The New Yangzi River Trilogy, Vol. II. Singapore: Times Editions/Marshall Cavendish. . Danielson, Eric N. 2005. The Three Gorges and The Upper Yangzi, From Past to Present, The New Yangzi River Trilogy, Vol. III. Singapore: Times Editions/Marshall Cavendish. . Grover, David H. 1992 American Merchant Ships on the Yangtze, 1920–1941. Wesport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers. Van Slyke, Lyman P. 1988. Yangtze: nature, history, and the river. A Portable Stanford Book. Winchester, Simon. 1996. The River at the Center of the World: A Journey Up the Yangtze and Back in Chinese Time, Holt, Henry & Company, 1996, hardcover, ; trade paperback, Owl Publishing, 1997, ; trade paperback, St. Martins, 2004, 432 pages, Plant, Cornell. Glimpses of the Yangze Gorges; illustrations by Ivon A. Donnelly. Kelly & Walsh, Limited, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, 1926. External links Video of walking along the Yangtze River in Yichang City, Hubei Province Rivers of China Geography of Central China Geography of East China Geography of Western China Rivers of Anhui Rivers of Chongqing Rivers of Hubei Rivers of Jiangsu Rivers of Qinghai Rivers of Shanghai Rivers of Sichuan Rivers of Tibet Rivers of Yunnan Drainage basins of the Pacific Ocean Articles containing video clips

Clyde William Tombaugh (February 4, 1906 January 17, 1997) was an American astronomer. He discovered Pluto in 1930, the first object to be discovered in what would later be identified as the Kuiper belt. At the time of discovery, Pluto was considered a planet, but was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. Tombaugh also discovered many asteroids, and called for the serious scientific research of unidentified flying objects. Life and career Tombaugh was born in Streator, Illinois, son of Muron Dealvo Tombaugh, a farmer, and his wife Adella Pearl Chritton. After his family moved to Burdett, Kansas, in 1922, Tombaugh's plans for attending college were frustrated when a hailstorm ruined his family's farm crops. Starting in 1926, he built several telescopes with lenses and mirrors by himself. To better test his telescope mirrors, Tombaugh, with just a pick and shovel, dug a pit 24 feet long, 8 feet deep, and 7 feet wide. This provided a constant air temperature, free of air currents, and was also used by the family as a root cellar and emergency shelter. He sent drawings of Jupiter and Mars to the Lowell Observatory, at Flagstaff, Arizona, which offered him a job. Tombaugh worked there from 1929 to 1945. It was at Lowell in 1930 that Tombaugh discovered Pluto. Following his discovery, Tombaugh earned bachelor's and master's degrees in astronomy from the University of Kansas in 1936 and 1938. During World War II he taught naval personnel navigation at Northern Arizona University. He worked at White Sands Missile Range in the early 1950s, and taught astronomy at New Mexico State University from 1955 until his retirement in 1973. In 1980 he was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame. The asteroid 1604 Tombaugh, discovered in 1931, is named after him. He discovered hundreds of asteroids, beginning with 2839 Annette in 1929, mostly as a by-product of his search for Pluto and his searches for other celestial objects. Tombaugh named some of them after his wife, children and grandchildren. The Royal Astronomical Society awarded him the Jackson-Gwilt Medal in 1931. Direct visual observation became rare in astronomy. By 1965 Robert S. Richardson called Tombaugh one of two great living experienced visual observers as talented as Percival Lowell or Giovanni Schiaparelli. In 1980, Tombaugh and Patrick Moore wrote a book Out of the Darkness: The Planet Pluto. In August 1992, JPL scientist Robert Staehle called Tombaugh, requesting permission to visit his planet. "I told him he was welcome to it," Tombaugh later remembered, "though he's got to go one long, cold trip." The call eventually led to the launch of the New Horizons space probe to Pluto in 2006. Following the passage of Pluto by New Horizons on July 14, 2015, the "Heart of Pluto" was named Tombaugh Regio. Death Tombaugh died on January 17, 1997, in Las Cruces, New Mexico, at the age of 90, and he was cremated. A small portion of his ashes was placed aboard the New Horizons spacecraft. The container includes the inscription: "Interred herein are remains of American Clyde W. Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto and the Solar System's 'third zone'. Adelle and Muron's boy, Patricia's husband, Annette and Alden's father, astronomer, teacher, punster and friend: Clyde W. Tombaugh (1906–1997)". Tombaugh was survived by his wife, Patricia (1912–2012), and their children, Annette and Alden. Religion Tombaugh was an active Unitarian Universalist, and he and his wife helped found the Unitarian Universalist Church of Las Cruces, New Mexico. Family Clyde Tombaugh had five siblings. Through the daughter of his youngest brother, Robert, he is the great-uncle of Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw. Discovery of Pluto While a young researcher working for the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, Tombaugh was given the job to perform a systematic search for a trans-Neptunian planet (also called Planet X), which had been predicted by Percival Lowell based on calculations performed by his student mathematician Elizabeth Williams and William Pickering. Starting April 6, 1929, Tombaugh used the observatory's astrograph to take photographs of the same section of sky several nights apart. He then used a blink comparator to compare the different images. When he shifted between the two images, a moving object, such as a planet, would appear to jump from one position to another, while the more distant objects such as stars would appear stationary. Tombaugh noticed such a moving object in his search, near the place predicted by Lowell, and subsequent observations showed it to have an orbit beyond that of Neptune. This ruled out classification as an asteroid, and they decided this was the ninth planet that Lowell had predicted. The discovery was made on Tuesday, February 18, 1930, using images taken the previous month. Three classical mythological names were about equally popular among proposals for the new planet: Minerva, Cronus and Pluto. However, Minerva was already in use and the primary supporter of Cronus was widely disliked, leaving Pluto as the front-runner. Outside of Lowell staff, it was first proposed by an 11-year-old English schoolgirl, Venetia Burney. In its favor was that the Pluto of Roman mythology was able to render himself invisible, and that its first two letters formed Percival Lowell's initials. In order to avoid the name changes suffered by Neptune, the name was proposed to both the American Astronomical Society and the Royal Astronomical Society, both of which approved it unanimously. The name was officially adopted on May 1, 1930. Following the discovery, it was recognized that Pluto wasn't massive enough to be the expected ninth planet, and some astronomers began to consider it the first of a new class of object – and indeed Tombaugh searched for additional trans-Neptunian objects for years, though due to the lack of any further discoveries he concluded that Pluto was indeed a planet. The idea that Pluto was not a true planet remained a minority position until the discovery of other Kuiper belt objects in the late 1990s, which showed that it did not orbit alone but was at best the largest of a number of icy bodies in its region of space. After it was shown that at least one such body, dubbed Eris, was more massive than Pluto, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) reclassified Pluto on August 24, 2006, as a dwarf planet, leaving eight planets in the Solar System. Tombaugh's widow Patricia stated after the IAU's decision that while he might have been disappointed with the change since he had resisted attempts to remove Pluto's planetary status in his lifetime, he would have accepted the decision now if he were alive. She noted that he "was a scientist. He would understand they had a real problem when they start finding several of these things flying around the place." Hal Levison offered this perspective on Tombaugh's place in history: "Clyde Tombaugh discovered the Kuiper Belt. That's a helluva lot more interesting than the ninth planet." Further search Tombaugh continued searching for over a decade after the discovery of Pluto, and the lack of further discoveries left him satisfied that no other object of a comparable apparent magnitude existed near the ecliptic. No more trans-Neptunian objects were discovered until 15760 Albion, in 1992. However, more recently the relatively bright object has been discovered. It has a relatively high orbital inclination, but at the time of Tombaugh's discovery of Pluto, Makemake was only a few degrees from the ecliptic, near the border of Taurus and Auriga, at an apparent magnitude of 16. This position was also very near the galactic equator, making it almost impossible to find such an object within the dense concentration of background stars of the Milky Way. In the fourteen years of looking for planets, until he was drafted in July 1943, Tombaugh looked for motion in 90 million star images (two each of 45 million stars). Asteroids discovered Tombaugh is officially credited by the Minor Planet Center with discovering 15 asteroids, and he observed nearly 800 asteroids during his search for Pluto and years of follow-up searches looking for another candidate for the postulated Planet X. Tombaugh is also credited with the discovery of periodic comet 274P/Tombaugh–Tenagra. He also discovered hundreds of variable stars, as well as star clusters, galaxy clusters, and a galaxy supercluster. Interest in UFOs Tombaugh was probably the most eminent astronomer to have reported seeing unidentified flying objects. On August 20, 1949, Tombaugh saw several unidentified objects near Las Cruces, New Mexico. He described them as six to eight rectangular lights, stating: "I doubt that the phenomenon was any terrestrial reflection, because... nothing of the kind has ever appeared before or since... I was so unprepared for such a strange sight that I was really petrified with astonishment.". Tombaugh observed these rectangles of light for about 3 seconds and his wife saw them for about seconds. He never supported the interpretation as a spaceship that has often been attributed to him. He considered other possibilities, with a temperature inversion as the most likely cause.From my own studies of the solar system I cannot entertain any serious possibility for intelligent life on other planets, not even for Mars... The logistics of visitations from planets revolving around the nearer stars is staggering. In consideration of the hundreds of millions of years in the geologic time scale when such visits may have possibly occurred, the odds of a single visit in a given century or millennium are overwhelmingly against such an event.A much more likely source of explanation is some natural optical phenomenon in our own atmosphere. In my 1949 sightings the faintness of the object, together with the manner of fading in intensity as it traveled away from the zenith towards the southeastern horizon, is quite suggestive of a reflection from an optical boundary or surface of slight contrast in refractive index, as in an inversion layer.I have never seen anything like it before or since, and I have spent a lot of time where the night sky could be seen well. This suggests that the phenomenon involves a comparatively rare set of conditions or circumstances to produce it, but nothing like the odds of an interstellar visitation. Another sighting by Tombaugh a year or two later while at a White Sands observatory was of an object of −6 magnitude, four times brighter than Venus at its brightest, going from the zenith to the southern horizon in about 3 seconds. The object executed the same maneuvers as in Tombaugh's first sighting. Tombaugh later reported having seen three of the mysterious green fireballs, which suddenly appeared over New Mexico in late 1948 and continued at least through the early 1950s. A researcher on Project Twinkle reported that Tombaugh "... never observed an unexplainable aerial object despite his continuous and extensive observations of the sky." According to an entry in "UFO updates", Tombaugh said: "I have seen three objects in the last seven years which defied any explanation of known phenomenon, such as Venus, atmospheric optic, meteors or planes. I am a professional, highly skilled, professional astronomer. In addition I have seen three green fireballs which were unusual in behavior from normal green fireballs... I think that several reputable scientists are being unscientific in refusing to entertain the possibility of extraterrestrial origin and nature." Shortly after this, in January 1957, in an Associated Press article in the Alamogordo Daily News titled "Celestial Visitors May Be Invading Earth's Atmosphere", Tombaugh was again quoted on his sightings and opinion about them. "Although our own solar system is believed to support no other life than on Earth, other stars in the galaxy may have hundreds of thousands of habitable worlds. Races on these worlds may have been able to utilize the tremendous amounts of power required to bridge the space between the stars ...". Tombaugh stated that he had observed celestial phenomena which he could not explain, but had seen none personally since 1951 or 1952. "These things, which do appear to be directed, are unlike any other phenomena I ever observed. Their apparent lack of obedience to the ordinary laws of celestial motion gives credence." In 1949, Tombaugh had also told the Naval missile director at White Sands Missile Range, Commander Robert McLaughlin, that he had seen a bright flash on Mars on August 27, 1941, which he now attributed to an atomic blast. Tombaugh also noted that the first atomic bomb tested in New Mexico would have lit up the dark side of the Earth like a neon sign and that Mars was coincidentally quite close at the time, the implication apparently being that the atomic test would have been visible from Mars. In June 1952, Dr. J. Allen Hynek, an astronomer acting as a scientific consultant to the Air Force's Project Blue Book UFO study, secretly conducted a survey of fellow astronomers on UFO sightings and attitudes while attending an astronomy convention. Tombaugh and four other astronomers, including Dr. Lincoln LaPaz of the University of New Mexico, told Hynek about their sightings. Tombaugh also told Hynek that his telescopes were at the Air Force's disposal for taking photos of UFOs, if he was properly alerted. Near-Earth satellite search Tombaugh's offer may have led to his involvement in a search for near-Earth satellites, first announced in late 1953 and sponsored by the Army Office of Ordnance Research. Another public statement was made on the search in March 1954, emphasizing the rationale that such an orbiting object would serve as a natural space station. However, according to Donald Keyhoe, later director of the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP), the real reason for the sudden search was because two near-Earth orbiting objects had been picked up on new long-range radar in the summer of 1953, according to his Pentagon source. By May 1954, Keyhoe was making public statements that his sources told him the search had indeed been successful, and either one or two objects had been found. However, the story did not break until August 23, 1954, when Aviation Week magazine stated that two satellites had been found only 400 and 600 miles out. They were termed "natural satellites" and implied that they had been recently captured, despite this being a virtual impossibility. The next day, the story was in many major newspapers. Dr. LaPaz was implicated in the discovery in addition to Tombaugh. LaPaz had earlier conducted secret investigations on behalf of the Air Force on the green fireballs and other unidentified aerial phenomena over New Mexico. The New York Times reported on August 29 that "a source close to the O. O. R. unit here described as 'quite accurate' the report in the magazine Aviation Week that two previously unobserved satellites had been spotted and identified by Dr. Lincoln LaPaz of the University of New Mexico as natural and not artificial objects. This source also said there was absolutely no connection between the reported satellites and flying saucer reports." However, in the October 10 issue, LaPaz said the magazine article was "false in every particular, in so far as reference to me is concerned." Both LaPaz and Tombaugh were to issue public denials that anything had been found. The October 1955 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine reported: "Professor Tombaugh is closemouthed about his results. He won't say whether or not any small natural satellites have been discovered. He does say, however, that newspaper reports of 18 months ago announcing the discovery of natural satellites at 400 and 600 miles out are not correct. He adds that there is no connection between the search program and the reports of so-called flying saucers." At a meteor conference in Los Angeles in 1957, Tombaugh reiterated that his four-year search for "natural satellites" had been unsuccessful. In 1959, Tombaugh was to issue a final report stating that nothing had been found in his search. His personal 16-inch telescope was reassembled and dedicated on September 17, 2009, at Rancho Hidalgo, New Mexico (near Animas, New Mexico), adjacent to Astronomy 's new observatory. In popular culture The 2006 release The Avalanche by musical artist Sufjan Stevens contains an instrumental track entitled "For Clyde Tombaugh". The ninth episode of the fourth season of Fargo featured a visit to a memorial marking the site of Tombaugh's boyhood home. Robert Heinlein's 1958 juvenile science fiction novel Have Space Suit – Will Travel features a scientific base on Earth's moon called Tombaugh Station. When the hero arrives on Pluto he reflects See also List of astronomers Tombaugh (crater) Tombaugh Cliffs Tombaugh Regio References Sources Falk, Dan, "More than a one-hit wonder", Astronomy, February 2006, 40–45. David H. Levy Clyde Tombaugh: Discoverer of the Planet Pluto (Tucson, Ariz.: University of Arizona Press, 1991). ; also Sky Publishing Corporation, March 2006. External links Clyde Tombaugh papers at New Mexico State University Many biographical articles on Clyde Tombaugh Biography, Interviews, Photo Gallery of Clyde Tombaugh, achievement.org Illinois proposes a Pluto Day and reinstate Pluto as a Planet in honor of C. Tombaugh: Illinois General Assembly, Senate Resolution SR0046 2/26/2009 1906 births 1997 deaths American astronomers American Unitarian Universalists Discoverers of asteroids Discoverers of trans-Neptunian objects New Mexico State University faculty Northern Arizona University alumni People from Flagstaff, Arizona People from Las Cruces, New Mexico People from Pawnee County, Kansas People from Streator, Illinois Planetary scientists Scientists from Kansas Space burials University of Kansas alumni Pluto

Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing where skiers rely on their own locomotion to move across snow-covered terrain, rather than using ski lifts or other forms of assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreational activity; however, some still use it as a means of transportation. Variants of cross-country skiing are adapted to a range of terrain which spans unimproved, sometimes mountainous terrain to groomed courses that are specifically designed for the sport. Modern cross-country skiing is similar to the original form of skiing, from which all skiing disciplines evolved, including alpine skiing, ski jumping and Telemark skiing. Skiers propel themselves either by striding forward (classic style) or side-to-side in a skating motion (skate skiing), aided by arms pushing on ski poles against the snow. It is practised in regions with snow-covered landscapes, including Europe, Canada, Russia, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Competitive cross-country skiing is one of the Nordic skiing sports. Cross-country skiing and rifle marksmanship are the two components of biathlon. Ski orienteering is a form of cross-country skiing, which includes map navigation along snow trails and tracks. History The word ski comes from the Old Norse word which means stick of wood. Skiing started as a technique for traveling cross-country over snow on skis, starting almost five millennia ago with beginnings in Scandinavia. It may have been practised as early as 600 BCE in Daxing'anling, in what is now China. Early historical evidence includes Procopius's (around CE 550) description of Sami people as skrithiphinoi translated as "ski running samis". Birkely argues that the Sami people have practiced skiing for more than 6000 years, evidenced by the very old Sami word čuoigat for skiing. Egil Skallagrimsson's 950 CE saga describes King Haakon the Good's practice of sending his tax collectors out on skis. The Gulating law (1274) stated that "No moose shall be disturbed by skiers on private land." Cross-country skiing evolved from a utilitarian means of transportation to being a worldwide recreational activity and sport, which branched out into other forms of skiing starting in the mid-1800s. Early skiers used one long pole or spear in addition to the skis. The first depiction of a skier with two ski poles dates to 1741. Traditional skis, used for snow travel in Norway and elsewhere into the 1800s, often comprised one short ski with a natural fur traction surface, the andor, and one long for gliding, the langski—one being up to longer than the other—allowing skiers to propel themselves with a scooter motion. This combination has a long history among the Sami people. Skis up to 280 cm have been produced in Finland, and the longest recorded ski in Norway is 373 cm. Transportation Ski warfare, the use of ski-equipped troops in war, is first recorded by the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus in the 13th century. These troops were reportedly able to cover distances comparable to that of light cavalry. The garrison in Trondheim used skis at least from 1675, and the Danish-Norwegian army included specialized skiing battalions from 1747—details of military ski exercises from 1767 are on record. Skis were used in military exercises in 1747. In 1799 French traveller Jacques de la Tocnaye recorded his visit to Norway in his travel diary: Norwegian immigrants used skis ("Norwegian snowshoes") in the US midwest from around 1836. Norwegian immigrant "Snowshoe Thompson" transported mail by skiing across the Sierra Nevada between California and Nevada from 1856. In 1888 Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen and his team crossed the Greenland icecap on skis. Norwegian workers on the Buenos Aires - Valparaiso railway line introduced skiing in South America around 1890. In 1910 Roald Amundsen used skis on his South Pole Expedition. In 1902 the Norwegian consul in Kobe imported ski equipment and introduced skiing to the Japanese, motivated by the death of Japanese soldiers during a snow storm. Starting in 1919, Vladimir Lenin helped popularize the activity in the Soviet Union. Sport Norwegian skiing regiments organized military skiing contests in the 18th century, divided in four classes: shooting at a target while skiing at "top speed", downhill racing among trees, downhill racing on large slopes without falling, and "long racing" on "flat ground". An early record of a public ski competition occurred in Tromsø, 1843. In Norwegian, refers to "competitive skiing where the goal is to complete a specific distance in groomed tracks in the shortest possible time". In Norway, ski touring competitions () are long-distance cross-country competitions open to the public, competition is usually within age intervals. A new technique, skate skiing, was experimented with early in the 20th Century, but was not widely adopted until the 1980s. Johan Grøttumsbråten used the skating technique at the 1931 World Championship in Oberhof, one of the earliest recorded use of skating in competitive cross-country skiing. This technique was later used in ski orienteering in the 1960s on roads and other firm surfaces. It became widespread during the 1980s after the success of Bill Koch (United States) in 1982 Cross-country Skiing Championships drew more attention to the skating style. Norwegian skier Ove Aunli started using the technique in 1984, when he found it to be much faster than classic style. Finnish skier, Pauli Siitonen, developed a one-sided variant of the style in the 1970s, leaving one ski in the track while skating to the side with the other one during endurance events; this became known as the "marathon skate". Terminology The word ski comes from the Old Norse word which means "cleft wood", "stick of wood" or "ski". Norwegian language does not use a verb-form equivalent in idiomatic speech, unlike English "to ski". In modern Norwegian, a variety of terms refer to cross-country skiing, including: (literally "walk on skis")—a general term for self-propelled skiing (literally "hiking on skis")—refers to ski touring as recreation (literally "long competition")—refers to cross-country ski racing In contrast, alpine skiing is referred to as (literally "stand on skis"). Fridtjov Nansen, describes the crossing of Greenland as , literally "On skis across Greenland", while the English edition of the report was titled, The first crossing of Greenland. Nansen referred to the activity of traversing snow on skis as (he used the term also in the English translation), which may be translated as ski running. Nansen used , regarding all forms of skiing, but noted that ski jumping is purely a competitive sport and not for amateurs. He further noted that in some competitions the skier "is also required to show his skill in turning his ski to one side or the other within given marks" at full speed on a steep hill. Nansen regarded these forms (i.e., jumping and slalom) as "special arts", and believed that the most important branch of skiing was travel "in an ordinary way across the country". In Germany, Nansen's Greenland report was published as (literally "On snowshoes through Greenland"). The German term, , was supplanted by the borrowed Norwegian word, , in the late 19th century. The Norwegian encyclopedia of sports also uses the term, , (literally "ski running") for all forms of skiing. Around 1900 the word was used in German in the same sense as . Recreation Recreational cross-country skiing includes ski touring and groomed-trail skiing, typically at resorts or in parklands. It is an accessible form of recreation for persons with vision and mobility impairments. A related form of recreation is dog skijoring—a winter sport where a cross-country skier is assisted by one or more dogs. Ski touring Ski touring takes place off-piste and outside of ski resorts. Tours may extend over multiple days. Typically, skis, bindings, and boots allow for free movement of the heel to enable a walking pace, as with Nordic disciplines and unlike Alpine skiing. Ski touring's subgenre ski mountaineering involves independently navigating and route finding through potential avalanche terrain and often requires familiarity with meteorology along with skiing skills. Ski touring can be faster and easier than summer hiking in some terrain, allowing for traverses and ascents that would be harder in the summer. Skis can also be used to access backcountry alpine climbing routes when snow is off the technical route, but still covers the hiking trail. In some countries, organizations maintain a network of huts for use by cross-country skiers in wintertime. For example, the Norwegian Trekking Association maintains over 400 huts stretching across thousands of kilometres of trails which hikers can use in the summer and skiers in the winter. Groomed-trail skiing Groomed trail skiing occurs at facilities such as Nordmarka (Oslo), Royal Gorge Cross Country Ski Resort and Gatineau Park in Quebec, where trails are laid out and groomed for both classic and skate-skiing. Such grooming and track setting (for classic technique) requires specialized equipment and techniques that adapt to the condition of the snow. Trail preparation employs snow machines which tow snow-compaction, texturing and track-setting devices. Groomers must adapt such equipment to the condition of the snow—crystal structure, temperature, degree of compaction, moisture content, etc. Depending on the initial condition of the snow, grooming may achieve an increase in density for new-fallen snow or a decrease in density for icy or compacted snow. Cross-country ski facilities may incorporate a course design that meets homologation standards for such organizations as the International Olympic Committee, the International Ski Federation, or national standards. Standards address course distances, degree of difficulty with maximums in elevation difference and steepness—both up and downhill, plus other factors. Some facilities have night-time lighting on select trails—called lysløype (light trails) in Norwegian and elljusspår (electric-light trails) in Swedish. The first lysløype opened in 1946 in Nordmarka and at Byåsen (Trondheim). Competition Cross-country ski competition encompasses a variety of formats for races over courses of varying lengths according to rules sanctioned by the International Ski Federation (FIS) and by national organizations, such as the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association and Cross Country Ski Canada. It also encompasses cross-country ski marathon events, sanctioned by the Worldloppet Ski Federation, cross-country ski orienteering events, sanctioned by the International Orienteering Federation, and Paralympic cross-country skiing, sanctioned by the International Paralympic Committee. FIS-sanctioned competition The FIS Nordic World Ski Championships have been held in various numbers and types of events since 1925 for men and since 1954 for women. From 1924 to 1939, the World Championships were held every year, including the Winter Olympic Games. After World War II, the World Championships were held every four years from 1950 to 1982. Since 1985, the World Championships have been held in odd-numbered years. Notable cross-country ski competitions include the Winter Olympics, the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships, and the FIS World Cup events (including the Holmenkollen). Other sanctioned competition Cross-country ski marathons—races with distances greater than 40 kilometers—have two cup series, the Ski Classics, which started in 2011, and the Worldloppet. Skiers race in classic or free-style (skating) events, depending on the rules of the race. Notable ski marathons, include the Vasaloppet in Sweden, Birkebeineren in Norway, the Engadin Skimarathon in Switzerland, the American Birkebeiner, the Tour of Anchorage in Anchorage, Alaska, and the Boreal Loppet, held in Forestville, Quebec, Canada. Biathlon combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. Depending on the shooting performance, extra distance or time is added to the contestant's total running distance/time. For each shooting round, the biathlete must hit five targets; the skier receives a penalty for each missed target, which varies according to the competition rules. Ski orienteering is a form of cross-country skiing competition that requires navigation in a landscape, making optimal route choices at racing speeds. Standard orienteering maps are used, but with special green overprinting of trails and tracks to indicate their navigability in snow; other symbols indicate whether any roads are snow-covered or clear. Standard skate-skiing equipment is used, along with a map holder attached to the chest. It is one of the four orienteering disciplines recognized by the International Orienteering Federation. Upper body strength is especially important because of frequent double poling along narrow snow trails. Paralympic cross-country ski competition is an adaptation of cross-country skiing for athletes with disabilities. Paralympic cross-country skiing includes standing events, sitting events (for wheelchair users), and events for visually impaired athletes under the rules of the International Paralympic Committee. These are divided into several categories for people who are missing limbs, have amputations, are blind, or have any other physical disability, to continue their sport. Techniques Cross-country skiing has two basic propulsion techniques, which apply to different surfaces: classic (undisturbed snow and tracked snow) and skate skiing (firm, smooth snow surfaces). The classic technique relies on a wax or texture on the ski bottom under the foot for traction on the snow to allow the skier to slide the other ski forward in virgin or tracked snow. With the skate skiing technique a skier slides on alternating skis on a firm snow surface at an angle from each other in a manner similar to ice skating. Both techniques employ poles with baskets that allow the arms to participate in the propulsion. Specialized equipment is adapted to each technique and each type of terrain. A variety of turns are used, when descending. Poles contribute to forward propulsion, either simultaneously (usual for the skate technique) or in alternating sequence (common for the classical technique as the "diagonal stride"). Double poling is also used with the classical technique when higher speed can be achieved on flats and slight downhills than is available in the diagonal stride, which is favored to achieve higher power going uphill. Classic The classic style is often used on prepared trails (pistes) that have pairs of parallel grooves (tracks) cut into the snow. It is also the most usual technique where no tracks have been prepared. With this technique, each ski is pushed forward from the other stationary ski in a striding and gliding motion, alternating foot to foot. With the "diagonal stride" variant the poles are planted alternately on the opposite side of the forward-striding foot; with the "kick-double-pole" variant the poles are planted simultaneously with every other stride. At times, especially with gentle descents, double poling is the sole means of propulsion. On uphill terrain, techniques include the "side step" for steep slopes, moving the skis perpendicular to the fall line, the "herringbone" for moderate slopes, where the skier takes alternating steps with the skis splayed outwards, and, for gentle slopes, the skier uses the diagonal technique with shorter strides and greater arm force on the poles. Skate skiing With skate skiing, the skier provides propulsion on a smooth, firm snow surface by pushing alternating skis away from one another at an angle, in a manner similar to ice skating. Skate-skiing usually involves a coordinated use of poles and the upper body to add impetus, sometimes with a double pole plant each time the ski is extended on a temporarily "dominant" side ("V1") or with a double pole plant each time the ski is extended on either side ("V2"). Skiers climb hills with these techniques by widening the angle of the "V" and by making more frequent, shorter strides and more forceful use of poles. A variant of the technique is the "marathon skate" or "Siitonen step", where the skier leaves one ski in the track while skating outwards to the side with the other ski. Turns Turns, used while descending or for braking, include the snowplough (or "wedge turn"), the stem christie (or "wedge christie"), parallel turn, and the Telemark turn. The step turn is used for maintaining speed during descents or out of track on flats. Equipment Equipment comprises skis, poles, boots and bindings; these vary according to: Technique, classic vs skate Terrain, which may vary from groomed trails to wilderness Performance level, from recreational use to competition at the elite level Skis Skis used in cross-country are lighter and narrower than those used in alpine skiing. Ski bottoms are designed to provide a gliding surface and, for classic skis, a traction zone under foot. The base of the gliding surface is a plastic material that is designed both to minimize friction and, in many cases, to accept waxes. Glide wax may be used on the tails and tips of classic skis and across the length of skate skis. Types Each type of ski is sized and designed differently. Length affects maneuverability; camber affects pressure on the snow beneath the feet of the skier; side-cut affects the ease of turning; width affects forward friction; overall area on the snow affects bearing capacity; and tip geometry affects the ability to penetrate new snow or to stay in a track. Each of the following ski types has a different combination of these attributes: Classic skis: Designed for skiing in tracks. For adult skiers (between 155 cm/50 kg and 185 cm/75 kg), recommended lengths are between 180 and 210 centimetres (approximately 115% of the skier's height). Traction comes from a "grip zone" underfoot that when bearing the skier's weight engages either a textured gripping surface or a grip wax. Accordingly, these skis are classified as "waxable" or "waxless". Recreational waxless skis generally require little attention and are adapted for casual use. Waxable skis, if prepared correctly, provide better grip and glide. When the skier's weight is distributed on both skis, the ski's camber diminishes the pressure of the grip zone on the snow and promotes bearing on the remaining area of the ski—the "glide zone". A test for stiffness of camber is made with a piece of paper under the skier's foot, standing on skis on a flat, hard surface—the paper should be pinned throughout the grip zone of the ski on which all the skier's weight is placed, but slide freely when the skier's weight is bearing equally on both skis. Skate skis: Designed for skiing on groomed surfaces. Recommended lengths are between 170 and 200 centimetres (up to 110% of the skier's height) for adult skiers. The entire bottom of each skate ski is a glide zone—prepared for maximum glide. Traction comes from the skier pushing away from the edge of the previous ski onto the next ski. Back country skis: Designed for ski touring on natural snow conditions. Recommended lengths are between 150 and 195 centimeters for adult skiers, depending on height and weight of the user. Back country skis are typically heavier and wider than classic and skate skis; they often have metal edges for better grip on hard snow; and their greater sidecut helps to carve turns. The geometry of a back country ski depends on its purpose—skis suited for forested areas where loose powder can predominate may be shorter and wider than those selected for open, exposed areas where compacted snow may prevail. Sidecut on Telemark skis promotes turning in forest and rugged terrain. Width and short length aid turning in loose and deep snow. Longer, narrower and more rigid skis with sharp edges are suited for snow that has been compacted by wind or freeze-thaw. Touring ski design may represent a general-purpose compromise among these different ski conditions, plus being acceptable for use in groomed tracks. Traction may come from a textured or waxed grip zone, as with classic skis, or from ski skins, which are applied to the ski bottom for long, steep ascents and have hairs or mechanical texture that prevents sliding backwards. Gliding surface Glide waxes enhance the speed of the gliding surface, and are applied by ironing them onto the ski and then polishing the ski bottom. Three classes of glide wax are available, depending on the level of desired performance with higher performance coming at higher cost. Hydrocarbon glide waxes, based on paraffin are common for recreational use. Race waxes comprise a combination of fluorinated hydrocarbon waxes and fluorocarbon overlays. Fluorocarbons decrease surface tension and surface area of the water between the ski and the snow, increasing speed and glide of the ski under specific conditions. Either combined with the wax or applied after in a spray, powder, or block form, fluorocarbons significantly improve the glide of the ski. Since the 2021-2022 race season, fluorinated products are banned in FIS sanctioned competitions. Traction surface Skis designed for classic technique, both in track and in virgin snow, rely on a traction zone, called the "grip zone" or "kick zone", underfoot. This comes either from a) texture, such as "fish scales" or mohair skins, designed to slide forward but not backwards, that is built into the grip zone of waxless skis, or from applied devices, e.g. climbing skins, or b) from grip waxes. Grip waxes are classified according to their hardness: harder waxes are for colder and newer snow. An incorrect choice of grip wax for the snow conditions encountered may cause ski slippage (wax too hard for the conditions) or snow sticking to the grip zone (wax too soft for the conditions). Grip waxes generate grip by interacting with snow crystals, which vary with temperature, age and compaction. Hard grip waxes don't work well for snow which has metamorphosed to having coarse grains, whether icy or wet. In these conditions, skiers opt for a stickier substance, called klister. Boots and bindings Ski boots are attached to the ski only at the toe, leaving the heel free. Depending on application, boots may be lightweight (performance skiing) or heavier and more supportive (back-country skiing). Bindings connect the boot to the ski. There are three primary groups of binding systems used in cross-country skiing (in descending order of importance): Standardized system: Boots and bindings have an integrated connection, typically a bar across the front end of the sole of the boot, and platform on which the boot rests. Two families of standards prevail: NNN (New Nordic Norm) and SNS (Salomon Nordic System) Profil. Both systems have variants for skiing on groomed surfaces and in back country. These systems are the most common type of binding. Three-pin: The boot-gripping system comprises three pins that correspond to three holes in the sole of the boot's toe, used primarily for back-country skiing. Cable: A cable secures the free-moving heel and keeps the toe of the boot pushed into a boot-gripping section, used primarily for back-country and telemark skiing. Poles Ski poles are used for balance and propulsion. Modern cross-country ski poles are made from aluminium, fibreglass-reinforced plastic, or carbon fibre, depending on weight, cost and performance parameters. Formerly they were made of wood or bamboo. They feature a foot (called a basket) near the end of the shaft that provides a pushing platform, as it makes contact with the snow. Baskets vary in size, according to the expected softness/firmness of the snow. Racing poles feature smaller, lighter baskets than recreational poles. Poles designed for skating are longer than those designed for classic skiing. Traditional skiing in the 1800s used a single pole for both cross-country and downhill. The single pole was longer and stronger than the poles that are used in pairs. In competitive cross-country poles in pairs were introduced around 1900. Gallery References External links Tutorial on classic style. Tutorial on skate skiing. Tutorial on the snowplough or wedge turn. Tutorial on the stem or wedge christie turn. Tutorial on the Telemark turn. Tutorial on the step turn. Nordic skiing

Computer animation is the process used for digitally generating animated images. The more general term computer-generated imagery (CGI) encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images. Modern computer animation usually uses 3D computer graphics to generate a three-dimensional picture, although 2D computer graphics are still used for stylistic, low bandwidth, and faster real-time renderings. Sometimes, the target of the animation is the computer itself, but sometimes film as well. Computer animation is essentially a digital successor to stop motion techniques, but using 3D models, and traditional animation techniques using frame-by-frame animation of 2D illustrations. Computer-generated animations can also allow a single graphic artist to produce such content without the use of actors, expensive set pieces, or props. To create the illusion of movement, an image is displayed on the computer monitor and repeatedly replaced by a new image that is similar to it but advanced slightly in time (usually at a rate of 24, 25, or 30 frames/second). This technique is identical to how the illusion of movement is achieved with television and motion pictures. For 3D animations, objects (models) are built on the computer monitor (modeled) and 3D figures are rigged with a virtual skeleton. For 2D figure animations, separate objects (illustrations) and separate transparent layers are used with or without that virtual skeleton. Then the limbs, eyes, mouth, clothes, etc. of the figure are moved by the animator on key frames. The differences in appearance between key frames are automatically calculated by the computer in a process known as tweening or morphing. Finally, the animation is rendered. For 3D animations, all frames must be rendered after the modeling is complete. For 2D vector animations, the rendering process is the key frame illustration process, while tweened frames are rendered as needed. For pre-recorded presentations, the rendered frames are transferred to a different format or medium, like digital video. The frames may also be rendered in real time as they are presented to the end-user audience. Low bandwidth animations transmitted via the internet (e.g. Adobe Flash, X3D) often use software on the end-user's computer to render in real time as an alternative to streaming or pre-loaded high bandwidth animations. Explanation To trick the eye and the brain into thinking they are seeing a smoothly moving object, the pictures should be drawn at around 12 frames per second or faster. (A frame is one complete image.) With rates above 75-120 frames per second, no improvement in realism or smoothness is perceivable due to the way the eye and the brain both process images. At rates below 12 frames per second, most people can detect jerkiness associated with the drawing of new images that detracts from the illusion of realistic movement. Conventional hand-drawn cartoon animation often uses 15 frames per second in order to save on the number of drawings needed, but this is usually accepted because of the stylized nature of cartoons. To produce more realistic imagery, computer animation demands higher frame rates. Films seen in theaters in the United States run at 24 frames per second, which is sufficient to create the illusion of continuous movement. For high resolution, adapters are used. History Early digital computer animation was developed at Bell Telephone Laboratories in the 1960s by Edward E. Zajac, Frank W. Sinden, Kenneth C. Knowlton, and A. Michael Noll. Other digital animation was also practiced at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. In 1967, a computer animation named "Hummingbird" was created by Charles Csuri and James Shaffer. In 1968, a computer animation called "Kitty" was created with BESM-4 by Nikolai Konstantinov, depicting a cat moving around. In 1971, a computer animation called "Metadata" was created, showing various shapes. An early step in the history of computer animation was the sequel to the 1973 film Westworld, a science-fiction film about a society in which robots live and work among humans. The sequel, Futureworld (1976), used the 3D wire-frame imagery, which featured a computer-animated hand and face both created by University of Utah graduates Edwin Catmull and Fred Parke. This imagery originally appeared in their student film A Computer Animated Hand, which they completed in 1972. Developments in CGI technologies are reported each year at SIGGRAPH, an annual conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques that is attended by thousands of computer professionals each year. Developers of computer games and 3D video cards strive to achieve the same visual quality on personal computers in real-time as is possible for CGI films and animation. With the rapid advancement of real-time rendering quality, artists began to use game engines to render non-interactive movies, which led to the art form Machinima. Film and television CGI short films have been produced as independent animation since 1976. Early examples of feature films incorporating CGI animation include the live-action films Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Tron (both 1982), and the Japanese anime film Golgo 13: The Professional (1983). VeggieTales is the first American fully 3D computer animated series sold directly (made in 1993); its success inspired other animation series, such as ReBoot (1994) and Transformers: Beast Wars (1996) to adopt a fully computer-generated style. The first full length computer animated television series was ReBoot, which debuted in September 1994; the series followed the adventures of characters who lived inside a computer. The first feature-length computer animated film is Toy Story (1995), which was made by Disney and Pixar: following an adventure centered around anthropomorphic toys and their owners, this groundbreaking film was also the first of many fully computer-animated movies. The popularity of computer animation (especially in the field of special effects) skyrocketed during the modern era of U.S. animation. Films like Avatar (2009) and The Jungle Book (2016) use CGI for the majority of the movie runtime, but still incorporate human actors into the mix. Computer animation in this era has achieved photorealism, to the point that computer animated films such as The Lion King (2019) are able to be marketed as if they were live-action. Animation methods In most 3D computer animation systems, an animator creates a simplified representation of a character's anatomy, which is analogous to a skeleton or stick figure. They are arranged into a default position known as a bind pose, or T-Pose. The position of each segment of the skeletal model is defined by animation variables, or Avars for short. In human and animal characters, many parts of the skeletal model correspond to the actual bones, but skeletal animation is also used to animate other things, with facial features (though other methods for facial animation exist). The character "Woody" in Toy Story, for example, uses 700 Avars (100 in the face alone). The computer doesn't usually render the skeletal model directly (it is invisible), but it does use the skeletal model to compute the exact position and orientation of that certain character, which is eventually rendered into an image. Thus by changing the values of Avars over time, the animator creates motion by making the character move from frame to frame. There are several methods for generating the Avar values to obtain realistic motion. Traditionally, animators manipulate the Avars directly. Rather than set Avars for every frame, they usually set Avars at strategic points (frames) in time and let the computer interpolate or tween between them in a process called keyframing. Keyframing puts control in the hands of the animator and has roots in hand-drawn traditional animation. In contrast, a newer method called motion capture makes use of live action footage. When computer animation is driven by motion capture, a real performer acts out the scene as if they were the character to be animated. Their motion is recorded to a computer using video cameras and markers and that performance is then applied to the animated character. Each method has its advantages and as of 2007, games and films are using either or both of these methods in productions. Keyframe animation can produce motions that would be difficult or impossible to act out, while motion capture can reproduce the subtleties of a particular actor. For example, in the 2006 film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Bill Nighy provided the performance for the character Davy Jones. Even though Nighy doesn't appear in the movie himself, the movie benefited from his performance by recording the nuances of his body language, posture, facial expressions, etc. Thus motion capture is appropriate in situations where believable, realistic behavior and action is required, but the types of characters required exceed what can be done throughout the conventional costuming. Modeling 3D computer animation combines 3D models of objects and programmed or hand "keyframed" movement. These models are constructed out of geometrical vertices, faces, and edges in a 3D coordinate system. Objects are sculpted much like real clay or plaster, working from general forms to specific details with various sculpting tools. Unless a 3D model is intended to be a solid color, it must be painted with "textures" for realism. A bone/joint animation system is set up to deform the CGI model (e.g., to make a humanoid model walk). In a process known as rigging, the virtual marionette is given various controllers and handles for controlling movement. Animation data can be created using motion capture, or keyframing by a human animator, or a combination of the two. 3D models rigged for animation may contain thousands of control points — for example, "Woody" from Toy Story uses 700 specialized animation controllers. Rhythm and Hues Studios labored for two years to create Aslan in the movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which had about 1,851 controllers (742 in the face alone). In the 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow, designers had to design forces of extreme weather with the help of video references and accurate meteorological facts. For the 2005 remake of King Kong, actor Andy Serkis was used to help designers pinpoint the gorilla's prime location in the shots and used his expressions to model "human" characteristics onto the creature. Serkis had earlier provided the voice and performance for Gollum in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Equipment Computer animation can be created with a computer and an animation software. Some impressive animation can be achieved even with basic programs; however, the rendering can require much time on an ordinary home computer. Professional animators of movies, television and video games could make photorealistic animation with high detail. This level of quality for movie animation would take hundreds of years to create on a home computer. Instead, many powerful workstation computers are used. Graphics workstation computers use two to four processors, and they are a lot more powerful than an actual home computer and are specialized for rendering. Many workstations (known as a "render farm") are networked together to effectively act as a giant computer, resulting in a computer-animated movie that can be completed in about one to five years (however, this process is not composed solely of rendering). A workstation typically costs $2,000-16,000 with the more expensive stations being able to render much faster due to the more technologically-advanced hardware that they contain. Professionals also use digital movie cameras, motion/performance capture, bluescreens, film editing software, props, and other tools used for movie animation. Programs like Blender allow for people who can't afford expensive animation and rendering software to be able to work in a similar manner to those who use the commercial grade equipment. Facial animation The realistic modeling of human facial features is both one of the most challenging and sought after elements in computer-generated imagery. Computer facial animation is a highly complex field where models typically include a very large number of animation variables. Historically speaking, the first SIGGRAPH tutorials on State of the art in Facial Animation in 1989 and 1990 proved to be a turning point in the field by bringing together and consolidating multiple research elements and sparked interest among a number of researchers. The Facial Action Coding System (with 46 "action units", "lip bite" or "squint"), which had been developed in 1976, became a popular basis for many systems. As early as 2001, MPEG-4 included 68 Face Animation Parameters (FAPs) for lips, jaws, etc., and the field has made significant progress since then and the use of facial microexpression has increased. In some cases, an affective space, the PAD emotional state model, can be used to assign specific emotions to the faces of avatars. In this approach, the PAD model is used as a high level emotional space and the lower level space is the MPEG-4 Facial Animation Parameters (FAP). A mid-level Partial Expression Parameters (PEP) space is then used to in a two-level structure – the PAD-PEP mapping and the PEP-FAP translation model. Realism Realism in computer animation can mean making each frame look photorealistic, in the sense that the scene is rendered to resemble a photograph or make the characters' animation believable and lifelike. Computer animation can also be realistic with or without the photorealistic rendering. One of the greatest challenges in computer animation has been creating human characters that look and move with the highest degree of realism. Part of the difficulty in making pleasing, realistic human characters is the uncanny valley, the concept where the human audience (up to a point) tends to have an increasingly negative, emotional response as a human replica looks and acts more and more human. Films that have attempted photorealistic human characters, such as The Polar Express, Beowulf, and A Christmas Carol have been criticized as "disconcerting" and "creepy". The goal of computer animation is not always to emulate live action as closely as possible, so many animated films instead feature characters who are anthropomorphic animals, legendary creatures and characters, superheroes, or otherwise have non-realistic, cartoon-like proportions. Computer animation can also be tailored to mimic or substitute for other kinds of animation, like traditional stop-motion animation (as shown in Flushed Away or The Peanuts Movie). Some of the long-standing basic principles of animation, like squash & stretch, call for movement that is not strictly realistic, and such principles still see widespread application in computer animation. Animation studios Some notable producers of computer-animated feature films include: Animal Logic – Films include Happy Feet (2006), Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010), Walking with Dinosaurs (2013), The Lego Movie (2014) Aardman Animations  – Films include Flushed Away (2006), Arthur Christmas (2011) Big Idea Entertainment – Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie (2002) and The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A VeggieTales Movie (2008) Bron Studios – Films include The Addams Family (2019), The Willoughbys (2020) Blue Sky Studios – Films include Ice Age (2002), Robots (2005), Horton Hears a Who! (2008), Rio (2011), Epic (2013), The Peanuts Movie (2015) DNA Productions  – Films include Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001), Santa vs. the Snowman 3D (2002) and The Ant Bully (2006) DNEG  - Films includes Ron's Gone Wrong (2021) DreamWorks Animation – Films include Shrek (2001), Shark Tale (2004), Madagascar (2005), Over the Hedge (2006), Bee Movie (2007), Kung Fu Panda (2008), Monsters vs. Aliens (2009), How to Train Your Dragon (2010), Rise of the Guardians (2012), The Croods (2013), Trolls (2016), The Boss Baby (2017) ImageMovers  – Films include The Polar Express (2004), Monster House (2006), Beowulf (2007), A Christmas Carol (2009), Mars Needs Moms (2011) Ilion Animation Studios — Films include Planet 51 (2009), Mortadelo and Filemon: Mission Implausible (2014) Wonder Park (2019) Illumination — Films include Despicable Me (2010), The Lorax (2012), Minions (2015), The Secret Life of Pets (2016), Sing (2016), The Grinch (2018), The Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019) Industrial Light & Magic – Films include Rango (2011) and Strange Magic (2015) Pacific Data Images – Films include Antz (1998), Shrek (2001), Shrek 2 (2004), Madagascar (2005), Megamind (2010), Mr. Peabody and Sherman (2014) Paramount Animation – Films include The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015), Monster Trucks (2017), Sherlock Gnomes (2018), Wonder Park (2019), The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (2020; 2021) Pixar Animation Studios – Films include Toy Story (1995), Monsters, Inc. (2001), Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Cars (2006), Ratatouille (2007), WALL-E (2008), Up (2009), Inside Out (2015), Coco (2017), and Soul (2020) Rainmaker Studios – Films include Escape from Planet Earth (2013) and Ratchet & Clank (2016) Reel FX Animation Studios – Films include Free Birds (2013) and The Book of Life (2014) Wizart Animation – Films include The Snow Queen (2012), Sheep and Wolves (2016) Shirogumi – Films include Friends: Mononoke Shima no Naki (2011), Stand by Me Doraemon (2014) and Dragon Quest: Your Story (2019) Square Pictures – Films include Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) Sony Pictures Imageworks  – Films include The Angry Birds Movie (2016), Sausage Party (2016), Over the Moon (2020) Triggerfish Animation Studios – Films include Zambezia (2013), Khumba (2014) Vanguard Animation - Films include Valiant (2005), Space Chimps (2008) Walt Disney Animation Studios – Films include Bolt (2008), Tangled (2010), Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Frozen (2013), Big Hero 6 (2014), Zootopia (2016), Moana (2016) and Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) Warner Animation Group – Films include The Lego Movie (2014), Storks (2016), The Lego Batman Movie (2017), Smallfoot (2018), Scoob! (2020) Weta Digital – Films include The Adventures of Tintin (2011) The Pawpatrol Movie (2021) Frozen 2 (2019) Web animations The popularity of websites that allow members to upload their own movies for others to view has created a growing community of independent and amateur computer animators. With utilities and programs often included free with modern operating systems, many users can make their own animated movies and shorts. Several free and open-source animation software applications exist as well. The ease at which these animations can be distributed has attracted professional animation talent also. Companies such as PowToon and Vyond attempt to bridge the gap by giving amateurs access to professional animations as clip art. The oldest (most backward compatible) web-based animations are in the animated GIF format, which can be uploaded and seen on the web easily. However, the raster graphics format of GIF animations slows the download and frame rate, especially with larger screen sizes. The growing demand for higher quality web-based animations was met by a vector graphics alternative that relied on the use of a plugin. For decades, Flash animations were the most popular format, until the web development community abandoned support for the Flash Player plugin. Web browsers on mobile devices and mobile operating systems never fully supported the Flash plugin. By this time, internet bandwidth and download speeds increased, making raster graphic animations more convenient. Some of the more complex vector graphic animations had a slower frame rate due to complex rendering compared to some of the raster graphic alternatives. Many of the GIF and Flash animations were already converted to digital video formats, which were compatible with mobile devices and reduced file sizes via video compression technology. However, compatibility was still problematic as some of the popular video formats such as Apple's QuickTime and Microsoft Silverlight required plugins. YouTube, the most popular video sharing website, was also relying on the Flash plugin to deliver digital video in the Flash Video format. The latest alternatives are HTML5 compatible animations. Technologies such as JavaScript and CSS animations made sequencing the movement of images in HTML5 web pages more convenient. SVG animations offered a vector graphic alternative to the original Flash graphic format, SmartSketch. YouTube offers an HTML5 alternative for digital video. APNG (Animated PNG) offered a raster graphic alternative to animated GIF files that enables multi-level transparency not available in GIFs. Detailed examples and pseudocode In 2D computer animation, moving objects are often referred to as "sprites." A sprite is an image that has a location associated with it. The location of the sprite is changed slightly, between each displayed frame, to make the sprite appear to move. The following pseudocode makes a sprite move from left to right: var int x := 0, y := screenHeight / 2; while x < screenWidth drawBackground() drawSpriteAtXY (x, y) // draw on top of the background x := x + 5 // move to the right Computer animation uses different techniques to produce animations. Most frequently, sophisticated mathematics is used to manipulate complex three-dimensional polygons, apply "textures", lighting and other effects to the polygons and finally rendering the complete image. A sophisticated graphical user interface may be used to create the animation and arrange its choreography. Another technique called constructive solid geometry defines objects by conducting boolean operations on regular shapes, and has the advantage that animations may be accurately produced at any resolution. Computer-assisted vis-à-vis computer-generated To animate means, figuratively, to "give life to". There are two basic methods that animators commonly use to accomplish this. Computer-assisted animation is usually classed as two-dimensional (2D) animation. Drawings are either hand drawn (pencil to paper) or interactively drawn (on the computer) using different assisting appliances and are positioned into specific software packages. Within the software package, the creator places drawings into different key frames which fundamentally create an outline of the most important movements. The computer then fills in the "in-between frames", a process commonly known as Tweening. Computer-assisted animation employs new technologies to produce content faster than is possible with traditional animation, while still retaining the stylistic elements of traditionally drawn characters or objects. Examples of films produced using computer-assisted animation are The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, The Road to El Dorado and Tarzan. Computer-generated animation is known as three-dimensional (3D) animation. Creators design an object or character with an X, a Y and a Z axis. No pencil-to-paper drawings create the way computer-generated animation works. The object or character created will then be taken into a software. Key-framing and tweening are also carried out in computer-generated animation but so are many techniques unrelated to traditional animation. Animators can break physical laws by using mathematical algorithms to cheat mass, force and gravity rulings. Fundamentally, time scale and quality could be said to be a preferred way to produce animation as they are major aspects enhanced by using computer-generated animation. Another positive aspect of CGA is the fact one can create a flock of creatures to act independently when created as a group. An animal's fur can be programmed to wave in the wind and lie flat when it rains instead of separately programming each strand of hair. A few examples of computer-generated animation movies are Toy Story, Antz, Ice Age, Happy Feet, Despicable Me, Frozen, and Shrek. See also Animation Animation database Autodesk Avar (animation variable) Computer-generated imagery (CGI) New York Institute of Technology Computer Graphics Lab Computer representation of surfaces Hand-Over Humanoid animation List of animation studios List of computer-animated films List of computer-animated television series Medical animation Morph target animation Machinima (recording video from games and virtual worlds) Motion capture Procedural animation Ray tracing Rich Representation Language Skeletal animation Timeline of computer animation in film and television Virtual artifact Wire-frame model Twelve basic principles of animation References Citations Works cited External links Animation Animation techniques Articles containing video clips

Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Bartholomew County, Indiana, United States. The population was 50,474 at the 2020 census. The relatively small city has provided a unique place for noted Modern architecture and public art, commissioning numerous works since the mid-20th century; the annual program Exhibit Columbus celebrates this legacy. Located about south of Indianapolis, on the east fork of the White River, it is the state's 20th-largest city. It is the principal city of the Columbus, Indiana metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses all of Bartholomew County. Columbus is the birthplace of former Indiana Governor and former Vice President of the United States, Mike Pence. National Geographic Traveler ranked Columbus 11th on its historic destinations list in late 2008, describing the city as "authentic, unique, and unspoiled." Columbus won the national contest "America in Bloom" in 2006, and in 2004 it was named as one of "The Ten Most Playful Towns" by Nick Jr. Family Magazine. The July 2005 edition of GQ magazine, Columbus was named as one of the "62 Reasons to Love Your Country". Columbus is the headquarters of the engine company Cummins, Inc. History The land developed as Columbus was bought by General John Tipton and Luke Bonesteel in 1820. Tipton built a log cabin on Mount Tipton, a small hill overlooking White River and the surrounding flat, heavily forested and swampy valley. It held wetlands of the river. The town was first known as Tiptona, named in honor of Tipton. The town's name was changed to Columbus on March 20, 1821. Many people believe General Tipton was upset by the name change, but no evidence exists to prove this. Nonetheless, he decided to leave the newly founded town and did not return. He was later appointed as the highway commissioner for the State of Indiana and was assigned to building a highway from Indianapolis, Indiana to Louisville, Kentucky. When the road reached Columbus, Tipton constructed the first bypass road ever built; it detoured south around the west side of Columbus en route to Seymour. Joseph McKinney was the first to plot the town of Columbus, but no date was recorded. Local history books for years said that the land on which Columbus sits was donated by General Tipton. But in 2003, Historic Columbus Indiana acquired a deed showing that General Tipton sold the land. A ferry was established below the confluence of the Flatrock and Driftwood rivers, which form the White River. A village of three or four log cabins developed around the ferry landing, and a store was added in 1821. Later that year, Bartholomew County was organized by an act of the State Legislature and named to honor the famous Hoosier militiaman, General Joseph Bartholomew. Columbus was incorporated on June 28, 1864. The first railroad in Indiana was constructed to Columbus from Madison, Indiana in 1844. This eventually became the Madison branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The railroad fostered the growth of the community into one of the largest in Indiana, and three more railroads reached the city by 1850. Columbus is host to the oldest theater in Indiana, The Crump Theatre, which was built in 1889 by John Crump. Today the building is included within the Columbus Historic District. Before it closed permanently in 2010, it was an all-ages venue with occasional musical performances. Columbus was host to the oldest continually operated bookstore in Indiana, Cummins Bookstore, which began operations in 1892. It closed in late 2007. The Irwin Union Bank building was built in 1954. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service in 2001 in recognition of its unique architecture. The building consists of a one-story bank structure adjacent to a three-story office annex. A portion of the office annex was built along with the banking hall in 1954. The remaining larger portion, designed by Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates, was built in 1973. Eero Saarinen designed the bank building with its glazed hall to be set off against the blank background of its three-story brick annex. Two steel and glass vestibule connectors lead from the north side of this structure to the annex. The building was designed to distance the Irwin Union Bank from traditional banking architecture, which mostly echoed imposing, neoclassical style buildings of brick or stone. Tellers were behind iron bars and removed from their customers. Saarinen worked to develop a building that would welcome customers rather than intimidate them. Economy Columbus has been home to many manufacturing companies, including Noblitt-Sparks Industries (which built radios under the Arvin brand in the 1930s) and Arvin Industries, now Meritor, Inc. After merging with Meritor Automotive on July 10, 2000, the headquarters of the newly created ArvinMeritor Industries was established in Troy, Michigan, the home of parent company, Rockwell International. It was announced in February 2011 that the company name would revert to Meritor, Inc. Cummins, Inc. is by far the region's largest employer, and the Infotech Park accounts for a sizable number of research jobs in Columbus proper. Just south of Columbus are the North American headquarters of Toyota Material Handling, U.S.A., Inc., the world's largest material handling (forklift) manufacturer. Other notable industries include architecture, a discipline for which Columbus is famous worldwide. The late J. Irwin Miller (then president and chairman of Cummins Engine Company) launched the Cummins Foundation, a charitable program that helps subsidize a large number of architectural projects throughout the city by up-and-coming engineers and architects. Early in the 20th century, Columbus also was home to a number of pioneering car manufacturers, including Reeves, which produced the unusual four-axle Octoauto and the twin rear-axle Sextoauto, both around 1911. In addition to the Columbus Historic District and Irwin Union Bank, the city has numerous buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places, including seven National Historic Landmarks of modernist architecture: Bartholomew County Courthouse, Columbus City Hall, First Baptist Church, First Christian Church, Haw Creek Leather Company, Mabel McDowell Elementary School, McEwen-Samuels-Marr House, McKinley School, Miller House, North Christian Church, and The Republic Newspaper Office. Geography Columbus is located at (39.213998, −85.911056). The Driftwood and Flatrock Rivers converge at Columbus to form the East Fork of the White River. According to the 2010 census, Columbus has a total area of , of which (or 98.62%) is land and (or 1.38%) is water. Demographics 2010 census As of the census of 2010, there were 44,061 people, 17,787 households, and 11,506 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 19,700 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 86.9% White, 2.7% African American, 0.2% Native American, 5.6% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 2.5% from other races, and 2.0% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 5.8% of the population. There were 17,787 households, of which 33.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 48.5% were married couples living together, 11.7% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.5% had a male householder with no wife present, and 35.3% were non-families. 29.7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.43 and the average family size was 3.00. The median age in the city was 37.1 years. 25.2% of residents were under the age of 18; 8.1% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 27.3% were from 25 to 44; 24.9% were from 45 to 64; and 14.4% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 48.4% male and 51.6% female. 2000 census As of the census of 2000, there were 39,059 people, 15,985 households, and 10,566 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,505.3 people per square mile (581.1/km). There were 17,162 housing units at an average density of 661.4 per square mile (255.3/km). The racial makeup of the city was 91.32% White, 2.71% Black or African American, 0.13% Native American, 3.23% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 1.39% from other races, and 1.19% from two or more races. 2.81% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 15,985 households, out of which 31.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.9% were married couples living together, 11.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.9% were non-families. 29.1% of all households were composed of individuals, and 10.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.39, and the average family size was 2.94. In the city, the population was spread out, with 25.7% under the age of 18, 8.0% from 18 to 24 years, 29.5% from 25 to 44 years, 23.0% from 45 to 64 years, and 13.7% over the age of 65. The median age was 36 years. There were 92.8 males for every 100 females and 89.6 males for every 100 females over age 18. The median income for a household in the city was $41,723, and the median income for a family was $52,296. Males had a median income of $40,367 versus $24,446 for females, and the per capita income was $22,055. About 6.5% of families and 8.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.7% of those under age 18 and 8.8% of those age 65 or over. Arts and culture Columbus is a city known for its modern architecture and public art. J. Irwin Miller, 2nd CEO and a nephew of a co-founder of Cummins Inc., the Columbus-headquartered diesel engine manufacturer, instituted a program in which the Cummins Foundation paid the architects' fees, provided the client selected a firm from a list compiled by the foundation. The plan was initiated with public schools and was so successful that the foundation decided to offer such design support to other non-profit and civic organizations. The high number of notable public buildings and public art in the Columbus area, designed by such individuals as Eero Saarinen, I.M. Pei, Robert Venturi, Cesar Pelli, and Richard Meier, led to Columbus earning the nickname "Athens on the Prairie." Seven buildings, constructed between 1942 and 1965, are National Historic Landmarks, and approximately 60 other buildings sustain the Bartholomew County seat's reputation as a showcase of modern architecture. National Public Radio once devoted an article to the town's architecture. In 2015, Landmark Columbus was created as a program of Heritage Fund - The Community Foundation of Bartholomew county. National Historic Landmarks First Baptist Church was designed by Harry Weese without windows and was dedicated in 1965. Its architectural features include a high-pitched roof and skylight. First Christian Church was designed by Eliel Saarinen with a 160-ft (49m) tower and was dedicated in 1942. Among the first Modern religious buildings in America, it includes a sunken terrace and a 900-person sanctuary. Irwin Union Bank was designed by Eero Saarinen and includes an addition by Kevin Roche. The building was dedicated in 1954 and is possibly the first financial institution in America to use glass walls and an open floor plan. The Mabel McDowell School opened in 1960 and was designed by John Carl Warnecke early in his career, using his "early comprehensive diverse approach." The architect fee was the second to be funded by the Cummins Engine Foundation. The Miller House and Garden was constructed in 1957 and was designed by Eero Saarinen and landscaped by Dan Kiley. One of the few residential designs by Saarinen, the home is an expression of International Style and was built for J. Irwin Miller of the Cummins Engine corporation and foundation. North Christian Church was designed by Eero Saarinen and held its first worship in 1964. The hexagonal-shaped building includes a 192-ft (59m) spire and houses a Holtkamp organ. The Republic Newspaper Office was designed by Myron Goldsmith of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Other notable Modern buildings St. Bartholomew Catholic Church, by William Browne Jr. and Steven Risting Cleo Rogers Memorial Library, by I. M. Pei Columbus East High School, by Romaldo Giurgola Commons Centre and Mall, by César Pelli St. Peter's Lutheran Church, by Gunnar Birkerts Lincoln Elementary School, by Gunnar Birkerts Otter Creek Golf Course, by Harry Weese Fire Station No. 4, by Robert Venturi Columbus Regional Hospital, by Robert A.M. Stern Notable historic buildings Bartholomew County Courthouse by Isaac Hodgson Columbus Power House by Harrison Albright The Crump Theatre by Charles Franklin Sparrell Public art Chaos I by Jean Tinguely Friendship Way by William A. Johnson, containing an untitled neon sculpture by Cork Marcheschi Irwin Gardens at the Inn at Irwin Gardens Large Arch by Henry Moore 2 Arcs de 212.5˚ by Bernar Venet Horses by Costantino Nivola The Family by Harris Barron Yellow Neon Chandelier and Persians by Dale Chihuly C by Robert Indiana Sermon on the Mount by Loja Saarinen and Eliel Saarinen History and Mystery by William T. Wiley Exploded Engine by Rudolph de Harak Eos by Dessa Kirk Exhibit Columbus In May 2016, Landmark Columbus launched Exhibit Columbus as a way to continue the ambitious traditions of the past into the future. Exhibit Columbus features annual programming that alternates between symposium and exhibition years. Sports Columbus High School was home to footwear pioneer Chuck Taylor, who played basketball in Columbus before setting out to promote his now famous shoes and the sport of basketball before being inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Two local high schools compete within the state in various sports. Columbus North and Columbus East both have competitive athletics and have many notable athletes that go on to compete in college and beyond. Columbus North High School houses one of the largest high school gyms in the United States. CNHS vs CEHS Indiana Diesels of the Premier Basketball League play their home games at the gymnasium at Ceraland Park, with plans to move to a proposed downtown sports complex in the near future. Parks and recreation Columbus boasts over of parks and green space and over 20 miles of People Trails. These amenities, in addition to several athletic and community facilities, including Donner Aquatic Center, Lincoln Park Softball Complex, Hamilton Center Ice Arena, Clifty Park, Foundation for Youth/Columbus Gymnastics Center and The Commons, are managed and maintained by the Columbus Parks and Recreation Department. Transportation Roads and highways The north-south US Route 31 has been diverted to the northeastern part of the city. Interstate 65 bypasses Columbus to the west. Indiana Route 46 runs-east-west through the southern section of the city. Railroads Freight rail service is provided by the Louisville and Indiana Railroad (LIRC). The LIRC line runs in a north–south orientation along the western edge of Columbus. The Pennsylvania Railroad's Kentuckyian (Chicago-Louisville) made stops in the city until 1968. The PRR and its successor, the Penn Central, ran the Florida-bound South Wind up to 1971. Airport Columbus is served by the Columbus Municipal Airport (KBAK). It is located approximately north of Columbus. The airport handles approximately 40,500 operations per year, with roughly 87% general aviation, 4% air taxi, 8% military and <1% commercial service. The airport has two concrete runways; a 6,401 foot runway with approved ILS and GPS approaches (Runway 5-23) and a 5,001 foot crosswind runway, also with GPS approaches, (Runway 14-32). The nearest commercial airport which currently has scheduled airline service is Indianapolis International Airport (IND), located approximately northwest of Columbus. Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport and Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport are to the south and to the southeast, respectively. Notable people This is a list of notable people who were born in, or who currently live, or have lived in Columbus. Ross Barbour and Don Barbour, singers, The Four Freshmen Michael Evans Behling, actor Kate Bruce, silent-film actress Clessie Cummins: inventor, mechanic, salesman, and founder of engine manufacturer Cummins, Inc. William H. Donner: businessman, industrialist and philanthropist Tyler Duncan: professional golfer Dutch Fehring: Major League Baseball player and Purdue coach Arthur W Graham III: creator of first fully automatic electronic race timing & scoring system, long-time Indy 500 executive race official Lee H. Hamilton: member of U.S. Congress and co-chair of the 9/11 Commission Jordan Bryce Hutson: gospel musician Jamie Hyneman: former host of MythBusters Blair Kiel: Notre Dame and pro football quarterback Debbi Lawrence: race walker Scott McNealy: chairman and co-founder of Sun Microsystems J. Irwin Miller: industrialist Mike Moore, Minor League Baseball president Jeff Osterhage: television and film actor Bob Paris: best-selling author, award-winning public speaker and social change agent, former Mr. Universe Greg Pence: U.S. representative since 2019, older brother of Mike Pence Mike Pence: 50th Governor of Indiana (2013-2017), 48th Vice President of the United States (2017–2021) Mike Phipps: Purdue All-American and #3 draft pick, NFL QB (Browns and Bears) Chaley Rose: actress Terry Schmidt: NFL cornerback Stephen Sprouse: fashion designer Tony Stewart: auto racing champion driver and owner, USAC, 3-time NASCAR Cup Series Champion, owner of NASCAR Team; Stewart Haas Racing – SHR Jill Tasker: television and voice actor Chuck Taylor: shoe designer/salesman and basketball player/promoter Bruce Tinsley: creator of Mallard Fillmore Herbert Wright: producer Education The Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation (BCSC) is the local school district. High schools include: Columbus East High School Columbus North High School Columbus has a public library, a branch of the Bartholomew County Public Library. Secondary education includes Indiana University – Purdue University Columbus (IUPUC), an Ivy Tech campus, Purdue Polytechnic and an Indiana Wesleyan University education center. See also The Republic, daily newspaper based in Columbus List of public art in Columbus, Indiana Columbus, a 2017 American film set in Columbus, Indiana References Sources Illustrated Historical Atlas of Bartholomew County, Indiana, 1879 (reprinted by the Bartholomew County Historical Society, 1978) 2003 History of Bartholomew County, Indiana, Volume II, copyright 2003, by the Bartholomew County Historical Society Further reading Columbus Indiana in Vintage Postcards, by Tamara Stone Iorio, copyright 2005 by Tamara Stone Iorio, published by Arcadia Publishing, "Have you Seen my Town?" by Pamela Dinsmore "Images of America: Columbus" by Patricia Mote "I Discover Columbus" by William Marsh "The Diesel Odyssey of Clessie Cummins" by Lyle Cummins "The Engine that Could" by Jeffrey L. Cruikshank and David B. Sicilia "Columbus Indiana" by Balthazar Korab "A Look at Architecture: Columbus Indiana" by the Visitor's Center "People and Places in my Town, Columbus Indiana" by Sylvia Worton "Folk Heroes, Heroines and Hometown Heritage – From Columbus, Indiana's City Hall Murals and Beyond" is about Columbus' outstanding personality beyond its architecture. , by Rose Pelone Sisson External links City of Columbus website Columbus Area Visitors Center A History of Columbus Indiana 1820 establishments in Indiana Cities in Indiana County seats in Indiana Populated places established in 1820

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to chemistry: Chemistry is the science of atomic matter (matter that is composed of chemical elements), especially its chemical reactions, but also including its properties, structure, composition, behavior, and changes as they relate to the chemical reactions. Chemistry is centrally concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds. Summary of chemistry Chemistry can be described as all of the following: An academic discipline – one with academic departments, curricula and degrees; national and international societies; and specialized journals. A scientific field (a branch of science) – widely recognized category of specialized expertise within science, and typically embodies its own terminology and nomenclature. Such a field will usually be represented by one or more scientific journals, where peer reviewed research is published. There are several chemistry-related scientific journals. A natural science – one that seeks to elucidate the rules that govern the natural world using empirical and scientific method. A physical science – one that studies non-living systems. A biological science – one that studies the role of chemicals and chemical processes in living organisms. See Outline of biochemistry. Branches of chemistry Physical chemistry – study of the physical and fundamental basis of chemical systems and processes. In particular, the energetics and dynamics of such systems and processes are of interest to physical chemists. Important areas of study include chemical thermodynamics, chemical kinetics, electrochemistry, statistical mechanics, spectroscopy, and more recently, astrochemistry. Physical chemistry has large overlap with molecular physics. Physical chemistry involves the use of infinitesimal calculus in deriving equations. It is usually associated with quantum chemistry and theoretical chemistry. Physical chemistry is a distinct discipline from chemical physics, but again, there is very strong overlap. Chemical kinetics – study of rates of chemical processes. Chemical physics – investigates physicochemical phenomena using techniques from atomic and molecular physics and condensed matter physics; it is the branch of physics that studies chemical processes. Electrochemistry – branch of chemistry that studies chemical reactions which take place in a solution at the interface of an electron conductor (the electrode: a metal or a semiconductor) and an ionic conductor (the electrolyte), and which involve electron transfer between the electrode and the electrolyte or species in solution. Femtochemistry – area of physical chemistry that studies chemical reactions on extremely short timescales, approximately 10−15 seconds (one femtosecond). Geochemistry – chemical study of the mechanisms behind major systems studied in geology. Photochemistry – study of chemical reactions that proceed with the absorption of light by atoms or molecules. Quantum chemistry – branch of chemistry whose primary focus is the application of quantum mechanics in physical models and experiments of chemical systems. Solid-state chemistry – study of the synthesis, structure, and properties of solid phase materials, particularly, but not necessarily exclusively of, non-molecular solids. Spectroscopy – study of the interaction between matter and radiated energy. Stereochemistry – study of the relative spatial arrangement of atoms that form the structure of molecules Surface science – study of physical and chemical phenomena that occur at the interface of two phases, including solid–liquid interfaces, solid–gas interfaces, solid–vacuum interfaces, and liquid-gas interfaces. Thermochemistry –The branch of chemistry that studies the relation between chemical action and the amount of heat absorbed or generated. Calorimetry – The study of heat changes in physical and chemical processes. Organic chemistry (outline) – study of the structure, properties, composition, mechanisms, and reactions of organic compounds. An organic compound is defined as any compound based on a carbon skeleton. Biochemistry – study of the chemicals, chemical reactions and chemical interactions that take place in living organisms. Biochemistry and organic chemistry are closely related, as in medicinal chemistry or neurochemistry. Biochemistry is also associated with molecular biology and genetics. Neurochemistry – study of neurochemicals; including transmitters, peptides, proteins, lipids, sugars, and nucleic acids; their interactions, and the roles they play in forming, maintaining, and modifying the nervous system. Molecular biochemistry and genetic engineering –an area of biochemistry and molecular biology that studies the genes, their heritage and their expression. Bioorganic chemistry – combines organic chemistry and biochemistry toward biology. Biophysical chemistry – is a physical science that uses the concepts of physics and physical chemistry for the study of biological systems. Medicinal chemistry – discipline which applies chemistry for medical or drug related purposes. Organometallic chemistry – is the study of organometallic compounds, chemical compounds containing at least one chemical bond between a carbon atom of an organic molecule and a metal, including alkaline, alkaline earth, and transition metals, and sometimes broadened to include metalloids like boron, silicon, and tin. Physical organic chemistry – study of the interrelationships between structure and reactivity in organic molecules. Polymer chemistry – multidisciplinary science that deals with the chemical synthesis and chemical properties of polymers or macromolecules. Click chemistry Inorganic chemistry – study of the properties and reactions of inorganic compounds. The distinction between organic and inorganic disciplines is not absolute and there is much overlap, most importantly in the sub-discipline of organometallic chemistry. Bioinorganic chemistry Cluster chemistry Materials chemistry – preparation, characterization, and understanding of substances with a useful function. The field is a new breadth of study in graduate programs, and it integrates elements from all classical areas of chemistry with a focus on fundamental issues that are unique to materials. Primary systems of study include the chemistry of condensed phases (solids, liquids, polymers) and interfaces between different phases. Nuclear chemistry – study of how subatomic particles come together and make nuclei. Modern Transmutation is a large component of nuclear chemistry, and the table of nuclides is an important result and tool for this field. Analytical chemistry – analysis of material samples to gain an understanding of their chemical composition and structure. Analytical chemistry incorporates standardized experimental methods in chemistry. These methods may be used in all subdisciplines of chemistry, excluding purely theoretical chemistry. Other Astrochemistry – study of the abundance and reactions of chemical elements and molecules in the universe, and their interaction with radiation. Cosmochemistry – study of the chemical composition of matter in the universe and the processes that led to those compositions. Computational chemistry Environmental chemistry – study of chemical and biochemical phenomena that occur diverse aspects of the environment such the air, soil, and water. It also studies the effects of human activity on the environment. Green chemistry is a philosophy of chemical research and engineering that encourages the design of products and processes that minimize the use and generation of hazardous substances. Supramolecular chemistry – refers to the domain of chemistry beyond that of molecules and focuses on the chemical systems made up of a discrete number of assembled molecular subunits or components. Theoretical chemistry – study of chemistry via fundamental theoretical reasoning (usually within mathematics or physics). In particular the application of quantum mechanics to chemistry is called quantum chemistry. Since the end of the Second World War, the development of computers has allowed a systematic development of computational chemistry, which is the art of developing and applying computer programs for solving chemical problems. Theoretical chemistry has large overlap with (theoretical and experimental) condensed matter physics and molecular physics. Wet chemistry Agrochemistry – study and application of both chemistry and biochemistry for agricultural production, the processing of raw products into foods and beverages, and environmental monitoring and remediation. Atmospheric chemistry – branch of atmospheric science which studies the chemistry of the Earth's atmosphere and that of other planets. Chemical engineering – branch of engineering that applies the physical sciences (e.g., chemistry and physics) and/or life sciences (e.g., biology, microbiology and biochemistry) together with mathematics and economics to processes that convert raw materials or chemicals into more useful or valuable forms. Chemical biology – scientific discipline spanning the fields of chemistry and biology and involves the application of chemical techniques and tools, often compounds produced through synthetic chemistry, to analyze and manipulation of biological systems. Chemo-informatics – use of computer and informational techniques applied to a range of problems in the field of chemistry. Flow chemistry – study of chemical reactions in continuous flow, not as stationary batches, in industry and macro processing equipment. Immunohistochemistry – involves the process of detecting antigens (e.g., proteins) in cells of a tissue section by exploiting the principle of antibodies binding specifically to antigens in biological tissues. Immunochemistry – is a branch of chemistry that involves the study of the reactions and components on the immune system. Chemical oceanography – study of ocean chemistry: the behavior of the chemical elements within the Earth's oceans Materials science – is an interdisciplinary field investigating the relationship between the structure of materials at atomic or molecular scales and their macroscopic properties. Mathematical chemistry – area of study engaged in novel applications of mathematics to chemistry. It concerns itself principally with the mathematical modeling of chemical phenomena. Mechanochemistry – coupling of mechanical and chemical phenomena on a molecular scale and can be seen as a coupling of chemistry and mechanical engineering. Molecular biology – study of interactions between the various systems of a cell. It overlaps with biochemistry. Molecular mechanics – applies classical mechanics to model molecular systems. Nanotechnology – study and application of matter that is at an atomic and molecular scale. This broad field interacts with chemistry at such scales. Petrochemistry – study of the transformation of petroleum and natural gas into useful products or raw materials. Pharmacology – branch of medicine and biology concerned with the study of drug action along with the chemical effects. Phytochemistry – study of phytochemicals which come from plants. Radiochemistry – chemistry of radioactive materials. Sonochemistry – study of effect of sonic waves and wave properties on chemical systems. Synthetic chemistry – study of chemical synthesis. Toxicology – study of the adverse effects of chemical substances on living organismand the practice of diagnosing and treating exposures to toxins and toxicants. History of chemistry History of chemistry Precursors to chemistry Alchemy (outline) History of alchemy History of the branches of chemistry History of analytical chemistry – history of the study of the separation, identification, and quantification of the chemical components of natural and artificial materials. History of astrochemistry – history of the study of the abundance and reactions of chemical elements and molecules in the universe, and their interaction with radiation. History of cosmochemistry – history of the study of the chemical composition of matter in the universe and the processes that led to those compositions History of atmospheric chemistry – history of the branch of atmospheric science in which the chemistry of the Earth's atmosphere and that of other planets is studied. It is a multidisciplinary field of research and draws on environmental chemistry, physics, meteorology, computer modeling, oceanography, geology and volcanology and other disciplines History of biochemistry – history of the study of chemical processes in living organisms, including, but not limited to, living matter. Biochemistry governs all living organisms and living processes. History of agrochemistry – history of the study of both chemistry and biochemistry which are important in agricultural production, the processing of raw products into foods and beverages, and in environmental monitoring and remediation. History of bioinorganic chemistry – history of the examines the role of metals in biology. History of bioorganic chemistry – history of the rapidly growing scientific discipline that combines organic chemistry and biochemistry. History of biophysical chemistry – history of the new branch of chemistry that covers a broad spectrum of research activities involving biological systems. History of environmental chemistry – history of the scientific study of the chemical and biochemical phenomena that occur in natural places. History of immunochemistry – history of the branch of chemistry that involves the study of the reactions and components on the immune system. History of medicinal chemistry – history of the discipline at the intersection of chemistry, especially synthetic organic chemistry, and pharmacology and various other biological specialties, where they are involved with design, chemical synthesis and development for market of pharmaceutical agents (drugs). History of pharmacology – history of the branch of medicine and biology concerned with the study of drug action. History of natural product chemistry – history of the chemical compound or substance produced by a living organism – history of the found in nature that usually has a pharmacological or biological activity for use in pharmaceutical drug discovery and drug design. History of neurochemistry – history of the specific study of neurochemicals, which include neurotransmitters and other molecules such as neuro-active drugs that influence neuron function. History of computational chemistry – history of the branch of chemistry that uses principles of computer science to assist in solving chemical problems. History of chemo-informatics – history of the use of computer and informational techniques, applied to a range of problems in the field of chemistry. History of molecular mechanics – history of the uses Newtonian mechanics to model molecular systems. History of Flavor chemistry – history of the someone who uses chemistry to engineer artificial and natural flavors. History of Flow chemistry – history of the chemical reaction is run in a continuously flowing stream rather than in batch production. History of geochemistry – history of the study of the mechanisms behind major geological systems using chemistry History of aqueous geochemistry – history of the study of the role of various elements in watersheds, including copper, sulfur, mercury, and how elemental fluxes are exchanged through atmospheric-terrestrial-aquatic interactions History of isotope geochemistry – history of the study of the relative and absolute concentrations of the elements and their isotopes using chemistry and geology History of ocean chemistry – history of the studies the chemistry of marine environments including the influences of different variables. History of organic geochemistry – history of the study of the impacts and processes that organisms have had on Earth History of regional, environmental and exploration geochemistry – history of the study of the spatial variation in the chemical composition of materials at the surface of the Earth History of inorganic chemistry – history of the branch of chemistry concerned with the properties and behavior of inorganic compounds. History of nuclear chemistry – history of the subfield of chemistry dealing with radioactivity, nuclear processes and nuclear properties. History of radiochemistry – history of the chemistry of radioactive materials, where radioactive isotopes of elements are used to study the properties and chemical reactions of non-radioactive isotopes (often within radiochemistry the absence of radioactivity leads to a substance being described as being inactive as the isotopes are stable). History of organic chemistry – history of the study of the structure, properties, composition, reactions, and preparation (by synthesis or by other means) of carbon-based compounds, hydrocarbons, and their derivatives. History of petrochemistry – history of the branch of chemistry that studies the transformation of crude oil (petroleum) and natural gas into useful products or raw materials. History of organometallic chemistry – history of the study of chemical compounds containing bonds between carbon and a metal. History of photochemistry – history of the study of chemical reactions that proceed with the absorption of light by atoms or molecules.. History of physical chemistry – history of the study of macroscopic, atomic, subatomic, and particulate phenomena in chemical systems in terms of physical laws and concepts. History of chemical kinetics – history of the study of rates of chemical processes. History of chemical thermodynamics – history of the study of the interrelation of heat and work with chemical reactions or with physical changes of state within the confines of the laws of thermodynamics. History of electrochemistry – history of the branch of chemistry that studies chemical reactions which take place in a solution at the interface of an electron conductor (a metal or a semiconductor) and an ionic conductor (the electrolyte), and which involve electron transfer between the electrode and the electrolyte or species in solution. History of Femtochemistry – history of the Femtochemistry is the science that studies chemical reactions on extremely short timescales, approximately 10−15 seconds (one femtosecond, hence the name). History of mathematical chemistry – history of the area of research engaged in novel applications of mathematics to chemistry; it concerns itself principally with the mathematical modeling of chemical phenomena. History of mechanochemistry – history of the coupling of the mechanical and the chemical phenomena on a molecular scale and includes mechanical breakage, chemical behaviour of mechanically stressed solids (e.g., stress-corrosion cracking), tribology, polymer degradation under shear, cavitation-related phenomena (e.g., sonochemistry and sonoluminescence), shock wave chemistry and physics, and even the burgeoning field of molecular machines. History of physical organic chemistry – history of the study of the interrelationships between structure and reactivity in organic molecules. History of quantum chemistry – history of the branch of chemistry whose primary focus is the application of quantum mechanics in physical models and experiments of chemical systems. History of sonochemistry – history of the study of the effect of sonic waves and wave properties on chemical systems. History of stereochemistry – history of the study of the relative spatial arrangement of atoms within molecules. History of supramolecular chemistry – history of the area of chemistry beyond the molecules and focuses on the chemical systems made up of a discrete number of assembled molecular subunits or components. History of thermochemistry – history of the study of the energy and heat associated with chemical reactions and/or physical transformations. History of phytochemistry – history of the strict sense of the word the study of phytochemicals. History of polymer chemistry – history of the multidisciplinary science that deals with the chemical synthesis and chemical properties of polymers or macromolecules. History of solid-state chemistry – history of the study of the synthesis, structure, and properties of solid phase materials, particularly, but not necessarily exclusively of, non-molecular solids History of multidisciplinary fields involving chemistry: History of chemical biology – history of the scientific discipline spanning the fields of chemistry and biology that involves the application of chemical techniques and tools, often compounds produced through synthetic chemistry, to the study and manipulation of biological systems. History of chemical engineering – history of the branch of engineering that deals with physical science (e.g., chemistry and physics), and life sciences (e.g., biology, microbiology and biochemistry) with mathematics and economics, to the process of converting raw materials or chemicals into more useful or valuable forms. History of chemical oceanography – history of the study of the behavior of the chemical elements within the Earth's oceans. History of chemical physics – history of the branch of physics that studies chemical processes from the point of view of physics. History of materials science – history of the interdisciplinary field applying the properties of matter to various areas of science and engineering. History of nanotechnology – history of the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale History of oenology – history of the science and study of all aspects of wine and winemaking except vine-growing and grape-harvesting, which is a subfield called viticulture. History of spectroscopy – history of the study of the interaction between matter and radiated energy History of surface science – history of the Surface science is the study of physical and chemical phenomena that occur at the interface of two phases, including solid–liquid interfaces, solid–gas interfaces, solid–vacuum interfaces, and liquid–gas interfaces. History of chemicals History of chemical elements History of carbon History of hydrogen Timeline of hydrogen technologies History of oxygen History of chemical products History of aspirin History of cosmetics History of gunpowder History of pharmaceutical drugs History of vitamins History of chemical processes History of manufactured gas History of the Haber process History of the chemical industry History of the petroleum industry History of the pharmaceutical industry History of the periodic table Chemicals Dictionary of chemical formulas List of biomolecules List of inorganic compounds Periodic table Atomic Theory Atomic theory Atomic models Atomism – Natural philosophy that theorizes that the world is composed of indivisible pieces. Plum pudding model Rutherford model Bohr model Thermochemistry Thermochemistry Terminology Thermochemistry – Chemical kinetics – the study of the rates of chemical reactions and investigates how different experimental conditions can influence the speed of a chemical reaction and yield information about the reaction's mechanism and transition states, as well as the construction of mathematical models that can describe the characteristics of a chemical reaction. Exothermic –a process or reaction in which the system release energy to its surroundings in the form of heat. They are denoted by negative heat flow. Endothermic –a process or reaction in which the system absorbs energy from its surroundings in the form of heat. They are denoted by positive heat flow. Thermochemical equation – Enthalpy change – internal energy of a system plus the product of pressure and volume. Its change in a system is equal to the heat brought to the system at constant pressure. Enthalpy of reaction – Temperature – an objective comparative measure of heat. Calorimeter – an object used for calorimetry, or the process of measuring the heat of chemical reactions or physical changes as well as heat capacity. Heat – A form of energy associated with the kinetic energy of atoms or molecules and capable of being transmitted through solid and fluid media by conduction, through fluid media by convection, and through empty space by radiation. Joule – a unit of energy. Calorie – Specific heat – Specific heat capacity – Latent heat – Heat of fusion – Heat of vaporization – Collision theory – Activation energy – Activated complex – Reaction rate – Catalyst – Thermochemical Equations Chemical equations that include the heat involved in a reaction, either on the reactant side or the product side. Examples: H2O(l) + 240kJ → H2O(g) N2 + 3H2 → 2NH3 + 92kJ Joule (J) – Enthalpy How to calculate the enthalpy of ? Enthalpy and Thermochemical Equations Endothermic Reactions Exothermic Reactions Potential Energy Diagrams Thermochemistry Stoichiometry Chemists For more chemists, see: Nobel Prize in Chemistry and List of chemists Elias James Corey Marie Curie John Dalton Humphry Davy Eleuthère Irénée du Pont George Eastman Michael Faraday Dmitriy Mendeleyev Alfred Nobel Wilhelm Ostwald Louis Pasteur Linus Pauling Joseph Priestley Karl Ziegler Ahmed Zewail Robert Burns Woodward Rosalind Franklin Amedeo Avogadro Chemistry literature Scientific literature – Scientific journal – Academic journal – List of important publications in chemistry List of scientific journals in chemistry List of science magazines Scientific American Lists Chemical elements data references List of chemical elements — atomic mass, atomic number, symbol, name List of minerals - Minerals Electron configurations of the elements (data page) — electron configuration, electrons per shell Densities of the elements (data page) — density (solid, liquid, gas) Electron affinity (data page) — electron affinity Melting points of the elements (data page) — melting point Boiling points of the elements (data page) — boiling point Critical points of the elements (data page) — critical point Heats of fusion of the elements (data page) — heat of fusion Heats of vaporization of the elements (data page) — heat of vaporization Heat capacities of the elements (data page) — heat capacity Vapor pressures of the elements (data page) — vapor pressure Electronegativities of the elements (data page) — electronegativity (Pauling scale) Ionization energies of the elements (data page) — ionization energies (in eV) and molar ionization energies (in kJ/mol) Atomic radii of the elements (data page) — atomic radius (empirical), atomic radius (calculated), van der Waals radius, covalent radius Electrical resistivities of the elements (data page) — electrical resistivity Thermal conductivities of the elements (data page) — thermal conductivity Thermal expansion coefficients of the elements (data page) — thermal expansion Speeds of sound of the elements (data page) — speed of sound Elastic properties of the elements (data page) — Young's modulus, Poisson ratio, bulk modulus, shear modulus Hardnesses of the elements (data page) — Mohs hardness, Vickers hardness, Brinell hardness Abundances of the elements (data page) — Earth's crust, sea water, Sun and solar system List of oxidation states of the elements — oxidation states List of compounds List of CAS numbers by chemical compound List of Extremely Hazardous Substances List of inorganic compounds List of organic compounds List of alkanes List of alloys Other List of thermal conductivities List of purification methods in chemistry List of unsolved problems in chemistry See also Outline of biochemistry Outline of physics References External links International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry IUPAC Nomenclature Home Page, see especially the "Gold Book" containing definitions of standard chemical terms Interactive Mind Map of Chemistry / Chemical energetics Chemistry Chemistry

A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a college campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls, student centers or dining halls, and park-like settings. A modern campus is a collection of buildings and grounds that belong to a given institution, either academic or non-academic. Examples include the Googleplex and the Apple Campus. Etymology The word derives from a Latin word for "field" and was first used to describe the large field adjacent Nassau Hall of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1774. The field separated Princeton from the small nearby town. Some other American colleges later adopted the word to describe individual fields at their own institutions, but "campus" did not yet describe the whole university property. A school might have one space called a campus, another called a field, and still another called a yard. History The tradition of a campus began with the medieval European universities where the students and teachers lived and worked together in a cloistered environment. The notion of the importance of the setting to academic life later migrated to America, and early colonial educational institutions were based on the Scottish and English collegiate system. The campus evolved from the cloistered model in Europe to a diverse set of independent styles in the United States. Early colonial colleges were all built in proprietary styles, with some contained in single buildings, such as the campus of Princeton University or arranged in a version of the cloister reflecting American values, such as Harvard's. Both the campus designs and the architecture of colleges throughout the country have evolved in response to trends in the broader world, with most representing several different contemporary and historical styles and arrangements. Uses The meaning expanded to include the whole institutional property during the 20th century, with the old meaning persisting into the 1950s in some places. Office buildings Sometimes the lands on which company office buildings sit, along with the buildings, are called campuses. The Microsoft Campus in Redmond, Washington, is a good example of this usage. Hospitals and even airports sometimes use the term to describe the territory of their respective facilities. Universities The word campus has also been applied to European universities, although most such institutions are characterized by ownership of individual buildings in urban settings rather than park-like lawns in which buildings are placed. See also Campus novel Campus university Satellite campus History of college campuses and architecture in the United States References External links Universities and colleges

Concubinage is an interpersonal and sexual relationship between a man and a woman in which the couple does not want, or cannot enter into a full marriage. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar but mutually exclusive. Concubinage was a formal and institutionalized practice in China until the 20th century that upheld concubines' rights and obligations. A concubine could be freeborn or of slave origin, and their experience could vary tremendously according to their masters' whim. During the Mongol conquests, both foreign royals and captured women were taken as concubines. Concubinage was also common in Meiji Japan as a status symbol, and in Hindu India, where it could be practiced with women with whom marriage was considered undesirable, such as those from a lower caste. Many Middle Eastern societies utilized concubinage for reproduction. The practice of a barren wife giving her husband a slave as a concubine is recorded in the Code of Hammurabi and the Bible, where Abraham takes Hagar as pilegesh. The children of such relationships would be regarded as legitimate. Such concubinage was also widely practiced in the pre-modern Muslim world, and many of the rulers of the Abbasid caliphate and the Ottoman Empire were born out of such relationships. Throughout Africa, from Egypt to South Africa, slave concubinage resulted in racially-mixed populations. The practice declined as a result of the abolition of slavery. In ancient Rome, the practice was formalized as concubinatus, the Latin term from which the English "concubine" is derived. Romans practiced it monogamously and the concubine's children did not receive inheritance. The church tried to stamp out concubinage, but it remained widespread in Christian societies until the early modern era. In European colonies and American slave plantations, single and married men entered into long-term sexual relationships with local women. In the Dutch East Indies, concubinage created mixed-race Indo-European communities. In the Judeo-Christian world, the term concubine has almost exclusively been applied to women, although a cohabiting male may also be called a concubine. In the 21st century, concubinage is used in some Western countries as a gender neutral legal term to refer cohabitation (including cohabitation between same-sex partners). Etymology and usage The English terms "concubine" and "concubinage" appeared in the 14th century, deriving from Latin terms in Roman society and law. The term concubine (c. 1300), meaning "a paramour, a woman who cohabits with a man without being married to him", comes from the Latin (f.) and (m.), terms that in Roman law meant "one who lives unmarried with a married man or woman". The Latin terms are derived from the verb from "to lie with, to lie together, to cohabit," an assimilation of "com", a prefix meaning "with, together" and "", meaning "to lie down". Concubine is a term used widely in historical and academic literature, and which varies considerably depending on the context. In the twenty-first century, it typically refers explicitly to extramarital affection, "either to a mistress or to a sex slave", without the same emphasis on the cohabiting aspect of the original meaning. Concubinage emerged as an English term in the late 14th century to mean the "state of being a concubine; act or practice of cohabiting in intimacy without legal marriage", and was derived from Latin by means of Old French, where the term may in turn have been derived from the Latin , an institution in ancient Rome that meant "a permanent cohabitation between persons to whose marriage there were no legal obstacles". It has also been described more plainly as a long-term sexual relationship between a man and a woman who are not legally married. In pre-modern to modern law, concubinage has been used in certain jurisdictions to describe cohabitation, and in France, was formalized in 1999 as the French equivalent of a civil union. The US legal system also used to use the term in reference to cohabitation, but the term never evolved further and is now considered outdated. Characteristics Forms of concubinage have existed in all cultures, though the prevalence of the practice and the rights and expectations of the persons involved have varied considerably, as have the rights of the offspring born from such relationships, a concubine's legal and social status, their role within a household and society's perceptions of the institution. A relationship of concubinage could take place voluntarily, with the parties involved agreeing not to enter into marriage, or involuntarily (i.e. through slavery). In slave-owning societies, most concubines were slaves, also called "slave-concubines". This institutionalization of concubinage with female slaves dates back to Babylonian times, and has been practiced in patriarchal cultures throughout history. Whatever the status and rights of the persons involved, they were typically inferior to those of a legitimate spouse, often with the rights of inheritance being limited or excluded. Concubinage and marriage are often regarded as similar but mutually exclusive. In the past, a couple may not have been able to marry because of differences in social class, ethnicity or religion, or a man might want to avoid the legal and financial complications of marriage. Practical impediments or social disincentives for a couple to marry could include differences in social rank status, an existing marriage and laws against bigamy, religious or professional prohibitions, or a lack of recognition by the appropriate authorities. The concubine in a concubinage tended to have a lower social status than the married party or home owner, and this was often the reason why concubinage was preferred to marriage. A concubine could be an "alien" in a society that did not recognize marriages between foreigners and citizens. Alternatively, they might be a slave, or person from a poor family interested in a union with a man from the nobility. In other cases, some social groups were forbidden to marry, such as Roman soldiers, and concubinage served as a viable alternative to marriage. In polygynous situations, the number of concubines there were permitted within an individual concubinage arrangement has varied greatly. In Roman Law, where monogamy was expected, the relationship was identical (and alternative) to marriage except for the lack of marital affection from both or one of the parties, which conferred rights related to property, inheritance and social rank. By contrast, in parts of Asia and the Middle East, powerful men kept as many concubines as they could financially support. Some royal households had thousands of concubines. In such cases concubinage served as a status symbol and for the production of sons. In societies that accepted polygyny, there were advantages to having a concubine over a mistress, as children from a concubine were legitimate, while children from a mistress would be considered "bastards". Categorization Scholars have made attempts to categorize various patterns of concubinage practiced in the world. The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology gives four distinct forms of concubinage: Royal concubinage, where politics was connected to reproduction. Concubines became consorts to the ruler, fostered diplomatic relations, and perpetuated the royal bloodline. Imperial concubines could be selected from the general population or prisoners of war. Examples of this included imperial China, Ottoman empire and Sultanate of Kano. Elite concubinage, which offered men the chance to increase social status, and satisfy desires. Most such men already had a wife. In East Asia this practice was justified by Confucianism. In the Muslim world, this concubinage resembled slavery. Concubinage could be a form of common-law relationship that allowed a couple, who did not or wish to marry, to live together. This was prevalent in medieval Europe and colonial Asia. In Europe, some families discouraged younger sons from marriage to prevent division of family wealth among many heirs. Concubinage could also function as a form of sexual enslavement of women in a patriarchal system. In such cases the children of the concubine could become permanently inferior to the children of the wife. Examples include Mughal India and Choson Korea. Junius P. Rodriguez gives three cultural patterns of concubinage: Asian, Islamic and European. Antiquity Mesopotamia In Mesopotamia, it was customary for a sterile wife to give her husband a slave as a concubine to bear children. The status of such concubines was ambiguous; they normally could not be sold but they remained the slave of the wife. However, in the late Babylonian period, there are reports that concubines could be sold. Assyria Old Assyrian Period (20th–18th centuries BC) In general, marriage was monogamous. "If after two or three years of marriage the wife had not given birth to any children, the husband was allowed to buy a slave (who could also be chosen by the wife) in order to produce heirs. This woman, however, remained a slave and never gained the status of a second wife." Middle Assyrian Period (14th–11th centuries BC) In the Middle Assyrian Period, the main wife (assatu) wore a veil in the street, as could a concubine (esirtu) if she were accompanying the main wife, or if she were married. "If a man veils his concubine in public, by declaring 'she is my wife,' this woman shall be his wife." It was illegal for unmarried women, prostitutes and slave women to wear a veil in the street. "The children of a concubine were lower in rank than the descendants of a wife, but they could inherit if the marriage of the latter remained childless." Ancient Egypt While most Ancient Egyptians were monogamous, a male pharaoh would have had other, lesser wives and concubines in addition to the Great Royal Wife. This arrangement would allow the pharaoh to enter into diplomatic marriages with the daughters of allies, as was the custom of ancient kings. Concubinage was a common occupation for women in ancient Egypt, especially for talented women. A request for forty concubines by Amenhotep III (c. 1386–1353 BC) to a man named Milkilu, Prince of Gezer states:"Behold, I have sent you Hanya, the commissioner of the archers, with merchandise in order to have beautiful concubines, i.e. weavers. Silver, gold, garments, all sort of precious stones, chairs of ebony, as well as all good things, worth 160 deben. In total: forty concubines—the price of every concubine is forty of silver. Therefore, send very beautiful concubines without blemish." — (Lewis, 146)Concubines would be kept in the pharaoh's harem. Amenhotep III kept his concubines in his palace at Malkata, which was one of the most opulent in the history of Egypt. The king was considered to be deserving of many women as long as he cared for his Great Royal Wife as well. Ancient Greece In Ancient Greece the practice of keeping a concubine ( pallakís) was common among the upper classes, and they were for the most part women who were slaves or foreigners, but occasional free born based on family arrangements (typically from poor families). Children produced by slaves remained slaves and those by non-slave concubines varied over time; sometimes they had the possibility of citizenship. The law prescribed that a man could kill another man caught attempting a relationship with his concubine. By the mid 4th century concubines could inherit property, but, like wives, they were treated as sexual property. While references to the sexual exploitation of maidservants appear in literature, it was considered disgraceful for a man to keep such women under the same roof as his wife. Apollodorus of Acharnae said that hetaera were concubines when they had a permanent relationship with a single man, but nonetheless used the two terms interchangeably. Ancient Rome A concubinatus (Latin for "concubinage" – see also concubina, "concubine", considered milder than paelex, and concubinus, "bridegroom") was an institution of quasi-marriage between Roman citizens who for various reasons did not want to enter into a full marriage. The institution was often found in unbalanced couples, where one of the members belonged to a higher social class or where one of the two was freed and the other one was freeborn. However it differed from a contubernium, where at least one of the partners was a slave. The relationship between a free citizen and a slave or between slaves was known as contubernium. The term describes a wide range of situations, from simple sexual slavery to quasi-marriage. For instance, according to Suetonius, Caenis, a slave and secretary of Antonia Minor, was Vespasian's wife "in all but name", until her death in AD 74. It was also not uncommon for slaves to create family-like unions, allowed but not protected by the law. The law allowed a slave-owner to free the slave and enter into a concubinatus or a regular marriage. Asia Concubinage was highly popular before the early 20th century all over East Asia. The main functions of concubinage for men was for pleasure and producing additional heirs, whereas for women the relationship could provide financial security. Children of concubines had lower rights in account to inheritance, which was regulated by the Dishu system. In places like China and the Muslim world, the concubine of a king could achieve power, especially if her son also became a monarch. China In China, successful men often had concubines until the practice was outlawed when the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949. The standard Chinese term translated as "concubine" was qiè , a term that has been used since ancient times. Concubinage resembled marriage in that concubines were recognized sexual partners of a man and were expected to bear children for him. Unofficial concubines () were of lower status, and their children were considered illegitimate. The English term concubine is also used for what the Chinese refer to as pínfēi (), or "consorts of emperors", an official position often carrying a very high rank. In premodern China it was illegal and socially disreputable for a man to have more than one wife at a time, but it was acceptable to have concubines. From the earliest times wealthy men purchased concubines and added them to their household in addition to their wife. The purchase of concubine was similar to the purchase of a slave, yet concubines had a higher social status. In the earliest records a man could have as many concubines as he could afford to purchase. From the Eastern Han period (AD 25–220) onward, the number of concubines a man could have was limited by law. The higher rank and the more noble identity a man possessed, the more concubines he was permitted to have. A concubine's treatment and situation was variable and was influenced by the social status of the male to whom she was attached, as well as the attitude of his wife. In the Book of Rites chapter on "The Pattern of the Family" () it says, "If there were betrothal rites, she became a wife; and if she went without these, a concubine." Wives brought a dowry to a relationship, but concubines did not. A concubinage relationship could be entered into without the ceremonies used in marriages, and neither remarriage nor a return to her natal home in widowhood were allowed to a concubine. The position of the concubine was generally inferior to that of the wife. Although a concubine could produce heirs, her children would be inferior in social status to a wife's children, although they were of higher status than illegitimate children. The child of a concubine had to show filial duty to two women, their biological mother and their legal mother—the wife of their father. After the death of a concubine, her sons would make an offering to her, but these offerings were not continued by the concubine's grandsons, who only made offerings to their grandfather's wife. There are early records of concubines allegedly being buried alive with their masters to "keep them company in the afterlife". Until the Song dynasty (960–1276), it was considered a serious breach of social ethics to promote a concubine to a wife. During the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the status of concubines improved. It became permissible to promote a concubine to wife, if the original wife had died and the concubine was the mother of the only surviving sons. Moreover, the prohibition against forcing a widow to remarry was extended to widowed concubines. During this period tablets for concubine-mothers seem to have been more commonly placed in family ancestral altars, and genealogies of some lineages listed concubine-mothers. Many of the concubines of the emperor of the Qing dynasty were freeborn women from prominent families. Concubines of men of lower social status could be either freeborn or slave. Imperial concubines, kept by emperors in the Forbidden City, had different ranks and were traditionally guarded by eunuchs to ensure that they could not be impregnated by anyone but the emperor. In Ming China (1368–1644) there was an official system to select concubines for the emperor. The age of the candidates ranged mainly from 14 to 16. Virtues, behavior, character, appearance and body condition were the selection criteria. Despite the limitations imposed on Chinese concubines, there are several examples in history and literature of concubines who achieved great power and influence. Lady Yehenara, otherwise known as Empress Dowager Cixi, was arguably one of the most successful concubines in Chinese history. Cixi first entered the court as a concubine to Xianfeng Emperor and gave birth to his only surviving son, who later became Tongzhi Emperor. She eventually became the de facto ruler of Qing China for 47 years after her husband's death. An examination of concubinage features in one of the Four Great Classical Novels, Dream of the Red Chamber (believed to be a semi-autobiographical account of author Cao Xueqin's family life). Three generations of the Jia family are supported by one notable concubine of the emperor, Jia Yuanchun, the full elder sister of the male protagonist Jia Baoyu. In contrast, their younger half-siblings by concubine Zhao, Jia Tanchun and Jia Huan, develop distorted personalities because they are the children of a concubine. Emperors' concubines and harems are emphasized in 21st-century romantic novels written for female readers and set in ancient times. As a plot element, the children of concubines are depicted with a status much inferior to that in actual history. The zhai dou (，residential intrigue) and gong dou (，harem intrigue) genres show concubines and wives, as well as their children, scheming secretly to gain power. Empresses in the Palace, a gong dou type novel and TV drama, has had great success in 21st-century China. Hong Kong officially abolished the Great Qing Legal Code in 1971, thereby making concubinage illegal. Casino magnate Stanley Ho of Macau took his "second wife" as his official concubine in 1957, while his "third and fourth wives" retain no official status. Mongols Polygyny and concubinage were very common in Mongol society, especially for powerful Mongol men. Genghis Khan, Ögedei Khan, Jochi, Tolui, and Kublai Khan (among others) all had many wives and concubines. Genghis Khan frequently acquired wives and concubines from empires and societies that he had conquered, these women were often princesses or queens that were taken captive or gifted to him. Genghis Khan's most famous concubine was Möge Khatun, who, according to the Persian historian Ata-Malik Juvayni, was "given to Chinggis Khan by a chief of the Bakrin tribe, and he loved her very much." After Genghis Khan died, Möge Khatun became a wife of Ögedei Khan. Ögedei also favored her as a wife, and she frequently accompanied him on his hunting expeditions. Japan Before monogamy was legally imposed in the Meiji period, concubinage was common among the nobility. Its purpose was to ensure male heirs. For example, the son of an Imperial concubine often had a chance of becoming emperor. Yanagihara Naruko, a high-ranking concubine of Emperor Meiji, gave birth to Emperor Taishō, who was later legally adopted by Empress Haruko, Emperor Meiji's formal wife. Even among merchant families, concubinage was occasionally used to ensure heirs. Asako Hirooka, an entrepreneur who was the daughter of a concubine, worked hard to help her husband's family survive after the Meiji Restoration. She lost her fertility giving birth to her only daughter, Kameko; so her husband—with whom she got along well—took Asako's maid-servant as a concubine and fathered three daughters and a son with her. Kameko, as the child of the formal wife, married a noble man and matrilineally carried on the family name. A samurai could take concubines but their backgrounds were checked by higher-ranked samurai. In many cases, taking a concubine was akin to a marriage. Kidnapping a concubine, although common in fiction, would have been shameful, if not criminal. If the concubine was a commoner, a messenger was sent with betrothal money or a note for exemption of tax to ask for her parents' acceptance. Even though the woman would not be a legal wife, a situation normally considered a demotion, many wealthy merchants believed that being the concubine of a samurai was superior to being the legal wife of a commoner. When a merchant's daughter married a samurai, her family's money erased the samurai's debts, and the samurai's social status improved the standing of the merchant family. If a samurai's commoner concubine gave birth to a son, the son could inherit his father's social status. Concubines sometimes wielded significant influence. Nene, wife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, was known to overrule her husband's decisions at times and Yodo-dono, his concubine, became the de facto master of Osaka castle and the Toyotomi clan after Hideyoshi's death. Korea Joseon monarchs had a harem which contained concubines of different ranks. Empress Myeongseong managed to have sons, preventing sons of concubines from getting power. Children of concubines often had lower value in account of marriage. A daughter of concubine could not marry a wife-born son of the same class. For example, Jang Nok-su was a concubine-born daughter of a mayor, who was initially married to a slave-servant, and later became a high-ranking concubine of Yeonsangun. The Joseon dynasty established in 1392 debated whether the children of a free parent and a slave parent should be considered free or slave. The child of a scholar-official father and a slave-concubine mother was always free, although the child could not occupy government positions. India In Hindu India, concubinage could be practiced with women with whom marriage was undesirable, such as a woman from a lower-caste or a Muslim woman. Children born of concubinage followed the caste categorization of the mother. In medieval Rajasthan, the ruling Rajput family often had certain women called paswan, khawaas, pardayat. These women were kept by ruler if their beauty had impressed him, but without formal marriage. Sometimes they were given rights to income collected from a particular village, as queens did. Their children were socially accepted but did not receive a share in the ruling family's property and married others of the same status as them. Concubinage was practiced in elite Rajput households between 16th and 20th centuries. Female slave-servants or slave-performers could be elevated to the rank of concubine (called khavas, pavas) if a ruler found them attractive. The entry into concubinage was marked by a ritual; however, this ritual differentiated from rituals marking marriage. Rajputs did not take concubines from the lower castes and refrained from taking Brahmins and Rajputs. There are instances of wife's eloping with their Rajput lovers and becoming their concubines. One such event is the elopement of Anara and Maharaja Gaj Singh. Anara was a wife of a Nawab, while her lover was the Maharaja of Marwar. The Nawab accepted the fate of his wife and did not try to get her back. Europe Vikings Polygyny was common among Vikings, and rich and powerful Viking men tended to have many wives and concubines. Viking men would often buy or capture women and make them into their wives or concubines. Concubinage for Vikings was connected to slavery; the Vikings took both free women and slaves as concubines. Researchers have suggested that Vikings may have originally started sailing and raiding due to a need to seek out women from foreign lands. Polygynous relationships in Viking society may have led to a shortage of eligible women for the average male; polygyny increases male-male competition in society because it creates a pool of unmarried men willing to engage in risky status-elevating and sex-seeking behaviors. Thus, the average Viking man could have been forced to perform riskier actions to gain wealth and power to be able to find suitable women. The concept was expressed in the 11th century by historian Dudo of Saint-Quentin in his semi imaginary History of The Normans. The Annals of Ulster depicts raptio and states that in 821 the Vikings plundered an Irish village and "carried off a great number of women into captivity". Early Christianity and Feudalism The Christian morals developed by Patristic writers largely promoted marriage as the only form of union between men and women. Both Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome strongly condemned the institution of concubinage. In parallel though, the late imperial Roman law improved the rights of the classical Roman concubinatus, reaching the point, with the Corpus Iuris Civilis by Justinian, of extending inheritance laws to these unions. The two views, Christian condemnation and secular continuity with the Roman legal system, continued to be in conflict throughout the entire Middle Age, until in the 14th and 15th centuries the Church outlawed concubinage in the territories under its control. Middle East In the Medieval Muslim Arab world, "concubine" (surriyya) referred to the female slave (jāriya), whether Muslim or non-Muslim, with whom her master engages in sexual intercourse in addition to household or other services. Such relationships were common in pre-Islamic Arabia and other pre-existing cultures of the wider region. Islam introduced legal restrictions and discipline to the concubinage and encouraged manumission. Islam furthermore endorsed educating, freeing or marrying female slaves if they embrace Islam abandoning polytheism or infidelity. In verse 23:6 in the Quran it is allowed to have sexual intercourse with concubines only after harmonizing rapport and relation with them. Children of concubines are generally declared as legitimate with or without wedlock, and the mother of a free child was considered free upon the death of the male partner. There is evidence that concubines had a higher rank than female slaves. Abu Hanifa and others argued for modesty-like practices for the concubine, recommending that the concubine be established in the home and their chastity be protected and not to misuse them for sale or sharing with friends or kins. While scholars exhorted masters to treat their slaves equally, a master was allowed to show favoritism towards a concubine. Some scholars recommended holding a wedding banquet (walima) to celebrate the concubinage relationship; however, this is not required in teachings of Islam and is rather the self-preferred opinions of certain non-liberal Islamic scholars. Even the Arabic term for concubine surriyya may have been derived from sarat meaning "eminence", indicating the concubine's higher status over other female slaves. The Qur'an does not use word "surriyya", but instead uses the expression "Ma malakat aymanukum" (that which your right hands own), which occurs 15 times in the book. Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi explains that "two categories of women have been excluded from the general command of guarding the private parts: (a) wives, (b) women who are legally in one's possession". Some contend that concubinage was a pre-Islamic custom that was allowed to be practiced under Islam, with Jews and non-Muslim people to marry a concubine after teaching her, instructing her well and then giving her freedom. Others contend that concubines in Islam remained in use until the 19th century. In the traditions of the Abrahamic religions, Abraham had a concubine named Hagar, who was originally a slave of his wife Sarah. The story of Hagar would affect how concubinage was perceived in early Islamic history. Sikainiga writes that one rationale for concubinage in Islam was that "it satisfied the sexual desire of the female slaves and thereby prevented the spread of immorality in the Muslim community." Most Islamic schools of thought restricted concubinage to a relationship where the female slave was required to be monogamous to her master, (though the master's monogamy to her is not required), but according to Sikainga, in reality this was not always practiced and female slaves were targeted by other men of the master's household. These opinions of Sikaingia are controversial and contested. In ancient times, two sources for concubines were permitted under an Islamic regime. Primarily, non-Muslim women taken as prisoners of war were made concubines as happened after the Battle of the Trench, or in numerous later Caliphates. It was encouraged to manumit slave women who rejected their initial faith and embraced Islam, or to bring them into formal marriage. The expansion of various Muslim dynasties resulted in acquisitions of concubines, through purchase, gifts from other rulers, and captives of war. To have a large number of concubines became a symbol of status. Almost all Abbasid caliphs were born to concubines. Several Twelver Shia imams were also born to concubines. Similarly, the sultans of the Ottoman empire were often the son of a concubine. As a result concubines came to exercise a degree of influence over Ottoman politics. Many concubines developed social networks, and accumulated personal wealth, both of which allowed them to rise on social status. The practice declined with the abolition of slavery, starting in the 19th century. Ottoman sultans appeared to have preferred concubinage to marriage, and for a time all royal children were born of concubines. The consorts of Ottoman sultans were often neither Turkish, nor Muslim by birth. Leslie Peirce argues that this was because a concubine would not have the political leverage that would be possessed by a princess or a daughter of the local elite. Ottoman sultans also appeared to have only one son with each concubine; that is once a concubine gave birth to a son, the sultan would no longer have intercourse with her. This limited the power of each son. New World When slavery became institutionalized in Colonial America, white men, whether or not they were married, sometimes took enslaved women as concubines; children of such unions remained slaves. In the various European colonies in the Caribbean, white planters took black and mulatto concubines, owing to the shortage of white women. The children of such unions were sometimes freed from slavery and even inherited from their father, though this was not the case for the majority of children born of such unions. These relationships appeared to have been socially accepted in the colony of Jamaica and even attracted European emigrants to the island. Brazil In colonial Brazil, men were expected to marry women who were equal to them in status and wealth. Alternatively, some men practiced concubinage, an extra-marital sexual relationship. This sort of relationship was condemned by the Catholic Church and the Council of Trent threatened those who engaged in it with excommunication. Concubines constituted both female slaves and former slaves. One reason for taking non-white women as concubines was that free white men outnumbered free white women, although marriage between races was not illegal. United States Relationships with slaves in the United States and the Confederacy were sometimes euphemistically referred to as concubinary. From lifelong to single or serial sexual visitations, these relationships with un-freed slaves illustrate a radical power imbalance between a human owned as chattel and the legal owner of same; they are now defined, without regard for claims of sexual attraction or affection by either party, to be rape. This is because when personal ownership of slaves was enshrined in the law, an enslaved person had no legal power over their own legal personhood, the legal control to which was held by another entity; therefore, a slave could never give real and legal consent in any aspect of their life. The inability to give any kind of consent when enslaved is in part due to the ability of a slave master to legally coerce acts and declarations including those of affection, attraction, and consent through rewards and punishments, but legally the concept of chattel slavery in the United States and Confederate States defined and enforced in the law owning the legal personhood of a slave; meaning that the proxy for legal consent was found with the slave's master, who was the sole source of consent in the law to the bodily integrity and all efforts of that slave except as regulated or limited by law. With slavery being recognized as a crime against humanity in the United States law, as well as in international customary law, the legal basis of slavery is repudiated for all time and therefore repudiates any rights of owner-rapists had had to exercise any proxy sexual or other consent for their slaves. Free men in the United States sometimes took female slaves in relationships which they referred to as concubinage, although marriage between the races was prohibited by law in the colonies and the later United States. Many colonies and states also had laws against miscegenation or any interracial relations. From 1662 the Colony of Virginia, followed by others, incorporated into law the principle that children took their mother's status, i.e., the principle of partus sequitur ventrem. This led to generations of multiracial slaves, some of whom were otherwise considered legally white (one-eighth or less African, equivalent to a great-grandparent) before the American Civil War. In some cases, men had long-term relationships with enslaved women, giving them and their mixed-race children freedom and providing their children with apprenticeships, education and transfer of capital. A relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings is an example of this. Such arrangements were more prevalent in the American South during the antebellum period. Plaçage In Louisiana and former French territories, a formalized system of concubinage called plaçage developed. European men took enslaved or free women of color as mistresses after making arrangements to give them a dowry, house or other transfer of property, and sometimes, if they were enslaved, offering freedom and education for their children. A third class of free people of color developed, especially in New Orleans. Many became educated, artisans and property owners. French-speaking and practicing Catholicism, these women combined French and African-American culture and created an elite between those of European descent and the slaves. Today, descendants of the free people of color are generally called Louisiana Creole people. In Judaism In Judaism, a concubine is a marital companion of inferior status to a wife. Among the Israelites, men commonly acknowledged their concubines, and such women enjoyed the same rights in the house as legitimate wives. Ancient Judaism The term concubine did not necessarily refer to women after the first wife. A man could have many wives and concubines. Legally, any children born to a concubine were considered to be the children of the wife she was under. Sarah had to get Ishmael (son of Hagar) out of her house because, legally, Ishmael would always be the first-born son even though Isaac was her natural child. The concubine may not have commanded the exact amount of respect as the wife. In the Levitical rules on sexual relations, the Hebrew word that is commonly translated as "wife" is distinct from the Hebrew word that means "concubine". However, on at least one other occasion the term is used to refer to a woman who is not a wife specifically, the handmaiden of Jacob's wife. In the Levitical code, sexual intercourse between a man and a wife of a different man was forbidden and punishable by death for both persons involved. Since it was regarded as the highest blessing to have many children, wives often gave their maids to their husbands if they were barren, as in the cases of Sarah and Hagar, and Rachel and Bilhah. The children of the concubine often had equal rights with those of the wife; for example, King Abimelech was the son of Gideon and his concubine. Later biblical figures, such as Gideon and Solomon, had concubines in addition to many childbearing wives. For example, the Books of Kings say that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. The account of the unnamed Levite in Judges 19–20 shows that the taking of concubines was not the exclusive preserve of kings or patriarchs in Israel during the time of the Judges, and that the rape of a concubine was completely unacceptable to the Israelite nation and led to a civil war. In the story, the Levite appears to be an ordinary member of the tribe, whose concubine was a woman from Bethlehem in Judah. This woman was unfaithful, and eventually abandoned him to return to her paternal household. However, after four months, the Levite, referred to as her husband, decided to travel to her father's house to persuade his concubine to return. She is amenable to returning with him, and the father-in-law is very welcoming. The father-in-law convinces the Levite to remain several additional days, until the party leaves behind schedule in the late evening. The group pass up a nearby non-Israelite town to arrive very late in the city of Gibeah, which is in the land of the Benjaminites. The group sit around the town square, waiting for a local to invite them in for the evening, as was the custom for travelers. A local old man invites them to stay in his home, offering them guest right by washing their feet and offering them food. A band of wicked townsmen attack the house and demand the host send out the Levite man so they can rape him. The host offers to send out his virgin daughter as well as the Levite's concubine for them to rape, to avoid breaking guest right towards the Levite. Eventually, to ensure his own safety and that of his host, the Levite gives the men his concubine, who is raped and abused through the night, until she is left collapsed against the front door at dawn. In the morning, the Levite finds her when he tries to leave. When she fails to respond to her husband's order to get up (possibly because she is dead, although the language is unclear) the Levite places her on his donkey and continues home. Once home, he dismembers her body and distributes the 12 parts throughout the nation of Israel. The Israelites gather to learn why they were sent such grisly gifts, and are told by the Levite of the sadistic rape of his concubine. The crime is considered outrageous by the Israelite tribesmen, who then wreak total retribution on the men of Gibeah, as well as the surrounding tribe of Benjamin when they support the Gibeans, killing them without mercy and burning all their towns. The inhabitants of (the town of) Jabesh Gilead are then slaughtered as a punishment for not joining the 11 tribes in their war against the Benjaminites, and their 400 unmarried daughters given in forced marriage to the 600 Benjamite survivors. Finally, the 200 Benjaminite survivors who still have no wives are granted a mass marriage by abduction by the other tribes. Medieval and modern Judaism In Judaism, concubines are referred to by the Hebrew term pilegesh (). The term is a loanword from Ancient Greek , meaning "a mistress staying in house". According to the Babylonian Talmud, the difference between a concubine and a legitimate wife was that the latter received a ketubah and her marriage (nissu'in) was preceded by an erusin ("formal betrothal"), which was not the case for a concubine. One opinion in the Jerusalem Talmud argues that the concubine should also receive a marriage contract, but without a clause specifying a divorce settlement. According to Rashi, "wives with kiddushin and ketubbah, concubines with kiddushin but without ketubbah"; this reading is from the Jerusalem Talmud, Certain Jewish thinkers, such as Maimonides, believed that concubines were strictly reserved for royal leadership and thus that a commoner may not have a concubine. Indeed, such thinkers argued that commoners may not engage in any type of sexual relations outside of a marriage. Maimonides was not the first Jewish thinker to criticise concubinage. For example, Leviticus Rabbah severely condemns the custom. Other Jewish thinkers, such as Nahmanides, Samuel ben Uri Shraga Phoebus, and Jacob Emden, strongly objected to the idea that concubines should be forbidden. Despite these prohibitions, concubinage remained widespread among Jewish households of the Ottoman empire and resembled the practice among the Muslim households. In the Hebrew of the contemporary State of Israel, pilegesh is often used as the equivalent of the English word "mistress"—i.e., the female partner in extramarital relations—regardless of legal recognition. Attempts have been initiated to popularise pilegesh as a form of premarital, non-marital or extramarital relationship (which, according to the perspective of the enacting person(s), is permitted by Jewish law). Concubinage and slavery In some context, the institution of concubinage diverged from a free quasi-marital cohabitation to the extent that it was forbidden to a free woman to be involved in a concubinage and the institution was reserved only to slaves. This type of concubinage was practiced in patriarchal cultures throughout history. Many societies automatically freed the concubine after she had a child. According to one study, this was the case in about one-third of slave-holding societies, the most prominent being case of the Muslim world. Among societies that did not legally require the manumission of concubines, it was usually done anyway. In slave-owning societies, most concubines were slaves, but not all. The feature about concubinage that made it attractive to certain men was that the concubine was dependent on the man - she could be sold or punished at the master's will. According to Orlando Peterson, slaves taken as concubines would have had a higher level of material comfort than the slaves used in agriculture or in mining. See also Courtesan Polygamy Polygyny Cicisbeo Contubernium Common-law marriage References Notes Citations Sources Further reading Heterosexuality Polygyny Female beauty Feminism

The economy of the Cook Islands is based mainly on tourism, with minor exports made up of tropical and citrus fruit. Manufacturing activities are limited to fruit-processing, clothing and handicrafts. As in many other South Pacific nations, the Cook Islands's economy is hindered by the country's isolation from foreign markets, lack of natural resources aside from fish, periodic devastation from natural disasters, and inadequate infrastructure. Trade deficits are made up for by remittances from emigrants and by foreign aid, overwhelmingly from New Zealand. Efforts to exploit tourism potential, encourage offshore banking, and expand the mining and fishing industries have been partially successful in stimulating investment and growth. Banking and finance Banks in the Cook Islands are regulated under the Banking Act 2011. Banks must be licensed and are supervised by the Cook Islands Financial Supervisory Commission. The Cook Islands developed an offshore financial services industry in the early 1980s. Allegations that New Zealand-based companies were using it as a tax haven led to the Winebox Inquiry in New Zealand in the 1990s, and in 2000 it was listed as a tax haven by the OECD. In 2002 it was delisted after it agreed to fiscal transparency and to exchange tax information. Allegations of being a tax haven re-emerged in 2013 following the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Offshore Leaks. Trusts incorporated in the Cook Islands are used to provide anonymity and asset-protection. The cook Islands also featured in the Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, and Pandora Papers financial leaks. Economist Vaine Nooana-Arioka has been executive director of the Bank of the Cook Islands since 2008. Economic statistics GDP Purchasing power parity - $183.2 million (2005 est.) GDP - real growth rate -.05% (2005); -1.2% (2014); -1.7% (2013). Growth in the Cook Islands has slowed due to a lack of infrastructure projects and accommodation capacity constraints in the tourism sector. Cook Islands economic activity is expected to be flat in FY2016; to grow by 0.2% in FY2017. Inflation 1.8% (FY2016); 2.0% (FY2017). Statistics Asian Development Bank GDP - per capita $9 100 (2005 estimate) GDP - composition by sector Agriculture: 78.9% Industry: 9.6% Services: 75.3% (2000) Population below poverty line 28.4% of the population lives below the national poverty line. Statistics 2016 Asian Development Bank Household income or consumption by percentage share Lowest 10%: NA% Highest 10%: NA% Inflation rate (consumer prices) 2.1% (2005 est.) Labor force 6,820 (2001) Labor force - by occupation Agriculture 29%, industry 15%, services 56% (1995) Unemployment rate 13.1% (2005) Budget Revenues: $70.95 million Expenditures: $69.05 million; including capital expenditures of $5.744 million (FY00/01 est.) Industries Fruit processing, tourism, fishing, clothing, handicrafts Industrial production growth rate 1% (2002) Electricity - production 28 GW·h (2003) Electricity - production by source Fossil fuel: 100% Hydro: 0% Nuclear: 0% Other: 0% (2001) Electricity - consumption 34.46 GW·h (2005 est) Electricity - exports 0 kW·h (2003) Electricity - imports 0 kW·h (2003) Oil consumption (2003) Agriculture - products Copra, citrus, pineapples, tomatoes, beans, pawpaws, bananas, yams, taro, coffee, pigs, poultry Exports $5.222 million (2005) Exports - commodities Copra, papayas, fresh and canned citrus fruit, coffee; fish; pearls and pearl shells; clothing Exports - partners Australia 34%, Japan 27%, New Zealand 25%, US 8% (2004) Imports $81.04 million (2005) Imports - commodities Foodstuffs, textiles, fuels, timber, capital goods Imports - partners New Zealand 61%, Fiji 19%, US 9%, Australia 6%, Japan 2% (2004) Debt - external $141 million (1996 est.) Economic aid - recipient $13.1 million (1995); note - New Zealand furnishes the greater part Currency 1 New Zealand dollar (NZ$) = 100 cents Exchange rates New Zealand dollars (NZ$) per US$1 - 1.4203 (2005), 1.9451 (January 2000), 1.8886 (1999), 1.8632 (1998), 1.5083 (1997), 1.4543 (1996), 1.5235 (1995) Fiscal year 1 April–31 March Telecommunications Telecom Cook Islands Ltd (TCI) is the sole provider of telecommunications in the Cook Islands. TCI is a private company owned by Spark New Zealand Ltd (60%) and the Cook Islands Government (40%). In operation since July 1991, TCI provides local, national and international telecommunications as well as internet access on all islands except Suwarrow. Communications to Suwarrow is via HF radio. References External links CIA World Factbook, 2006

The carat (ct) is a unit of mass equal to or 0.00643 troy oz, and is used for measuring gemstones and pearls. The current definition, sometimes known as the metric carat, was adopted in 1907 at the Fourth General Conference on Weights and Measures, and soon afterwards in many countries around the world. The carat is divisible into 100 points of 2 mg. Other subdivisions, and slightly different mass values, have been used in the past in different locations. In terms of diamonds, a paragon is a flawless stone of at least 100 carats (20 g). The ANSI X.12 EDI standard abbreviation for the carat is CD. Etymology First attested in English in the mid-15th century, the word carat comes from Italian carato, which comes from Arabic qīrāṭ قيراط , in turn borrowed from Greek kerátion κεράτιον 'carob seed', a diminutive of keras 'horn'. It was a unit of weight, equal to 1/1728 (1/12) of a pound (see Mina (unit)). History Carob seeds have been used throughout history to measure jewelry, because it was believed that there was little variance in their mass distribution. However, this was a factual inaccuracy, as their mass varies about as much as seeds of other species. In the past, each country had its own carat. It was often used for weighing gold. Beginning in the 1570s, it was used to measure weights of diamonds. Standardization An 'international carat' of 205 milligrams was proposed in 1871 by the Syndical Chamber of Jewellers, etc., in Paris, and accepted in 1877 by the Syndical Chamber of Diamond Merchants in Paris. A metric carat of 200 milligrams – exactly one-fifth of a gram – had often been suggested in various countries, and was finally proposed by the International Committee of Weights and Measures, and unanimously accepted at the fourth sexennial General Conference of the Metric Convention held in Paris in October 1907. It was soon made compulsory by law in France, but uptake of the new carat was slower in England, where its use was allowed by the Weights and Measures (Metric System) Act of 1897. Historical definitions UK Board of Trade In the United Kingdom the original Board of Trade carat was exactly grains (~3.170 grains = ~205 mg); in 1888, the Board of Trade carat was changed to exactly grains (~3.168 grains = ~205 mg). Despite its being a non-metric unit, a number of metric countries have used this unit for its limited range of application. The Board of Trade carat was divisible into four diamond grains, but measurements were typically made in multiples of carat. Refiners' carats There were also two varieties of refiners' carats once used in the United Kingdom — the pound carat and the ounce carat. The pound troy was divisible into 24 pound carats of 240 grains troy each; the pound carat was divisible into four pound grains of 60 grains troy each; and the pound grain was divisible into four pound quarters of 15 grains troy each. Likewise, the ounce troy was divisible into 24 ounce carats of 20 grains troy each; the ounce carat was divisible into four ounce grains of 5 grains troy each; and the ounce grain was divisible into four ounce quarters of grains troy each. Greco-Roman The solidus was also a Roman weight unit. There is literary evidence that the weight of 72 coins of the type called solidus was exactly 1 Roman pound, and that the weight of 1 solidus was 24 siliquae. The weight of a Roman pound is generally believed to have been 327.45 g or possibly up to 5 g less. Therefore, the metric equivalent of 1 siliqua was approximately 189 mg. The Greeks had a similar unit of the same value. Gold fineness in carats comes from carats and grains of gold in a solidus of coin. The conversion rates 1 solidus = 24 carats, 1 carat = 4 grains still stand. Woolhouse's Measures, Weights and Moneys of all Nations gives gold fineness in carats of 4 grains, and silver in troy pounds of 12 troy ounces of 20 pennyweight each. Notes References Units of mass Jewellery making Metricated units

Claudius Aelianus (, Greek transliteration Kláudios Ailianós; c. 175c. 235 AD), commonly Aelian (), born at Praeneste, was a Roman author and teacher of rhetoric who flourished under Septimius Severus and probably outlived Elagabalus, who died in 222. He spoke Greek so fluently that he was called "honey-tongued" ( ); Roman-born, he preferred Greek authors, and wrote in a slightly archaizing Greek himself. His two chief works are valuable for the numerous quotations from the works of earlier authors, which are otherwise lost, and for the surprising lore, which offers unexpected glimpses into the Greco-Roman world-view. It is also the only Greco-Roman work to mention Gilgamesh. De Natura Animalium On the Nature of Animals ("On the Characteristics of Animals" is an alternative title; , ; usually cited, though, by its Latin title: De Natura Animalium) is a curious collection, in seventeen books, of brief stories of natural history, sometimes selected with an eye to conveying allegorical moral lessons, sometimes because they are just so astonishing: "The Beaver is an amphibious creature: by day it lives hidden in rivers, but at night it roams the land, feeding itself with anything that it can find. Now it understands the reason why hunters come after it with such eagerness and impetuosity, and it puts down its head and with its teeth cuts off its testicles and throws them in their path, as a prudent man who, falling into the hands of robbers, sacrifices all that he is carrying, to save his life, and forfeits his possessions by way of ransom. If however it has already saved its life by self-castration and is again pursued, then it stands up and reveals that it offers no ground for their eager pursuit, and releases the hunters from all further exertions, for they esteem its flesh less. Often however Beavers with testicles intact, after escaping as far away as possible, have drawn in the coveted part, and with great skill and ingenuity tricked their pursuers, pretending that they no longer possessed what they were keeping in concealment." The Loeb Classical Library introduction characterizes the book as "an appealing collection of facts and fables about the animal kingdom that invites the reader to ponder contrasts between human and animal behavior." Aelian's anecdotes on animals rarely depend on direct observation: they are almost entirely taken from written sources, often Pliny the Elder, but also other authors and works now lost, to whom he is thus a valuable witness. He is more attentive to marine life than might be expected, though, and this seems to reflect first-hand personal interest; he often quotes "fishermen". At times he strikes the modern reader as thoroughly credulous, but at others he specifically states that he is merely reporting what is told by others, and even that he does not believe them. Aelian's work is one of the sources of medieval natural history and of the bestiaries of the Middle Ages. The portions of the text that are still extant are badly mangled and garbled and replete with later interpolations. Conrad Gessner (or Gesner), the Swiss scientist and natural historian of the Renaissance, made a Latin translation of Aelian's work, to give it a wider European audience. An English translation by A. F. Scholfield has been published in the Loeb Classical Library, 3 vols. (1958-59). Varia Historia Various History (, )—for the most part preserved only in an abridged form—is Aelian's other well-known work, a miscellany of anecdotes and biographical sketches, lists, pithy maxims, and descriptions of natural wonders and strange local customs, in 14 books, with many surprises for the cultural historian and the mythographer, anecdotes about the famous Greek philosophers, poets, historians, and playwrights and myths instructively retold. The emphasis is on various moralizing tales about heroes and rulers, athletes and wise men; reports about food and drink, different styles in dress or lovers, local habits in giving gifts or entertainments, or in religious beliefs and death customs; and comments on Greek painting. Aelian gives an account of fly fishing, using lures of red wool and feathers, of lacquerwork, serpent worship — Essentially the Various History is a Classical "magazine" in the original senses of that word. He is not perfectly trustworthy in details, and his agenda was heavily influenced by Stoic opinions, perhaps so that his readers will not feel guilty, but Jane Ellen Harrison found survivals of archaic rites mentioned by Aelian very illuminating in her Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903, 1922). The first printing was in 1545. The standard modern text is Mervin R. Dilts's, of 1974. Two English translations of the Various History, by Fleming (1576) and Stanley (1665) made Aelian's miscellany available to English readers, but after 1665 no English translation appeared, until three English translations appeared almost simultaneously: James G. DeVoto, Claudius Aelianus: Ποικίλης Ἱστορίας (Varia Historia) Chicago, 1995; Diane Ostrom Johnson, An English Translation of Claudius Aelianus' "Varia Historia", 1997; and N. G. Wilson, Aelian: Historical Miscellany in the Loeb Classical Library. Other works Considerable fragments of two other works, On Providence and Divine Manifestations, are preserved in the early medieval encyclopedia, the Suda. Twenty "letters from a farmer" after the manner of Alciphron are also attributed to him. The letters are invented compositions to a fictitious correspondent, which are a device for vignettes of agricultural and rural life, set in Attica, though mellifluous Aelian once boasted that he had never been outside Italy, never been aboard a ship (which is at variance, though, with his own statement, de Natura Animalium XI.40, that he had seen the bull Serapis with his own eyes). Thus conclusions about actual agriculture in the Letters are as likely to evoke Latium as Attica. The fragments have been edited in 1998 by D. Domingo-Foraste, but are not available in English. The Letters are available in the Loeb Classical Library, translated by Allen Rogers Benner and Francis H. Fobes (1949). See also Historiae animalium by Gessner References Further reading Aelian, On Animals. 3 volumes. Translated by A. F. Scholfield. 1958–9. Loeb Classical Library. , , and Aelian, Historical Miscellany. Translated by Nigel G. Wilson. 1997. Loeb Classical Library. Alciphron, Aelian, and Philostratus, The Letters. Translated by A. R. Benner, F. H. Fobes. 1949. Loeb Classical Library. Aelian, On the Nature of Animals. Translated by Gregory McNamee. 2011. Trinity University Press. Ailianos, Vermischte Forschung. Greek and German by Kai Brodersen. 2018. Sammlung Tusculum. De Gruyter Berlin & Boston Ailianos, Tierleben. Greek and German by Kai Brodersen. 2018. Sammlung Tusculum. De Gruyter Berlin & Boston 2018, ISBN Claudius Aelianus, Vom Wesen der Tiere - De natura animalium. German and Commentary by Paul-Gerhard Veh, Philipp Stahlhut. 2020. Bibliothek der Griechischen Literaur. Anton Hiersemann Verlag Stuttgart 2020, ISBN External links Ποικίλη ἱστορία – bibliotheca Augustana Raw Greek OCR of Hercher's 1864 Teubner edition of Aelian's works at the Lace repository of Mount Allison University: vol. I, vol. 2 Various History at James Eason's site (excerpts in English translation) English translation of Aelian's fragments at attalus.org Some quotes from Aelian's natural history (English) Aelian from the fly-fisherman's point-of-view The Evidence for Aelian's Katêgoria tou gunnidos regarding Aelian's presumed invective against Elagabalus Aelian's Characteristics of Animals Greek with English translation Aelian on the Characteristics of Animals, Books I-V (Greek with English translation by A.F. Scholfield, 1950) Aelian on the Characteristics of Animals, Books VI-XI (Greek with English translation by A.F. Scholfield, 1950) Aelian on the Characteristics of Animals, Books XII-XVII (Greek with English translation by A.F. Scholfield, 1950) HTML version of Scholfield's English translation at attalus.org Latin translation De natura animalium at LacusCurtius (complete Latin translation) Greek De natura animalium libri XVII, Varia historia, Epistolae fragmenta, ex recognitione Rudolphi Hercheri, Lipsiae, in aedibus B. G. Teubneri, 1864: vol. 1, vol. 2. 175 births 235 deaths People from Palestrina Claudii Ancient Roman rhetoricians Ancient Greek writers 2nd-century Romans 3rd-century Romans 3rd-century writers 2nd-century Greek people 3rd-century Greek people

CORAL, short for Computer On-line Real-time Applications Language is a programming language originally developed in 1964 at the Royal Radar Establishment (RRE), Malvern, Worcestershire, in the United Kingdom. The R was originally for "radar", not "real-time". It was influenced primarily by JOVIAL, and thus ALGOL, but is not a subset of either. The most widely-known version, CORAL 66, was subsequently developed by I. F. Currie and M. Griffiths under the auspices of the Inter-Establishment Committee for Computer Applications (IECCA). Its official definition, edited by Woodward, Wetherall, and Gorman, was first published in 1970. In 1971, CORAL was selected by the Ministry of Defence as the language for future military applications and to support this, a standardization program was introduced to ensure CORAL compilers met the specifications. This process was later adopted by the US Department of Defense while defining Ada. Overview Coral 66 is a general-purpose programming language based on ALGOL 60, with some features from Coral 64, JOVIAL, and Fortran. It includes structured record types (as in Pascal) and supports the packing of data into limited storage (also as in Pascal). Like Edinburgh IMP it allows inline (embedded) assembly language, and also offers good runtime checking and diagnostics. It is designed for real-time computing and embedded system applications, and for use on computers with limited processing power, including those limited to fixed-point arithmetic and those without support for dynamic storage allocation. The language was an inter-service standard for British military programming, and was also widely adopted for civil purposes in the British control and automation industry. It was used to write software for both the Ferranti and General Electric Company (GEC) computers from 1971 onwards. Implementations also exist for the Interdata 8/32, PDP-11, VAX and Alpha platforms and HPE Integrity Servers; for the Honeywell, and for the Computer Technology Limited (CTL, later ITL) Modular-1; and for SPARC running Solaris, and Intel running Linux. Queen Elizabeth II sent the first email from a head of state from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment over the ARPANET on March 26, 1976. The message read "This message to all ARPANET users announces the availability on ARPANET of the Coral 66 compiler provided by the GEC 4080 computer at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, Malvern, England, ... Coral 66 is the standard real-time high level language adopted by the Ministry of Defence." As Coral was aimed at a variety of real-time work, rather than general office data processing, there was no standardised equivalent to a stdio library. IECCA recommended a primitive input/output (I/O) package to accompany any compiler (in a document titled Input/Output of Character data in Coral 66 Utility Programs). Most implementers avoided this by producing Coral interfaces to extant Fortran and, later, C libraries. CORAL's most significant contribution to computing may have been enforcing quality control in commercial compilers. To have a CORAL compiler approved by IECCA, and thus allowing a compiler to be marketed as a CORAL 66 compiler, the candidate compiler had to compile and execute a standard suite of 25 test programs and 6 benchmark programs. The process was part of the British Standard (BS) 5905 approval process. This methodology was observed and adapted later by the United States Department of Defense for the certification of Ada compilers. Source code for a Coral 66 compiler (written in BCPL) has been recovered and the Official Definition of Coral 66 document by Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) has been scanned; the Ministry of Defence patent office has issued a licence to the Edinburgh Computer History project to allow them to put both the code and the language reference online for non-commercial use. Variants A variant of Coral 66 named PO-CORAL was developed during the late 1970s to early 1980s by the British General Post Office (GPO), together with GEC, STC and Plessey, for use on the System X digital telephone exchange control computers. This was later renamed BT-CORAL when British Telecom was spun off from the Post Office. Unique features of this language were the focus on real-time execution, message processing, limits on statement execution between waiting for input, and a prohibition on recursion to remove the need for a stack. References External links CORAL 66 test program extracted from the Test Responder report CORAL 66 benchmarks BS5905 CORAL 66 Standard DEF STAN 05-47 PDP-11 CORAL/ASM interfacing library ECCE editor script to translate CORAL 66 into Edinburgh IMP History of computing in the United Kingdom Procedural programming languages Programming languages created in 1964

A crucifix (from Latin cruci fixus meaning "(one) fixed to a cross") is an image of Jesus on the cross, as distinct from a bare cross. The representation of Jesus himself on the cross is referred to in English as the corpus (Latin for "body"). The crucifix is a principal symbol for many groups of Christians, and one of the most common forms of the Crucifixion in the arts. It is especially important in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, but is also used in the Eastern Orthodox Church, most Oriental Orthodox Churches (except the Armenian & Syriac Church), and the Eastern Catholic Churches, as well as by the Lutheran, Moravian and Anglican Churches. The symbol is less common in churches of other Protestant denominations, and in the Assyrian Church of the East and Armenian Apostolic Church, which prefer to use a cross without the figure of Jesus (the corpus). The crucifix emphasizes Jesus' sacrifice—his death by crucifixion, which Christians believe brought about the redemption of humankind. Most crucifixes portray Jesus on a Latin cross, rather than any other shape, such as a Tau cross or a Coptic cross. Western crucifixes usually have a three-dimensional corpus, but in Eastern Orthodoxy Jesus' body is normally painted on the cross, or in low relief. Strictly speaking, to be a crucifix, the cross must be three-dimensional, but this distinction is not always observed. An entire painting of the Crucifixion of Jesus including a landscape background and other figures is not a crucifix either. Large crucifixes high across the central axis of a church are known by the Old English term rood. By the late Middle Ages these were a near-universal feature of Western churches, but are now very rare. Modern Roman Catholic churches and many Lutheran churches often have a crucifix above the altar on the wall; for the celebration of Mass, the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church requires that "on or close to the altar there is to be a cross with a figure of Christ crucified". Description The standard, four-pointed Latin crucifix consists of an upright post or stipes and a single crosspiece to which the sufferer's arms were nailed. There may also be a short projecting nameplate, showing the letters INRI (Greek: INBI). The Russian Orthodox crucifix usually has an additional third crossbar, to which the feet are nailed, and which is angled upward toward the penitent thief Saint Dismas (to the viewer's left) and downward toward the impenitent thief Gestas (to the viewer's right). The corpus of Eastern crucifixes is normally a two-dimensional or low relief icon that shows Jesus as already dead, his face peaceful and somber. They are rarely three-dimensional figures as in the Western tradition, although these may be found where Western influences are strong, but are more typically icons painted on a piece of wood shaped to include the double-barred cross and perhaps the edge of Christ's hips and halo, and no background. More sculptural small crucifixes in metal relief are also used in Orthodoxy (see gallery examples), including as pectoral crosses and blessing crosses. Western crucifixes may show Christ dead or alive, the presence of the spear wound in his ribs traditionally indicating that he is dead. In either case his face very often shows his suffering. In the Eastern Orthodox tradition he has normally been shown as dead since around the end of the period of Byzantine Iconoclasm. Eastern crucifixes have Jesus' two feet nailed side by side, rather than crossed one above the other, as Western crucifixes have shown them since around the 13th century. The crown of thorns is also generally absent in Eastern crucifixes, since the emphasis is not on Christ's suffering, but on his triumph over sin and death. The "S"-shaped position of Jesus' body on the cross is a Byzantine innovation of the late 10th century, though also found in the German Gero Cross of the same date. Probably more from Byzantine influence, it spread elsewhere in the West, especially to Italy, by the Romanesque period, though it was more usual in painting than sculpted crucifixes. It's in Italy that the emphasis was put on Jesus' suffering and realistic details, during a process of general humanization of Christ favored by the Franciscan order. During the 13th century the suffering Italian model (Christus patiens) triumphed over the traditional Byzantine one (Christus gloriosus) anywhere in Europe also due to the works of artists such as Giunta Pisano and Cimabue. Since the Renaissance the "S"-shape is generally much less pronounced. Eastern Christian blessing crosses will often have the Crucifixion depicted on one side, and the Resurrection on the other, illustrating Eastern Orthodox theology's understanding of the Crucifixion and Resurrection as two intimately related aspects of the same act of salvation. Another, symbolic, depiction shows a triumphant Christ (), clothed in robes, rather than stripped as for His execution, with arms raised, appearing to rise up from the cross, sometimes accompanied by "rays of light", or an aureole encircling His Body. He may be robed as a prophet, crowned as a king, and vested in a stole as Great High Priest. On some crucifixes a skull and crossbones are shown below the corpus, referring to Golgotha (Calvary), the site at which Jesus was crucified, which the Gospels say means in Hebrew "the place of the skull." Medieval tradition held that it was the burial-place of Adam and Eve, and that the cross of Christ was raised directly over Adam's skull, so many crucifixes manufactured in Catholic countries still show the skull and crossbones below the corpus. Very large crucifixes have been built, the largest being the Cross in the Woods in Michigan, with a high statue. Usage In the early Church, many Christians hung a cross on the eastern wall of their house in order to indicate the eastward direction of prayer. Prayer in front of a crucifix, which is seen as a sacramental, is often part of devotion for Christians, especially those worshipping in a church, also privately. The person may sit, stand, or kneel in front of the crucifix, sometimes looking at it in contemplation, or merely in front of it with head bowed or eyes closed. During the Middle Ages small crucifixes, generally hung on a wall, became normal in the personal cells or living quarters first of monks, then all clergy, followed by the homes of the laity, spreading down from the top of society as these became cheap enough for the average person to afford. Most towns had a large crucifix erected as a monument, or some other shrine at the crossroads of the town. Building on the ancient custom, many Catholics, Lutherans and Anglicans hang a crucifix inside their homes and also use the crucifix as a focal point of a home altar. The wealthy erected proprietary chapels as they could afford to do this. Catholic (both Eastern and Western), Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Moravian, Anglican and Lutheran Christians generally use the crucifix in public religious services. They believe use of the crucifix is in keeping with the statement by Saint Paul in Scripture, "we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God". In the West altar crosses and processional crosses began to be crucifixes in the 11th century, which became general around the 14th century, as they became cheaper. The Roman Rite requires that "either on the altar or near it, there is to be a cross, with the figure of Christ crucified upon it, a cross clearly visible to the assembled people. It is desirable that such a cross should remain near the altar even outside of liturgical celebrations, so as to call to mind for the faithful the saving Passion of the Lord." The requirement of the altar cross was also mentioned in pre-1970 editions of the Roman Missal, though not in the original 1570 Roman Missal of Pope Pius V. The Rite of Funerals says that the Gospel Book, the Bible, or a cross (which will generally be in crucifix form) may be placed on the coffin for a Requiem Mass, but a second standing cross is not to be placed near the coffin if the altar cross can be easily seen from the body of the church. Eastern Christian liturgical processions called crucessions include a cross or crucifix at their head. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the crucifix is often placed above the iconostasis in the church. In the Russian Orthodox Church a large crucifix ("Golgotha") is placed behind the Holy Table (altar). During Matins of Good Friday, a large crucifix is taken in procession to the centre of the church, where it is venerated by the faithful. Sometimes the soma (corpus) is removable and is taken off the crucifix at Vespers that evening during the Gospel lesson describing the Descent from the Cross. The empty cross may then remain in the centre of the church until the Paschal vigil (local practices vary). The blessing cross which the priest uses to bless the faithful at the dismissal will often have the crucifix on one side and an icon of the Resurrection of Jesus on the other, the side with the Resurrection being used on Sundays and during Paschaltide, and the crucifix on other days. Exorcist Gabriele Amorth has stated that the crucifix is one of the most effective means of averting or opposing demons. In folklore, it is believed to ward off vampires, incubi, succubi, and other evils. Modern iconoclasts have used an inverted (upside-down) crucifix when showing disdain for Jesus Christ or the Catholic Church which believes in his divinity. According to Christian tradition, Saint Peter was martyred by being crucified upside-down. Controversies Protestant Reformation In the Moravian Church, Nicolaus Zinzendorf had an experience in which he believed he encountered Jesus. Seeing a painting of a crucifix, Zinzendorf fell on his knees vowing to glorify Jesus after contemplating on the wounds of Christ and an inscription that stated "This is what I have done for you, what will you do for me?” The Lutheran Churches retained the use of the crucifix, "justifying their continued use of medieval crucifixes with the same arguments employed since the Middle Ages, as is evident from the example of the altar of the Holy Cross in the Cistercian church of Doberan." Martin Luther did not object to them, and this was among his differences with Andreas Karlstadt as early as 1525. At the time of the Reformation, Luther retained the crucifix in the Lutheran Church and they remain the center of worship in Lutheran parishes across Europe. In the United States, however, Lutheranism came under the influence of Calvinism, and the plain cross came to be used in many churches. In contrast to the practice of the Moravian Church and Lutheran Churches, the early Reformed Churches rejected the use of the crucifix, and indeed the unadorned cross, along with other traditional religious imagery, as idolatrous. Calvin, considered to be the father of the Reformed Church, was violently opposed to both cross and crucifix. In England, the Royal Chapels of Elizabeth I were most unusual among local churches in retaining crucifixes, following the Queen's conservative tastes. These disappeared under her successor, James I, and their brief re-appearance in the early 1620s when James' heir was seeking a Spanish marriage was the subject of rumour and close observation by both Catholics and Protestants; when the match fell through they disappeared. Modern In 2005, a mother accused her daughter's school in Derby, England, of discriminating against Christians after the teenager was suspended for refusing to take off a crucifix necklace. A British prison ordered a multi-faith chapel to remove all crucifixes "in case it offends Muslims." In 2008 in Spain, a local judge ordered crucifixes removed from public schools to settle a decades-old dispute over whether crucifixes should be displayed in public buildings in a non-confessional state. On 18 March 2011, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in the Lautsi v. Italy case, that the requirement in Italian law that crucifixes be displayed in classrooms of state schools does not violate the European Convention on Human Rights. Crucifixes are common in most other Italian official buildings, including courts of law. On 24 March 2011, the Constitutional Court of Peru ruled that the presence of crucifixes in courts of law does not violate the secular nature of the state. Gallery See also Cloisters Cross Christian symbolism Cross necklace Crucifer Crucifix Decrees Crucifixion in the arts Feast of the Cross Holy Face of Lucca Jesus, King of the Jews Master of the Blue Crucifixes Papal ferula Rood Rosary References External links Archæology of the Cross and Crucifix The Cross and Crucifix in Liturgy Christian iconography Iconography of Jesus Sacramentals Christian religious objects Crosses by form Christian symbols Christian terminology Anglican liturgy Lutheran liturgy and worship Objects believed to protect from evil

Computer security, cybersecurity, or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from information disclosure, theft of or damage to their hardware, software, or electronic data, as well as from the disruption or misdirection of the services they provide. The field is becoming increasingly significant due to the continuously expanding reliance on computer systems, the Internet and wireless network standards such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and due to the growth of "smart" devices, including smartphones, televisions, and the various devices that constitute the "Internet of things". Cybersecurity is also one of the significant challenges in the contemporary world, due to its complexity, both in terms of political usage and technology. Its primary goal is to ensure the system's dependability, integrity, and data privacy. History Since the Internet's arrival and with the digital transformation initiated in recent years, the notion of cybersecurity has become a familiar subject both in our professional and personal lives. Cybersecurity and cyber threats have been constant for the last 50 years of technological change. In the 1970s and 1980s, computer security was mainly limited to academia until the conception of the Internet, where, with increased connectivity, computer viruses and network intrusions began to take off. After the spread of viruses in the 1990s, the 2000s marked the institutionalization of cyber threats and cybersecurity. Finally, from the 2010s, large-scale attacks and government regulations started emerging. The April 1967 session organized by Willis Ware at the Spring Joint Computer Conference, and the later publication of the Ware Report, were foundational moments in the history of the field of computer security. Ware's work straddled the intersection of material, cultural, political, and social concerns. A 1977 NIST publication introduced the "CIA triad" of Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability as a clear and simple way to describe key security goals. While still relevant, many more elaborate frameworks have since been proposed. However, the 1970s and 1980s didn't have any grave computer threats because computers and the internet were still developing, and security threats were easily identifiable. Most often, threats came from malicious insiders who gained unauthorized access to sensitive documents and files. Although malware and network breaches existed during the early years, they did not use them for financial gain. However, by the second half of the 1970s, established computer firms like IBM started offering commercial access control systems and computer security software products. It started with Creeper in 1971. Creeper was an experimental computer program written by Bob Thomas at BBN. It is considered the first computer worm. In 1972, the first anti-virus software was created, called Reaper. It was created by Ray Tomlinson to move across the ARPANET and delete the Creeper worm. Between September 1986 and June 1987, a group of German hackers performed the first documented case of cyber espionage. The group hacked into American defense contractors, universities, and military bases' networks and sold gathered information to the Soviet KGB. The group was led by Markus Hess, who was arrested on 29 June 1987. He was convicted of espionage (along with two co-conspirators) on 15 Feb 1990. In 1988, one of the first computer worms, called Morris worm was distributed via the Internet. It gained significant mainstream media attention. In 1993, Netscape started developing the protocol SSL, shortly after the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) launched Mosaic 1.0, the first web browser, in 1993. Netscape had SSL version 1.0 ready in 1994, but it was never released to the public due to many serious security vulnerabilities. These weaknesses included replay attacks and a vulnerability that allowed hackers to alter unencrypted communications sent by users. However, in February 1995, Netscape launched the Version 2.0. Failed offensive strategy The National Security Agency (NSA) is responsible for both the protection of U.S. information systems and also for collecting foreign intelligence. These two duties are in conflict with each other. Protecting information systems includes evaluating software, identifying security flaws, and taking steps to correct the flaws, which is a defensive action. Collecting intelligence includes exploiting security flaws to extract information, which is an offensive action. Correcting security flaws makes the flaws unavailable for NSA exploitation. The agency analyzes commonly used software in order to find security flaws, which it reserves for offensive purposes against competitors of the United States. The agency seldom takes defensive action by reporting the flaws to software producers so they can eliminate the security flaws. The offensive strategy worked for a while, but eventually other nations, including Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China have acquired their own offensive capability, and tend to use it against the United States. NSA contractors created and sold "click-and-shoot" attack tools to U.S. agencies and close allies, but eventually the tools made their way to foreign adversaries. In 2016, NSAs own hacking tools were hacked and have been used by Russia and North Korea. NSAs employees and contractors have been recruited at high salaries by adversaries, anxious to compete in cyberwarfare. For example, in 2007, the United States and Israel began exploiting security flaws in the Microsoft Windows operating system to attack and damage equipment used in Iran to refine nuclear materials. Iran responded by heavily investing in their own cyberwarfare capability, which they began using against the United States. Vulnerabilities and attacks A vulnerability is a weakness in design, implementation, operation, or internal control. Most of the vulnerabilities that have been discovered are documented in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database. An exploitable vulnerability is one for which at least one working attack or "exploit" exists. Vulnerabilities can be researched, reverse-engineered, hunted, or exploited using automated tools or customized scripts. To secure a computer system, it is important to understand the attacks that can be made against it, and these threats can typically be classified into one of these categories below: Backdoor A backdoor in a computer system, a cryptosystem or an algorithm, is any secret method of bypassing normal authentication or security controls. They may exist for many reasons, including by original design or from poor configuration. They may have been added by an authorized party to allow some legitimate access, or by an attacker for malicious reasons; but regardless of the motives for their existence, they create a vulnerability. Backdoors can be very hard to detect, and detection of backdoors are usually discovered by someone who has access to application source code or intimate knowledge of Operating System of the computer. Denial-of-service attack Denial of service attacks (DoS) are designed to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users. Attackers can deny service to individual victims, such as by deliberately entering a wrong password enough consecutive times to cause the victim's account to be locked, or they may overload the capabilities of a machine or network and block all users at once. While a network attack from a single IP address can be blocked by adding a new firewall rule, many forms of Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are possible, where the attack comes from a large number of points – and defending is much more difficult. Such attacks can originate from the zombie computers of a botnet or from a range of other possible techniques, including reflection and amplification attacks, where innocent systems are fooled into sending traffic to the victim. Direct-access attacks An unauthorized user gaining physical access to a computer is most likely able to directly copy data from it. They may also compromise security by making operating system modifications, installing software worms, keyloggers, covert listening devices or using wireless microphone. Even when the system is protected by standard security measures, these may be bypassed by booting another operating system or tool from a CD-ROM or other bootable media. Disk encryption and Trusted Platform Module are designed to prevent these attacks. Eavesdropping Eavesdropping is the act of surreptitiously listening to a private computer "conversation" (communication), typically between hosts on a network. For instance, programs such as Carnivore and NarusInSight have been used by the FBI and NSA to eavesdrop on the systems of internet service providers. Even machines that operate as a closed system (i.e., with no contact to the outside world) can be eavesdropped upon via monitoring the faint electromagnetic transmissions generated by the hardware; TEMPEST is a specification by the NSA referring to these attacks. Multi-vector, polymorphic attacks Surfacing in 2017, a new class of multi-vector, polymorphic cyber threats combined several types of attacks and changed form to avoid cybersecurity controls as they spread. Phishing Phishing is the attempt of acquiring sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details directly from users by deceiving the users. Phishing is typically carried out by email spoofing or instant messaging, and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose "look" and "feel" are almost identical to the legitimate one. The fake website often asks for personal information, such as log-in details and passwords. This information can then be used to gain access to the individual's real account on the real website. Preying on a victim's trust, phishing can be classified as a form of social engineering. Attackers are using creative ways to gain access to real accounts. A common scam is for attackers to send fake electronic invoices to individuals showing that they recently purchased music, apps, or other, and instructing them to click on a link if the purchases were not authorized. Privilege escalation Privilege escalation describes a situation where an attacker with some level of restricted access is able to, without authorization, elevate their privileges or access level. For example, a standard computer user may be able to exploit a vulnerability in the system to gain access to restricted data; or even become "root" and have full unrestricted access to a system. Reverse engineering Reverse engineering is the process by which a man-made object is deconstructed to reveal its designs, code, architecture, or to extract knowledge from the object; similar to scientific research, the only difference being that scientific research is about a natural phenomenon. Side-channel attack Any computational system affects its environment in some form. This effect it has on its environment, includes a wide range of criteria, which can range from electromagnetic radiation, to residual effect on RAM cells which as a consequent make a Cold boot attack possible, to hardware implementation faults which allow for access and or guessing of other values that normally should be inaccessible. In Side-channel attack scenarios the attacker would gather such information about a system or network to guess its internal state, and as a result access the information which is assumed by the victim to be secure. Social engineering Social engineering, in the context of computer security, aims to convince a user to disclose secrets such as passwords, card numbers, etc. or grant physical access by, for example, impersonating a senior executive, bank, a contractor, or a customer. This generally involves exploiting peoples trust, and relying on their cognitive biases. A common scam involves emails sent to accounting and finance department personnel, impersonating their CEO and urgently requesting some action. In early 2016, the FBI reported that such "business email compromise" (BEC) scams had cost US businesses more than $2 billion in about two years. In May 2016, the Milwaukee Bucks NBA team was the victim of this type of cyber scam with a perpetrator impersonating the team's president Peter Feigin, resulting in the handover of all the team's employees' 2015 W-2 tax forms. Spoofing Spoofing is an act of masquerading as a valid entity through falsification of data (such as an IP address or username), in order to gain access to information or resources that one is otherwise unauthorized to obtain. There are several types of spoofing, including: Email spoofing, where an attacker forges the sending (From, or source) address of an email. IP address spoofing, where an attacker alters the source IP address in a network packet to hide their identity or impersonate another computing system. MAC spoofing, where an attacker modifies the Media Access Control (MAC) address of their network interface controller to obscure their identity, or to pose as another. Biometric spoofing, where an attacker produces a fake biometric sample to pose as another user. Tampering Tampering describes a malicious modification or alteration of data. So-called Evil Maid attacks and security services planting of surveillance capability into routers are examples. Malware Malicious software (malware) installed on a computer can leak personal information, can give control of the system to the attacker and can delete data permanently. Information security culture Employee behavior can have a big impact on information security in organizations. Cultural concepts can help different segments of the organization work effectively or work against effectiveness towards information security within an organization. Information security culture is the "...totality of patterns of behavior in an organization that contributes to the protection of information of all kinds." Andersson and Reimers (2014) found that employees often do not see themselves as part of their organization's information security effort and often take actions that impede organizational changes. Indeed, the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report 2020, which examined 3,950 security breaches, discovered 30% of cyber security incidents involved internal actors within a company. Research shows information security culture needs to be improved continuously. In ″Information Security Culture from Analysis to Change″, authors commented, ″It's a never-ending process, a cycle of evaluation and change or maintenance.″ To manage the information security culture, five steps should be taken: pre-evaluation, strategic planning, operative planning, implementation, and post-evaluation. Pre-evaluation: To identify the awareness of information security within employees and to analyze the current security policies. Strategic planning: To come up with a better awareness program, clear targets need to be set. Assembling a team of skilled professionals is helpful to achieve it. Operative planning: A good security culture can be established based on internal communication, management-buy-in, security awareness and a training program. Implementation: Four stages should be used to implement the information security culture. They are: Commitment of the management Communication with organizational members Courses for all organizational members Commitment of the employees Post-evaluation: To assess the success of the planning and implementation, and to identify unresolved areas of concern. Systems at risk The growth in the number of computer systems and the increasing reliance upon them by individuals, businesses, industries, and governments means that there is an increasing number of systems at risk. Financial systems The computer systems of financial regulators and financial institutions like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, SWIFT, investment banks, and commercial banks are prominent hacking targets for cybercriminals interested in manipulating markets and making illicit gains. Websites and apps that accept or store credit card numbers, brokerage accounts, and bank account information are also prominent hacking targets, because of the potential for immediate financial gain from transferring money, making purchases, or selling the information on the black market. In-store payment systems and ATMs have also been tampered with in order to gather customer account data and PINs. Utilities and industrial equipment Computers control functions at many utilities, including coordination of telecommunications, the power grid, nuclear power plants, and valve opening and closing in water and gas networks. The Internet is a potential attack vector for such machines if connected, but the Stuxnet worm demonstrated that even equipment controlled by computers not connected to the Internet can be vulnerable. In 2014, the Computer Emergency Readiness Team, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, investigated 79 hacking incidents at energy companies. Aviation The aviation industry is very reliant on a series of complex systems which could be attacked. A simple power outage at one airport can cause repercussions worldwide, much of the system relies on radio transmissions which could be disrupted, and controlling aircraft over oceans is especially dangerous because radar surveillance only extends 175 to 225 miles offshore. There is also potential for attack from within an aircraft. In Europe, with the (Pan-European Network Service) and NewPENS, and in the US with the NextGen program, air navigation service providers are moving to create their own dedicated networks. The consequences of a successful attack range from loss of confidentiality to loss of system integrity, air traffic control outages, loss of aircraft, and even loss of life. Consumer devices Desktop computers and laptops are commonly targeted to gather passwords or financial account information, or to construct a botnet to attack another target. Smartphones, tablet computers, smart watches, and other mobile devices such as quantified self devices like activity trackers have sensors such as cameras, microphones, GPS receivers, compasses, and accelerometers which could be exploited, and may collect personal information, including sensitive health information. WiFi, Bluetooth, and cell phone networks on any of these devices could be used as attack vectors, and sensors might be remotely activated after a successful breach. The increasing number of home automation devices such as the Nest thermostat are also potential targets. Large corporations Large corporations are common targets. In many cases attacks are aimed at financial gain through identity theft and involve data breaches. Examples include loss of millions of clients' credit card details by Home Depot, Staples, Target Corporation, and the most recent breach of Equifax. Medical records have been targeted in general identify theft, health insurance fraud, and impersonating patients to obtain prescription drugs for recreational purposes or resale. Although cyber threats continue to increase, 62% of all organizations did not increase security training for their business in 2015. Not all attacks are financially motivated, however: security firm HBGary Federal suffered a serious series of attacks in 2011 from hacktivist group Anonymous in retaliation for the firm's CEO claiming to have infiltrated their group, and Sony Pictures was hacked in 2014 with the apparent dual motive of embarrassing the company through data leaks and crippling the company by wiping workstations and servers. Automobiles Vehicles are increasingly computerized, with engine timing, cruise control, anti-lock brakes, seat belt tensioners, door locks, airbags and advanced driver-assistance systems on many models. Additionally, connected cars may use WiFi and Bluetooth to communicate with onboard consumer devices and the cell phone network. Self-driving cars are expected to be even more complex. All of these systems carry some security risk, and such issues have gained wide attention. Simple examples of risk include a malicious compact disc being used as an attack vector, and the car's onboard microphones being used for eavesdropping. However, if access is gained to a car's internal controller area network, the danger is much greater – and in a widely publicized 2015 test, hackers remotely carjacked a vehicle from 10 miles away and drove it into a ditch. Manufacturers are reacting numerous ways, with Tesla in 2016 pushing out some security fixes "over the air" into its cars' computer systems. In the area of autonomous vehicles, in September 2016 the United States Department of Transportation announced some initial safety standards, and called for states to come up with uniform policies. Government Government and military computer systems are commonly attacked by activists and foreign powers. Local and regional government infrastructure such as traffic light controls, police and intelligence agency communications, personnel records, student records, and financial systems are also potential targets as they are now all largely computerized. Passports and government ID cards that control access to facilities which use RFID can be vulnerable to cloning. Internet of things and physical vulnerabilities The Internet of things (IoT) is the network of physical objects such as devices, vehicles, and buildings that are embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity that enables them to collect and exchange data. Concerns have been raised that this is being developed without appropriate consideration of the security challenges involved. While the IoT creates opportunities for more direct integration of the physical world into computer-based systems, it also provides opportunities for misuse. In particular, as the Internet of Things spreads widely, cyberattacks are likely to become an increasingly physical (rather than simply virtual) threat. If a front door's lock is connected to the Internet, and can be locked/unlocked from a phone, then a criminal could enter the home at the press of a button from a stolen or hacked phone. People could stand to lose much more than their credit card numbers in a world controlled by IoT-enabled devices. Thieves have also used electronic means to circumvent non-Internet-connected hotel door locks. An attack that targets physical infrastructure and/or human lives is sometimes referred to as a cyber-kinetic attack. As IoT devices and appliances gain currency, cyber-kinetic attacks can become pervasive and significantly damaging. Medical systems Medical devices have either been successfully attacked or had potentially deadly vulnerabilities demonstrated, including both in-hospital diagnostic equipment and implanted devices including pacemakers and insulin pumps. There are many reports of hospitals and hospital organizations getting hacked, including ransomware attacks, Windows XP exploits, viruses, and data breaches of sensitive data stored on hospital servers. On 28 December 2016 the US Food and Drug Administration released its recommendations for how medical device manufacturers should maintain the security of Internet-connected devices – but no structure for enforcement. Energy sector In distributed generation systems, the risk of a cyber attack is real, according to Daily Energy Insider. An attack could cause a loss of power in a large area for a long period of time, and such an attack could have just as severe consequences as a natural disaster. The District of Columbia is considering creating a Distributed Energy Resources (DER) Authority within the city, with the goal being for customers to have more insight into their own energy use and giving the local electric utility, Pepco, the chance to better estimate energy demand. The D.C. proposal, however, would "allow third-party vendors to create numerous points of energy distribution, which could potentially create more opportunities for cyber attackers to threaten the electric grid." Impact of security breaches Serious financial damage has been caused by security breaches, but because there is no standard model for estimating the cost of an incident, the only data available is that which is made public by the organizations involved. "Several computer security consulting firms produce estimates of total worldwide losses attributable to virus and worm attacks and to hostile digital acts in general. The 2003 loss estimates by these firms range from $13 billion (worms and viruses only) to $226 billion (for all forms of covert attacks). The reliability of these estimates is often challenged; the underlying methodology is basically anecdotal." However, reasonable estimates of the financial cost of security breaches can actually help organizations make rational investment decisions. According to the classic Gordon-Loeb Model analyzing the optimal investment level in information security, one can conclude that the amount a firm spends to protect information should generally be only a small fraction of the expected loss (i.e., the expected value of the loss resulting from a cyber/information security breach). Attacker motivation As with physical security, the motivations for breaches of computer security vary between attackers. Some are thrill-seekers or vandals, some are activists, others are criminals looking for financial gain. State-sponsored attackers are now common and well resourced but started with amateurs such as Markus Hess who hacked for the KGB, as recounted by Clifford Stoll in The Cuckoo's Egg. Additionally, recent attacker motivations can be traced back to extremist organizations seeking to gain political advantage or disrupt social agendas. The growth of the internet, mobile technologies, and inexpensive computing devices have led to a rise in capabilities but also to the risk to environments that are deemed as vital to operations. All critical targeted environments are susceptible to compromise and this has led to a series of proactive studies on how to migrate the risk by taking into consideration motivations by these types of actors. Several stark differences exist between the hacker motivation and that of nation state actors seeking to attack based an ideological preference. A standard part of threat modeling for any particular system is to identify what might motivate an attack on that system, and who might be motivated to breach it. The level and detail of precautions will vary depending on the system to be secured. A home personal computer, bank, and classified military network face very different threats, even when the underlying technologies in use are similar. Computer protection (countermeasures) In computer security, a countermeasure is an action, device, procedure or technique that reduces a threat, a vulnerability, or an attack by eliminating or preventing it, by minimizing the harm it can cause, or by discovering and reporting it so that corrective action can be taken. Some common countermeasures are listed in the following sections: Security by design Security by design, or alternately secure by design, means that the software has been designed from the ground up to be secure. In this case, security is considered as a main feature. Some of the techniques in this approach include: The principle of least privilege, where each part of the system has only the privileges that are needed for its function. That way, even if an attacker gains access to that part, they only have limited access to the whole system. Automated theorem proving to prove the correctness of crucial software subsystems. Code reviews and unit testing, approaches to make modules more secure where formal correctness proofs are not possible. Defense in depth, where the design is such that more than one subsystem needs to be violated to compromise the integrity of the system and the information it holds. Default secure settings, and design to "fail secure" rather than "fail insecure" (see fail-safe for the equivalent in safety engineering). Ideally, a secure system should require a deliberate, conscious, knowledgeable and free decision on the part of legitimate authorities in order to make it insecure. Audit trails tracking system activity, so that when a security breach occurs, the mechanism and extent of the breach can be determined. Storing audit trails remotely, where they can only be appended to, can keep intruders from covering their tracks. Full disclosure of all vulnerabilities, to ensure that the "window of vulnerability" is kept as short as possible when bugs are discovered. Security architecture The Open Security Architecture organization defines IT security architecture as "the design artifacts that describe how the security controls (security countermeasures) are positioned, and how they relate to the overall information technology architecture. These controls serve the purpose to maintain the system's quality attributes: confidentiality, integrity, availability, accountability and assurance services". Techopedia defines security architecture as "a unified security design that addresses the necessities and potential risks involved in a certain scenario or environment. It also specifies when and where to apply security controls. The design process is generally reproducible." The key attributes of security architecture are: the relationship of different components and how they depend on each other. determination of controls based on risk assessment, good practices, finances, and legal matters. the standardization of controls. Practicing security architecture provides the right foundation to systematically address business, IT and security concerns in an organization. Security measures A state of computer "security" is the conceptual ideal, attained by the use of the three processes: threat prevention, detection, and response. These processes are based on various policies and system components, which include the following: User account access controls and cryptography can protect systems files and data, respectively. Firewalls are by far the most common prevention systems from a network security perspective as they can (if properly configured) shield access to internal network services, and block certain kinds of attacks through packet filtering. Firewalls can be both hardware- or software-based. Intrusion Detection System (IDS) products are designed to detect network attacks in-progress and assist in post-attack forensics, while audit trails and logs serve a similar function for individual systems. "Response" is necessarily defined by the assessed security requirements of an individual system and may cover the range from simple upgrade of protections to notification of legal authorities, counter-attacks, and the like. In some special cases, the complete destruction of the compromised system is favored, as it may happen that not all the compromised resources are detected. Today, computer security consists mainly of "preventive" measures, like firewalls or an exit procedure. A firewall can be defined as a way of filtering network data between a host or a network and another network, such as the Internet, and can be implemented as software running on the machine, hooking into the network stack (or, in the case of most UNIX-based operating systems such as Linux, built into the operating system kernel) to provide real-time filtering and blocking. Another implementation is a so-called "physical firewall", which consists of a separate machine filtering network traffic. Firewalls are common amongst machines that are permanently connected to the Internet. Some organizations are turning to big data platforms, such as Apache Hadoop, to extend data accessibility and machine learning to detect advanced persistent threats. However, relatively few organizations maintain computer systems with effective detection systems, and fewer still have organized response mechanisms in place. As a result, as Reuters points out: "Companies for the first time report they are losing more through electronic theft of data than physical stealing of assets". The primary obstacle to effective eradication of cybercrime could be traced to excessive reliance on firewalls and other automated "detection" systems. Yet it is basic evidence gathering by using packet capture appliances that puts criminals behind bars. In order to ensure adequate security, the confidentiality, integrity and availability of a network, better known as the CIA triad, must be protected and is considered the foundation to information security. To achieve those objectives, administrative, physical and technical security measures should be employed. The amount of security afforded to an asset can only be determined when its value is known. Vulnerability management Vulnerability management is the cycle of identifying, and remediating or mitigating vulnerabilities, especially in software and firmware. Vulnerability management is integral to computer security and network security. Vulnerabilities can be discovered with a vulnerability scanner, which analyzes a computer system in search of known vulnerabilities, such as open ports, insecure software configuration, and susceptibility to malware. In order for these tools to be effective, they must be kept up to date with every new update the vendors release. Typically, these updates will scan for the new vulnerabilities that were introduced recently. Beyond vulnerability scanning, many organizations contract outside security auditors to run regular penetration tests against their systems to identify vulnerabilities. In some sectors, this is a contractual requirement. Reducing vulnerabilities While formal verification of the correctness of computer systems is possible, it is not yet common. Operating systems formally verified include seL4, and SYSGO's PikeOS – but these make up a very small percentage of the market. Two factor authentication is a method for mitigating unauthorized access to a system or sensitive information. It requires "something you know"; a password or PIN, and "something you have"; a card, dongle, cellphone, or another piece of hardware. This increases security as an unauthorized person needs both of these to gain access. Social engineering and direct computer access (physical) attacks can only be prevented by non-computer means, which can be difficult to enforce, relative to the sensitivity of the information. Training is often involved to help mitigate this risk, but even in highly disciplined environments (e.g. military organizations), social engineering attacks can still be difficult to foresee and prevent. Inoculation, derived from inoculation theory, seeks to prevent social engineering and other fraudulent tricks or traps by instilling a resistance to persuasion attempts through exposure to similar or related attempts. It is possible to reduce an attacker's chances by keeping systems up to date with security patches and updates, using a security scanner and/or hiring people with expertise in security, though none of these guarantee the prevention of an attack. The effects of data loss/damage can be reduced by careful backing up and insurance. Hardware protection mechanisms While hardware may be a source of insecurity, such as with microchip vulnerabilities maliciously introduced during the manufacturing process, hardware-based or assisted computer security also offers an alternative to software-only computer security. Using devices and methods such as dongles, trusted platform modules, intrusion-aware cases, drive locks, disabling USB ports, and mobile-enabled access may be considered more secure due to the physical access (or sophisticated backdoor access) required in order to be compromised. Each of these is covered in more detail below. USB dongles are typically used in software licensing schemes to unlock software capabilities, but they can also be seen as a way to prevent unauthorized access to a computer or other device's software. The dongle, or key, essentially creates a secure encrypted tunnel between the software application and the key. The principle is that an encryption scheme on the dongle, such as Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) provides a stronger measure of security since it is harder to hack and replicate the dongle than to simply copy the native software to another machine and use it. Another security application for dongles is to use them for accessing web-based content such as cloud software or Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). In addition, a USB dongle can be configured to lock or unlock a computer. Trusted platform modules (TPMs) secure devices by integrating cryptographic capabilities onto access devices, through the use of microprocessors, or so-called computers-on-a-chip. TPMs used in conjunction with server-side software offer a way to detect and authenticate hardware devices, preventing unauthorized network and data access. Computer case intrusion detection refers to a device, typically a push-button switch, which detects when a computer case is opened. The firmware or BIOS is programmed to show an alert to the operator when the computer is booted up the next time. Drive locks are essentially software tools to encrypt hard drives, making them inaccessible to thieves. Tools exist specifically for encrypting external drives as well. Disabling USB ports is a security option for preventing unauthorized and malicious access to an otherwise secure computer. Infected USB dongles connected to a network from a computer inside the firewall are considered by the magazine Network World as the most common hardware threat facing computer networks. Disconnecting or disabling peripheral devices ( like camera, GPS, removable storage etc.), that are not in use. Mobile-enabled access devices are growing in popularity due to the ubiquitous nature of cell phones. Built-in capabilities such as Bluetooth, the newer Bluetooth low energy (LE), Near field communication (NFC) on non-iOS devices and biometric validation such as thumb print readers, as well as QR code reader software designed for mobile devices, offer new, secure ways for mobile phones to connect to access control systems. These control systems provide computer security and can also be used for controlling access to secure buildings. Secure operating systems One use of the term "computer security" refers to technology that is used to implement secure operating systems. In the 1980s, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) used the "Orange Book" standards, but the current international standard ISO/IEC 15408, "Common Criteria" defines a number of progressively more stringent Evaluation Assurance Levels. Many common operating systems meet the EAL4 standard of being "Methodically Designed, Tested and Reviewed", but the formal verification required for the highest levels means that they are uncommon. An example of an EAL6 ("Semiformally Verified Design and Tested") system is INTEGRITY-178B, which is used in the Airbus A380 and several military jets. Secure coding In software engineering, secure coding aims to guard against the accidental introduction of security vulnerabilities. It is also possible to create software designed from the ground up to be secure. Such systems are "secure by design". Beyond this, formal verification aims to prove the correctness of the algorithms underlying a system; important for cryptographic protocols for example. Capabilities and access control lists Within computer systems, two of main security models capable of enforcing privilege separation are access control lists (ACLs) and role-based access control (RBAC). An access-control list (ACL), with respect to a computer file system, is a list of permissions associated with an object. An ACL specifies which users or system processes are granted access to objects, as well as what operations are allowed on given objects. Role-based access control is an approach to restricting system access to authorized users, used by the majority of enterprises with more than 500 employees, and can implement mandatory access control (MAC) or discretionary access control (DAC). A further approach, capability-based security has been mostly restricted to research operating systems. Capabilities can, however, also be implemented at the language level, leading to a style of programming that is essentially a refinement of standard object-oriented design. An open-source project in the area is the E language. End user security training The end-user is widely recognized as the weakest link in the security chain and it is estimated that more than 90% of security incidents and breaches involve some kind of human error. Among the most commonly recorded forms of errors and misjudgment are poor password management, sending emails containing sensitive data and attachments to the wrong recipient, the inability to recognize misleading URLs and to identify fake websites and dangerous email attachments. A common mistake that users make is saving their user id/password in their browsers to make it easier to log in to banking sites. This is a gift to attackers who have obtained access to a machine by some means. The risk may be mitigated by the use of two-factor authentication. As the human component of cyber risk is particularly relevant in determining the global cyber risk an organization is facing, security awareness training, at all levels, not only provides formal compliance with regulatory and industry mandates but is considered essential in reducing cyber risk and protecting individuals and companies from the great majority of cyber threats. The focus on the end-user represents a profound cultural change for many security practitioners, who have traditionally approached cybersecurity exclusively from a technical perspective, and moves along the lines suggested by major security centers to develop a culture of cyber awareness within the organization, recognizing that a security-aware user provides an important line of defense against cyber attacks. Digital hygiene Related to end-user training, digital hygiene or cyber hygiene is a fundamental principle relating to information security and, as the analogy with personal hygiene shows, is the equivalent of establishing simple routine measures to minimize the risks from cyber threats. The assumption is that good cyber hygiene practices can give networked users another layer of protection, reducing the risk that one vulnerable node will be used to either mount attacks or compromise another node or network, especially from common cyberattacks. Cyber hygiene should also not be mistaken for proactive cyber defence, a military term. As opposed to a purely technology-based defense against threats, cyber hygiene mostly regards routine measures that are technically simple to implement and mostly dependent on discipline or education. It can be thought of as an abstract list of tips or measures that have been demonstrated as having a positive effect on personal and/or collective digital security. As such, these measures can be performed by laypeople, not just security experts. Cyber hygiene relates to personal hygiene as computer viruses relate to biological viruses (or pathogens). However, while the term computer virus was coined almost simultaneously with the creation of the first working computer viruses, the term cyber hygiene is a much later invention, perhaps as late as 2000 by Internet pioneer Vint Cerf. It has since been adopted by the Congress and Senate of the United States, the FBI, EU institutions and heads of state. Response to breaches Responding to attempted security breaches is often very difficult for a variety of reasons, including: Identifying attackers is difficult, as they may operate through proxies, temporary anonymous dial-up accounts, wireless connections, and other anonymizing procedures which make back-tracing difficult - and are often located in another jurisdiction. If they successfully breach security, they have also often gained enough administrative access to enable them to delete logs to cover their tracks. The sheer number of attempted attacks, often by automated vulnerability scanners and computer worms, is so large that organizations cannot spend time pursuing each. Law enforcement officers often lack the skills, interest or budget to pursue attackers. In addition, the identification of attackers across a network may require logs from various points in the network and in many countries, which may be difficult or time-consuming to obtain. Where an attack succeeds and a breach occurs, many jurisdictions now have in place mandatory security breach notification laws. Types of security and privacy Access control Anti-keyloggers Anti-malware Anti-spyware Anti-subversion software Anti-tamper software Anti-theft Antivirus software Cryptographic software Computer-aided dispatch (CAD) Firewall Intrusion detection system (IDS) Intrusion prevention system (IPS) Log management software Parental control Records management Sandbox Security information management Security information and event management (SIEM) Software and operating system updating Vulnerability Management Incident response planning Incident response is an organized approach to addressing and managing the aftermath of a computer security incident or compromise with the goal of preventing a breach or thwarting a cyberattack. An incident that is not identified and managed at the time of intrusion typically escalates to a more damaging event such as a data breach or system failure. The intended outcome of a computer security incident response plan is to contain the incident, limit damage and assist recovery to business as usual. Responding to compromises quickly can mitigate exploited vulnerabilities, restore services and processes and minimize losses. Incident response planning allows an organization to establish a series of best practices to stop an intrusion before it causes damage. Typical incident response plans contain a set of written instructions that outline the organization's response to a cyberattack. Without a documented plan in place, an organization may not successfully detect an intrusion or compromise and stakeholders may not understand their roles, processes and procedures during an escalation, slowing the organization's response and resolution. There are four key components of a computer security incident response plan: Preparation: Preparing stakeholders on the procedures for handling computer security incidents or compromises Detection and analysis: Identifying and investigating suspicious activity to confirm a security incident, prioritizing the response based on impact and coordinating notification of the incident Containment, eradication and recovery: Isolating affected systems to prevent escalation and limit impact, pinpointing the genesis of the incident, removing malware, affected systems and bad actors from the environment and restoring systems and data when a threat no longer remains Post incident activity: Post mortem analysis of the incident, its root cause and the organization's response with the intent of improving the incident response plan and future response efforts. Notable attacks and breaches Some illustrative examples of different types of computer security breaches are given below. Robert Morris and the first computer worm In 1988, 60,000 computers were connected to the Internet, and most were mainframes, minicomputers and professional workstations. On 2 November 1988, many started to slow down, because they were running a malicious code that demanded processor time and that spread itself to other computers – the first internet "computer worm". The software was traced back to 23-year-old Cornell University graduate student Robert Tappan Morris who said "he wanted to count how many machines were connected to the Internet". Rome Laboratory In 1994, over a hundred intrusions were made by unidentified crackers into the Rome Laboratory, the US Air Force's main command and research facility. Using trojan horses, hackers were able to obtain unrestricted access to Rome's networking systems and remove traces of their activities. The intruders were able to obtain classified files, such as air tasking order systems data and furthermore able to penetrate connected networks of National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Space Flight Center, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, some Defense contractors, and other private sector organizations, by posing as a trusted Rome center user. TJX customer credit card details In early 2007, American apparel and home goods company TJX announced that it was the victim of an unauthorized computer systems intrusion and that the hackers had accessed a system that stored data on credit card, debit card, check, and merchandise return transactions. Stuxnet attack In 2010, the computer worm known as Stuxnet reportedly ruined almost one-fifth of Iran's nuclear centrifuges. It did so by disrupting industrial programmable logic controllers (PLCs) in a targeted attack. This is generally believed to have been launched by Israel and the United States to disrupt Iranian's nuclear program – although neither has publicly admitted this. Global surveillance disclosures In early 2013, documents provided by Edward Snowden were published by The Washington Post and The Guardian exposing the massive scale of NSA global surveillance. There were also indications that the NSA may have inserted a backdoor in a NIST standard for encryption. This standard was later withdrawn due to widespread criticism. The NSA additionally were revealed to have tapped the links between Google's data centers. Target and Home Depot breaches In 2013 and 2014, a Ukrainian hacker known as Rescator broke into Target Corporation computers in 2013, stealing roughly 40 million credit cards, and then Home Depot computers in 2014, stealing between 53 and 56 million credit card numbers. Warnings were delivered at both corporations, but ignored; physical security breaches using self checkout machines are believed to have played a large role. "The malware utilized is absolutely unsophisticated and uninteresting," says Jim Walter, director of threat intelligence operations at security technology company McAfee – meaning that the heists could have easily been stopped by existing antivirus software had administrators responded to the warnings. The size of the thefts has resulted in major attention from state and Federal United States authorities and the investigation is ongoing. Office of Personnel Management data breach In April 2015, the Office of Personnel Management discovered it had been hacked more than a year earlier in a data breach, resulting in the theft of approximately 21.5 million personnel records handled by the office. The Office of Personnel Management hack has been described by federal officials as among the largest breaches of government data in the history of the United States. Data targeted in the breach included personally identifiable information such as Social Security numbers, names, dates and places of birth, addresses, and fingerprints of current and former government employees as well as anyone who had undergone a government background check. It is believed the hack was perpetrated by Chinese hackers. Ashley Madison breach In July 2015, a hacker group known as "The Impact Team" successfully breached the extramarital relationship website Ashley Madison, created by Avid Life Media. The group claimed that they had taken not only company data but user data as well. After the breach, The Impact Team dumped emails from the company's CEO, to prove their point, and threatened to dump customer data unless the website was taken down permanently." When Avid Life Media did not take the site offline the group released two more compressed files, one 9.7GB and the second 20GB. After the second data dump, Avid Life Media CEO Noel Biderman resigned; but the website remained functioning. Colonial Pipeline Ransomware Attack In June 2021, the cyber attack took down the largest fuel pipeline in the U.S. and led to shortages across the East Coast. Legal issues and global regulation International legal issues of cyber attacks are complicated in nature. There is no global base of common rules to judge, and eventually punish, cybercrimes and cybercriminals - and where security firms or agencies do locate the cybercriminal behind the creation of a particular piece of malware or form of cyber attack, often the local authorities cannot take action due to lack of laws under which to prosecute. Proving attribution for cybercrimes and cyberattacks is also a major problem for all law enforcement agencies. "Computer viruses switch from one country to another, from one jurisdiction to another – moving around the world, using the fact that we don't have the capability to globally police operations like this. So the Internet is as if someone [had] given free plane tickets to all the online criminals of the world." The use of techniques such as dynamic DNS, fast flux and bullet proof servers add to the difficulty of investigation and enforcement. Role of government The role of the government is to make regulations to force companies and organizations to protect their systems, infrastructure and information from any cyberattacks, but also to protect its own national infrastructure such as the national power-grid. The government's regulatory role in cyberspace is complicated. For some, cyberspace was seen as a virtual space that was to remain free of government intervention, as can be seen in many of today's libertarian blockchain and bitcoin discussions. Many government officials and experts think that the government should do more and that there is a crucial need for improved regulation, mainly due to the failure of the private sector to solve efficiently the cybersecurity problem. R. Clarke said during a panel discussion at the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco, he believes that the "industry only responds when you threaten regulation. If the industry doesn't respond (to the threat), you have to follow through." On the other hand, executives from the private sector agree that improvements are necessary, but think that government intervention would affect their ability to innovate efficiently. Daniel R. McCarthy analyzed this public-private partnership in cybersecurity and reflected on the role of cybersecurity in the broader constitution of political order. On 22 May 2020, the UN Security Council held its second ever informal meeting on cybersecurity to focus on cyber challenges to international peace. According to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, new technologies are too often used to violate rights. International actions Many different teams and organizations exist, including: The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) is the global association of CSIRTs. The US-CERT, AT&T, Apple, Cisco, McAfee, Microsoft are all members of this international team. The Council of Europe helps protect societies worldwide from the threat of cybercrime through the Convention on Cybercrime. The purpose of the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) is to bring the messaging industry together to work collaboratively and to successfully address the various forms of messaging abuse, such as spam, viruses, denial-of-service attacks and other messaging exploitations. France Telecom, Facebook, AT&T, Apple, Cisco, Sprint are some of the members of the MAAWG. ENISA : The European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) is an agency of the European Union with the objective to improve network and information security in the European Union. Europe On 14 April 2016 the European Parliament and Council of the European Union adopted The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU) 2016/679. GDPR, which became enforceable beginning 25 May 2018, provides for data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). GDPR requires that business processes that handle personal data be built with data protection by design and by default. GDPR also requires that certain organizations appoint a Data Protection Officer (DPO). National actions Computer emergency response teams Most countries have their own computer emergency response team to protect network security. Canada Since 2010, Canada has had a cybersecurity strategy. This functions as a counterpart document to the National Strategy and Action Plan for Critical Infrastructure. The strategy has three main pillars: securing government systems, securing vital private cyber systems, and helping Canadians to be secure online. There is also a Cyber Incident Management Framework to provide a coordinated response in the event of a cyber incident. The Canadian Cyber Incident Response Centre (CCIRC) is responsible for mitigating and responding to threats to Canada's critical infrastructure and cyber systems. It provides support to mitigate cyber threats, technical support to respond & recover from targeted cyber attacks, and provides online tools for members of Canada's critical infrastructure sectors. It posts regular cybersecurity bulletins & operates an online reporting tool where individuals and organizations can report a cyber incident. To inform the general public on how to protect themselves online, Public Safety Canada has partnered with STOP.THINK.CONNECT, a coalition of non-profit, private sector, and government organizations, and launched the Cyber Security Cooperation Program. They also run the GetCyberSafe portal for Canadian citizens, and Cyber Security Awareness Month during October. Public Safety Canada aims to begin an evaluation of Canada's cybersecurity strategy in early 2015. China China's Central Leading Group for Internet Security and Informatization () was established on 27 February 2014. This Leading Small Group (LSG) of the Chinese Communist Party is headed by General Secretary Xi Jinping himself and is staffed with relevant Party and state decision-makers. The LSG was created to overcome the incoherent policies and overlapping responsibilities that characterized China's former cyberspace decision-making mechanisms. The LSG oversees policy-making in the economic, political, cultural, social and military fields as they relate to network security and IT strategy. This LSG also coordinates major policy initiatives in the international arena that promote norms and standards favored by the Chinese government and that emphasizes the principle of national sovereignty in cyberspace. Germany Berlin starts National Cyber Defense Initiative: On 16 June 2011, the German Minister for Home Affairs, officially opened the new German NCAZ (National Center for Cyber Defense) Nationales Cyber-Abwehrzentrum located in Bonn. The NCAZ closely cooperates with BSI (Federal Office for Information Security) Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik, BKA (Federal Police Organisation) Bundeskriminalamt (Deutschland), BND (Federal Intelligence Service) Bundesnachrichtendienst, MAD (Military Intelligence Service) Amt für den Militärischen Abschirmdienst and other national organizations in Germany taking care of national security aspects. According to the Minister, the primary task of the new organization founded on 23 February 2011, is to detect and prevent attacks against the national infrastructure and mentioned incidents like Stuxnet. Germany has also established the largest research institution for IT security in Europe, the Center for Research in Security and Privacy (CRISP) in Darmstadt. India Some provisions for cybersecurity have been incorporated into rules framed under the Information Technology Act 2000. The National Cyber Security Policy 2013 is a policy framework by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) which aims to protect the public and private infrastructure from cyberattacks, and safeguard "information, such as personal information (of web users), financial and banking information and sovereign data". CERT- In is the nodal agency which monitors the cyber threats in the country. The post of National Cyber Security Coordinator has also been created in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). The Indian Companies Act 2013 has also introduced cyber law and cybersecurity obligations on the part of Indian directors. Some provisions for cybersecurity have been incorporated into rules framed under the Information Technology Act 2000 Update in 2013. South Korea Following cyber attacks in the first half of 2013, when the government, news media, television station, and bank websites were compromised, the national government committed to the training of 5,000 new cybersecurity experts by 2017. The South Korean government blamed its northern counterpart for these attacks, as well as incidents that occurred in 2009, 2011, and 2012, but Pyongyang denies the accusations. United States Legislation The 1986 , the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is the key legislation. It prohibits unauthorized access or damage of "protected computers" as defined in . Although various other measures have been proposed – none has succeeded. In 2013, executive order 13636 Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity was signed, which prompted the creation of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. In response to the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 14028 on May 12, 2021, to increase software security standards for sales to the government, tighten detection and security on existing systems, improve information sharing and training, establish a Cyber Safety Review Board, and improve incident response. Standardized government testing services The General Services Administration (GSA) has standardized the "penetration test" service as a pre-vetted support service, to rapidly address potential vulnerabilities, and stop adversaries before they impact US federal, state and local governments. These services are commonly referred to as Highly Adaptive Cybersecurity Services (HACS). Agencies The Department of Homeland Security has a dedicated division responsible for the response system, risk management program and requirements for cybersecurity in the United States called the National Cyber Security Division. The division is home to US-CERT operations and the National Cyber Alert System. The National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center brings together government organizations responsible for protecting computer networks and networked infrastructure. The third priority of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is to: "Protect the United States against cyber-based attacks and high-technology crimes", and they, along with the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) are part of the multi-agency task force, The Internet Crime Complaint Center, also known as IC3. In addition to its own specific duties, the FBI participates alongside non-profit organizations such as InfraGard. The Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) operates in the United States Department of Justice Criminal Division. The CCIPS is in charge of investigating computer crime and intellectual property crime and is specialized in the search and seizure of digital evidence in computers and networks. In 2017, CCIPS published A Framework for a Vulnerability Disclosure Program for Online Systems to help organizations "clearly describe authorized vulnerability disclosure and discovery conduct, thereby substantially reducing the likelihood that such described activities will result in a civil or criminal violation of law under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030)." The United States Cyber Command, also known as USCYBERCOM, "has the mission to direct, synchronize, and coordinate cyberspace planning and operations to defend and advance national interests in collaboration with domestic and international partners." It has no role in the protection of civilian networks. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission's role in cybersecurity is to strengthen the protection of critical communications infrastructure, to assist in maintaining the reliability of networks during disasters, to aid in swift recovery after, and to ensure that first responders have access to effective communications services. The Food and Drug Administration has issued guidance for medical devices, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is concerned with automotive cybersecurity. After being criticized by the Government Accountability Office, and following successful attacks on airports and claimed attacks on airplanes, the Federal Aviation Administration has devoted funding to securing systems on board the planes of private manufacturers, and the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System. Concerns have also been raised about the future Next Generation Air Transportation System. Computer emergency readiness team "Computer emergency response team" is a name given to expert groups that handle computer security incidents. In the US, two distinct organization exist, although they do work closely together. US-CERT: part of the National Cyber Security Division of the United States Department of Homeland Security. CERT/CC: created by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and run by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI). Modern warfare There is growing concern that cyberspace will become the next theater of warfare. As Mark Clayton from The Christian Science Monitor wrote in a 2015 article titled "The New Cyber Arms Race": In the future, wars will not just be fought by soldiers with guns or with planes that drop bombs. They will also be fought with the click of a mouse a half a world away that unleashes carefully weaponized computer programs that disrupt or destroy critical industries like utilities, transportation, communications, and energy. Such attacks could also disable military networks that control the movement of troops, the path of jet fighters, the command and control of warships. This has led to new terms such as cyberwarfare and cyberterrorism. The United States Cyber Command was created in 2009 and many other countries have similar forces. There are a few critical voices that question whether cybersecurity is as significant a threat as it is made out to be. Careers Cybersecurity is a fast-growing field of IT concerned with reducing organizations' risk of hack or data breach. According to research from the Enterprise Strategy Group, 46% of organizations say that they have a "problematic shortage" of cybersecurity skills in 2016, up from 28% in 2015. Commercial, government and non-governmental organizations all employ cybersecurity professionals. The fastest increases in demand for cybersecurity workers are in industries managing increasing volumes of consumer data such as finance, health care, and retail. However, the use of the term "cybersecurity" is more prevalent in government job descriptions. Typical cybersecurity job titles and descriptions include: Security analyst Analyzes and assesses vulnerabilities in the infrastructure (software, hardware, networks), investigates using available tools and countermeasures to remedy the detected vulnerabilities and recommends solutions and best practices. Analyzes and assesses damage to the data/infrastructure as a result of security incidents, examines available recovery tools and processes, and recommends solutions. Tests for compliance with security policies and procedures. May assist in the creation, implementation, or management of security solutions. Security engineer Performs security monitoring, security and data/logs analysis, and forensic analysis, to detect security incidents, and mounts the incident response. Investigates and utilizes new technologies and processes to enhance security capabilities and implement improvements. May also review code or perform other security engineering methodologies. Security architect Designs a security system or major components of a security system, and may head a security design team building a new security system. Security administrator Installs and manages organization-wide security systems. This position may also include taking on some of the tasks of a security analyst in smaller organizations. Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) A high-level management position responsible for the entire information security division/staff. The position may include hands-on technical work. Chief Security Officer (CSO) A high-level management position responsible for the entire security division/staff. A newer position now deemed needed as security risks grow. Data Protection Officer (DPO) A DPO is tasked with monitoring compliance with the UK GDPR and other data protection laws, our data protection policies, awareness-raising, training, and audits. Security Consultant/Specialist/Intelligence Broad titles that encompass any one or all of the other roles or titles tasked with protecting computers, networks, software, data or information systems against viruses, worms, spyware, malware, intrusion detection, unauthorized access, denial-of-service attacks, and an ever-increasing list of attacks by hackers acting as individuals or as part of organized crime or foreign governments. Student programs are also available for people interested in beginning a career in cybersecurity. Meanwhile, a flexible and effective option for information security professionals of all experience levels to keep studying is online security training, including webcasts. A wide range of certified courses are also available. In the United Kingdom, a nationwide set of cybersecurity forums, known as the U.K Cyber Security Forum, were established supported by the Government's cybersecurity strategy in order to encourage start-ups and innovation and to address the skills gap identified by the U.K Government. In Singapore, the Cyber Security Agency has issued a Singapore Operational Technology (OT) Cybersecurity Competency Framework (OTCCF). The framework defines emerging cybersecurity roles in Operational Technology. The OTCCF was endorsed by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA). It outlines the different OT cybersecurity job positions as well as the technical skills and core competencies necessary. It also depicts the many career paths available, including vertical and lateral advancement opportunities. Terminology The following terms used with regards to computer security are explained below: Access authorization restricts access to a computer to a group of users through the use of authentication systems. These systems can protect either the whole computer, such as through an interactive login screen, or individual services, such as a FTP server. There are many methods for identifying and authenticating users, such as passwords, identification cards, smart cards, and biometric systems. Anti-virus software consists of computer programs that attempt to identify, thwart, and eliminate computer viruses and other malicious software (malware). Applications are executable code, so general practice is to disallow users the power to install them; to install only those which are known to be reputable – and to reduce the attack surface by installing as few as possible. They are typically run with least privilege, with a robust process in place to identify, test and install any released security patches or updates for them. Authentication techniques can be used to ensure that communication end-points are who they say they are. Automated theorem proving and other verification tools can be used to enable critical algorithms and code used in secure systems to be mathematically proven to meet their specifications. Backups are one or more copies kept of important computer files. Typically, multiple copies will be kept at different locations so that if a copy is stolen or damaged, other copies will still exist. Capability and access control list techniques can be used to ensure privilege separation and mandatory access control. Capabilities vs. ACLs discusses their use. Chain of trust techniques can be used to attempt to ensure that all software loaded has been certified as authentic by the system's designers. Confidentiality is the nondisclosure of information except to another authorized person. Cryptographic techniques can be used to defend data in transit between systems, reducing the probability that the data exchange between systems can be intercepted or modified. Cyberwarfare is an Internet-based conflict that involves politically motivated attacks on information and information systems. Such attacks can, for example, disable official websites and networks, disrupt or disable essential services, steal or alter classified data, and cripple financial systems. Data integrity is the accuracy and consistency of stored data, indicated by an absence of any alteration in data between two updates of a data record. Encryption is used to protect the confidentiality of a message. Cryptographically secure ciphers are designed to make any practical attempt of breaking them infeasible. Symmetric-key ciphers are suitable for bulk encryption using shared keys, and public-key encryption using digital certificates can provide a practical solution for the problem of securely communicating when no key is shared in advance. Endpoint security software aids networks in preventing malware infection and data theft at network entry points made vulnerable by the prevalence of potentially infected devices such as laptops, mobile devices, and USB drives. Firewalls serve as a gatekeeper system between networks, allowing only traffic that matches defined rules. They often include detailed logging, and may include intrusion detection and intrusion prevention features. They are near-universal between company local area networks and the Internet, but can also be used internally to impose traffic rules between networks if network segmentation is configured. A hacker is someone who seeks to breach defenses and exploit weaknesses in a computer system or network. Honey pots are computers that are intentionally left vulnerable to attack by crackers. They can be used to catch crackers and to identify their techniques. Intrusion-detection systems are devices or software applications that monitor networks or systems for malicious activity or policy violations. A microkernel is an approach to operating system design which has only the near-minimum amount of code running at the most privileged level – and runs other elements of the operating system such as device drivers, protocol stacks and file systems, in the safer, less privileged user space. Pinging. The standard "ping" application can be used to test if an IP address is in use. If it is, attackers may then try a port scan to detect which services are exposed. A port scan is used to probe an IP address for open ports to identify accessible network services and applications. A key logger is spyware which silently captures and stores each keystroke that a user types on the computer's keyboard. Social engineering is the use of deception to manipulate individuals to breach security. Logic bombs is a type of malware added to a legitimate program that lies dormant until it is triggered by a specific event. Zero trust security means that no one is trusted by default from inside or outside the network, and verification is required from everyone trying to gain access to resources on the network. Notable scholars See also References Further reading Jeremy Bob, Yonah (2021) "Ex-IDF cyber intel. official reveals secrets behind cyber offense". The Jerusalem Post Branch, J. (2020). "What's in a Name? Metaphors and Cybersecurity." International Organization. Fuller, Christopher J. "The Roots of the United States’ Cyber (In)Security," Diplomatic History 43:1 (2019): 157–185. online Montagnani, Maria Lillà and Cavallo, Mirta Antonella (26 July 2018). "Cybersecurity and Liability in a Big Data World". SSRN. M. Shariati et al. / Procedia Computer Science 3 (2011) 537–543. Enterprise information security, a review of architectures and frameworks from interoperability perspective External links Computer security Cryptography Cyberwarfare Data protection Information governance Malware

Cobbler(s) may refer to: Places The Cobbler, a mountain located near the head of Loch Long in Scotland Art, entertainment and media The Cobbler (1923 film), a short comedy by Hal Roach The Cobbler (2014 film), a comedy-drama starring Adam Sandler "Cobbler" (Better Call Saul), an episode of the TV series Better Call Saul "The Cunning Cobbler", a folk song, No. 174 in the Roud Folk Song Index, also called "The Cunning Cobbler Done Over" Animals Cobbler or river cobbler, a marketing name in the UK for Southeast Asian Pangasius bocourti and Pangasius pangasius (also marketed as "basa", "pangasius" and "panga") Cobbler, a common name for Cnidoglanis macrocephalus, a species of catfish found along the coasts of Australia Cobbler, a common name for the South Australian cobbler, a brown fish found in estuaries in southern Australia Cobbler (Condica sutor), a North American moth in the family Noctuidae Food and drink Cobbler (food), a type of pie Cobbler, a type of mixed drink made with wine or sherry, citrus juice and sugar Occupations Cobbler, a person who repairs, and sometimes makes, shoes Cobbler, a person who illegally forges passports and other documents Other uses Cobbler (software), a network-oriented install server for Linux , a United States Navy ship name , a former submarine in the United States Navy "The Cobblers", a nickname for the English association football club Northampton Town F.C. Cobblers, a slang term for nonsense; see Rhyming slang#Taboo terms See also The Thief and the Cobbler Heath Cobblers Cobble (disambiguation)

A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Sometimes the term is applied to albums considered to be of "uniform excellence" rather than an LP with an explicit musical or lyrical motif. There is no consensus among music critics as to the specific criteria for what a "concept album" is. The format originates with folk singer Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads (1940) and was subsequently popularized by traditional pop/jazz singer Frank Sinatra's 1940s–50s string of albums, although the term is more often associated with rock music. In the 1960s several well-regarded concept albums were released by various rock bands, which eventually led to the invention of progressive rock and rock opera. Since then, many concept albums have been released across numerous musical genres. Definitions There is no clear definition of what constitutes a "concept album". Fiona Sturges of The Independent stated that the concept album "was originally defined as a long-player where the songs were based on one dramatic idea – but the term is subjective." A precursor to this type of album can be found in the 19th-century song cycle which ran into similar difficulties in classification. The extremely broad definitions of a "concept album" could potentially encompass all soundtracks, compilations, cast recordings, greatest hits albums, tribute albums, Christmas albums, and live albums. The most common definitions refer to an expanded approach to a rock album (as a story, play, or opus), or a project that either revolves around a specific theme or a collection of related materials. AllMusic writes, "A concept album could be a collection of songs by an individual songwriter or a particular theme – these are the concept LPs that reigned in the '50s ... the phrase 'concept album' is inextricably tied to the late 1960s, when rock & rollers began stretching the limits of their art form." Author Jim Cullen describes it as "a collection of discrete but thematically unified songs whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts ... sometimes [erroneously] assumed to be a product of the rock era." Author Roy Shuker defines concept albums and rock operas as albums that are "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical. ... In this form, the album changed from a collection of heterogeneous songs into a narrative work with a single theme, in which individual songs segue into one another." Speaking of concepts in albums during the 1970s, Robert Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), because "overall impression" of an album matters, "concept intensifies the impact" of certain albums "in more or less the way Sgt. Pepper intended", as well as "a species of concept that pushes a rhythmically unrelenting album like The Wild Magnolias or a vocally irresistible one like Shirley Brown's Woman to Woman, to a deeper level of significance." History 1940s–50s: Origins In the 2016 documentary When Pop Went Epic: The Crazy World of the Concept Album, narrated by Rick Wakeman, it is suggested that the first concept album is Woody Guthrie's 1940 album Dust Bowl Ballads. The Independent regards it as "perhaps" one of the first concept albums, consisting exclusively of semi-autobiographical songs about the hardships of American migrant labourers during the 1930s. In the late 1940s, the LP record was introduced, with space age pop composers producing concept albums soon after. Themes included exploring wild life and dealing with emotions, with some albums meant to be played while dining or relaxing. This was accompanied in the mid 1950s with the invention of the gatefold, which allowed room for liner notes to explain the concept. Singer Frank Sinatra recorded several concept albums prior to the 1960s rock era, including In the Wee Small Hours (1955), and Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely (1958). Sinatra is occasionally credited as the inventor of the concept album, beginning with The Voice of Frank Sinatra (1946), which led to similar work by Bing Crosby. According to biographer Will Friedwald, Sinatra "sequenced the songs so that the lyrics created a flow from track to track, affording an impression of a narrative, as in musical comedy or opera. ... [He was the] first pop singer to bring a consciously artistic attitude to recording." Singer/pianist Nat "King" Cole (who, along with Sinatra, often collaborated with arranger Nelson Riddle during this era) was also an early pioneer of concept albums, as with his Wild Is Love (1960), a suite of original songs about a man's search for love. 1960s: Rock and country music In the early 1960s, concept albums began featuring highly in American country music, however the fact went largely unacknowledged by rock/pop fans and critics who would only begin noting "concept albums" as a phenomenon later in the decade, when albums became closely aligned with countercultural ideology, resulting in a recognised "album era" and the introduction of the rock concept album. The author Carys Wyn Jones writes that the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds (1966), the Beatles' Revolver (1966) and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), and the Who's Tommy (1969) are variously cited as "the first concept album", usually for their "uniform excellence rather than some lyrical theme or underlying musical motif". Other records have been claimed as "early" or "first" concept albums. The 100 Greatest Bands of All Time (2015) states that the Ventures "pioneered the idea of the rock concept album years before the genre is generally acknowledged to have been born" with their 1964 album The Ventures in Space. Another is the Beach Boys' Little Deuce Coupe (1963). Writing in 101 Albums That Changed Popular Music, Chris Smith commented: "Though albums such as Frank Sinatra's 1955 In the Wee Small Hours and Marty Robbins' 1959 Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs had already introduced concept albums, Little Deuce Coupe was the first to comprise almost all original material rather than standard covers." Writing in his Concise Dictionary of Popular Culture, Marcel Danesi identifies the Beatles' Rubber Soul (1965) and the Who's The Who Sell Out (1967) as other examples of early concept albums. Brian Boyd of The Irish Times names the Kinks' Face to Face (1966) as the first concept album: "Written entirely by Ray Davies, the songs were supposed to be linked by pieces of music, so that the album would play without gaps, but the record company baulked at such radicalism. It’s not one of the band’s finest works, but it did have an impact." "Popular consensus" for the first rock concept album, according to AllMusic, favours Sgt. Pepper. According to music critic Tim Riley, "Strictly speaking, the Mothers of Invention's Freak Out! [1966] has claims as the first 'concept album', but Sgt. Pepper was the record that made that idea convincing to most ears." Musicologist Allan Moore says that "Even though previous albums had set a unified mood (notably Sinatra's Songs for Swinging Lovers), it was on the basis of the influence of Sgt. Pepper that the penchant for the concept album was born." Adding to Sgt. Peppers claim, the artwork reinforced its central theme by depicting the four Beatles in uniform as members of the Sgt. Pepper band, while the record omitted the gaps that usually separated album tracks. Music critic and journalist Neil Slaven stated that Frank Zappa's Absolutely Free, released the same day as Sgt. Pepper, was "very much a concept album, but The Beatles effortlessly stole his thunder", and subsequently Sgt. Pepper was hailed as "perhaps the first 'concept album' even though the songs were unrelated" 1960s–70s: Rock operas and progressive rock Author Bill Martin relates the assumed concept albums of the 1960s to progressive rock: Popmatters Sarah Zupko notes that while the Who's Tommy is "popularly thought of as the first rock opera, an extra-long concept album with characters, a consistent storyline, and a slight bit of pomposity", it is preceded by the shorter concept albums Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake (Small Faces, 1968) and S.F. Sorrow (The Pretty Things, 1968). Author Jim Cullen states: "The concept album reached its apogee in the 1970s in ambitious records like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (1973) and the Eagles' Hotel California (1976)." In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked Dark Side of the Moon at number one among the 50 greatest progressive rock albums of all-time, also noting the LP's stature as the second best-selling album of all time. Pink Floyd's The Wall (1979), a semi-autobiographical story modeled after the band's Roger Waters and Syd Barrett, is one of the most famous concept albums by any artist. In addition to The Wall, Danesi highlights Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (1974) and Frank Zappa's Joe's Garage (1979) as other culturally significant concept albums. According to author Edward Macan, concept albums as a recurrent theme in progressive rock was directly inspired by the counterculture associated with "the proto-progressive bands of the 1960s", observing: "the consistent use of lengthy forms such as the programmatic song cycle of the concept album and the multimovement suite underscores the hippies' new, drug-induced conception of time." Progressive soul musicians inspired by this approach conceived concept albums during this era reflecting themes and concerns of the African-American experience, including Marvin Gaye (1971's What's Going On) and George Clinton (the 1975 Parliament album Mothership Connection). 1980s–present: Decline and return to popularity With the emergence of MTV as a music video network which valued singles over albums, concept albums became less dominant in the 1980s. Some artists, however, still released concept albums and experienced success in the 1990s and 2000s. NMEs Emily Barker cites Green Day's American Idiot (2004) as one of the "more notable" examples, having brought the concept album back to high-charting positions. Dorian Lynskey, writing for GQ, noted a resurgence of concept albums in the 2010s due to streaming: "This is happening not in spite of the rise of streaming and playlists, but because of it. Threatened with redundancy in the digital era, albums have fought back by becoming more album-like." Cucchiara argues that "concept albums" should also describe "this new generation of concept albums, for one key reason. This is because the unison between the songs on a particular album has now been expanded into a broader field of visual and artistic design and marketing strategies that play into the themes and stories that form the album." In the 21st century, the field of classical music has adopted the idea of the "concept album", citing such historical examples as Schubert's Die Winterreise and Schumann's Liederkreis as prototypes for contemporary composers and musicians. Classical composers and performers increasingly adopt production and marketing strategies that unify otherwise disparate works into concept albums or concerts. The classical music magazine Gramophone includes a special category for "concept album" in its annual "Recordings of the Year Awards", to celebrate "albums where a creative mind has curated something visionary, a programme whose whole speaks more powerfully than its parts. A thought-through journey, which compels to be heard in one sitting." In a year-ending essay on the album in 2019, Ann Powers wrote for Slate that the year found the medium in a state of flux. In her observation, many recording artists revitalized the concept album around autobiographical narratives and personal themes, such as intimacy, intersectionality, African-American life, boundaries among women, and grief associated with death. She cited such albums as Brittany Howard's Jaime, Raphael Saadiq's Jimmy Lee, Jamila Woods' LEGACY! LEGACY!, Rapsody's Eve, Jenny Lewis' On the Line, Julia Jacklin's Crushing, Joe Henry's The Gospel According to Water, and Nick Cave's Ghosteen. See also Album era List of concept albums References Notes Citations Bibliography Further reading Album types

Commodore is a senior naval rank used in many navies which is equivalent to brigadier and air commodore. It is superior to a navy captain, but below a rear admiral. It is either regarded as the most junior of the flag officers rank or may not hold the jurisdiction of a flag officer at all depending on the officer's appointment. Non-English-speaking nations commonly use the rank of flotilla admiral, counter admiral, or senior captain as an equivalent, although counter admiral may also correspond to rear admiral lower half abbreviated as RDML. Traditionally, "commodore" is the title for any officer assigned to command more than one ship, even temporarily, much as "captain" is the traditional title for the commanding officer of a single ship even if the officer's official title in the service is a lower rank. As an official rank, a commodore typically commands a flotilla or squadron of ships as part of a larger task force or naval fleet commanded by an admiral. A commodore's ship is typically designated by the flying of a broad pennant, as compared to an admiral's flag. "Commodore" is typically regarded as a one-star rank with a NATO code of OF-6, known in the U.S. as "rear admiral (lower half)", but whether it is regarded as a flag rank varies among countries. It is sometimes abbreviated as "Cdre" in British Royal Navy, "CDRE" in the US Navy, "Cmdre" in the Royal Canadian Navy, "COMO" in the Spanish Navy and in some navies speaking the Spanish language, or "CMDE" as used in the Indian Navy and in navies of several other countries. Etymology The rank of commodore derives from the French commandeur, which was one of the highest ranks in the orders of knighthood, and in military orders the title of the knight in charge of a commande (a local part of the order's territorial possessions). History The Dutch Navy also used the rank of commandeur from the end of the 16th century for a variety of temporary positions, until it became a conventional permanent rank in 1955. The Royal Netherlands Air Force has adopted the English spelling of "commodore" for an equivalent rank. In the Royal Navy, the position was introduced in the 17th Century to combat the cost of appointing more admirals—a costly business with a fleet as large as the Royal Navy's at that time. The rank of commodore was at first a position created as a temporary title to be bestowed upon captains who commanded squadrons of more than one vessel. In many navies, the rank of commodore was merely viewed as a senior captain position, whereas other naval services bestowed upon the rank of commodore the prestige of flag officer status. United States In 1899, the substantive rank of commodore was discontinued in the United States Navy, but revived during World War II in both the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard. It was discontinued as a rank in these services during the postwar period, but as an appointment, the title "commodore" was then used to identify senior U.S. Navy captains who commanded squadrons of more than one vessel or functional air wings or air groups that were not part of a carrier air wing or carrier air group. Concurrently, until the early 1980s, U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard captains selected for promotion to the rank of rear admiral (lower half), would wear the same insignia as rear admiral (upper half), i.e., two silver stars for collar insignia or sleeve braid of one wide and one narrow gold stripe, even though they were actually only equivalent to one-star officers and paid at the one-star rate. To correct this inequity, the rank of commodore as a single star flag officer was reinstated by both services in the early 1980s. This immediately caused confusion with those senior U.S. Navy captains commanding destroyer squadrons, submarine squadrons, functional air wings and air groups, and so on, who held the temporary "title" of commodore while in their major command billet. As a result of this confusion, the services soon renamed the new one-star rank as commodore admiral (CADM) within the first six months following the rank's reintroduction. However, this was considered an awkward title and the one-star flag rank was renamed a few months later to its current title of rear admiral (lower half), later abbreviated by the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard as RDML. The "title" of commodore continues to be used in the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard for those senior captains in command of organizations consisting of groups of ships or submarines organized into squadrons; air wings or air groups of multiple aviation squadrons other than carrier air wings (the latter whose commanders still use the title "CAG"); explosive ordnance disposal (EOD), mine warfare and special warfare (SEAL) groups; Mobile Inshore Underwater Warfare (MIUW) groups; and construction (SeaBee) regiments. Although not flag officers, modern day commodores in the U.S. Navy rate a blue and white command pennant, also known as a broad pennant, that is normally flown at their headquarters facilities ashore or from ships that they are embarked aboard when they are the senior officer present afloat (SOPA). Argentina In the Argentine Navy, the position of commodore was created in the late 1990s, and is usually, but not always, issued to senior captains holding rear-admirals' positions. It is not a rank but a distinction and, as such, can be issued by the chief of staff without congressional approval. Its equivalents are colonel-major in the Army and commodore-major in the Air Force. It is usually—but incorrectly—referred to as "navy commodore", to avoid confusion with the "air force commodore", which is equivalent to the navy's captain and army's colonel. The sleeve lace is identical to that of the Royal Navy, and wears one star on the epaulette. Naval rank The following articles deal with the rank of commodore (or its equivalent) as it is employed OF-6 one-star flag officer rank in various countries. Air force ranks Commodore, in Spanish comodoro, is a rank in the Argentine Air Force. This rank is the equivalent of a colonel in the Argentine Army, and a colonel or group captain in other air forces of the world. The Argentine rank below commodore is the rank of vice-commodore (Spanish vicecomodoro) equivalent to a lieutenant-colonel in the Argentine Army, and a lieutenant-colonel or wing commander in other air forces. Commodore is a rank in the Royal Netherlands Air Force. It is a one-star rank and has essentially the same rank insignia as the British air commodore. Many air forces use the rank of air commodore. This rank was first used by the Royal Air Force and is now used in many countries such as Australia, Bangladesh, Greece, India, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Thailand and Zimbabwe. It is the equivalent rank to the navy rank of "commodore", and the army ranks of brigadier and brigadier general. The German air force used the concept of a unit commodore for the commander of a wing, usually in the rank of colonel (OF-5). Merchant Service (Merchant Marine) rank and Yacht Club chief directors Commodore is also a title held by many captains as recognition of exceptional navigation ability and seagoing seniority in the Merchant Service, and by the directors of a few yacht clubs and boating associations. Commodores 'in command' as Master aboard Merchant Marine ships wear distinctive rank and cap insignia denoting their honorific high rank position. Traditionally, commodore is the title of the president of a yacht club. Convoy commodore During wartime, a shipping convoy will have a ranking officer—sometimes an active-duty naval officer, at other times a civilian master or retired naval officer—designated as the convoy commodore. This title is not related to the individuals military rank (if any), but instead is the title of the senior individual responsible for the overall operation of the merchant ships and naval auxiliary ships that make up the convoy. The convoy commodore does not command the convoy escort forces (if any), which are commanded by a naval officer who serves as escort commander. Civilian use Commodore in Yachting Leadership Civilian yacht clubs, yachting associations and fellowships with formal hierarchical structures, began to use the title "commodore" in countries around the world for their presidents in the early twentieth century along with "vice commodore" in the same manner as "vice president,"and "rear-commodore" and "port captain' or "international bridge member" in the same manner as board members. Commodores, vice-commodores and rear-commodores are also known as civilian flag officers because they have an epaulettes, regalia and maritime flags with designated symbols and number of stars for their ranks. Many of the clubs that are more than a century old, such as the Los Angeles Yacht Club have formal ceremonies, where commodores from more than 100 surrounding yacht clubs, flag officers of the US Navy and Coast Guard attend a ceremony at the beginning of the year. The ceremony includes a bagpipe entrance, a presentation of the country flag by commissioned officers of the country's navy and a cannon shot upon the raising of each individual officer's flags on a flag staff, (also known as flagpoles) for each flag officer (commodore, vice commodore, rear commodore) as their term of office officially begins. Sometimes a trumpet fanfare is also include for special occasions like ribbon cutting in 2019 for the 50th Transpacific Yacht Race. Salutes are given to commodores for special ceremonies, including opening days of the racing season. Other uses The U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary also employs variants of the title of commodore. Members of the Auxiliary serve in the Coast Guard's uniformed auxiliary service and they do not have military rank, but who do wear modified U.S. Coast Guard uniforms and U.S. military-style officer rank insignia to indicate office. Auxiliary members who have been elected or appointed to positions in the highest levels of the organization, similar in nature to active and reserve rear admirals and vice admirals use the term commodore (e.g., district commodore, assistant national commodore, deputy national commodore, national commodore, etc.). These Coast Guard auxiliarists may permanently append the title commodore, sometimes abbreviated COMO, to their names (e.g., Commodore James A. Smith, National Commodore; or COMO Jim Smith, (NACO)). In the Philippine Coast Guard Auxiliary—PCGA—each of the directors in command of the ten Coast Guard Auxiliary districts are commodores, as well as most of the Deputy National Directors (some may be rear admirals). Commodore is abbreviated to COMMO in the PCGA. Vanderbilt University's intercollegiate athletics teams are nicknamed the "Commodores", a reference to Cornelius Vanderbilt's self-appointed title (he was the master of a large shipping fleet). In the U.S. Sea Scouting program (which is part of the Boy Scouts of America), all National, Regional, Area, and Council committee chairs are titled as commodore, while senior committee members are addressed as vice commodore. Ship committee chairs do not hold this recognition. See also Commodore-in-Chief Comparative military ranks References Naval ranks One-star officers

Cetaceans (from , from , sea monster) are aquatic mammals constituting the infraorder Cetacea (), including whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively carnivorous diet. They propel themselves through the water with powerful up-and-down movement of their tail which ends in a paddle-like fluke, using their flipper-shaped forelimbs to maneuver. While the majority of Cetaceans live in marine environments, a small number exclusively reside in brackish water or freshwater. Having a cosmopolitan distribution, they can be found in some rivers and all of earth's oceans and many species inhabit vast ranges where they migrate with the changing of the seasons. Cetaceans are famous for their high intelligence and complex social behaviour as well as the enormous size of some of its members, like the blue whale reaching a maximum confirmed length of 29.9 meters (98 feet) and weight of 173 tonnes (190 short tons), making it the largest animal known to have ever existed. There are approximately 86 living species split into two parvorders: Odontoceti or toothed whales (containing porpoises, dolphins, other predatory whales like the beluga and the sperm whale, and the poorly understood beaked whales) and the filter feeding Mysticeti or baleen whales (which includes species like the blue whale, the humpback whale and the bowhead whale). Cetaceans have been extensively hunted for their meat, blubber and oil by commercial operations. Although the International Whaling Commission has agreed on putting a halt to commercial whaling, some nations continue to do so. They also face environmental hazards such as underwater noise pollution, plastic buildup and ongoing climate change, but how much they are affected varies widely from species to species, from minimally in the case of the southern bottlenose whale to the baiji (or Chinese river dolphin) which is considered to be functionally extinct due to human activity. Baleen whales and toothed whales The two parvorders, baleen whales (Mysticeti) and toothed whales (Odontoceti), are thought to have diverged around thirty-four million years ago. Baleen whales have bristles made of keratin instead of teeth. The bristles filter krill and other small invertebrates from seawater. Grey whales feed on bottom-dwelling mollusks. Rorqual family (balaenopterids) use throat pleats to expand their mouths to take in food and sieve out the water. Balaenids (right whales and bowhead whales) have massive heads that can make up 40% of their body mass. Most mysticetes prefer the food-rich colder waters of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, migrating to the Equator to give birth. During this process, they are capable of fasting for several months, relying on their fat reserves. The parvorder of Odontocetes – the toothed whales – include sperm whales, beaked whales, killer whales, dolphins and porpoises. Generally the teeth are designed for catching fish, squid or other marine invertebrates, not for chewing them, so prey is swallowed whole. Teeth are shaped like cones (dolphins and sperm whales), spades (porpoises), pegs (belugas), tusks (narwhals) or variable (beaked whale males). Female beaked whales' teeth are hidden in the gums and are not visible, and most male beaked whales have only two short tusks. Narwhals have vestigial teeth other than their tusk, which is present on males and 15% of females and has millions of nerves to sense water temperature, pressure and salinity. A few toothed whales, such as some killer whales, feed on mammals, such as pinnipeds and other whales. Toothed whales have well-developed senses – their eyesight and hearing are adapted for both air and water, and they have advanced sonar capabilities using their melon. Their hearing is so well-adapted for both air and water that some blind specimens can survive. Some species, such as sperm whales, are well adapted for diving to great depths. Several species of toothed whales show sexual dimorphism, in which the males differ from the females, usually for purposes of sexual display or aggression. Anatomy Cetacean bodies are generally similar to that of fish, which can be attributed to their lifestyle and the habitat conditions. Their body is well-adapted to their habitat, although they share essential characteristics with other higher mammals (Eutheria). They have a streamlined shape, and their forelimbs are flippers. Almost all have a dorsal fin on their backs that can take on many forms depending on the species. A few species, such as the beluga whale, lack them. Both the flipper and the fin are for stabilization and steering in the water. The male genitals and mammary glands of females are sunken into the body. The body is wrapped in a thick layer of fat, known as blubber, used for thermal insulation and gives cetaceans their smooth, streamlined body shape. In larger species, it can reach a thickness up to half a meter (1.6 ft). Sexual dimorphism evolved in many toothed whales. Sperm whales, narwhals, many members of the beaked whale family, several species of the porpoise family, killer whales, pilot whales, eastern spinner dolphins and northern right whale dolphins show this characteristic. Males in these species developed external features absent in females that are advantageous in combat or display. For example, male sperm whales are up to 63% percent larger than females, and many beaked whales possess tusks used in competition among males. Hind legs are not present in cetaceans, nor are any other external body attachments such as a pinna and hair. Head Whales have an elongated head, especially baleen whales, due to the wide overhanging jaw. Bowhead whale plates can be long. Their nostril(s) make up the blowhole, with one in toothed whales and two in baleen whales. The nostrils are located on top of the head above the eyes so that the rest of the body can remain submerged while surfacing for air. The back of the skull is significantly shortened and deformed. By shifting the nostrils to the top of the head, the nasal passages extend perpendicularly through the skull. The teeth or baleen in the upper jaw sit exclusively on the maxilla. The braincase is concentrated through the nasal passage to the front and is correspondingly higher, with individual cranial bones that overlap. In toothed whales, connective tissue exists in the melon as a head buckle. This is filled with air sacs and fat that aid in buoyancy and biosonar. The sperm whale has a particularly pronounced melon; this is called the spermaceti organ and contains the eponymous spermaceti, hence the name "sperm whale". Even the long tusk of the narwhal is a vice-formed tooth. In many toothed whales, the depression in their skull is due to the formation of a large melon and multiple, asymmetric air bags. River dolphins, unlike most other cetaceans, can turn their head 90°. Most other cetaceans have fused neck vertebrae and are unable to turn their head at all. The baleen of baleen whales consists of long, fibrous strands of keratin. Located in place of the teeth, it has the appearance of a huge fringe and is used to sieve the water for plankton and krill. Brain The neocortex of many cetaceans is home to elongated spindle neurons that, prior to 2019, were known only in hominids. In humans, these cells are thought to be involved in social conduct, emotions, judgment and theory of mind. Cetacean spindle neurons are found in areas of the brain homologous to where they are found in humans, suggesting they perform a similar function. Brain size was previously considered a major indicator of intelligence. Since most of the brain is used for maintaining bodily functions, greater ratios of brain to body mass may increase the amount of brain mass available for cognitive tasks. Allometric analysis indicates that mammalian brain size scales at approximately two-thirds or three-quarter exponent of the body mass. Comparison of a particular animal's brain size with the expected brain size based on such an analysis provides an encephalization quotient that can be used as an indication of animal intelligence. Sperm whales have the largest brain mass of any animal on earth, averaging and in mature males. The brain to body mass ratio in some odontocetes, such as belugas and narwhals, is second only to humans. In some whales, however, it is less than half that of humans: 0.9% versus 2.1%. Skeleton The cetacean skeleton is largely made up of cortical bone, which stabilizes the animal in the water. For this reason, the usual terrestrial compact bones, which are finely woven cancellous bone, are replaced with lighter and more elastic material. In many places, bone elements are replaced by cartilage and even fat, thereby improving their hydrostatic qualities. The ear and the muzzle contain a bone shape that is exclusive to cetaceans with a high density, resembling porcelain. This conducts sound better than other bones, thus aiding biosonar. The number of vertebrae that make up the spine varies by species, ranging from forty to ninety-three. The cervical spine, found in all mammals, consists of seven vertebrae which, however, are reduced or fused. This fusion provides stability during swimming at the expense of mobility. The fins are carried by the thoracic vertebrae, ranging from nine to seventeen individual vertebrae. The sternum is cartilaginous. The last two to three pairs of ribs are not connected and hang freely in the body wall. The stable lumbar and tail include the other vertebrae. Below the caudal vertebrae is the chevron bone. The front limbs are paddle-shaped with shortened arms and elongated finger bones, to support movement. They are connected by cartilage. The second and third fingers display a proliferation of the finger members, a so-called hyperphalangy. The shoulder joint is the only functional joint in all cetaceans except for the Amazon river dolphin. The collarbone is completely absent. Fluke Cetaceans have a cartilaginous fluke at the end of their tails that is used for propulsion. The fluke is set horizontally on the body, unlike fish, which have vertical tails. Physiology Circulation Cetaceans have powerful hearts. Blood oxygen is distributed effectively throughout the body. They are warm-blooded, i.e., they hold a nearly constant body temperature. Respiration Cetaceans have lungs, meaning they breathe air. An individual can last without a breath from a few minutes to over two hours depending on the species. Cetacea are deliberate breathers who must be awake to inhale and exhale. When stale air, warmed from the lungs, is exhaled, it condenses as it meets colder external air. As with a terrestrial mammal breathing out on a cold day, a small cloud of 'steam' appears. This is called the 'spout' and varies across species in shape, angle and height. Species can be identified at a distance using this characteristic. The structure of the respiratory and circulatory systems is of particular importance for the life of marine mammals. The oxygen balance is effective. Each breath can replace up to 90% of the total lung volume. For land mammals, in comparison, this value is usually about 15%. During inhalation, about twice as much oxygen is absorbed by the lung tissue as in a land mammal. As with all mammals, the oxygen is stored in the blood and the lungs, but in cetaceans, it is also stored in various tissues, mainly in the muscles. The muscle pigment, myoglobin, provides an effective bond. This additional oxygen storage is vital for deep diving, since beyond a depth around , the lung tissue is almost completely compressed by the water pressure. Organs The stomach consists of three chambers. The first region is formed by a loose gland and a muscular forestomach (missing in beaked whales), which is then followed by the main stomach and the pylorus. Both are equipped with glands to help digestion. A bowel adjoins the stomachs, whose individual sections can only be distinguished histologically. The liver is large and separate from the gall bladder. The kidneys are long and flattened. The salt concentration in cetacean blood is lower than that in seawater, requiring kidneys to excrete salt. This allows the animals to drink seawater. Senses Cetacean eyes are set on the sides rather than the front of the head. This means only species with pointed 'beaks' (such as dolphins) have good binocular vision forward and downward. Tear glands secrete greasy tears, which protect the eyes from the salt in the water. The lens is almost spherical, which is most efficient at focusing the minimal light that reaches deep water. Odontocetes have little to no ability to taste or smell, while mysticetes are believed to have some ability to smell because of their reduced, but functional olfactory system. Cetaceans are known to possess excellent hearing. At least one species, the tucuxi or Guiana dolphin, is able to use electroreception to sense prey. Ears The external ear has lost the pinna (visible ear), but still retains a narrow external auditory meatus. To register sounds, instead, the posterior part of the mandible has a thin lateral wall (the pan bone) fronting a concavity that houses a fat pad. The pad passes anteriorly into the greatly enlarged mandibular foramen to reach in under the teeth and posteriorly to reach the thin lateral wall of the ectotympanic. The ectotympanic offers a reduced attachment area for the tympanic membrane. The connection between this auditory complex and the rest of the skull is reduced—to a single, small cartilage in oceanic dolphins. In odontocetes, the complex is surrounded by spongy tissue filled with air spaces, while in mysticetes, it is integrated into the skull as with land mammals. In odontocetes, the tympanic membrane (or ligament) has the shape of a folded-in umbrella that stretches from the ectotympanic ring and narrows off to the malleus (quite unlike the flat, circular membrane found in land mammals.) In mysticetes, it also forms a large protrusion (known as the "glove finger"), which stretches into the external meatus and the stapes are larger than in odontocetes. In some small sperm whales, the malleus is fused with the ectotympanic. The ear ossicles are pachyosteosclerotic (dense and compact) and differently shaped from land mammals (other aquatic mammals, such as sirenians and earless seals, have also lost their pinnae). T semicircular canals are much smaller relative to body size than in other mammals. The auditory bulla is separated from the skull and composed of two compact and dense bones (the periotic and tympanic) referred to as the tympanoperiotic complex. This complex is located in a cavity in the middle ear, which, in the Mysticeti, is divided by a bony projection and compressed between the exoccipital and squamosal, but in the odontoceti, is large and completely surrounds the bulla (hence called "peribullar"), which is, therefore, not connected to the skull except in physeterids. In the Odontoceti, the cavity is filled with a dense foam in which the bulla hangs suspended in five or more sets of ligaments. The pterygoid and peribullar sinuses that form the cavity tend to be more developed in shallow water and riverine species than in pelagic Mysticeti. In Odontoceti, the composite auditory structure is thought to serve as an acoustic isolator, analogous to the lamellar construction found in the temporal bone in bats. Cetaceans use sound to communicate, using groans, moans, whistles, clicks or the 'singing' of the humpback whale. Echolocation Odontoceti are generally capable of echolocation. They can discern the size, shape, surface characteristics, distance and movement of an object. They can search for, chase and catch fast-swimming prey in total darkness. Most Odontoceti can distinguish between prey and nonprey (such as humans or boats); captive Odontoceti can be trained to distinguish between, for example, balls of different sizes or shapes. Echolocation clicks also contain characteristic details unique to each animal, which may suggest that toothed whales can discern between their own click and that of others. Mysticeti have exceptionally thin, wide basilar membranes in their cochleae without stiffening agents, making their ears adapted for processing low to infrasonic frequencies. Chromosomes The initial karyotype includes a set of chromosomes from 2n = 44. They have four pairs of telocentric chromosomes (whose centromeres sit at one of the telomeres), two to four pairs of subtelocentric and one or two large pairs of submetacentric chromosomes. The remaining chromosomes are metacentric—the centromere is approximately in the middle—and are rather small. Sperm whales, beaked whales and right whales converge to a reduction in the number of chromosomes to 2n = 42. Ecology Range and habitat Cetaceans are found in many aquatic habitats. While many marine species, such as the blue whale, the humpback whale and the killer whale, have a distribution area that includes nearly the entire ocean, some species occur only locally or in broken populations. These include the vaquita, which inhabits a small part of the Gulf of California and Hector's dolphin, which lives in some coastal waters in New Zealand. River dolphin species live exclusively in fresh water. Many species inhabit specific latitudes, often in tropical or subtropical waters, such as Bryde's whale or Risso's dolphin. Others are found only in a specific body of water. The southern right whale dolphin and the hourglass dolphin live only in the Southern Ocean. The narwhal and the beluga live only in the Arctic Ocean. Sowerby's beaked whale and the Clymene dolphin exist only in the Atlantic and the Pacific white-sided dolphin and the northern straight dolphin live only in the North Pacific. Cosmopolitan species may be found in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. However, northern and southern populations become genetically separated over time. In some species, this separation leads eventually to a divergence of the species, such as produced the southern right whale, North Pacific right whale and North Atlantic right whale. Migratory species' reproductive sites often lie in the tropics and their feeding grounds in polar regions. Thirty-two species are found in European waters, including twenty-five toothed and seven baleen species. Whale migration Many species of whales migrate on a latitudinal basis to move between seasonal habitats. For example, the gray whale migrates round trip. The journey begins at winter birthing grounds in warm lagoons along Baja California, and traverses of coastline to summer feeding grounds in the Bering, Chuckchi and Beaufort seas off the coast of Alaska. Behaviour Sleep Conscious breathing cetaceans sleep but cannot afford to be unconscious for long, because they may drown. While knowledge of sleep in wild cetaceans is limited, toothed cetaceans in captivity have been recorded to exhibit unihemispheric slow-wave sleep (USWS), which means they sleep with one side of their brain at a time, so that they may swim, breathe consciously and avoid both predators and social contact during their period of rest. A 2008 study found that sperm whales sleep in vertical postures just under the surface in passive shallow 'drift-dives', generally during the day, during which whales do not respond to passing vessels unless they are in contact, leading to the suggestion that whales possibly sleep during such dives. Diving While diving, the animals reduce their oxygen consumption by lowering the heart activity and blood circulation; individual organs receive no oxygen during this time. Some rorquals can dive for up to 40 minutes, sperm whales between 60 and 90 minutes and bottlenose whales for two hours. Diving depths average about . Species such as sperm whales can dive to , although more commonly . Social relations Most cetaceans are social animals, although a few species live in pairs or are solitary. A group, known as a pod, usually consists of ten to fifty animals, but on occasion, such as mass availability of food or during mating season, groups may encompass more than one thousand individuals. Inter-species socialization can occur. Pods have a fixed hierarchy, with the priority positions determined by biting, pushing or ramming. The behavior in the group is aggressive only in situations of stress such as lack of food, but usually it is peaceful. Contact swimming, mutual fondling and nudging are common. The playful behavior of the animals, which is manifested in air jumps, somersaults, surfing, or fin hitting, occurs more often than not in smaller cetaceans, such as dolphins and porpoises. Whale song Males in some baleen species communicate via whale song, sequences of high pitched sounds. These "songs" can be heard for hundreds of kilometers. Each population generally shares a distinct song, which evolves over time. Sometimes, an individual can be identified by its distinctive vocals, such as the 52-hertz whale that sings at a higher frequency than other whales. Some individuals are capable of generating over 600 distinct sounds. In baleen species such as humpbacks, blues and fins, male-specific song is believed to be used to attract and display fitness to females. Hunting Pod groups also hunt, often with other species. Many species of dolphins accompany large tunas on hunting expeditions, following large schools of fish. The killer whale hunts in pods and targets belugas and even larger whales. Humpback whales, among others, form in collaboration bubble carpets to herd krill or plankton into bait balls before lunging at them. Intelligence Cetacea are known to teach, learn, cooperate, scheme and grieve. Smaller cetaceans, such as dolphins and porpoises, engage in complex play behavior, including such things as producing stable underwater toroidal air-core vortex rings or "bubble rings". The two main methods of bubble ring production are rapid puffing of air into the water and allowing it to rise to the surface, forming a ring, or swimming repeatedly in a circle and then stopping to inject air into the helical vortex currents thus formed. They also appear to enjoy biting the vortex rings, so that they burst into many separate bubbles and then rise quickly to the surface. Whales produce bubble nets to aid in herding prey. Larger whales are also thought to engage in play. The southern right whale elevates its tail fluke above the water, remaining in the same position for a considerable time. This is known as "sailing". It appears to be a form of play and is most commonly seen off the coast of Argentina and South Africa. Humpback whales also display this behaviour. Self-awareness appears to be a sign of abstract thinking. Self-awareness, although not well-defined, is believed to be a precursor to more advanced processes such as metacognitive reasoning (thinking about thinking) that humans exploit. Cetaceans appear to possess self-awareness. The most widely used test for self-awareness in animals is the mirror test, in which a temporary dye is placed on an animal's body and the animal is then presented with a mirror. Researchers then explore whether the animal shows signs of self-recognition. Critics claim that the results of these tests are susceptible to the Clever Hans effect. This test is much less definitive than when used for primates. Primates can touch the mark or the mirror, while cetaceans cannot, making their alleged self-recognition behavior less certain. Skeptics argue that behaviors said to identify self-awareness resemble existing social behaviors, so researchers could be misinterpreting self-awareness for social responses. Advocates counter that the behaviors are different from normal responses to another individual. Cetaceans show less definitive behavior of self-awareness, because they have no pointing ability. In 1995, Marten and Psarakos used video to test dolphin self-awareness. They showed dolphins real-time footage of themselves, recorded footage and another dolphin. They concluded that their evidence suggested self-awareness rather than social behavior. While this particular study has not been replicated, dolphins later "passed" the mirror test. Life history Reproduction and brooding Most cetaceans sexually mature at seven to 10 years. An exception to this is the La Plata dolphin, which is sexually mature at two years, but lives only to about 20. The sperm whale reaches sexual maturity within about 20 years and has a lifespan between 50 and 100 years. For most species, reproduction is seasonal. Ovulation coincides with male fertility. This cycle is usually coupled with seasonal movements that can be observed in many species. Most toothed whales have no fixed bonds. In many species, females choose several partners during a season. Baleen whales are largely monogamous within each reproductive period. Gestation ranges from 9 to 16 months. Duration is not necessarily a function of size. Porpoises and blue whales gestate for about 11 months. As with all mammals other than marsupials and monotremes, the embryo is fed by the placenta, an organ that draws nutrients from the mother's bloodstream. Mammals without placentas either lay minuscule eggs (monotremes) or bear minuscule offspring (marsupials). Cetaceans usually bear one calf. In the case of twins, one usually dies, because the mother cannot produce sufficient milk for both. The fetus is positioned for a tail-first delivery, so that the risk of drowning during delivery is minimal. After birth, the mother carries the infant to the surface for its first breath. At birth, they are about one-third of their adult length and tend to be independently active, comparable to terrestrial mammals. Suckling Like other placental mammals, cetaceans give birth to well-developed calves and nurse them with milk from their mammary glands. When suckling, the mother actively splashes milk into the mouth of the calf, using the muscles of her mammary glands, as the calf has no lips. This milk usually has a high-fat content, ranging from 16 to 46%, causing the calf to increase rapidly in size and weight. In many small cetaceans, suckling lasts for about four months. In large species, it lasts for over a year and involves a strong bond between mother and offspring. The mother is solely responsible for brooding. In some species, so-called "aunts" occasionally suckle the young. This reproductive strategy provides a few offspring that have a high survival rate. Lifespan Among cetaceans, whales are distinguished by an unusual longevity compared to other higher mammals. Some species, such as the bowhead whale (Balaena mysticetus), can reach over 200 years. Based on the annual rings of the bony otic capsule, the age of the oldest known specimen is a male determined to be 211 years at the time of death. Death Upon death, whale carcasses fall to the deep ocean and provide a substantial habitat for marine life. Evidence of whale falls in present-day and fossil records shows that deep-sea whale falls support a rich assemblage of creatures, with a global diversity of 407 species, comparable to other neritic biodiversity hotspots, such as cold seeps and hydrothermal vents. Deterioration of whale carcasses happens through three stages. Initially, organisms such as sharks and hagfish scavenge the soft tissues at a rapid rate over a period of months and as long as two years. This is followed by the colonization of bones and surrounding sediments (which contain organic matter) by enrichment opportunists, such as crustaceans and polychaetes, throughout a period of years. Finally, sulfophilic bacteria reduce the bones releasing hydrogen sulfide enabling the growth of chemoautotrophic organisms, which in turn, support organisms such as mussels, clams, limpets and sea snails. This stage may last for decades and supports a rich assemblage of species, averaging 185 per site. Disease Brucellosis affects almost all mammals. It is distributed worldwide, while fishing and pollution have caused porpoise population density pockets, which risks further infection and disease spreading. Brucella ceti, most prevalent in dolphins, has been shown to cause chronic disease, increasing the chance of failed birth and miscarriages, male infertility, neurobrucellosis, cardiopathies, bone and skin lesions, strandings and death. Until 2008, no case had ever been reported in porpoises, but isolated populations have an increased risk and consequentially a high mortality rate. Evolution Phylogenetics Molecular biology and immunology show that cetaceans are phylogenetically closely related with the even-toed ungulates (Artiodactyla). Whales' direct lineage began in the early Eocene, around 55.8 million years ago, with early artiodactyls. Fossil discoveries at the beginning of the 21st century confirmed this. Most molecular biological evidence suggests that hippos are the closest living relatives. Common anatomical features include similarities in the morphology of the posterior molars, and the bony ring on the temporal bone (bulla) and the involucre, a skull feature that was previously associated only with cetaceans. The fossil record, however, does not support this relationship, because the hippo lineage dates back only about 15 million years. The most striking common feature is the talus, a bone in the upper ankle. Early cetaceans, archaeocetes, show double castors, which occur only in even-toed ungulates. Corresponding findings are from Tethys Sea deposits in northern India and Pakistan. The Tethys Sea was a shallow sea between the Asian continent and northward-bound Indian plate. Mysticetes evolved baleen around 25 million years ago and lost their teeth. Development Ancestors The direct ancestors of today's cetaceans are probably found within the Dorudontidae whose most famous member, Dorudon, lived at the same time as Basilosaurus. Both groups had already developed the typical anatomical features of today's whales, such as hearing. Life in the water for a formerly terrestrial creature required significant adjustments such as the fixed bulla, which replaces the mammalian eardrum, as well as sound-conducting elements for submerged directional hearing. Their wrists were stiffened and probably contributed to the typical build of flippers. The hind legs existed, however, but were significantly reduced in size and with a vestigial pelvis connection. Transition from land to sea The fossil record traces the gradual transition from terrestrial to aquatic life. The regression of the hind limbs allowed greater flexibility of the spine. This made it possible for whales to move around with the vertical tail hitting the water. The front legs transformed into flippers, costing them their mobility on land. One of the oldest members of ancient cetaceans (Archaeoceti) is Pakicetus from the Middle Eocene. This is an animal the size of a wolf, whose skeleton is known only partially. It had functioning legs and lived near the shore. This suggests the animal could still move on land. The long snout had carnivorous dentition. The transition from land to sea dates to about 49 million years ago, with the Ambulocetus ("running whale"), discovered in Pakistan. It was up to long. The limbs of this archaeocete were leg-like, but it was already fully aquatic, indicating that a switch to a lifestyle independent from land happened extraordinarily quickly. The snout was elongated with overhead nostrils and eyes. The tail was strong and supported movement through water. Ambulocetus probably lived in mangroves in brackish water and fed in the riparian zone as a predator of fish and other vertebrates. Dating from about 45 million years ago are species such as Indocetus, Kutchicetus, Rodhocetus and Andrewsiphius, all of which were adapted to life in water. The hind limbs of these species were regressed and their body shapes resemble modern whales. Protocetidae family member Rodhocetus is considered the first to be fully aquatic. The body was streamlined and delicate with extended hand and foot bones. The merged pelvic lumbar spine was present, making it possible to support the floating movement of the tail. It was likely a good swimmer, but could probably move only clumsily on land, much like a modern seal. Marine animals Since the late Eocene, about 40 million years ago, cetaceans populated the subtropical oceans and no longer emerged on land. An example is the 18-m-long Basilosaurus, sometimes referred to as Zeuglodon. The transition from land to water was completed in about 10 million years. The Wadi Al-Hitan ("Whale Valley") in Egypt contains numerous skeletons of Basilosaurus, as well as other marine vertebrates. Taxonomy Molecular findings and morphological indications suggest that artiodactyls as traditionally defined are paraphyletic with respect to cetaceans. Cetaceans are deeply nested within the former; the two groups together form a monophyletic taxon, for which the name Cetartiodactyla is sometimes used. Modern nomenclature divides Artiodactyla (or Cetartiodactyla) in four subordinate taxa: camelids (Tylopoda), pigs and peccaries (Suina), ruminants (Ruminantia), and hippos plus whales (Whippomorpha). Cetacea's presumed location within Artiodactyla can be represented in the following cladogram: Within Cetacea, the two parvorders are baleen whales (Mysticeti) which owe their name to their baleen, and toothed whales (Odontoceti), which have teeth shaped like cones, spades, pegs or tusks, and can perceive their environment through biosonar. The terms whale and dolphin are informal: Mysticeti: Whales, with four families: Balaenidae (right and bowhead whales), Cetotheriidae (pygmy right whales), Balaenopteridae (rorquals), Eschrichtiidae (grey whales) Odontoceti: Whales: with four families: Monodontidae (belugas and narwhals), Physeteridae (sperm whales), Kogiidae (dwarf and pygmy sperm whales), and Ziphiidae (beaked whales) Dolphins, with five families: Delphinidae (oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (South Asian river dolphins), Lipotidae (old world river dolphins) Iniidae (new world river dolphins), and Pontoporiidae (La Plata dolphins) Porpoises, with one family: Phocoenidae The term 'great whales' covers those currently regulated by the International Whaling Commission: the Odontoceti families Physeteridae (sperm whales), Ziphiidae (beaked whales), and Kogiidae (pygmy and dwarf sperm whales); and all the Mysticeti families Balaenidae (right and bowhead whales), Cetotheriidae (pygmy right whales), Eschrichtiidae (grey whales), and some of the Balaenopteridae (minke, Bryde's, sei, blue and fin; not Eden's and Omura's whales). Status Threats The primary threats to cetaceans come from people, both directly from whaling or drive hunting and indirect threats from fishing and pollution. Whaling Whaling is the practice of hunting whales, mainly baleen and sperm whales. This activity has gone on since the Stone Age. In the Middle Ages, reasons for whaling included their meat, oil usable as fuel and the jawbone, which was used in house construction. At the end of the Middle Ages, early whaling fleets aimed at baleen whales, such as bowheads. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Dutch fleet had about 300 whaling ships with 18,000 crewmen. In the 18th and 19th centuries, baleen whales especially were hunted for their baleen, which was used as a replacement for wood, or in products requiring strength and flexibility such as corsets and crinoline skirts. In addition, the spermaceti found in the sperm whale was used as a machine lubricant and the ambergris as a material for pharmaceutical and perfume industries. In the second half of the 19th century, the explosive harpoon was invented, leading to a massive increase in the catch size. Large ships were used as "mother" ships for the whale handlers. In the first half of the 20th century, whales were of great importance as a supplier of raw materials. Whales were intensively hunted during this time; in the 1930s, 30,000 whales were killed. This increased to over 40,000 animals per year up to the 1960s, when stocks of large baleen whales collapsed. Most hunted whales are now threatened, with some great whale populations exploited to the brink of extinction. Atlantic and Korean gray whale populations were completely eradicated and the North Atlantic right whale population fell to some 300–600. The blue whale population is estimated to be around 14,000. The first efforts to protect whales came in 1931. Some particularly endangered species, such as the humpback whale (which then numbered about 100 animals), were placed under international protection and the first protected areas were established. In 1946, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was established, to monitor and secure whale stocks. Whaling of 14 large species for commercial purposes was prohibited worldwide by this organization from 1985 to 2005, though some countries do not honor the prohibition. The stocks of species such as humpback and blue whales have recovered, though they are still threatened. The United States Congress passed the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 sustain the marine mammal population. It prohibits the taking of marine mammals except for several hundred per year taken in Alaska. Japanese whaling ships are allowed to hunt whales of different species for ostensibly scientific purposes. Aboriginal whaling is still permitted. About 1,200 pilot whales were taken in the Faroe Islands in 2017, and about 900 narwhals and 800 belugas per year are taken in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Siberia. About 150 minke are taken in Greenland per year, 120 gray whales in Siberia and 50 bowheads in Alaska, as aboriginal whaling, besides the 600 minke taken commercially by Norway, 300 minke and 100 sei taken by Japan and up to 100 fin whales taken by Iceland. Iceland and Norway do not recognize the ban and operate commercial whaling. Norway and Japan are committed to ending the ban. Dolphins and other smaller cetaceans are sometimes hunted in an activity known as dolphin drive hunting. This is accomplished by driving a pod together with boats, usually into a bay or onto a beach. Their escape is prevented by closing off the route to the ocean with other boats or nets. Dolphins are hunted this way in several places around the world, including the Solomon Islands, the Faroe Islands, Peru and Japan (the most well-known practitioner). Dolphins are mostly hunted for their meat, though some end up in dolphinaria. Despite the controversy thousands of dolphins are caught in drive hunts each year. Fishing Dolphin pods often reside near large tuna shoals. This is known to fishermen, who look for dolphins to catch tuna. Dolphins are much easier to spot from a distance than tuna, since they regularly breathe. The fishermen pull their nets hundreds of meters wide in a circle around the dolphin groups, in the expectation that they will net a tuna shoal. When the nets are pulled together, the dolphins become entangled under water and drown. Line fisheries in larger rivers are threats to river dolphins. A greater threat than by-catch for small cetaceans is targeted hunting. In Southeast Asia, they are sold as fish-replacement to locals, since the region's edible fish promise higher revenues from exports. In the Mediterranean, small cetaceans are targeted to ease pressure on edible fish. Strandings A stranding is when a cetacean leaves the water to lie on a beach. In some cases, groups of whales strand together. The best known are mass strandings of pilot whales and sperm whales. Stranded cetaceans usually die, because their as much as body weight compresses their lungs or breaks their ribs. Smaller whales can die of heatstroke because of their thermal insulation. The causes are not clear. Possible reasons for mass beachings are: toxic contaminants debilitating parasites (in the respiratory tract, brain or middle ear) infections (bacterial or viral) flight from predators (including humans) social bonds within a group, so that the pod follows a stranded animal disturbance of their magnetic senses by natural anomalies in the Earth's magnetic field injuries noise pollution by shipping traffic, seismic surveys and military sonar experiments Since 2000, whale strandings frequently occurred following military sonar testing. In December 2001, the US Navy admitted partial responsibility for the beaching and the deaths of several marine mammals in March 2000. The coauthor of the interim report stated that animals killed by active sonar of some Navy ships were injured. Generally, underwater noise, which is still on the increase, is increasingly tied to strandings; because it impairs communication and sense of direction. Climate change influences the major wind systems and ocean currents, which also lead to cetacean strandings. Researchers studying strandings on the Tasmanian coast from 1920 to 2002 found that greater strandings occurred at certain time intervals. Years with increased strandings were associated with severe storms, which initiated cold water flows close to the coast. In nutrient-rich, cold water, cetaceans expect large prey animals, so they follow the cold water currents into shallower waters, where the risk is higher for strandings. Whales and dolphins who live in pods may accompany sick or debilitated pod members into shallow water, stranding them at low tide. Environmental hazards Heavy metals, residues of many plant and insect venoms and plastic waste flotsam are not biodegradable. Sometimes, cetaceans consume these hazardous materials, mistaking them for food items. As a result, the animals are more susceptible to disease and have fewer offspring. Damage to the ozone layer reduces plankton reproduction because of its resulting radiation. This shrinks the food supply for many marine animals, but the filter-feeding baleen whales are most impacted. Even the Nekton is, in addition to intensive exploitation, damaged by the radiation. Food supplies are also reduced long-term by ocean acidification due to increased absorption of increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. The CO2 reacts with water to form carbonic acid, which reduces the construction of the calcium carbonate skeletons of food supplies for zooplankton that baleen whales depend on. The military and resource extraction industries operate strong sonar and blasting operations. Marine seismic surveys use loud, low-frequency sound that show what is lying underneath the Earth's surface. Vessel traffic also increases noise in the oceans. Such noise can disrupt cetacean behavior such as their use of biosonar for orientation and communication. Severe instances can panic them, driving them to the surface. This leads to bubbles in blood gases and can cause decompression sickness. Naval exercises with sonar regularly results in fallen cetaceans that wash up with fatal decompression. Sounds can be disruptive at distances of more than . Damage varies across frequency and species. Relationship to humans Research history In Aristotle's time, the 4th century BCE, whales were regarded as fish due to their superficial similarity. Aristotle, however, observed many physiological and anatomical similarities with the terrestrial vertebrates, such as blood (circulation), lungs, uterus and fin anatomy. His detailed descriptions were assimilated by the Romans, but mixed with a more accurate knowledge of the dolphins, as mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Natural history. In the art of this and subsequent periods, dolphins are portrayed with a high-arched head (typical of porpoises) and a long snout. The harbour porpoise was one of the most accessible species for early cetologists; because it could be seen close to land, inhabiting shallow coastal areas of Europe. Much of the findings that apply to all cetaceans were first discovered in porpoises. One of the first anatomical descriptions of the airways of a harbor porpoise dates from 1671 by John Ray. It nevertheless referred to the porpoise as a fish. In the 10th edition of Systema Naturae (1758), Swedish biologist and taxonomist Carl Linnaeus asserted that cetaceans were mammals and not fish. His groundbreaking binomial system formed the basis of modern whale classification. Culture Cetaceans have played a role in human culture through history. Prehistoric Stone Age petroglyphs, such as those in Roddoy and Reppa (Norway), and the Bangudae Petroglyphs in South Korea, depict them. Whale bones were used for many purposes. In the Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae on Orkney sauce pans were made from whale vertebrae. Antiquity The whale was first mentioned in ancient Greece by Homer. There, it is called Ketos, a term that initially included all large marine animals. From this was derived the Roman word for whale, Cetus. Other names were phálaina (Aristotle, Latin form of ballaena) for the female and, with an ironic characteristic style, musculus (Mouse) for the male. North Sea whales were called Physeter, which was meant for the sperm whale Physter macrocephalus. Whales are described in particular by Aristotle, Pliny and Ambrose. All mention both live birth and suckling. Pliny describes the problems associated with the lungs with spray tubes and Ambrose claimed that large whales would take their young into their mouth to protect them. In the Bible especially, the leviathan plays a role as a sea monster. The essence, which features a giant crocodile or a dragon and a whale, was created according to the Bible by God and should again be destroyed by him. In the Book of Job, the leviathan is described in more detail. In Jonah there is a more recognizable description of a whale alongside the prophet Jonah, who, on his flight from the city of Nineveh is swallowed by a whale. Dolphins are mentioned far more often than whales. Aristotle discusses the sacred animals of the Greeks in his Historia Animalium and gives details of their role as aquatic animals. The Greeks admired the dolphin as a "king of the aquatic animals" and referred to them erroneously as fish. Its intelligence was apparent both in its ability to escape from fishnets and in its collaboration with fishermen. River dolphins are known from the Ganges and – erroneously – the Nile. In the latter case it was equated with sharks and catfish. Supposedly they attacked even crocodiles. Dolphins appear in Greek mythology. Because of their intelligence, they rescued multiple people from drowning. They were said to love music – probably not least because of their own song – they saved, in the legends, famous musicians such as Arion of Lesbos from Methymna or Kairanos from Miletus. Because of their mental faculties, dolphins were considered for the god Dionysus. Dolphins belong to the domain of Poseidon and led him to his wife Amphitrite. Dolphins are associated with other gods, such as Apollo, Dionysus and Aphrodite. The Greeks paid tribute to both whales and dolphins with their own constellation. The constellation of the Whale (Ketos, lat. Cetus) is located south of the Dolphin (Delphi, lat. Delphinus) north of the zodiac. Ancient art often included dolphin representations, including the Cretan Minoans. Later they appeared on reliefs, gems, lamps, coins, mosaics and gravestones. A particularly popular representation is that of Arion or the Taras (mythology) riding on a dolphin. In early Christian art, the dolphin is a popular motif, at times used as a symbol of Christ. Middle Ages to the 19th century St. Brendan described in his travel story Navigatio Sancti Brendani an encounter with a whale, between the years 565–573. He described how he and his companions entered a treeless island, which turned out to be a giant whale, which he called Jasconicus. He met this whale seven years later and rested on his back. Most descriptions of large whales from this time until the whaling era, beginning in the 17th century, were of beached whales, which resembled no other animal. This was particularly true for the sperm whale, the most frequently stranded in larger groups. Raymond Gilmore documented seventeen sperm whales in the estuary of the Elbe from 1723 to 1959 and thirty-one animals on the coast of Great Britain in 1784. In 1827, a blue whale beached itself off the coast of Ostend. Whales were used as attractions in museums and traveling exhibitions. Whalers from the 17th to 19th centuries depicted whales in drawings and recounted tales of their occupation. Although they knew that whales were harmless giants, they described battles with harpooned animals. These included descriptions of sea monsters, including huge whales, sharks, sea snakes, giant squid and octopuses. Among the first whalers who described their experiences on whaling trips was Captain William Scoresby from Great Britain, who published the book Northern Whale Fishery, describing the hunt for northern baleen whales. This was followed by Thomas Beale, a British surgeon, in his book Some observations on the natural history of the sperm whale in 1835; and Frederick Debell Bennett's The tale of a whale hunt in 1840. Whales were described in narrative literature and paintings, most famously in the novels Moby Dick by Herman Melville and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. Baleen was used to make vessel components such as the bottom of a bucket in the Scottish National Museum. The Norsemen crafted ornamented plates from baleen, sometimes interpreted as ironing boards. In the Canadian Arctic (east coast) in Punuk and Thule culture (1000–1600 C.E.), baleen was used to construct houses in place of wood as roof support for winter houses, with half of the building buried under the ground. The actual roof was probably made of animal skins that were covered with soil and moss. Modern culture In the 20th century perceptions of cetaceans changed. They transformed from monsters into creatures of wonder, as science revealed them to be intelligent and peaceful animals. Hunting was replaced by whale and dolphin tourism. This change is reflected in films and novels. For example, the protagonist of the series Flipper was a bottle-nose dolphin. The TV series SeaQuest DSV (1993–1996), the movies Free Willy, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and the book series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams are examples. The study of whale song also produced a popular album, Songs of the Humpback Whale. Captivity Whales and dolphins have been kept in captivity for use in education, research and entertainment since the 19th century. Belugas Beluga whales were the first whales to be kept in captivity. Other species were too rare, too shy or too big. The first was shown at Barnum's Museum in New York City in 1861. For most of the 20th century, Canada was the predominant source. They were taken from the St. Lawrence River estuary until the late 1960s, after which they were predominantly taken from the Churchill River estuary until capture was banned in 1992. Russia then became the largest provider. Belugas are caught in the Amur Darya delta and their eastern coast and are transported domestically to aquaria or dolphinaria in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sochi, or exported to countries such as Canada. They have not been domesticated. As of 2006, 30 belugas lived in Canada and 28 in the United States. 42 deaths in captivity had been reported. A single specimen can reportedly fetch up to US$100,000 (GB£64,160). The beluga's popularity is due to its unique color and its facial expressions. The latter is possible because while most cetacean "smiles" are fixed, the extra movement afforded by the beluga's unfused cervical vertebrae allows a greater range of apparent expression. Killer whales The killer whale's intelligence, trainability, striking appearance, playfulness in captivity and sheer size have made it a popular exhibit at aquaria and aquatic theme parks. From 1976 to 1997, fifty-five whales were taken from the wild in Iceland, nineteen from Japan and three from Argentina. These figures exclude animals that died during capture. Live captures fell dramatically in the 1990s and by 1999, about 40% of the forty-eight animals on display in the world were captive-born. Organizations such as World Animal Protection and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation campaign against the practice of keeping them in captivity. In captivity, they often develop pathologies, such as the dorsal fin collapse seen in 60–90% of captive males. Captives have reduced life expectancy, on average only living into their 20s, although some live longer, including several over 30 years old and two, Corky II and Lolita, in their mid-40s. In the wild, females who survive infancy live 46 years on average and up to 70–80 years. Wild males who survive infancy live 31 years on average and can reach 50–60 years. Captivity usually bears little resemblance to wild habitat and captive whales' social groups are foreign to those found in the wild. Critics claim captive life is stressful due to these factors and the requirement to perform circus tricks that are not part of wild killer whale behavior. Wild killer whales may travel up to in a day and critics say the animals are too big and intelligent to be suitable for captivity. Captives occasionally act aggressively towards themselves, their tankmates, or humans, which critics say is a result of stress. Killer whales are well known for their performances in shows, but the number of orcas kept in captivity is small, especially when compared to the number of bottlenose dolphins, with only forty-four captive orcas being held in aquaria as of 2012. Each country has its own tank requirements; in the US, the minimum enclosure size is set by the Code of Federal Regulations, 9 CFR E § 3.104, under the Specifications for the Humane Handling, Care, Treatment and Transportation of Marine Mammals. Aggression among captive killer whales is common. They attack each other and their trainers as well. In 2013, SeaWorld's treatment of killer whales in captivity was the basis of the movie Blackfish, which documents the history of Tilikum, a killer whale at SeaWorld Orlando, who had been involved in the deaths of three people. The film led to proposals by some lawmakers to ban captivity of cetaceans, and led SeaWorld to announce in 2016 that it would phase out its killer whale program after various unsuccessful attempts to restore its revenues, reputation, and stock price. Others Dolphins and porpoises are kept in captivity. Bottlenose dolphins are the most common, as they are relatively easy to train, have a long lifespan in captivity and have a friendly appearance. Bottlenose dolphins live in captivity across the world, though exact numbers are hard to determine. Other species kept in captivity are spotted dolphins, false killer whales and common dolphins, Commerson's dolphins, as well as rough-toothed dolphins, but all in much lower numbers. There are also fewer than ten pilot whales, Amazon river dolphins, Risso's dolphins, spinner dolphins, or tucuxi in captivity. Two unusual and rare hybrid dolphins, known as wolphins, are kept at Sea Life Park in Hawaii, which is a cross between a bottlenose dolphin and a false killer whale. Also, two common/bottlenose hybrids reside in captivity at Discovery Cove and SeaWorld San Diego. In repeated attempts in the 1960s and 1970s, narwhals kept in captivity died within months. A breeding pair of pygmy right whales were retained in a netted area. They were eventually released in South Africa. In 1971, SeaWorld captured a California gray whale calf in Mexico at Scammon's Lagoon. The calf, later named Gigi, was separated from her mother using a form of lasso attached to her flukes. Gigi was displayed at SeaWorld San Diego for a year. She was then released with a radio beacon affixed to her back; however, contact was lost after three weeks. Gigi was the first captive baleen whale. JJ, another gray whale calf, was kept at SeaWorld San Diego. JJ was an orphaned calf that beached itself in April 1997 and was transported two miles to SeaWorld. The calf was a popular attraction and behaved normally, despite separation from his mother. A year later, the then whale though smaller than average, was too big to keep in captivity, and was released on April 1, 1998. A captive Amazon river dolphin housed at Acuario de Valencia is the only trained river dolphin in captivity. Here is a list of all the cetaceans that have been taken into captivity for either conservation, research or human entertainment and education purposes currently or in the past, temporarily or permanently. Killer whale Vaquita False killer whale Pygmy killer whale Long-finned pilot whale Short-finned pilot whale Bottlenose dolphin Beluga whale Pacific white-sided dolphin Risso's dolphin Atlantic white-sided dolphin Narwhal Spotted dolphin Spinner dolphin Common dolphin Harbour porpoise Finless porpoise Commerson's dolphin Rough-toothed dolphin Boto Tucuxi Wholphin Gray whale Pygmy sperm whale Irrawaddy dolphin Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin Baiji Melon-headed whale South Asian river dolphin Minke whale References External links Scottish Cetacean Research & Rescue – see page on Taxonomy EIA Cetacean campaign: Reports and latest info. EIA in USA: reports etc. Extant Ypresian first appearances Mammal infraorders Taxa named by Mathurin Jacques Brisson sq:Balena

ClearType is Microsoft's implementation of subpixel rendering technology in rendering text in a font system. ClearType attempts to improve the appearance of text on certain types of computer display screens by sacrificing color fidelity for additional intensity variation. This trade-off is asserted to work well on LCD flat panel monitors. ClearType was first announced at the November 1998 COMDEX exhibition. The technology was first introduced in software in January 2000 as an always-on feature of Microsoft Reader, which was released to the public in August 2000. ClearType was significantly changed with the introduction of DirectWrite in Windows 7. Background Computer displays where the positions of individual pixels are permanently fixed such as most modern flat panel displays can show saw-tooth edges when displaying small, high-contrast graphic elements, such as text. ClearType uses spatial anti-aliasing at the subpixel level to reduce visible artifacts on such displays when text is rendered, making the text appear "smoother" and less jagged. ClearType also uses very heavy font hinting to force the font to fit into the pixel grid. This increases edge contrast and readability of small fonts at the expense of font rendering fidelity and has been criticized by graphic designers for making different fonts look similar. Like most other types of subpixel rendering, ClearType involves a compromise, sacrificing one aspect of image quality (color or chrominance detail) for another (light and dark or luminance detail). The compromise can improve text appearance when luminance detail is more important than chrominance. Only user and system applications render the application of ClearType. ClearType does not alter other graphic display elements (including text already in bitmaps). For example, ClearType enhancement renders text on the screen in Microsoft Word, but text placed in a bitmapped image in a program such as Adobe Photoshop is not. In theory, the method (called "RGB Decimation" internally) can enhance the anti-aliasing of any digital image. ClearType was invented in the Microsoft e-Books team by Bert Keely and Greg Hitchcock. It was then analyzed by researchers in the company, and signal processing expert John Platt designed an improved version of the algorithm. Dick Brass, a Vice President at Microsoft from 1997 to 2004, complained that the company was slow in moving ClearType to market in the portable computing field. How ClearType works Normally, the software in a computer treats the computer’s display screen as a rectangular array of square, indivisible pixels, each of which has an intensity and color that are determined by the blending of three primary colors: red, green, and blue. However, actual display hardware usually implements each pixel as a group of three adjacent, independent subpixels, each of which displays a different primary color. Thus, on a real computer display, each pixel is actually composed of separate red, green, and blue subpixels. For example, if a flat-panel display is examined under a magnifying glass, the pixels may appear as follows: In the illustration above, there are nine pixels but 27 subpixels. If the computer controlling the display knows the exact position and color of all the subpixels on the screen, it can take advantage of this to improve the apparent resolution in certain situations. If each pixel on the display actually contains three rectangular subpixels of red, green, and blue, in that fixed order, then things on the screen that are smaller than one full pixel in size can be rendered by lighting only one or two of the subpixels. For example, if a diagonal line with a width smaller than a full pixel must be rendered, then this can be done by lighting only the subpixels that the line actually touches. If the line passes through the leftmost portion of the pixel, only the red subpixel is lit; if it passes through the rightmost portion of the pixel, only the blue subpixel is lit. This effectively triples the horizontal resolution of the image at normal viewing distances; the drawback is that the line thus drawn will show color fringes (at some points it might look green, at other points it might look red or blue). ClearType uses this method to improve the smoothness of text. When the elements of a type character are smaller than a full pixel, ClearType lights only the appropriate subpixels of each full pixel in order to more closely follow the outlines of that character. Text rendered with ClearType looks “smoother” than text rendered without it, provided that the pixel layout of the display screen exactly matches what ClearType expects. The following picture shows a 4× enlargement of the word Wikipedia rendered using ClearType. The word was originally rendered using a Times New Roman 12 pt font. In this magnified view, it becomes clear that, while the overall smoothness of the text seems to improve, there is also color fringing of the text. An extreme close-up of a color display shows (a) text rendered without ClearType and (b) text rendered with ClearType. Note the changes in subpixel intensity that are used to increase effective resolution when ClearType is enabled without ClearType, all sub-pixels of a given pixel have the same intensity. In the above lines of text, when the orange circle is shown, all the text in the frame is rendered using ClearType (RGB subpixel rendering); when the orange circle is absent all the text is rendered using normal (full pixel greyscale) anti-aliasing. Human vision and cognition ClearType and similar technologies work on the theory that variations in intensity are more noticeable than variations in color. Expert opinion In a MSDN article, Microsoft acknowledges that "[te]xt that is rendered with ClearType can also appear significantly different when viewed by individuals with varying levels of color sensitivity. Some individuals can detect slight differences in color better than others." This opinion is shared by font designer Thomas Phinney (former CEO of FontLab, also formerly with Adobe Systems): "There is also considerable variation between individuals in their sensitivity to color fringing. Some people just notice it and are bothered by it a lot more than others." Software developer Melissa Elliott has written about finding ClearType rendering uncomfortable to read, saying that "instead of seeing black text, I see blue text, and rendered over it but offset by a pixel or two, I see orange text, and someone reached into a bag of purple pixel glitter and just tossed it on...I’m not the only person in the world with this problem, and yet, every time it comes up, people are quick to assure me it works for them as if that’s supposed to make me feel better." Hinting expert Beat Stamm, who worked on ClearType at Microsoft, agrees that ClearType may look blurry at 96 dpi, which was a typical resolution for LCDs in 2008, but adds that higher resolution displays improve on this aspect: "WPF [Windows Presentation Foundation] uses method C [ClearType with fractional pixel positioning], but few display devices have a sufficiently high resolution to make the potential blur a moot point for everybody. . . . Some people are ok with the blur in Method C, some aren’t. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some people are fine with Method C when reading continuous text at 96 dpi (e.g. Times Reader, etc.) but not in UI scenarios. Many people are fine with the colors of ClearType, even at 96 dpi, but a few aren’t… To my eyes and at 96 dpi, Method C doesn’t read as well as Method A. It reads “blurrily” to me. Conversely, at 144 dpi, I don’t see a problem with Method C. It looks and reads just fine to me." One illustration of the potential problem is the following image: In the above block of text, the same portion of text is shown in the upper half without and in the lower half with ClearType rendering (as opposed to Standard and ClearType in the previous image). This and the previous example with the orange circle demonstrate the blurring introduced. Empirical studies A 2001 study, conducted by researchers from Clemson University and The University of Pennsylvania on "18 users who spent 60 minutes reading fiction from each of three different displays" found that "When reading from an LCD display, users preferred text rendered with ClearType™. ClearType also yielded higher readability judgments and lower ratings of mental fatigue." A 2002 study on 24 users conducted by the same researchers from Clemson University also found that "Participants were significantly more accurate at identifying words with ClearType™ than without ClearType™." According to a 2006 study, at the University of Texas at Austin by Dillon et al., ClearType "may not be universally beneficial". The study notes that maximum benefit may be seen when the information worker is spending large proportions of their time reading text (which is not necessarily the case for the majority of computer users today). Additionally, over one third of the study participants experienced some disadvantage when using ClearType. Whether ClearType, or other rendering, should be used is very subjective and it must be the choice of the individual, with the report recommending "to allow users to disable [ClearType] if they find it produces effects other than improved performance". Another 2007 empirical study, found that "while ClearType rendering does not improve text legibility, reading speed or comfort compared to perceptually-tuned grayscale rendering, subjects prefer text with moderate ClearType rendering to text with grayscale or higher-level ClearType contrast." A 2007 survey, of the literature by Microsoft researcher Kevin Larson presented a different picture: "Peer-reviewed studies have consistently found that using ClearType boosts reading performance compared with other text-rendering systems. In a 2004 study, for instance, Lee Gugerty, a psychology professor at Clemson University, in South Carolina, measured a 17 percent improvement in word recognition accuracy with ClearType. Gugerty’s group also showed, in a sentence comprehension study, that ClearType boosted reading speed by 5 percent and comprehension by 2 percent. Similarly, in a study published in 2007, psychologist Andrew Dillon at the University of Texas at Austin found that when subjects were asked to scan a spreadsheet and pick out certain information, they did those tasks 7 percent faster with ClearType." Display requirements ClearType and allied technologies require display hardware with fixed pixels and subpixels. More precisely, the positions of the pixels and subpixels on the screen must be exactly known to the computer to which it is connected. This is the case for flat-panel displays, on which the positions of the pixels are permanently fixed by the design of the screen itself. Almost all flat panels have a perfectly rectangular array of square pixels, each of which contains three rectangular subpixels in the three primary colors, with the normal ordering being red, green, and blue, arranged in vertical bands. ClearType assumes this arrangement of pixels when rendering text. ClearType does not work properly with flat-panel displays that are operated at resolutions other than their “native” resolutions, since only the native resolution corresponds exactly to the actual positions of pixels on the screen of the display. If a display does not have the type of fixed pixels that ClearType expects, text rendered with ClearType enabled actually looks worse than type rendered without it. Some flat panels have unusual pixel arrangements, with the colors in a different order, or with the subpixels positioned differently (in three horizontal bands, or in other ways). ClearType needs to be manually tuned for use with such displays (see below). ClearType will not work as intended on displays that have no fixed pixel positions, such as CRT displays, however it will still have some antialiasing effect and may be preferable to some users as compared to non-anti-aliased type. Sensitivity to display orientation Because ClearType utilizes the physical layout of the red, green and blue pigments of the LCD screen, it is sensitive to the orientation of the display. ClearType in Windows XP supports the RGB and BGR sub pixel structures; rotated displays, in which the subpixels are stacked vertically rather than arranged horizontally, are not supported. Using ClearType on these display configurations will actually reduce the display quality. The best option for users of Windows XP having rotated LCD displays (Tablet PCs or swivel-stand LCD displays) is using regular anti-aliasing, or switching off font-smoothing altogether. The software developer documentation for Windows CE states that ClearType for rotated screens is supported on that platform. Implementations Windows XP (off by default) Windows Vista (on by default) Windows 7 (on by default) Windows 8: Only used in Windows 8 Desktop and all desktop apps Windows 10: Only used in Win32 apps and Win32 system features, not Universal Windows Platform. Internet Explorer 7 and later (on by default) Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010 (on by default) Windows Live Messenger (on by default) Microsoft Reader ClearType is also an integrated component of the Windows Presentation Foundation text-rendering engine. ClearType Font Collection As part of the Vista release, Microsoft released a set of fonts, known as the ClearType Font Collection, thought to work well with the ClearType system: Calibri Cambria Candara Cariadings Consolas Constantia Corbel ClearType in GDI ClearType can be globally enabled or disabled for GDI applications. A control panel applet is available to let the users tune the GDI ClearType settings. The GDI implementation of ClearType does not support sub-pixel positioning. ClearType tuning Some versions of Microsoft Windows, as supplied, allow ClearType to be turned on or off, with no adjustment; other versions allow tuning of the ClearType parameters. A Microsoft ClearType tuner utility is available for free download for Windows versions lacking this facility. If ClearType is disabled in the operating system, applications with their own ClearType controls can still support it. Microsoft Reader (for e-books) has its own ClearType tuner. ClearType in WPF All text in Windows Presentation Foundation is anti-aliased and rendered using ClearType. There are separate ClearType registry settings for GDI and WPF applications, but by default the WPF entries are absent, and the GDI values are used in their absence. WPF registry entries can be tuned using the instructions from the MSDN WPF Text Blog. ClearType in WPF supports sub-pixel positioning, natural advance widths, Y-direction anti-aliasing and hardware acceleration. WPF supports aggressive caching of pre-rendered ClearType text in video memory. The extent to which this is supported is dependent on the video card. DirectX 10 cards will be able to cache the font glyphs in video memory, then perform the composition (assembling of character glyphs in the correct order, with the correct spacing), alpha blending (application of anti-aliasing), and RGB blending (ClearType's sub-pixel color calculations), entirely in hardware. This means that only the original glyphs need to be stored in video memory once per font (Microsoft estimates that this would require 2 MB of video memory per font), and other operations such as the display of anti-aliased text on top of other graphics including video can also be done with no computation effort on the part of the CPU. DirectX 9 cards will only be able to cache the alpha-blended glyphs in memory, thus requiring the CPU to handle glyph composition and alpha-blending before passing this to the video card. Caching these partially rendered glyphs requires significantly more memory (Microsoft estimates 5 MB per process). Cards that don't support DirectX 9 have no hardware-accelerated text rendering capabilities. ClearType in DirectWrite As pixel densities of displays improved and more high DPI screens became available, colored subpixel rendering became less of a necessity according to Microsoft. Also Windows tablet user interfaces evolved to support vertical screen orientations where the LCD color stripes would run horizontally. The original colored ClearType subpixel rendering was tuned to work optimally with horizontal orientation LCD displays where RGB or BGR stripes run vertically. For these reasons, DirectWrite which is the next-generation text rendering API from Microsoft moved away from color-aware ClearType. The font rendering engine in DirectWrite supports a different version of ClearType with only greyscale anti-aliasing, not color subpixel rendering, as demonstrated at PDC 2008. This version is sometimes called Natural ClearType but is often referred to simply as DirectWrite rendering (with the term "ClearType" being designated to only the RGB/BGR color subpixel rendering version). The improvements have been confirmed by independent sources, such as Firefox developers; they were particularly noticeable for OpenType fonts in Compact Font Format (CFF). Many Office 2013 apps including Word 2013, Excel 2013, parts of Outlook 2013 stopped using ClearType and switched to this DirectWrite greyscale antialiasing. The reasons invoked are, in the words of Murray Sargent: "There is a problem with ClearType: it depends critically on the color of the background pixels. This isn’t a problem if you know a priori that those pixels are white, which is usually the case for text. But the general case involves calculating what the colors should be for an arbitrary background and that takes time. Meanwhile, Word 2013 enjoys cool animations and smooth zooming. Nothing jumps any more. Even the caret (the blinking vertical line at the text insertion point) glides from one position to the next as you type. Jerking movement just isn’t considered cool any more. Well animations and zooms have to be faster than human response times in order to appear smooth. And that rules out ClearType in animated scenarios at least with present generation hardware. And in future scenarios, screens will have sufficiently high resolution that gray-scale anti-aliasing should suffice." For the same reasons related to animation performance and vertical screen orientations where the colored RGB/BGR ClearType antialiasing would be a problem, the color-aware version of ClearType was abandoned in Metro-style apps platform of Windows 8 (and Universal Windows Platform of Windows 10)., including the Start menu and everything not using classic Win32 APIs (GDI/GDI+). Patents ClearType is a registered trademark and Microsoft claims protection under the following U.S. patents, all expired: Subpixel rendering: – Method and apparatus for displaying images such as text – Mapping image data samples to pixel sub-components on a striped display device – Weighted mapping of image data samples to pixel sub-components on a display device – Methods and apparatus for performing image rendering and rasterization operations Complex color filtering: – Mapping samples of foreground/background color image data to pixel sub-components – Method and apparatus for detecting and reducing color artifacts in images – Methods apparatus and data structures for enhancing the resolution of images to be rendered on patterned display devices – Filtering image data to obtain samples mapped to pixel sub-components of a display device – Filtering image data to obtain samples mapped to pixel sub-components of a display device Subpixel font hinting and layout: – Methods and apparatus for performing grid fitting and hinting operations – Maintaining advance widths of existing characters that have been resolution enhanced ClearType tuning: – Method and apparatus for improving the quality of displayed images through the use of user reference information Other uses of the ClearType brand The ClearType name was also used to refer to the screens of Microsoft Surface tablets. ClearType HD Display indicates a 1366×768 screen, while ClearType Full HD Display indicates a 1920×1080 screen. See also Font rasterization FreeType CoolType – a similar technology by Adobe Quartz (graphics layer) Retina Display References External links Explanation of ClearType at Microsoft Typography Technical Overview of ClearType Filtering from Microsoft Research The Raster Tragedy at Low-Resolution Revisited – Beat Stamm's online book about rasterization, with an emphasis on ClearType Ron Feigenblatt's remarks on Microsoft ClearType John Markoff, "Microsoft's Cleartype Sets Off Debate on Originality", New York Times, December 7, 1998 Betrisey, C., Blinn, J. F., Dresevic, B., Hill, B., Hitchcock, G., Keely, B., Mitchell, D. P., Platt, J. C., Whitted, T., "Displaced Filtering for Patterned Displays", Proc. Society for Information Display Symposium, pp. 296–299, (2000). http://scien.stanford.edu/jfsite/Papers/ImageRendering/Displays/Farrell_et_al_SID2009.pdf Xu, J., Farrell, J., Matskewich, T., and Wandell, B. “Prediction of preferred Cleartype filters using the S-CIELAB metric”, IEEE International Conference on Image Processing, October 2008.ClearType Steven Sinofsky (23 June 2009) Engineering Changes to ClearType in Windows 7 Windows components Digital typography ClearType Font Collection Computer graphics algorithms

Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced some of the first IBM PC compatible computers, being the second company after Columbia Data Products to legally reverse engineer the IBM Personal Computer. It rose to become the largest supplier of PC systems during the 1990s before being overtaken by HP in 2001. Struggling to keep up in the price wars against Dell, as well as with a risky acquisition of DEC, Compaq was acquired for US$25 billion by HP in 2002. The Compaq brand remained in use by HP for lower-end systems until 2013 when it was discontinued. The company was formed by Rod Canion, Jim Harris, and Bill Murto, all former Texas Instruments senior managers. Murto (SVP of sales) departed Compaq in 1987, while Canion (president and CEO) and Harris (SVP of engineering) left under a shakeup in 1991, which saw Eckhard Pfeiffer appointed president and CEO. Pfeiffer served through the 1990s. Ben Rosen provided the venture capital financing for the fledgling company and served as chairman of the board for 17 years from 1983 until September 28, 2000, when he retired and was succeeded by Michael Capellas, who served as the last chairman and CEO until its merger with HP. Prior to its takeover the company was headquartered in northwest unincorporated Harris County, Texas, that now continues as HP's largest United States facility. History Founding Compaq was founded in February 1982 by Rod Canion, Jim Harris, and Bill Murto, three senior managers from semiconductor manufacturer Texas Instruments. The three of them had left due to lack of faith and loss of confidence in TI's management, and initially considered but ultimately decided against starting a chain of Mexican restaurants. Each invested $1,000 to form the company, which was founded with the temporary name Gateway Technology. The name "COMPAQ" was said to be derived from "Compatibility and Quality" but this explanation was an afterthought. The name was chosen from many suggested by Ogilvy & Mather, it being the name least rejected. The first Compaq PC was sketched out on a placemat by Ted Papajohn while dining with the founders in a pie shop, (named House of Pies in Houston). Their first venture capital came from Benjamin M. Rosen and Sevin Rosen Funds, who helped the fledgling company secure $1.5 million to produce their initial computer. Overall, the founders managed to raise $25 million from venture capitalists, as this gave stability to the new company as well as providing assurances to the dealers or middlemen. Unlike many startups, Compaq differentiated its offerings from the many other IBM clones by not focusing mainly on price, but instead concentrating on new features, such as portability and better graphics displays as well as performance—and all at prices comparable to those of IBM's PCs. In contrast to Dell Computer and Gateway 2000, Compaq hired veteran engineers with an average of 15 years experience, which lent credibility to Compaq's reputation of reliability among customers. Due to its partnership with Intel, Compaq was able to maintain a technological lead in the market place as it was the first one to come out with computers containing the next generation of each Intel processor. Under Canion's direction, Compaq sold computers only through dealers to avoid potential competition that a direct sales channel would foster, which helped foster loyalty among resellers. By giving dealers considerable leeway in pricing Compaq's offerings, either a significant markup for more profits or discount for more sales, dealers had a major incentive to advertise Compaq. During its first year of sales (second year of operation), the company sold 53,000 PCs for sales of $111 million, the first start-up to hit the $100 million mark that fast. Compaq went public in 1983 on the NYSE and raised $67 million. In 1986, it enjoyed record sales of $329 million from 150,000 PCs, and became the youngest-ever firm to make the Fortune 500. In 1987, Compaq hit the $1 billion revenue mark, taking the least amount of time to reach that milestone. By 1991, Compaq held the fifth place spot in the PC market with $3 billion in sales that year. Two key marketing executives in Compaq's early years, Jim D'Arezzo and Sparky Sparks, had come from IBM's PC Group. Other key executives responsible for the company's meteoric growth in the late 1980s and early 1990s were Ross A. Cooley, another former IBM associate, who served for many years as SVP of GM North America; Michael Swavely, who was the company's chief marketing officer in the early years, and eventually ran the North America organization, later passing along that responsibility to Cooley when Swavely retired. In the United States, Brendan A. "Mac" McLoughlin (another long time IBM executive) led the company's field sales organization after starting up the Western U.S. Area of Operations. These executives, along with other key contributors, including Kevin Ellington, Douglas Johns, Steven Flannigan, and Gary Stimac, helped the company compete against the IBM Corporation in all personal computer sales categories, after many predicted that none could compete with the behemoth. The soft-spoken Canion was popular with employees and the culture that he built helped Compaq to attract the best talent. Instead of headquartering the company in a downtown Houston skyscraper, Canion chose a West Coast-style campus surrounded by forests, where every employee had similar offices and no-one (not even the CEO) had a reserved parking spot. At semi-annual meetings, turnout was high as any employee could ask questions to senior managers. In 1987, company co-founder Bill Murto resigned to study at a religious education program at the University of St. Thomas. Murto had helped to organize the company's marketing and authorized-dealer distribution strategy, and held the post of senior vice president of sales since June 1985. Murto was succeeded by Ross A. Cooley, director of corporate sales. Cooley would report to Michael S. Swavely, vice president for marketing, who was given increased responsibility and the title of vice president for sales and marketing. Introduction of Compaq Portable In November 1982, Compaq announced their first product, the Compaq Portable, a portable IBM PC compatible personal computer. It was released in March 1983 at $2995. The Compaq Portable was one of the progenitors of today's laptop; some called it a "suitcase computer" for its size and the look of its case. It was the second IBM PC compatible, being capable of running all software that would run on an IBM PC. It was a commercial success, selling 53,000 units in its first year and generating $111 million in sales revenue. The Compaq Portable was the first in the range of the Compaq Portable series. Compaq was able to market a legal IBM clone because IBM mostly used "off the shelf" parts for their PC. Furthermore, Microsoft had kept the right to license MS-DOS, the most popular and de facto standard operating system for the IBM PC, to other computer manufacturers. The only part which had to be duplicated was the BIOS, which Compaq did legally by using clean room design at a cost of $1 million. Unlike other companies, Compaq did not bundle application software with its computers. Vice President of Sales and Service H. L. Sparks said in early 1984: Compaq instead emphasized PC compatibility, of which Future Computing in May 1983 ranked Compaq as among the "Best" examples. "Many industry observers think [Compaq] is poised for meteoric growth", The New York Times reported in March of that year. By October, when the company announced the Compaq Plus with a 10 MB hard drive, PC Magazine wrote of "the reputation for compatibility it built with its highly regarded floppy disk portable". Compaq computers remained the most compatible PC clones into 1984, and maintained its reputation for compatibility for years, even as clone BIOSes became available from Phoenix Technologies and other companies that also reverse engineered IBM's design, then sold their version to clone manufacturers. Compaq Deskpro On June 28, 1984, Compaq released the Compaq Deskpro, a 16-bit desktop computer using an Intel 8086 microprocessor running at 7.14 MHz. It was considerably faster than an IBM PC and was, like the original Compaq Portable, also capable of running IBM software. It was Compaq's first non-portable computer and began the Deskpro line of computers. Compaq DeskPro 386 Compaq introduced the first PC based on Intel's new 80386 microprocessor, the Compaq Deskpro 386, in 1986. Bill Gates of Microsoft later said The Compaq 386 computer marked the first CPU change to the PC platform that was not initiated by IBM. An IBM-made 386 machine reached the market almost a year later, but by that time Compaq was the 386 supplier of choice and IBM had lost some of its prestige. For the first three months after announcement, the Deskpro 386 shipped with Windows/386. This was a version of Windows 2.1 adapted for the 80386 processor. Support for the virtual 8086 mode was added by Compaq engineers. (Windows, running on top of the MS-DOS operating system, would not become a popular "operating environment" until at least the release of Windows 3.0 in 1990.) Compaq SystemPro Compaq's technical leadership and the rivalry with IBM was emphasized when the SystemPro server was launched in late 1989 – this was a true server product with standard support for a second CPU and RAID, but also the first product to feature the EISA bus, designed in reaction to IBM's MCA (MicroChannel Architecture) which was incompatible with the original AT bus. Although Compaq had become successful by being 100 percent IBM-compatible, it decided to continue with the original AT bus—which it renamed ISA—instead of licensing IBM's MCA. Prior to developing EISA Compaq had invested significant resources into reverse engineering MCA, but its executives correctly calculated that the $80 billion already spent by corporations on IBM-compatible technology would make it difficult for even IBM to force manufacturers to adopt the new MCA design. Instead of cloning MCA, Compaq formed an alliance with Hewlett Packard and seven other major manufacturers, known collectively as the "Gang of Nine", to develop EISA. 1990s By 1989, The New York Times wrote that being the first to release a 80386-based personal computer made Compaq the leader of the industry and "hurt no company more - in prestige as well as dollars - than" IBM. The company was so influential that observers and its executives spoke of "Compaq compatible". InfoWorld reported that "In the [ISA market] Compaq is already IBM's equal in being seen as a safe bet", quoting a sell-side analyst describing it as "now the safe choice in personal computers". Even rival Tandy Corporation acknowledged Compaq's leadership, stating that within the Gang of Nine "when you have 10 people sit down before a table to write a letter to the president, someone has to write the letter. Compaq is sitting down at the typewriter". Ouster of co-founders Michael S. Swavely, president of Compaq's North American division since May 1989, took a six-month sabbatical in January 1991 (which would eventually become retirement effective on July 12, 1991). Eckhard Pfeiffer, then president of Compaq International, was named to succeed him. Pfeiffer also received the title of chief operating officer, with responsibility for the company's operations on a worldwide basis, so that Canion could devote more time to strategy. Swavely's abrupt departure in January led to rumors of turmoil in Compaq's executive suite, including friction between Canion and Swavely, likely as Swavely's rival Pfeiffer had received the number two leadership position. Swavely's U.S. marketing organization was losing ground with only 4% growth for Compaq versus 7% in the market, likely due to short supplies of the LTE 386s from component shortages, rivals that undercut Compaq's prices by as much as 35%, and large customers who did not like Compaq's dealer-only policy. Pfeiffer became president and CEO of Compaq later that year, as a result of a boardroom coup led by board chairman Ben Rosen that forced co-founder Rod Canion to resign as president and CEO. Pfeiffer had joined Compaq from Texas Instruments, and established operations from scratch in both Europe and Asia. Pfeiffer was given US$20,000 to start up Compaq Europe He started up Compaq's first overseas office in Munich in 1984. By 1990, Compaq Europe was a $2 billion business and number two behind IBM in that region, and foreign sales contributed 54 percent of Compaq's revenues. Pfeiffer, while transplanting Compaq's U.S. strategy of dealer-only distribution to Europe, was more selective in signing up dealers than Compaq had been in the U. S. such that European dealers were more qualified to handle its increasingly complex products. During the 1980s, under Canion's direction Compaq had focused on engineering, research, and quality control, producing high-end, high-performance machines with high profit margins that allowed Compaq to continue investing in engineering and next-generation technology. This strategy was successful as Compaq was considered a trusted brand, while many other IBM clones were untrusted due to being plagued by poor reliability. However, by the end of the eighties many manufacturers had improved their quality and were able to produce inexpensive PCs with off-the-shelf components, incurring none of the R&D costs which allowed them to undercut Compaq's expensive computers. Faced with lower-cost rivals such as Dell Computer, AST Research, and Gateway 2000, Compaq suffered a $71 million loss for that quarter, their first loss as a company, while the stock had dropped by over two-thirds. An analyst stated that "Compaq has made a lot of tactical errors in the last year and a half. They were trend-setters, now they are lagging". Canion initially believed that the 1990s recession was responsible for Compaq's declining sales but insisted that they would recover once the economy improved, however Pfeiffer's observation of the European market noted that it was competition as rivals could match Compaq at a fraction of the cost. Under pressure from Compaq's board to control costs as staff was ballooning at their Houston headquarters despite falling U.S. sales, while the number of non-U.S. employees had stayed constant, Compaq made its first-ever layoffs (1400 employees which was 12% of its workforce) while Pfeiffer was promoted to EVP and COO. Rosen and Canion had disagreed about how to counter the cheaper Asian PC imports, as Canion wanted Compaq to build lower cost PCs with components developed in-house in order to preserve Compaq's reputation for engineering and quality, while Rosen believed that Compaq needed to buy standard components from suppliers and reach the market faster. While Canion developed an 18-month plan to create a line of low-priced computers, Rosen sent his own Compaq engineering team to Comdex without Canion's knowledge and discovered that a low-priced PC could be made in half the time and at lower cost than Canion's initiative. It was also believed that Canion's consensus-style management slowed the company's ability to react in the market, whereas Pfeiffer's autocratic style would be suited to price and product competition. Rosen initiated a 14-hour board meeting, and the directors also interviewed Pfeiffer for several hours without informing Canion. At the conclusion, the board was unanimous in picking Pfeiffer over Canion. As Canion was popular with company workers, 150 employees staged an impromptu protest with signs stating "We love you, Rod." and taking out a newspaper ad saying "Rod, you are the wind beneath our wings. We love you." Canion declined an offer to remain on Compaq's board and was bitter about his ouster as he didn't speak to Rosen for years, although their relationship became cordial again. In 1999, Canion admitted that his ouster was justified, saying "I was burned out. I needed to leave. He [Rosen] felt I didn't have a strong sense of urgency". Two weeks after Canion's ouster, five other senior executives resigned, including remaining company founder James Harris as SVP of Engineering. These departures were motivated by an enhanced severance or early retirement, as well as an imminent demotion as their functions were to be shifted to vice presidents. Market ascension Under Pfeiffer's tenure as chief executive, Compaq entered the retail computer market with the Compaq Presario as one of the first manufacturers in the mid-1990s to market a sub-$1000 PC. In order to maintain the prices it wanted, Compaq became the first first-tier computer manufacturer to utilize CPUs from AMD and Cyrix. The two price wars resulting from Compaq's actions ultimately drove numerous competitors from the market, such as Packard Bell and AST Research. From third place in 1993, Compaq had overtaken Apple Computer and even surpassed IBM as the top PC manufacturer in 1994, as both IBM and Apple were struggling considerably during that time. Compaq's inventory and gross margins were better than that of its rivals which enabled it to wage the price wars. Compaq had decided to make a foray into printers in 1989, and the first models were released to positive reviews in 1992. However, Pfeiffer saw that the prospects of taking on market leader Hewlett Packard (who had 60% market share) was tough, as that would force Compaq to devote more funds and people to that project than originally budgeted. Compaq ended up selling the printer business to Xerox and took a charge of $50 million. On June 26, 1995, Compaq reached an agreement with Cisco Systems Inc. in order to get into networking, including digital modems, routers, and switches favored by small businesses and corporate departments, which was now a $4 billion business and the fastest-growing part of the computer hardware market. Compaq also built up a network engineering and marketing staff. Management shuffle In 1996, despite record sales and profits at Compaq, Pfeiffer initiated a major management shakeup in the senior ranks. John T. Rose, who previously ran Compaq's desktop PC division, took over the corporate server business from SVP Gary Stimac who had resigned. Rose had joined Compaq in 1993 from Digital Equipment Corporation where he oversaw the personal computer division and worldwide engineering, while Stimac had been with Compaq since 1982 and was one of the longest-serving executives. Senior Vice-president for North America Ross Cooley announced his resignation effective at the end of 1996. CFO Daryl J. White, who joined the company in January, 1983 resigned in May, 1996 after 8 years as CFO. Michael Winkler, who joined Compaq in 1995 to run its portable computer division, was promoted to general manager of the new PC products group. Earl Mason, hired from Inland Steel effective in May 1996, immediately made an impact as the new CFO. Under Mason's guidance, Compaq utilized its assets more efficiently instead of focusing just on income and profits, which increased Compaq's cash from $700 million to nearly $5 billion in one year. Additionally, Compaq's return on invested capital (after-tax operating profit divided by operating assets) doubled to 50 percent from 25 percent in that period. Compaq had been producing the PC chassis at its plant in Shenzhen, China to cut costs. In 1996, instead of expanding its own plant, Compaq asked a Taiwanese supplier to set up a new factory nearby to produce the mechanicals, with the Taiwanese supplier owning the inventory until it reached Compaq in Houston. Pfeiffer also introduced a new distribution strategy, to build PCs made-to-order which would eliminate the stockpile of computers in warehouses and cut the components inventory down to two weeks, with the supply chain from supplier to dealer linked by complex software. Vice-president for Corporate Development Kenneth E. Kurtzman assembled five teams to examine Compaq's businesses and assess each unit's strategy and that of key rivals. Kurtzman's teams recommended to Pfeiffer that each business unit had to be first or second in its market within three years—or else Compaq should exit that line. Also, the company should no longer use profits from high-margin businesses to carry marginally profitable ones, as instead each unit must show a return on investment. Pfeiffer's vision was to make Compaq a full-fledged computer company, moving beyond its main business of manufacturing retail PCs and into the more lucrative business services and solutions that IBM did well at, such as computer servers which would also require more "customer handholding" from either the dealers or Compaq staff themselves. Unlike IBM and HP, Compaq would not build up field technicians and programmers in-house as those could be costly assets, instead Compaq would leverage its partnerships (including those with Andersen Consulting and software maker SAP) to install and maintain corporate systems. This allowed Compaq to compete in the "big-iron market" without incurring the costs of running its own services or software businesses. In January 1998, Compaq was at its height. CEO Pfeiffer boldly predicted that the Microsoft/Intel "Wintel" duopoly would be replaced by "Wintelpaq". Acquisitions Pfeiffer also made several major (and some minor) acquisitions. In 1997, Compaq bought Tandem Computers, known for their NonStop server line. This acquisition instantly gave Compaq a presence in the higher end business computing market. Minor acquisitions centered around building a networking arm and included NetWorth (1998) based in Irving, Texas and Thomas-Conrad (1998) based in Austin, Texas. In 1997 Microcom was also acquired, based in Norwood, MA, which brought a line of modems, Remote Access Servers (RAS) and the popular Carbon Copy software. In 1998, Compaq acquired Digital Equipment Corporation for a then-industry record of US$9 billion. The merger made Compaq, at the time, the world's second largest computer maker in the world in terms of revenue behind IBM. Digital Equipment, which had nearly twice as many employees as Compaq while generating half the revenue, had been a leading computer company during the 1970s and early 1980s. However, Digital had struggled during the 1990s, with high operating costs. For nine years the company had lost money or barely broke even, and had recently refocused itself as a "network solutions company". In 1995, Compaq had considered a bid for Digital but only became seriously interested in 1997 after Digital's major divestments and refocusing on the Internet. At the time of the acquisition, services accounted for 45 percent of Digital's revenues (about $6 billion) and their gross margins on services averaged 34 percent, considerably higher than Compaq's 25% margins on PC sales and also satisfying customers who had demanded more services from Compaq for years. Compaq had originally wanted to purchase only Digital's services business but that was turned down. When the announcement was made, it was initially viewed as a master stroke as it immediately gave Compaq a 22,000 person global service operation to help corporations handle major technological purchases (by 2001 services made up over 20% of Compaq's revenues, largely due to the Digital employees inherited from the merger), in order to compete with IBM. However it was also risky merger, as the combined company would have to lay off 2,000 employees from Compaq and 15,000 from Digital which would potentially hurt morale. Furthermore, Compaq fell behind schedule in integrating Digital's operations, which also distracted the company from its strength in low-end PCs where it used to lead the market in rolling out next-generation systems which let rival Dell grab market share. Reportedly Compaq had three consulting firms working to integrate Digital alone. However, Pfeiffer had little vision for what the combined companies should do, or indeed how the three dramatically different cultures could work as a single entity, and Compaq struggled from strategy indecisiveness and lost focus, as a result being caught in between the low end and high end of the market. Mark Anderson, president of Strategic News Service, a research firm based in Friday Harbor, Wash. was quoted as saying, "The kind of goals he had sounded good to shareholders – like being a $50 billion company by the year 2000, or to beat I.B.M. – but they didn't have anything to do with customers. The new C.E.O. should look at everything Eckhard acquired and ask: did the customer benefit from that. If the answer isn't yes, they should get rid of it." On one hand, Compaq had previously dominated the PC market with its price war but was now struggling against Dell, which sold directly to buyers, avoiding the dealer channel and its markup, and built each machine to order to keep inventories and costs at a minimum. At the same time, Compaq, through its acquisitions of the Digital Equipment Corporation last year and Tandem Computer in 1997, had tried to become a major systems company, like IBM and Hewlett-Packard. While IBM and HP were able generate repeat business from corporate customers to drive sales of their different divisions, Compaq had not yet managed to make its newly acquired sales and services organizations work as seamlessly. Ouster of Pfeiffer In early 1998, Compaq had the problem of bloated PC inventories. By summer 1998, Compaq was suffering from product-quality problems. Robert W. Stearns, SVP of Business Development, said "In [Pfeiffer's] quest for bigness, he lost an understanding of the customer and built what I call empty market share--large but not profitable", while Jim Moore, a technology strategy consultant with GeoPartners Research in Cambridge, Mass., says Pfeiffer "raced to scale without having economies of scale." The "colossus" that Pfeiffer built up was not nimble enough to adapt to the fast-changing computer industry. That year Compaq forecast demand poorly and overshipped too many PCs, causing resellers to dump them at fire sale prices, and since Compaq protected resellers from heavy losses it cost them two quarters of operating profits. Pfeiffer also refused to develop a potential successor, rebuffing Rosen's suggestion to recruit a few executives to create the separate position of Compaq president. The board complained that Pfeiffer was too removed from management and the rank-and-file, as he surrounded himself with a "clique" of Chief Financial Officer Earl Mason, Senior Vice-President John T. Rose, and Senior Vice-President of Human Resources Hans Gutsch. Current and former Compaq employees complained that Gutsch was part of a group of senior executives, dubbed the "A team", who controlled access to Pfeiffer. Gutsch was said to be a "master of corporate politics, pitting senior vice presidents against each other and inserting himself into parts of the company that normally would not be under his purview". Gutsch, who oversaw security, had an extensive security system and guard station installed on the eight floor of CCA-11, where the company's senior vice presidents worked. There were accusations that Gutsch and others sought to divide top management, although this was regarded by others as sour grapes on the part of executives who were shut out of planning that involved the acquisitions of Tandem and Digital Equipment Corp. Pfeiffer reduced the size of the group working on the deal due to news leaks, saying "We cut the team down to the minimum number of people - those who would have to be directly involved, and not one person more". Robert W. Stearns, Compaq's senior vice president for business development, with responsibility for mergers and acquisitions, had opposed the acquisition of Digital as the cultural differences between both companies were too great, and complained that he was placed on the "B team" as a result. Compaq entered 1999 with strong expectations. Fourth-quarter 1998 earnings reported in January 1999 beat expectations by six cents a share with record 48 percent growth. The company launched Compaq.com as the key for its new direct sales strategy, and planned an IPO for AltaVista toward the end of 1999 in order to capitalize on the dotcom bubble. However, by February 1999, analysts were sceptical of Compaq's plan to sell both direct and to resellers. Compaq was hit with two class-action lawsuits, as a result of CFO Earl Mason, SVP John Rose, and other executives selling US$50 million of stock before a conference call with analysts, where they noted that demand for PCs was slowing down. On April 17, 1999, just nine days after Compaq reported first-quarter profit being at half of what analysts had expected, the latest in a string of earnings disappointments, Pfeiffer was forced to resign as CEO in a coup led by board chairman Ben Rosen. Reportedly, at the special board meeting held on April 15, 1999, the directors were unanimous in dismissing Pfeiffer. The company's stock had fallen 50 percent since its all-time high in January 1999. Compaq shares, which traded as high as $51.25 early in 1999, dropped 23 percent on April 12, 1999, the first day of trading after the first-quarter announcement and closed the following Friday at $23.62. During three out of the last six quarters of Pfeiffer's tenure, the company's revenues or earnings had missed expectations. While rival Dell Computer had 55% growth in U.S. PC sales in the first quarter of 1999, Compaq could only manage 10%. Rosen suggested that the accelerating change brought about by the Internet had overtaken Compaq's management team, saying "As a company engaged in transforming its industry for the Internet era, we must have the organizational flexibility necessary to move at Internet speed." In a statement, Pfeiffer said "Compaq has come a long way since I joined the company in 1983" and "under Ben's guidance, I know this company will realize its potential." Rosen's priority was to have Compaq catchup as an E-commerce competitor, and he also moved to streamline operations and reduce the indecision that plagued the company. Roger Kay, an analyst at International Data Corporation, observed that Compaq's behavior at times seemed like a personal vendetta, noting that "Eckhard has been so obsessed with staying ahead of Dell that they focused too hard on market share and stopped paying attention to profitability and liquidity. They got whacked in a price war that they started." Subsequent earnings releases from Compaq's rivals, Dell, Gateway, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard suggested that the problems were not affecting the whole PC industry as Pfeiffer had suggested. Dell and Gateway sold direct, which helped them to avoid Compaq's inventory problems and compete on price without dealer markups, plus Gateway sold web access and a broad range of software tailored to small businesses. Hewlett-Packard's PC business had similar challenges like Compaq but this was offset by HP's extremely lucrative printer business, while IBM sold PCs at a loss but used them to lock in multi-year services contracts with customers. After Pfeiffer's resignation, the board established an office of the CEO with a triumvirate of directors; Rosen as interim CEO and vice chairmen Frank P. Doyle and Robert Ted Enloe III. They began "cleaning house", as shortly afterward many of Pfeiffer's top executives resigned or were pushed out, including John J. Rando, Earl L. Mason, and John T. Rose. Rando, senior vice president and general manager of Compaq Services, was a key player during the merger discussions and the most senior executive from Digital to remain with Compaq after the acquisition closed and had been touted by some as the heir-apparent to Pfeiffer. Rando's division had performed strongly as it had sales of $1.6 billion for the first quarter compared to $113 million in 1998, which met expectations and was anticipated to post accelerated and profitable growth going forward. At the time of Rando's departure, Compaq Services ranked third behind those of IBM and EDS, while slightly ahead of Hewlett-Packard's and Andersen Consulting, however customers switched from Digital and Tandem technology-based workstations to those of HP, IBM, and Sun Microsystems. Mason, senior vice president and chief financial officer, had previously been offered the job of chief executive of Alliant Foodservice, Inc., a foodservice distributor based in Chicago, and he informed Compaq's board that he accepted the offer. Rose, senior vice president and general manager of Compaq's Enterprise Computing group, resigned effective as of June 3 and was succeeded by Tandem veteran Enrico Pesatori. Rose was reportedly upset that he was not considered for the CEO vacancy, which became apparent once Michael Capellas was named COO. While Enterprise Computing, responsible for engineering and marketing of network servers, workstations and data-storage products, reportedly accounted for one third of Compaq's revenues and likely the largest part of its profits, it was responsible for the earnings shortfall in Q1 of 1999. In addition, Rose was part of the "old guard" close to former CEO Pfeiffer, and he and other Compaq executives had been criticized at the company's annual meeting for selling stock before reporting the sales slowdown. Rose was succeeded by SVP Enrico Pesatori, who had previously worked as a senior executive at Olivetti, Zenith Data Systems, Digital Equipment Corp. and Tandem Computers. Capellas was appointed COO after pressure mounted on Rosen to find a permanent CEO, however it was reported that potential candidates did not want to work under Rosen as chairman. Around the same time Pesatori was placed in charge of the newly created Enterprise Solutions and Services Group, making him Compaq's second most powerful executive in operational responsibility after Capellas. Pfeiffer's permanent replacement was Michael Capellas, who had been serving as Compaq's SVP and CIO for under a year. A couple months after Pfeiffer's ouster, Capellas was elevated to interim chief operating officer on June 2, 2000, and was soon appointed president and CEO. Capellas also assumed the title of chairman on September 28, 2000, when Rosen stepped down from the board of directors. At his retirement, Rosen proclaimed "These are great achievements—to create 65,000 jobs, $40 billion in sales and $40 billion in market value, all starting with a sketch and a dream". Late 1990s–2000s Struggles Capellas was able to restore some of the luster lost in the latter part of the Pfeiffer era and he repaired the relationship with Microsoft which had deteriorated under his predecessor's tenure. However Compaq still struggled against lower-cost competitors with direct sales channels such as Dell who took over the top spot of PC manufacturer from Compaq in 2001. Compaq relied significantly on reseller channels, so their criticism caused Compaq to retreat from its proposed direct sales plan, although Capellas maintained that he would use the middlemen to provide value-added services. Despite falling to No. 2 among PC manufacturers, Capellas proclaimed "We are No. 2 in the traditional PC market, but we're focused on industry leadership in the next generation of Internet access devices and wireless mobility. That's where the growth and the profitability will be." The company's longer-term strategy involved extending its services to servers and storage products, as well as handheld computers such as the iPAQ PocketPC which accounted for 11 percent of total unit volume. During November 1999, Compaq began to work with Microsoft to create the first in a line of small-scale, web-based computer systems called MSN Companions. In 1998, Compaq also signed new sales and equipment alliance with NaviSite. Under the pact, Compaq agreed to promote and sell NaviSite Web hosting services. In return, NaviSite took Compaq as a preferred provider for its storage and Intel-based servers. Compaq struggled as a result of the collapse of the Dot-com bubble, which hurt sales of their high-end systems in 2001 and 2002, and they managed only a small profit in a few quarters during these years. They also accumulated $1.7 billion in short-term debt around this time. The stock price of Compaq, which was around $25 when Capellas became CEO, was trading at half that by 2002. Acquisition by Hewlett-Packard In 2002, Compaq signed a merger agreement with Hewlett-Packard for $24.2 billion, including $14.45 billion for goodwill, where each Compaq share would be exchanged for 0.6325 of a Hewlett-Packard share. There would be a termination fee of US$675 million that either company would have to pay the other to break the merger. Compaq shareholders would own 36% of the combined company while HP's would have 64%. Hewlett-Packard had reported yearly revenues of $47 billion, while Compaq's was $40 billion, and the combined company would have been close to IBM's $90 billion revenues. It was projected to have $2.5 billion in annual cost savings by mid-2004. The expected layoffs at Compaq and HP, 8500 and 9000 jobs, respectively, would leave the combined company with a workforce of 145,000. The companies would dole out a combined $634.5 million in bonuses to prevent key employees from leaving if shareholders approve the proposed merger, with $370.1 million for HP employees and $264.4 million for Compaq employees. Both companies had to seek approval from their shareholders through separate special meetings. While Compaq shareholders unanimously approved the deal, there was a public proxy battle within HP as the deal was strongly opposed by numerous large HP shareholders, including the sons of the company founders, Walter Hewlett and David W. Packard, as well as the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan. Walter Hewlett only reluctantly approved the merger, in his duty as a member of the board of directors, since the merger agreement "called for unanimous board approval in order to ensure the best possible shareholder reception". While supporters of the merger argued that there would be economies of scale and that the sales of PCs would drive sales of printers and cameras, Walter Hewlett was convinced that PCs were a low-margin but risky business that would not contribute and would likely dilute the old HP's traditionally profitable Imaging and Printing division. David W. Packard in his opposition to the deal "[cited] massive layoffs as an example of this departure from HP’s core values...[arguing] that although the founders never guaranteed job security, 'Bill and Dave never developed a premeditated business strategy that treated HP employees as expendable.'" Packard further stated that "[Carly] Fiorina’s high-handed management and her efforts to reinvent the company ran counter to the company’s core values as established by the founders". The founders' families who controlled a significant amount of HP shares were further irked because Fiorina had made no attempt to reach out to them and consult about the merger, instead they received the same standard roadshow presentation as other investors. Analysts on Wall Street were generally critical of the merger, as both companies had been struggling before the announcement, and the stock prices of both companies dropped in the months after the merger agreement was made public. Particularly rival Dell made gains from defecting HP and Compaq customers who were wary of the merger. Carly Fiorina, initially seen as HP's savior when she was hired as CEO back in 1999, had seen the company's stock price drop to less than half since she assumed the position, and her job was said to be on shaky ground before the merger announcement. HP's offer was regarded by analysts to be overvaluing Compaq, due to Compaq's shaky financial performance in the past recent years (there were rumors that it could run out of money in 12 months and be forced to cease business operations had it stayed independent), as well as Compaq's own more conservative valuation of its assets. Detractors of the deal noted that buying Compaq was a "distraction" that would not directly help HP take on IBM's breadth or Dell Computer's direct sales model. Plus there were significant cultural differences between HP and Compaq; which made decisions by consensus and rapid autocratic styles, respectively. One of Compaq's few bright spots was its services business, which was outperforming HP's own services division. The merger was approved by HP shareholders only after the narrowest of margins, and allegations of vote buying (primarily involving an alleged last-second back-room deal with Deutsche Bank) haunted the new company. It was subsequently disclosed that HP had retained Deutsche Bank's investment banking division in January 2002 to assist in the merger. HP had agreed to pay Deutsche Bank $1 million guaranteed, and another $1 million contingent upon approval of the merger. On August 19, 2003, the U.S. SEC charged Deutsche Bank with failing to disclose a material conflict of interest in its voting of client proxies for the merger and imposed a civil penalty of $750,000. Deutsche Bank consented without admitting or denying the findings. Compaq's pre-merger ticker symbol was CPQ. This was combined with Hewlett-Packard's ticker symbol (HWP) to create the current ticker symbol (HPQ). Post-merger Capellas, Compaq's last chairman and CEO, became president of the post-merger Hewlett-Packard, under chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina, to ease the integration of the two companies. However, Capellas was reported not to be happy with his role, being said not to be utilized and being unlikely to become CEO as the board supported Fiorina. Capellas stepped down as HP president on November 12, 2002, after just six months on the job, to become CEO of MCI Worldcom where he would lead its acquisition by Verizon. Capellas' former role of president was not filled as the executives who reported to him then reported directly to the CEO. Fiorina helmed the post-merger HP for nearly three years after Capellas left. HP laid off thousands of former Compaq, DEC, HP, and Tandem employees, its stock price generally declined and profits did not perk up. Several senior executives from the Compaq side including Jeff Clarke and Peter Blackmore would resign or be ousted from the post-merger HP. Though the combination of both companies' PC manufacturing capacity initially made the post-merger HP number one, it soon lost the lead and further market share to Dell which squeezed HP on low end PCs. HP was also unable to compete effectively with IBM in the high-end server market. In addition, the merging of the stagnant Compaq computer assembly business with HP's lucrative printing and imaging division was criticized for obstructing the profitability of the printing/imaging segment. Overall, it has been suggested that the purchase of Compaq was not a good move for HP, due to the narrow profit margins in the commoditized PC business, especially in light of IBM's 2004 announcement to sell its PC division to Lenovo. The Inquirer noted that the continued low return on investment and small margins of HP's personal computer manufacturing business, now named the Personal Systems Group, "continues to be what it was in the individual companies, not much more than a job creation scheme for its employees". One of the few positives was Compaq's sales approach and enterprise focus that influenced the newly combined company's strategy and philosophy. In February 2005, the board of directors ousted Fiorina, with CFO Robert Wayman being named interim CEO. Former Compaq CEO Capellas was mentioned by some as a potential successor, but several months afterwards, Mark Hurd was hired as president and CEO of HP. Hurd separated the PC division from the imaging and printing division and renamed it the Personal Systems Group, placing it under the leadership of EVP Todd R. Bradley. Hewlett Packard's PC business has since been reinvigorated by Hurd's restructuring and now generates more revenue than the traditionally more profitable printers. By late 2006, HP had retaken the #1 sales position of PCs from Dell, which struggled with missed estimates and poor quality, and held that rank until supplanted in the mid-2010s by Lenovo. Most Compaq products have been re-branded with the HP nameplate, such as the company's market leading ProLiant server line (now owned by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which spun off from HP in 2015), while the Compaq brand was repurposed for some of HP's consumer-oriented and budget products, notably Compaq Presario PCs. HP's business computers line was discontinued in favour of the Compaq Evo line, which was rebranded HP Compaq. HP's Jornada PDAs were replaced by Compaq iPAQ PDAs, which were renamed HP iPAQ. Following the merger, all Compaq computers were shipped with HP software. In May 2007, HP announced in a press release a new logo for their Compaq Division to be placed on the new model Compaq Presarios. In 2008, HP reshuffled its business line notebooks. The "Compaq" name from its "HP Compaq" series was originally used for all of HP's business and budget notebooks. However, the HP EliteBook line became the top of the business notebook lineup while the HP Compaq B series became its middle business line. As of early 2009, the "HP ProBook" filled out HP's low end business lineup. In 2009, HP sold part of Compaq's former headquarters to the Lone Star College System. On August 18, 2011, then-CEO of HP Leo Apotheker announced plans for a partial or full spinoff of the Personal Systems Group. The PC unit had the lowest profit margin although it accounted for nearly a third of HP's overall revenues in 2010. HP was still selling more PCs than any other vendor, shipping 14.9 million PCs in the second quarter of 2011 (17.5% of the market according to Gartner), while Dell and Lenovo were tied for second place, each with more than a 12% share of the market and shipments of over 10 million units. However, the announcement of the PC spinoff (concurrent with the discontinuation of WebOS, and the purchase of Autonomy Corp. for $10 billion) was poorly received by the market, and after Apotheker's ouster, plans for a divestiture were cancelled. In March 2012, the printing and imaging division was merged into the PC unit. In October 2012, according to Gartner, Lenovo took the lead as the number one PC manufacturer from HP, while IDC ranked Lenovo just right behind HP. In Q2 2013, Forbes reported that Lenovo ranked ahead of HP as the world's number-one PC supplier. HP discontinued the Compaq brand name in the United States in 2013. In 2015, the Argentine company Grupo Newsan acquired the brand's license, along with a $3 million investment, and developed two new lines of Presario notebooks for the local market over the course of the year. By March 2019, Compaq's Argentine web site went offline, with the last archived copy dated October 2018, featuring the same models introduced in 2016. Around 2013, Globalk (a Brazilian-based retailer and licensing management firm) started at partnership with HP, to re-introduce the brand with a new line of desktop and laptop computers. and in 2018, Ossify Industries (an Indian-based company) entered a licensing agreement with HP, to use the Compaq brand name for the distribution and manufacturing of Smart TV sets Headquarters Compaq World Headquarters (now HP United States) campus consisted of of land which contained 15 office buildings, 7 manufacturing buildings, a product conference center, an employee cafeteria, mechanical laboratories, warehouses, and chemical handling facilities. Instead of headquartering the company in a downtown Houston skyscraper, then-CEO Rod Canion chose a West Coast-style campus surrounded by forests, where every employee had similar offices and no-one (not even the CEO) had a reserved parking spot. As it grew, Compaq became so important to Houston that it negotiated the expansion of Highway 249 in the late 1980s, and many other technology companies appeared in what became known as the "249 Corridor". After Canion's ouster, senior vice-president of human resources, Hans W. Gutsch, oversaw the company's facilities and security. Gutsch had an extensive security system and guard station installed on the eight floor of CCA-1, where the company's senior vice presidents had their offices. Eckhard Pfeiffer, president and CEO, introduced a whole series of executive perks to a company that had always had an egalitarian culture; for instance, he oversaw the construction of an executive parking garage, previously parking places had never been reserved. On August 31, 1998, the Compaq Commons was opened in the headquarters campus, which featured a conference center, an employee convenience store, a wellness center, and an employee cafeteria. In 2009, HP sold part of Compaq's former headquarters to the Lone Star College System. Hewlett Packard Buildings #7 & #8, two eight-story reinforced concrete buildings totaling 450,000 square feet, plus a 1,200-car parking garage and a central chiller plant, were all deemed by the college to be too robust and costly to maintain so they were demolished by implosion on September 18, 2011. the site is one of HP's largest campuses, with 7,000 employees in all six of HP's divisions.. In 2018 HP announced the sale of the entire former Compaq HQ campus. Competitors Compaq originally competed directly against IBM, manufacturing computer systems equivalent with the IBM PC, as well as Apple Computer. In the 1990s, as IBM's own PC division declined, Compaq faced other IBM PC Compatible manufacturers like Dell Computer, Packard Bell, AST Research, and Gateway 2000. By the mid-1990s, Compaq's price war had enabled it to overtake IBM and Apple, while other IBM PC Compatible manufacturers such as Packard Bell and AST were driven from the market. Dell became the number-one supplier of PCs in 2001. At the time of their 2002 merger, Compaq and HP were the second and third largest PC manufacturers, so their combination made them number one. However, the combined HP-Compaq struggled and fell to second place behind Dell from 2003 to 2006. Due to Dell's struggles in late 2006, HP has led all PC vendors from 2007 to 2012. During its existence as a division of HP, Compaq primarily competed against other budget-oriented personal computer series from manufacturers including Acer, Lenovo, and Toshiba. Most of Compaq's competitors except Dell were later acquired by bigger rivals like Acer (Gateway 2000 and Packard Bell) and Lenovo absorbing IBM's PC division. Lenovo has been the PC world leader from 2013 onwards. Sponsorship Before its merger with HP, Compaq sponsored the Williams Formula One team when it was still powered by BMW engines. HP inherited and continued the sponsorship deal for a few years. Compaq sponsored Queens Park Rangers F.C. for the 1994–5 and 1995–96 seasons. See also Compaq Portable series List of computer system manufacturers Market share of personal computer vendors Notes References External links Silicon Cowboys (2016) Documentary – How Compaq Ended IBM's PC Domination and Helped Invent Modern Computing book Compaq Alumni Group 1982 establishments in Texas 2002 disestablishments in Texas American companies established in 1982 American companies disestablished in 2002 Computer companies established in 1982 Computer companies disestablished in 2002 Defunct companies based in Texas Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer hardware companies Display technology companies Hewlett-Packard acquisitions Manufacturing companies based in Houston 2002 mergers and acquisitions Texas Instruments spinoffs

In Gallo-Roman religion, Cernunnos was a deity depicted with antlers, seated cross-legged, and is associated with stags, horned serpents, dogs, bulls, and rats. He is usually holding or wearing a torc and has been seen holding a bag of coins (or grain) and a cornucopia. Believed to have originally been a Celtic deity, over 50 examples have been found from this time believed to be associated with him, concentrating in the north-eastern region of what was called Gaul by the ancient Romans. Cernunnos is also associated with the Wiccan Horned God in the modern religious tradition of Wicca. Name and etymology In Gaulish, the name Cernunnos is rooted in the word karnon which means "horn" or "antler". Karnon is cognate with Latin cornu and Germanic *hurnaz, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European . The etymon karn- "horn" appears in both Gaulish and Galatian branches of Continental Celtic. Hesychius of Alexandria glosses the Galatian word karnon (κάρνον) as "Gallic trumpet", that is, the Celtic military horn listed as the carnyx (κάρνυξ) by Eustathius of Thessalonica, who notes the instrument's animal-shaped bell. The root also appears in the names of Celtic polities, most prominent among them the Carnutes, meaning something like "the Horned Ones," and in several personal names found in inscriptions. The Proto-Celtic form of the theonym is reconstructed as either *Cerno-on-os or *Carno-on-os. The augmentative -on- is characteristic of theonyms, as in Maponos, Epona, Matronae, and Sirona. Maier (2010) states that the etymology of Cernunnos is unclear, but seems to be rooted in the Celtic word for "horn" or "antler" (as in Carnonos). "Cernunnos" is believed by some Celticists to be an obscure epithet of a better attested Gaulish deity; perhaps the God described in the interpretatio Romana as Mercury or Dis Pater, which are considered to share Cernunnos's psychopomp or chthonic associations. The name has only appeared once with an image, when it was inscribed on the Nautae Parisiaci (the sailors of the Parisii, who were a tribe of Gauls). Otherwise, variations of the name Cernunnos has also been found in a Celtic inscription written in Greek characters at Montagnac, Hérault (as καρνονου, karnonou, in the dative case). A Gallo-Latin adjective carnuātus, "horned", is also found. Epigraphic evidence Due to the lack of surviving Gaulish literature regarding mythologies about Cernunnos, stories with various possible epithets he might have had, or information regarding religious practices and followers, his overall significance in Gaulish religious traditions is unknown. Interpretations of his role within Gaulish culture vary from seeing him as a god of animals, nature and fertility to a god of travel, commerce and bi-directionality. The only evidence that has survived are inscriptions found on various artifacts. The Nautae Parisiaci monument was probably constructed by Gaulish sailors in 14 CE. It was discovered in 1710 within the foundations of the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, site of ancient Lutetia, the civitas capital of the Celtic Parisii. It is now displayed in the Musée National du Moyen Age in Paris. The distinctive stone pillar is an important monument of Gallo-Roman religion. Its low reliefs depict and label by name several Roman deities such as Jupiter, Vulcan, and Castor and Pollux, along with Gallic deities such as Esus, Smertrios, and Tarvos Trigaranus. The name Cernunnos can be read clearly on 18th century drawings of the inscriptions, but the initial letter has been obscured since, so that today only a reading "[_]ernunnos" can be verified. Additional evidence is given by one inscription on a metal plaque from Steinsel-Rëlent in Luxembourg, in the territory of the Celtic Treveri. This inscription read Deo Ceruninco, "to the God Cerunincos", assumed to be the same deity. The Gaulish inscription from Montagnac reads αλλετ[ει]νος καρνονου αλ[ι]σο[ντ]εας (Alletinos [dedicated this] to Carnonos of Alisontea), with the last word possibly a place name based on Alisia, "service-tree" or "rock" (compare Alesia, Gaulish Alisiia). Iconography On the Pillar of the Boatmen, we find an image depicted with stag's antlers, both having torcs hanging from them with the inscription of [C]ernunnos with it. The lower part of the relief is lost, but the dimensions suggest that the god was sitting cross-legged, in the depiction traditionally called "Buddhic posture", providing a direct parallel to the antlered figure on the Gundestrup cauldron. Iconography associated with Cernunnos is often portrayed with a stag and the ram-horned serpent. Less frequently, there are bulls (at Rheims), dogs and rats. Because of the image of him on the Gundestrup Cauldron, some scholars describe Cernunnos as the Lord of the Animals or the Lord of Wild Things, and Miranda Green describes him as a "peaceful god of nature and fruitfulness" who seems to be seated in a manner that suggests traditional shamans who were often depicted surrounded by animals. Other academics such as Ceisiwr Serith describes Cernunnos as a god of bi-directionality and mediator between opposites, seeing the animal symbolism in the artwork reflecting this idea. The Pilier des nautes links him with sailors and with commerce, suggesting that he was also associated with material wealth as does the coin pouch from the Cernunnos of Rheims (Marne, Champagne, France)—in antiquity, Durocortorum, the civitas capital of the Remi tribe—and the stag vomiting coins from Niedercorn-Turbelslach (Luxembourg) in the lands of the Treveri. The god may have symbolized the fecundity of the stag-inhabited forest. Other examples of Cernunnos imagery include a petroglyph in Val Camonica in Cisalpine Gaul. The antlered human figure has been dated as early as the 7th century BCE or as late as the 4th. Two goddesses with antlers appear at Besançon and Clermont-Ferrand, France. An antlered god appears on a relief in Cirencester, Britain dated to Roman times and appears depicted on a coin from Petersfield, Hampshire. An antlered child appears on a relief from Vendeuvres, flanked by serpents and holding a purse and a torc. The best known image appears on the Gundestrup cauldron found on Jutland, dating to the 1st century BCE, thought to depict Celtic subject matter though usually regarded as of Thracian workmanship. Among the Celtiberians, horned or antlered figures of the Cernunnos type include a "Janus-like" god from Candelario (Salamanca) with two faces and two small horns; a horned god from the hills of Ríotinto (Huelva); and a possible representation of the deity Vestius Aloniecus near his altars in Lourizán (Pontevedra). The horns are taken to represent "aggressive power, genetic vigor and fecundity." Divine representations of the Cernunnos type are exceptions to the often-expressed view that the Celts only began to picture their gods in human form after the Roman conquest of Gaul. The Celtic "horned god", while well attested in iconography, cannot be identified in description of Celtic religion in Roman ethnography and does not appear to have been given any interpretatio romana, perhaps due to being too distinctive to be translatable into the Roman pantheon. While Cernunnos was never assimilated, scholars have sometimes compared him functionally to Greek and Roman divine figures such as Mercury, Actaeon, specialized forms of Jupiter, and Dis Pater, the latter of whom Julius Caesar said was considered the ancestor of the Gauls. Possible reflexes in Insular Celtic There have been attempts to find the cern root in the name of Conall Cernach, the foster brother of the Irish hero Cuchulainn in the Ulster Cycle. In this line of interpretation, Cernach is taken as an epithet with a wide semantic field—"angular; victorious; prominent," though there is little evidence that the figures of Conall and Cernunnos are related. A brief passage involving Conall in an eighth-century story entitled Táin Bó Fraích ("The Cattle Raid on Fraech") has been taken as evidence that Conall bore attributes of a "master of beasts." In this passage Conall Cernach is portrayed as a hero and mighty warrior who assists the protagonist Fraech in rescuing his wife and son, and reclaiming his cattle. The fort that Conall must penetrate is guarded by a mighty serpent. The supposed anti-climax of this tale is when the fearsome serpent, instead of attacking Conall, darts to Conall's waist and girdles him as a belt. Rather than killing the serpent, Conall allows it to live, and then proceeds to attack and rob the fort of its great treasures the serpent previously protected. The figure of Conall Cernach is not associated with animals or forestry elsewhere; and the epithet "Cernach" has historically been explained as a description of Conall's impenetrable "horn-like" skin which protected him from injury. Possible connection to Saint Ciarán Some see the qualities of Cernunnos subsumed into the life of Saint Ciarán of Saighir, one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. When he was building his first tiny cell, as his hagiography goes, his first disciple and monk was a boar that had been rendered gentle by God. This was followed by a fox, a badger, a wolf and a stag. Neopaganism and Wicca Within Neopaganism, specifically the Wiccan tradition, The Horned God is a deity that is believed to be the consort of the Great Goddess and syncretizes various horned or antlered gods from various cultures. The name Cernunnos became associated with the Wiccan Horned God through the adoption of the writings of Margaret Murray, an Egyptologist and folklorist of the early 20th century. Murray, through her Witch-cult hypothesis, believed that the various horned deities found in Europe were expressions of a "proto-horned god" and in 1931 published her theory in "The God of the Witches". Her work was considered highly controversial at the time, but was adopted by Gerald Gardner in his development of the religious movement of Wicca. Within the Wiccan tradition, The Horned God reflects the seasons of the year in an annual cycle of life, death and rebirth and his imagery is a blend of the Gaulish god Cernunnos, the Greek god Pan, The Green Man motif, and various other horned spirit imagery. In popular culture Featured in Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and features in Smite as a hunter. See also Abbots Bromley Horn Dance Celtic polytheism Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism Green Man Herne the Hunter Horned God References Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL) volume 13, number 03026 Delmarre, Xavier (2003). Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise (2nd ed.). Paris: Editions Errance. . Lejeune, Michel (1995). Recueil des inscriptions gauloises (RIG) volume 1, Textes gallo-grecs. Paris: Editions du CNRS. Nussbaum, Alan J. (1986). Head and Horn in Indo-European. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter. . Porkorny, Julius (1959). Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Berlin: Franke Verlag. Notes External links "Is the Gundestrup Cauldron an Authentic Celtic Artifact?": A possibly ancient depiction of the Horned God Animal gods Commerce gods Fertility gods Gaulish gods Horned deities Hunting gods Nature gods New religious movement deities Wicca

David Wark Griffith (January 22, 1875 – July 23, 1948) was an American film director. Considered one of the most influential figures in the history of the motion picture, he pioneered many aspects of film editing and expanded the art of the narrative film. Griffith is known to modern audiences primarily for directing the film The Birth of a Nation (1915). One of the most financially successful films of all time, it made investors enormous profits, but it also attracted much controversy for its degrading portrayals of African Americans, glorification of the Ku Klux Klan, and racist viewpoint. The film led to riots in several major cities all over the United States and attempts by the NAACP to have the film banned. Griffith made his next film Intolerance (1916) as an answer to critics, who he felt unfairly maligned his work. Together with Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, Griffith founded the studio United Artists in 1919 with the goal of enabling actors and directors to make films on their own terms as opposed to those of commercial studios. Several of Griffith's later films were successful, including Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), and Orphans of the Storm (1921), but the high costs he incurred for production and promotion often led to commercial failure. He had made roughly 500 films by the time of his final feature, The Struggle (1931), all of which but three were completely silent. Griffith has a complicated legacy. Although far from universally so, he was a widely celebrated and respected figure in his lifetime, and modern film historians still recognize him for his technical contributions to the craft of filmmaking. Nevertheless, many critics have characterized both Griffith and his work (most notably, The Birth of a Nation) as racist, both during his life and in the decades that have followed since his death. Historians frequently cite The Birth of a Nation as a major factor in the KKK's revival in the 20th century, and it remains a polarizing work to this day. Early life Griffith was born January 22, 1875, on a farm in Oldham County, Kentucky, the son of Jacob Wark "Roaring Jake" Griffith, a Confederate Army colonel in the American Civil War who was elected as a Kentucky state legislator, and Mary Perkins (née Oglesby). Griffith was raised as a Methodist, and he attended a one-room schoolhouse, where he was taught by his older sister Mattie. His father died when he was 10, and the family struggled with poverty. When Griffith was 14, his mother abandoned the farm and moved the family to Louisville, Kentucky; there she opened a boarding house, which failed shortly afterward. Griffith then left high school to help support the family, taking a job in a dry goods store and later in a bookstore. He began his creative career as an actor in touring companies. Meanwhile, he was learning how to become a playwright, but had little success—only one of his plays was accepted for a performance. He traveled to New York City in 1907 in an attempt to sell a script to Edison Studios producer Edwin Porter; however, Porter rejected the script, but gave him an acting part in Rescued from an Eagle's Nest instead. He then decided to become an actor and appeared in many films as an extra. Early film career In 1908, Griffith accepted a role as a stage extra in Professional Jealousy for the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, where he met cameraman Billy Bitzer, and his career in the film industry changed forever. In 1908, Biograph's main director Wallace McCutcheon Sr. grew ill, and his son Wallace McCutcheon Jr. took his place. McCutcheon Jr. did not bring the studio success; Biograph co-founder Harry Marvin gave Griffith the position, and he made the short The Adventures of Dollie. He directed a total of 48 shorts for the company that year. Among the films he directed in 1909 was The Cricket on the Hearth, an adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel. On the influence of Dickens on his own film narrative, Griffith employed the technique of cross-cutting—where two stories run alongside each other, as seen in Dickens' novels such as Oliver Twist. When criticized by a cameraman for doing this in a later film, Griffith was said to have replied, "Well, doesn't Dickens write that way?". His short In Old California (1910) was the first film shot in Hollywood, California. Four years later, he produced and directed his first feature film Judith of Bethulia (1914), one of the earliest to be produced in the U.S. Biograph believed that longer features were not viable at this point. According to Lillian Gish, the company thought that "a movie that long would hurt [the audience's] eyes". Griffith left Biograph because of company resistance to his goals and his cost overruns on the film. He took his company of actors with him and joined the Mutual Film Corporation. There he co-produced The Life of General Villa, a silent biographical-action movie starring Pancho Villa as himself, shot on location in Mexico during a civil war. He formed a studio with Majestic Studios manager Harry Aitken, which became known as Reliance-Majestic Studios and later was renamed Fine Arts Studios. His new production company became an autonomous production unit partner in the Triangle Film Corporation along with Thomas H. Ince and Keystone Studios' Mack Sennett. The Triangle Film Corporation was headed by Aitken, who was released from the Mutual Film Corporation, and his brother Roy. Griffith directed and produced The Clansman through Reliance-Majestic Studios in 1915, which became known as The Birth of a Nation and is considered one of the early feature length American films. The film was a success, but it aroused much controversy due to its depiction of slavery, the Ku Klux Klan and race relations in the American Civil War and the reconstruction era of the United States. It was based on Thomas Dixon Jr.'s 1905 novel The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan; it depicts Southern slavery as benign, the enfranchisement of freedmen as a corrupt plot by the Republican Party, and the Ku Klux Klan as a band of heroes restoring the rightful order. This view of the era was popular at the time and was endorsed for decades by historians of the Dunning School, although it met with strong criticism from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other groups. The NAACP attempted to stop showings of the film. This was successful in some cities, but nonetheless it was shown widely and became the most successful box-office attraction of its time. It is considered among the first "blockbuster" motion pictures, and broke all box office records that had been established until then. "They lost track of the money it made", Lillian Gish remarked in a Kevin Brownlow interview. Audiences in some major northern cities rioted over the film's racial content, which was filled with action and violence. Griffith's indignation at efforts to censor or ban the film motivated him to produce Intolerance the following year, in which he portrayed the effects of intolerance in four different historical periods: the Fall of Babylon; the Crucifixion of Jesus; the events surrounding the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (during religious persecution of French Huguenots); and a modern story. Intolerance was not a financial success; it did not bring in enough profits to cover the lavish road show that accompanied it. Griffith put a huge budget into the film's production that could not be recovered in its box office. He mostly financed Intolerance himself, contributing to his financial ruin for the rest of his life. Griffith's production partnership was dissolved in 1917, and he went to Artcraft, part of Paramount Pictures, and then to First National Pictures (1919–1920). At the same time, he founded United Artists together with Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks; the studio was premised on allowing actors to control their own interests rather than being dependent upon commercial studios. He continued to make films, but never again achieved box-office grosses as high as either The Birth of a Nation or Intolerance. Later film career Though United Artists survived as a company, Griffith's association with it was short-lived. While some of his later films did well at the box office, commercial success often eluded him. Griffith features from this period include Broken Blossoms (1919), Way Down East (1920), Orphans of the Storm (1921), Dream Street (1921), One Exciting Night (1922) and America (1924). Of these, the first three were successes at the box office. Griffith was forced to leave United Artists after Isn't Life Wonderful (1924) failed at the box office. He made a part-talkie, Lady of the Pavements (1929), and only two full-sound films: Abraham Lincoln (1930) and The Struggle (1931). Neither was successful, and after The Struggle he never made another film. In 1936, director Woody Van Dyke, who had worked as Griffith's apprentice on Intolerance, asked Griffith to help him shoot the famous earthquake sequence for San Francisco, but did not give him any film credit. Starring Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald and Spencer Tracy, it was the top-grossing film of the year. In 1939, the producer Hal Roach hired Griffith to produce Of Mice and Men (1939) and One Million B.C. (1940). He wrote to Griffith: "I need help from the production side to select the proper writers, cast, et cetera, and to help me generally in the supervision of these pictures." Although Griffith eventually disagreed with Roach over the production and parted, Roach later insisted that some of the scenes in the completed film were directed by Griffith. This would make the film the final production in which Griffith was actively involved. However, cast members' accounts recall Griffith directing only the screen tests and costume tests. When Roach advertised the film in late 1939 with Griffith listed as producer, the latter asked that his name be removed. Griffith was for decades held in awe by many members of the film industry. He was presented a special Oscar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the mid-1930s. In 1946, he made an impromptu visit to the film location of David O. Selznick's epic western Duel in the Sun, where some of his veteran actors—Lillian Gish, Lionel Barrymore and Harry Carey—were cast members. Gish and Barrymore found their old mentor's presence distracting and became self-conscious; in response, Griffith hid behind the scenery when the two were filming their scenes. Death On the morning of July 23, 1948, Griffith was discovered unconscious in the lobby at the Knickerbocker Hotel in Los Angeles, where he had been living alone. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at 3:42 PM on the way to a Hollywood hospital. A public memorial service was held in his honor at the Hollywood Masonic Temple. He is buried at Mount Tabor Methodist Church Graveyard in Centerfield, Kentucky. In 1950, The Directors Guild of America provided a stone and bronze monument for his grave site. Legacy Performer and director Charlie Chaplin called Griffith "The Teacher of Us All". Filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Lev Kuleshov, Jean Renoir, Cecil B. DeMille, King Vidor, Victor Fleming, Raoul Walsh, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Sergei Eisenstein, and Stanley Kubrick have praised Griffith. Griffith seems to have been the first to understand how certain film techniques could be used to create an expressive language; it gained popular recognition with the release of his The Birth of a Nation (1915). His early shorts —such as Biograph's The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), show that Griffith's attention to camera placement and lighting heightened mood and tension. In making Intolerance Griffith opened up new possibilities for the medium, creating a form that seems to owe more to music than to traditional narrative. In the 1951 Philco Television Playhouse episode "The Birth of the Movies" events from Griffith's film career were depicted. Griffith was played by John Newland. In 1953 the Directors Guild of America (DGA) instituted the D. W. Griffith Award, its highest honor. However, on December 15, 1999, then DGA President Jack Shea and the DGA National Board announced that the award would be renamed as the "DGA Lifetime Achievement Award". They stated that, although Griffith was extremely talented, they felt his film The Birth of a Nation had "helped foster intolerable racial stereotypes", and that it was thus better not to have the top award in his name. In 1975 Griffith was honored on a ten-cent postage stamp by the United States. The 1976 American comedy film Nickelodeon in part pays homage to silent film makers and includes footage from The Birth of a Nation. D. W. Griffith Middle School in Los Angeles is named after Griffith. Because of the association of Griffith and the racist nature of The Birth of a Nation, attempts have been made to rename the 99% minority-enrolled school. In 2008 the Hollywood Heritage Museum hosted a screening of Griffith's earliest films to commemorate the centennial of his start in film. On January 22, 2009, the Oldham History Center in La Grange, Kentucky opened a 15-seat theatre in Griffith's honor. The theatre features a library of available Griffith films. Film preservation Griffith has six films preserved on the United States National Film Registry deemed as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". These are Lady Helen's Escapade (1909), A Corner in Wheat (1909), The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), The Birth of a Nation (1915), Intolerance (1916) and Broken Blossoms (1919). See also D. W. Griffith filmography D. W. Griffith House Griffith Ranch (in San Fernando, California) List of Freemasons List of people from the Louisville metropolitan area References Further reading Seymour Stern, An Index to the Creative Work of D. W. Griffith (London: The British Film Institute, 1944–47) Iris Barry and Eileen Bowser, D. W. Griffith: American Film Master (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1965) Kevin Brownlow, The Parade's Gone By (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968) David Robinson, Hollywood in the Twenties (New York: A. S. Barnes & Co, Inc., 1968) Lillian Gish, The Movies, Mr. Griffith and Me (Englewood, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1969) Robert M. Henderson, D. W. Griffith: His Life and Work (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972) Karl Brown, Adventures with D. W. Griffith (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973) Edward Wagenknecht and Anthony Slide, The Films of D. W. Griffith (New York: Crown, 1975) Petrić, Vlada, D.W. Griffith's A Corner in Wheat: A Critical Analysis. Cambridge, MA: University Film Study Center, 1975. William K. Everson, American Silent Film (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978) Richard Schickel, D. W. Griffith: An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984) William M. Drew, D. W. Griffith's "Intolerance:" Its Genesis and Its Vision (Jefferson, New Jersey: McFarland & Company, 1986) Tom Gunning, D.W. Griffith and the Origin of the American Narrative: The Early Years at Biograph (Urbana: Illinois University Press, 1994) External links Bibliography of books and articles about Griffith via UC Berkeley Media Resources Center Photo of Griffith as a young man in the 1890s or early 1900s D.W. Griffith in theVanity Fair Hall of Fame (1918) A magazine article by the famous director printed in Illustrated World (1921) 1875 births 1948 deaths Academy Honorary Award recipients American film producers American film production company founders American people of Welsh descent American Methodists Artists from Los Angeles Artists from Louisville, Kentucky Articles containing video clips Burials in Kentucky Cinema pioneers Deaths by intracerebral hemorrhage Film directors from Kentucky Film directors from Los Angeles Hollywood history and culture People from Oldham County, Kentucky Silent film directors United Artists Western (genre) film directors

The Kennedy family is an American political family that has long been prominent in American politics, public service, entertainment, and business. In 1884, 35 years after the family's arrival from Ireland, Patrick Joseph "P. J." Kennedy became the first Kennedy elected to public office, serving in the Massachusetts state legislature until 1895. There was at least one Kennedy family member in federal elective office from 1947, when P. J. Kennedy's grandson John F. Kennedy became a member of Congress from Massachusetts, until 2011, when Patrick J. Kennedy II (John's nephew) retired as a member of Congress from Rhode Island. P. J.'s son Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. had nine children with his wife Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, including John F. Kennedy (who served in both houses of the United States Congress and as U.S. President) and Robert F. Kennedy (who served as U.S. Attorney General and in the U.S. Senate). Other descendants include members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, two U.S. ambassadors, a lieutenant governor, three state legislators (one of whom was also in the U.S. House of Representatives), and one mayor. Their daughter, Eunice, founded the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (part of the National Institutes of Health), and the Special Olympics. Eunice's daughter Maria Shriver served as First Lady of California. Other descendants of Joseph and Rose Kennedy have been active as lawyers, authors, and activists on behalf of those with physical and intellectual challenges. History According to genealogist Brian Kennedy in his work JFK's Irish O'Kennedy Ancestors, the Kennedys who would go on to play a significant role in the United States of America originated from the Ó Cinnéide Fionn (one of the three Irish Gaelic Ó Cinnéide clans who ruled the kingdom of Ormond, along with the Ó Cinnéide Donn and Ó Cinnéide Ruadh). Their progenitor, Diarmaid Ó Cinnéide Fionn, held Knigh Castle close to what is today Puckane, County Tipperary in 1546. From there, having lost out to the New English order in the Kingdom of Ireland, they ended up in Dunganstown, New Ross, County Wexford by 1740. Patrick Kennedy was born there in 1823. The first Kennedys to reside in the United States were Patrick Kennedy (1823–1858) and Bridget Murphy (1824–1888), who sailed from Ireland to East Boston in 1849; Patrick worked in East Boston as a barrel maker, or cooper. Patrick and Bridget had five children: their youngest, Patrick Joseph "P. J." Kennedy, went into business and served in the Massachusetts state legislature from 1884 to 1895. P. J. and Mary Augusta Hickey were the parents of four children. Their oldest was Joseph Patrick "Joe" Kennedy Sr., who amassed a fortune in banking and securities trading, which he further expanded by investing in other growing industries. Joseph Sr. was appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as the first chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, chairman of the Maritime Commission, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom in the lead-up to World War II. He served on The Hoover Commission, officially named the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, from 1947 to 1949; the commission was appointed by President Harry Truman to recommend administrative changes in the federal government. His wife, Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald, was appointed Papal Countess of the Holy Roman Church by Pope Pius XII. Continued public service Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald were the parents of nine children: Joseph Jr., John, Rose Marie (called Rosemary), Kathleen, Eunice, Patricia, Robert, Jean, and Edward (called Ted). John served as the 35th president of the United States, while Robert and Ted both became prominent senators. Every Kennedy elected to public office has served as a Democrat, while other members of the family have worked for the Democratic Party or held Cabinet posts in Democratic administrations. Many have attended Harvard University, and the family has contributed greatly to that university's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Joseph Sr. expected his eldest son, Joseph Jr., to go into politics and to ultimately be elected president. Joseph Jr. was elected as a delegate to the 1940 Democratic National Convention, and enlisted in the Navy after the U.S. entered World War II. He was killed in 1944 when the bomber he was piloting exploded in flight. Joseph Sr.'s desire to see the family involved in politics and government then focused on John, who had considered a career as a journalist, having authored a book and done some reporting for Hearst Newspapers. After returning from Navy service, John served in the U.S. House of Representatives representing Massachusetts's 11th congressional district from 1947 to 1953, and then as U.S. Senator from Massachusetts until his election as President in 1960. During John's administration, Robert served as attorney general; his brother-in-law Sargent Shriver served as director of the new Peace Corps, and Ted was elected to the U.S. Senate, occupying his brother's former seat in Massachusetts until his death in 2009. Among the Kennedy administration's accomplishments: the Alliance for Progress, the Peace Corps, peaceful resolution to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963, the 24th Amendment ending the poll tax, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The family was the subject of intense media coverage during and after the Kennedy presidency, often emphasizing their relative youth, allure, education, and future in politics. Ted served in the Senate with his brother Robert (1965–1968), and was serving in the Senate when his nephew, Joseph P. II (1987–1999), and son, Patrick J. (1995–2011), served in the U.S. House of Representatives. In November 2012, Joseph P. Kennedy III, son of former Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II and grandson of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts's 4th congressional district. In 2020, he lost the 2020 Senate primary election in Massachusetts to Ed Markey, the first Kennedy to ever lose an election in the state. Curse Family incidents led Senator Ted Kennedy to wonder, in a televised statement about the Chappaquiddick incident in 1969, whether there really was a "Kennedy curse." Some of the events endured by the Kennedy clan include: in 1941, Rosemary underwent a non-consensual lobotomy intended to prevent her from embarrassing the family with her violent mood swings, convulsions, and intellectual disability. The operation left her incapacitated for the rest of her life. Joseph Jr. died in 1944 when the Navy bomber he was piloting exploded in mid-flight. Kathleen died in a plane crash in France in 1948. John and Robert were assassinated, in 1963 and 1968 respectively. In 1964, Ted was nearly killed when his plane crashed in an apple orchard near Southampton, Massachusetts. (Legislative aide Edward Moss and the pilot were killed in the crash.) Ted was seriously injured and spent months in a hospital recovering from a severe back injury, a punctured lung, broken ribs and internal bleeding. In later generations, Robert's son David died of a drug overdose in 1984; and son Michael died from injuries sustained in a skiing accident in 1997; John's son John Jr. died in a plane crash (along with his wife Carolyn and sister-in-law Lauren) off the coast of Martha's Vineyard in 1999; Kara Kennedy and Christopher Kennedy Lawford died of heart attacks, in 2011 and 2018 respectively; and Saoirse Kennedy Hill died of a drug overdose in 2019. In April 2020, Robert's granddaughter Maeve Kennedy McKean, a former official in the Obama Administration, and her eight-year-old son, Gideon Joseph Kennedy McKean, disappeared in Chesapeake Bay after embarking in a canoe to retrieve a ball. Maeve McKean's body was recovered the following week, and her son's two days later, about 2.5 miles from her mother's home on the Chesapeake Bay. Genealogy Government offices held Patrick Joseph Kennedy: Massachusetts state Representative 1884–1889; Massachusetts state Senator, 1889–1895. Joseph Patrick Kennedy Sr.: Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 1934–1935; chairman of the United States Maritime Commission, 1936–1938; United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom, 1938–1940. John Fitzgerald Kennedy: United States Representative from Massachusetts, 1947–1953; United States Senator from Massachusetts, 1953–1960; President of the United States, 1961–1963 Caroline Kennedy: United States Ambassador to Japan, 2013–2017. Eunice Kennedy Shriver Bobby Shriver: Santa Monica, California City Council member, 2004–2012; Mayor of Santa Monica, 2010. Mark Kennedy Shriver: Maryland state Delegate, 1995–2003. Robert Francis Kennedy: United States Attorney General 1961–1964; United States Senator from New York, 1965–1968. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend: Lieutenant governor of Maryland, 1995–2003. Joseph P. Kennedy II: United States Representative from Massachusetts, 1987–1999. Joseph P. Kennedy III: United States Representative from Massachusetts, 2013–2021. Jean Kennedy Smith: United States Ambassador to Ireland, 1993–1998. Edward Moore Kennedy: United States Senator from Massachusetts, 1962–2009. Edward M. Kennedy Jr.: Connecticut state Senator, 2015–2019. Patrick J. Kennedy: Rhode Island state Representative, 1989–1993; United States Representative from Rhode Island, 1995–2011. There was a member of the Kennedy family in public office nearly continuously from 1946, when John F. Kennedy was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, until early 2011, when Patrick J. Kennedy left the House. The only exception was the period between John F. Kennedy's resignation from the Senate on December 22, 1960, and his assumption of the office of President on January 20, 1961. In 2013, two years after Patrick Kennedy left the House, Joseph P. Kennedy III was elected U.S. Representative from Massachusetts and served until 2021. Below is a timeline of the Kennedys' tenure in the U.S. Congress. Congressional timeline Heraldry In 1961, John F. Kennedy was presented with a grant of arms for all the descendants of Patrick Kennedy (1823–1858) from the Chief Herald of Ireland. The design of the arms (three gold closed helmets on a black field) strongly alludes to symbols in the coats of arms of the O'Kennedys of Ormonde and the FitzGeralds of Desmond, from whom the family is believed to be descended. The crest is an armored hand holding four arrows between two olive branches, elements taken from the coat of arms of the United States of America and also symbolic of Kennedy and his brothers. References Bibliography Haas, Lawrence J. The Kennedys in the World: How Jack, Bobby, and Ted Remade America's Empire (2021) excerpt External links The Kennedys: A Family Tree, St. Petersburg Times Kennedy Family Tree, The New York Times Kennedy Family, The Political Graveyard American families of Irish ancestry Business families of the United States First Families of the United States Roman Catholic families County Wexford Irish-American culture Irish-American history Massachusetts Democrats People from Barnstable, Massachusetts People from Boston People from Brookline, Massachusetts Political families of the United States

Alcohol intoxication, also known as alcohol poisoning, commonly described as drunkenness or inebriation, is the negative behavior and physical effects caused by a recent consumption of alcohol. In addition to the toxicity of ethanol, the main psychoactive component of alcoholic beverages, other physiological symptoms may arise from the activity of acetaldehyde, a metabolite of alcohol. These effects may not arise until hours after ingestion and may contribute to the condition colloquially known as a hangover. Symptoms of intoxication at lower doses may include mild sedation and poor coordination. At higher doses, there may be slurred speech, trouble walking, and vomiting. Extreme doses may result in a respiratory depression, coma, or death. Complications may include seizures, aspiration pneumonia, injuries including suicide, and low blood sugar. Alcohol intoxication can lead to alcohol-related crime with perpetrators more likely to be intoxicated than victims. Alcohol intoxication typically begins after two or more alcoholic drinks. Risk factors include a social situation where heavy drinking is common and a person having an impulsive personality. Diagnosis is usually based on the history of events and physical examination. Verification of events by witnesses may be useful. Legally, alcohol intoxication is often defined as a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of greater than 5.4–17.4 mmol/L (25–80 mg/dL or 0.025–0.080%). This can be measured by blood or breath testing. Alcohol is broken down in the human body at a rate of about 3.3 mmol/L (15 mg/dL) per hour, depending on an individual's metabolic rate (metabolism). Management of alcohol intoxication involves supportive care. Typically this includes putting the person in the recovery position, keeping the person warm, and making sure breathing is sufficient. Gastric lavage and activated charcoal have not been found to be useful. Repeated assessments may be required to rule out other potential causes of a person's symptoms. Acute intoxication has been documented throughout history, and alcohol remains one of the world's most widespread recreational drugs. Some religions consider alcohol intoxication to be a sin. Symptoms Alcohol intoxication leads to negative health effects due to the recent drinking of ethanol (alcohol). When severe it may become a medical emergency. Some effects of alcohol intoxication, such as euphoria and lowered social inhibition, are central to alcohol's desirability. Pathophysiology Alcohol is metabolized by a normal liver at the rate of about 8 grams of pure ethanol per hour. 8 grams or is one British standard unit. An "abnormal" liver with conditions such as hepatitis, cirrhosis, gall bladder disease, and cancer is likely to result in a slower rate of metabolism. Ethanol is metabolised to acetaldehyde by alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH), which is found in many tissues, including the gastric mucosa. Acetaldehyde is metabolised to acetate by acetaldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH), which is found predominantly in liver mitochondria. Acetate is used by the muscle cells to produce acetyl-CoA using the enzyme acetyl-CoA synthetase, and the acetyl-CoA is then used in the citric acid cycle. As drinking increases, people become sleepy, or fall into a stupor. After a very high level of consumption, the respiratory system becomes depressed and the person will stop breathing. Comatose patients may aspirate their vomit (resulting in vomitus in the lungs, which may cause "drowning" and later pneumonia if survived). CNS depression and impaired motor co-ordination along with poor judgment increases the likelihood of accidental injury occurring. It is estimated that about one-third of alcohol-related deaths are due to accidents and another 14% are from intentional injury. In addition to respiratory failure and accidents caused by effects on the central nervous system, alcohol causes significant metabolic derangements. Hypoglycaemia occurs due to ethanol's inhibition of gluconeogenesis, especially in children, and may cause lactic acidosis, ketoacidosis, and acute kidney injury. Metabolic acidosis is compounded by respiratory failure. Patients may also present with hypothermia. Mechanism In the past, alcohol was believed to be a non-specific pharmacological agent affecting many neurotransmitter systems in the brain. However, molecular pharmacology studies have shown that alcohol has only a few primary targets. In some systems, these effects are facilitatory and in others inhibitory. Among the neurotransmitter systems with enhanced functions are: GABAA, 5-HT3 receptor agonism (responsible for GABAergic (GABAA receptor PAM), glycinergic, and cholinergic effects), nicotinic acetylcholine receptors. Among those that are inhibited are: NMDA, dihydropyridine-sensitive L-type Ca2+ channels and G-protein-activated inwardly rectifying K+ channels. Alcohol is also converted to a lipid metabolite phosphatidylethanol by phospholipase D2 and this metabolite is shown to bind directly to and regulate ion channels. The result of these direct effects is a wave of further indirect effects involving a variety of other neurotransmitter and neuropeptide systems, leading finally to the behavioural or symptomatic effects of alcohol intoxication. The order in which different types of alcohol are consumed ("Grape or grain but never the twain" and "Beer before wine and you'll feel fine; wine before beer and you'll feel queer") does not have any effect. GABAA receptors Many of the effects of activating GABAA receptors have the same effects as that of ethanol consumption. Some of these effects include anxiolytic, anticonvulsant, sedative, and hypnotic effects, cognitive impairment, and motor incoordination. This correlation between activating GABAA receptors and the effects of ethanol consumption has led to the study of ethanol and its effects on GABAA receptors. It has been shown that ethanol does in fact exhibit positive allosteric binding properties to GABAA receptors. However, its effects are limited to pentamers containing the δ-subunit rather than the γ-subunit. GABAA receptors containing the δ-subunit have been shown to be located exterior to the synapse and are involved with tonic inhibition rather than its γ-subunit counterpart, which is involved in phasic inhibition. The δ-subunit has been shown to be able to form the allosteric binding site which makes GABAA receptors containing the δ-subunit more sensitive to ethanol concentrations, even to moderate social ethanol consumption levels (30mM). While it has been shown by Santhakumar et al. that GABAA receptors containing the δ-subunit are sensitive to ethanol modulation, depending on subunit combinations receptors could be more or less sensitive to ethanol. It has been shown that GABAA receptors that contain both δ and β3-subunits display increased sensitivity to ethanol. One such receptor that exhibits ethanol insensitivity is α3-β6-δ GABAA. It has also been shown that subunit combination is not the only thing that contributes to ethanol sensitivity. Location of GABAA receptors within the synapse may also contribute to ethanol sensitivity. Diagnosis Alcohol intoxication is described as a mental and behavioural disorder by the International Classification of Diseases. (ICD-10). Definitive diagnosis relies on a blood test for alcohol, usually performed as part of a toxicology screen. Law enforcement officers in the United States and other countries often use breathalyzer units and field sobriety tests as more convenient and rapid alternatives to blood tests. There are also various models of breathalyzer units that are available for consumer use. Because these may have varying reliability and may produce different results than the tests used for law-enforcement purposes, the results from such devices should be conservatively interpreted. Many informal intoxication tests exist, which, in general, are unreliable and not recommended as deterrents to excessive intoxication or as indicators of the safety of activities such as motor vehicle driving, heavy equipment operation, machine tool use, etc. For determining whether someone is intoxicated by alcohol by some means other than a blood-alcohol test, it is necessary to rule out other conditions such as hypoglycemia, stroke, usage of other intoxicants, mental health issues, and so on. It is best if their behavior has been observed while the subject is sober to establish a baseline. Several well-known criteria can be used to establish a probable diagnosis. For a physician in the acute-treatment setting, acute alcohol intoxication can mimic other acute neurological disorders, or is frequently combined with other recreational drugs that complicate diagnosis and treatment. Management Acute alcohol poisoning is a medical emergency due to the risk of death from respiratory depression or aspiration of vomit if vomiting occurs while the person is unresponsive. Emergency treatment strives to stabilize and maintain an open airway and sufficient breathing, while waiting for the alcohol to metabolize. This can be done by removal of any vomit or, if the person is unconscious or has impaired gag reflex, intubation of the trachea. Other measures may include Treat low blood sugar, with intravenous sugar solutions as ethanol induced low blood sugar unresponsive to glucagon. Administer the vitamin thiamine to prevent Wernicke–Korsakoff syndrome, which can cause a seizure (more usually a treatment for chronic alcoholism, but in the acute context usually co-administered to ensure maximal benefit). Hemodialysis if the blood concentration is very high at >130  mmol/l (>600 mg/dL) Provide oxygen therapy as needed via nasal cannula or non-rebreather mask. While the medication metadoxine may speed the breakdown of alcohol, use in alcohol intoxication requires further study as of 2017. It is approved in a number of countries in Europe, as well as India and Brazil. Additional medication may be indicated for treatment of nausea, tremor, and anxiety. Clinical findings Hospital admissions Alcohol intoxication was found to be prevalent in clinical populations within the United States involving people treated for trauma and in the age group of people aged within their 18th - 24th years (in a study of a group for the years 1999 - 2004). In the United States during the years 2010 - 2012, acute intoxication was found to be the direct cause of an average of 2,221 deaths, in the sample group of those aged within their 15th year or older. The same mortality route is thought to cause indirectly more than 30,000 deaths per year. Prognosis A normal liver detoxifies the blood of alcohol over a period of time that depends on the initial level and the patient's overall physical condition. An abnormal liver will take longer but still succeeds, provided the alcohol does not cause liver failure. People having drunk heavily for several days or weeks may have withdrawal symptoms after the acute intoxication has subsided. A person consuming a dangerous amount of alcohol persistently can develop memory blackouts and idiosyncratic intoxication or pathological drunkenness symptoms. Long-term persistent consumption of excessive amounts of alcohol can cause liver damage and have other deleterious health effects. Society and culture Alcohol intoxication is a risk factor in some cases of catastrophic injury, in particular for unsupervised recreational activity. A study in the province of Ontario based on epidemiological data from 1986, 1989, 1992, and 1995 states that 79.2% of the 2,154 catastrophic injuries recorded for the study were preventable, of which 346 (17%) involved alcohol consumption. The activities most commonly associated with alcohol-related catastrophic injury were snowmobiling (124), fishing (41), diving (40), boating (31) and canoeing (7), swimming (31), riding an all-terrain vehicle (24), and cycling (23). These events are often associated with unsupervised young males, often inexperienced in the activity, and many result in drowning. Alcohol use is also associated with unsafe sex. Legal issues Laws on drunkenness vary. In the United States, it is a criminal offense for a person to be drunk while driving a motorized vehicle, except in Wisconsin, where it is only a fine for the first offense. It is also a criminal offense to fly an aircraft or (in some American states) to assemble or operate an amusement park ride while drunk. Similar laws also exist in the United Kingdom and most other countries. In some countries, it is also an offense to serve alcohol to an already-intoxicated person, and, often, alcohol can be sold only by persons qualified to serve responsibly through alcohol server training. The blood alcohol content (BAC) for legal operation of a vehicle is typically measured as a percentage of a unit volume of blood. This percentage ranges from 0.00% in Romania and the United Arab Emirates; to 0.05% in Australia, South Africa, Germany, Scotland and New Zealand (0.00% for underage individuals); to 0.08% in England and Wales, the United States and Canada. The United States Federal Aviation Administration prohibits crew members from performing their duties within eight hours of consuming an alcoholic beverage, while under the influence of alcohol, or with a BAC greater than 0.04%. In the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, public intoxication is a crime (also known as "being drunk and disorderly" or "being drunk and incapable"). In some countries, there are special facilities, sometimes known as "drunk tanks", for the temporary detention of persons found to be drunk. Religious views Christianity Some religious groups permit the consumption of alcohol; some permit consumption but prohibit intoxication; others prohibit any amount of alcohol consumption altogether. Many denominations of Christianity, such as Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Lutheranism, use wine as a part of the Eucharist and permit its consumption, but consider it sinful to become intoxicated. In the Bible, the Book of Proverbs contains several chapters related to the negative effects of drunkenness and warn to stay away from intoxicating beverages. The Book of Leviticus tells the story of Nadab and Abihu, the eldest sons of Aaron, who were killed for serving in the Temple in Jerusalem after drinking wine, presumably while intoxicated. It continues to discuss monasticism, in which drinking wine is prohibited. The story of Samson in the Book of Judges tells of a monk from the Israelite tribe of Dan who is prohibited from cutting his hair and drinking wine. Romans 13:13–14, 1 Corinthians 6:9–11, Galatians 5:19–21 and Ephesians 5:18 are among a number of other Bible passages that speak against intoxication. While Proverbs 31:4 warns against kings and other rulers drinking wine and similar alcoholic beverages, Proverbs 31:6–7 promotes giving such beverages to the perishing and wine to those whose lives are bitter as a coping mechanism against the likes of poverty and other troubles. Some Protestant Christian denominations prohibit the consumption of alcohol based upon biblical passages that condemn drunkenness, but others allow a moderate rate of consumption. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, alcohol consumption is forbidden, and teetotalism has become a distinguishing feature of its members. Jehovah's Witnesses allow moderate alcohol consumption among its members. Islam In the Quran, there is a prohibition on the consumption of grape-based alcoholic beverages, and intoxication is considered an abomination in the hadith of Muhammad. The schools of thought of Islamic jurisprudence have interpreted this as a strict prohibition of the consumption of all types of alcohol and declared it to be haram (), although other uses may be permitted. Buddhism In Buddhism, in general, the consumption of intoxicants is discouraged for both monastics and lay followers. Many Buddhists observe a basic code of ethics known as the five precepts, of which the fifth precept is an undertaking to refrain from the consumption of intoxicating substances (except for medical reasons). In the bodhisattva vows of the Brahmajala Sutra, observed by Mahayana Buddhist communities, distribution of intoxicants is likewise discouraged, as well as consumption. Hinduism In the Gaudiya Vaishnavism branch of Hinduism, one of the four regulative principles forbids the taking of intoxicants, including alcohol. Judaism In Judaism, in accordance with the biblical stance against drinking, wine drinking is not permitted for priests and monks. The biblical command to sanctify the Sabbath and other holidays has been interpreted as having three ceremonial meals with wine or grape juice, known as Kiddush. A number of Jewish marriage ceremonies end with the bride and groom drinking a shared cup of wine after reciting seven blessings; this occurs after a fasting day in some Ashkenazi traditions. It has been customary and in many cases even mandated to drink moderately so as to stay sober, and only after the prayers are over. During the Seder on Passover, there is an obligation to drink four ceremonial cups of wine while reciting the Haggadah. It has been assumed as the source for the wine-drinking ritual at the communion in some Christian groups. During Purim, there is an obligation to become intoxicated; however, as with many other decrees, this has been avoided in many communities by allowing sleep during the day as a replacement. During the U.S. Prohibition era in the 1920s, a rabbi from the Reform Judaism movement proposed using grape juice for the ritual instead of wine. Although refuted at first, the practice became widely accepted by orthodox Jews as well. Jewish wine-drinking rituals that take place around the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron during weddings, the Sabbath or other holidays have historically stirred tensions with local Palestinian Muslims, who unwillingly share the area with Israeli Jews under the supreme authority of the State of Israel. Other animals In the movie Animals are Beautiful People, an entire section was dedicated to showing many different animals including monkeys, elephants, hogs, giraffes, and ostriches, eating over-ripe marula tree fruit causing them to sway and lose their footing in a manner similar to human drunkenness. Birds may become intoxicated with fermented berries and some die colliding with hard objects when flying under the influence. In elephant warfare, practiced by the Greeks during the Maccabean revolt and by Hannibal during the Punic wars, it has been recorded that the elephants would be given wine before the attack, and only then would they charge forward after being agitated by their driver. It is a regular practice to give small amounts of beer to race horses in Ireland. Ruminant farm animals have natural fermentation occurring in their stomach, and adding alcoholic beverages in small amounts to their drink will generally do them no harm, and will not cause them to become drunk. Alcoholic beverages are extremely harmful to dogs, and often for reasons of additives such as xylitol, an artificial sweetener in some mixers. Dogs can absorb ethyl alcohol in dangerous amounts through their skin as well as through drinking the liquid or consuming it in foods. Even fermenting bread dough can be dangerous to dogs. See also A Night of Serious Drinking Alcohol and sex Alcohol enema Alcohol flush reaction Driving under the influence In vino veritas Short-term effects of alcohol consumption Long-term effects of alcohol consumption Low alcoholic drinks References Bibliography Bales, Robert F. "Attitudes toward Drinking in the Irish Culture". In: Pittman, David J. and Snyder, Charles R. (Eds.) Society, Culture and Drinking Patterns. New York: Wiley, 1962, pp. 157–187. Gentry, Kenneth L., Jr., God Gave Wine: What the Bible Says about Alcohol. Lincoln, Calif.: Oakdown, 2001. Rorabaugh, W.J. "The Alcoholic Republic," Chapter 2 & 5, Oxford University Press. Sigmund, Paul. St. Thomas Aquinas On Politics and Ethics. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1988, p. 77. Walton, Stuart. Out of It. A Cultural History of Intoxication. Penguin Books, 2002. . External links Alcohol overdose: NIAAA Alcohol poisoning: NHS Choices Intox Drinking culture Intox Alcohol abuse Substance intoxication Wikipedia medicine articles ready to translate

The Dominican Republic ( ; , ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with Haiti, making Hispaniola one of only two Caribbean islands, along with Saint Martin, that is shared by two sovereign states. The Dominican Republic is the second-largest nation in the Antilles by area (after Cuba) at , and third-largest by population, with approximately 10.8 million people (2020 est.), of whom approximately 3.3 million live in the metropolitan area of Santo Domingo, the capital city. The official language of the country is Spanish. The native Taíno people had inhabited Hispaniola before the arrival of Europeans, dividing it into five chiefdoms. They had constructed an advanced farming and hunting society, and were in the process of becoming an organized civilization. The Taínos also inhabited Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and the Bahamas. The Genoese mariner Christopher Columbus explored and claimed the island for Castile, landing there on his first voyage in 1492. The colony of Santo Domingo became the site of the first permanent European settlement in the Americas and the first seat of Spanish colonial rule in the New World. In 1697, Spain recognized French dominion over the western third of the island, which became the independent state of Haiti in 1804. After more than three hundred years of Spanish rule, the Dominican people declared independence in November 1821. The leader of the independence movement, José Núñez de Cáceres, intended the Dominican nation to unite with the country of Gran Colombia, but the newly independent Dominicans were forcefully annexed by Haiti in February 1822. Independence came 22 years later in 1844, after victory in the Dominican War of Independence. Over the next 72 years, the Dominican Republic experienced mostly civil wars (financed with loans from European merchants), several failed invasions by its neighbour, Haiti, and brief return to Spanish colonial status, before permanently ousting the Spanish during the Dominican War of Restoration of 1863–1865. During this period, two presidents were assassinated (Ulises Heureaux in 1899 and Ramón Cáceres in 1911). The U.S. occupied the Dominican Republic (1916–1924) due to threats of defaulting on foreign debts; a subsequent calm and prosperous six-year period under Horacio Vásquez followed. From 1930 the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo ruled until his assassination in 1961. Juan Bosch was elected president in 1962 but was deposed in a military coup in 1963. A civil war in 1965, the country's last, was ended by U.S. military intervention and was followed by the authoritarian rule of Joaquín Balaguer (1966–1978 and 1986–1996). Since 1978, the Dominican Republic has moved toward representative democracy, and has been led by Leonel Fernández for most of the time after 1996. Danilo Medina succeeded Fernández in 2012, winning 51% of the electoral vote over his opponent ex-president Hipólito Mejía. He was later succeeded by Luis Abinader in the 2020 presidential election. The Dominican Republic has the largest economy (according to the U.S. State Department and the World Bank) in the Caribbean and Central American region and is the seventh-largest economy in Latin America. Over the last 25 years, the Dominican Republic has had the fastest-growing economy in the Western Hemisphere – with an average real GDP growth rate of 5.3% between 1992 and 2018. GDP growth in 2014 and 2015 reached 7.3 and 7.0%, respectively, the highest in the Western Hemisphere. In the first half of 2016, the Dominican economy grew 7.4% continuing its trend of rapid economic growth. Recent growth has been driven by construction, manufacturing, tourism, and mining. The country is the site of the third largest gold mine in the world, the Pueblo Viejo mine. Private consumption has been strong, as a result of low inflation (under 1% on average in 2015), job creation, and a high level of remittances. Illegal Haitian immigration is a big problem in the Dominican Republic, putting a strain on the Dominican economy and increasing tensions between Dominicans and Haitians. The Dominican Republic is also home to 114,050 illegal immigrants from Venezuela. The Dominican Republic is the most visited destination in the Caribbean. The year-round golf courses are major attractions. A geographically diverse nation, the Dominican Republic is home to both the Caribbean's tallest mountain peak, Pico Duarte, and the Caribbean's largest lake and lowest point, Lake Enriquillo. The island has an average temperature of and great climatic and biological diversity. The country is also the site of the first cathedral, castle, monastery, and fortress built in the Americas, located in Santo Domingo's Colonial Zone, a World Heritage Site. Baseball is the de facto national sport. Etymology The name Dominican originates from Santo Domingo de Guzmán (Saint Dominic), the patron saint of astronomers, and founder of the Dominican Order. The Dominican Order established a house of high studies on the colony of Santo Domingo that is now known as the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, the first University in the New World. They dedicated themselves to the education of the inhabitants of the island, and to the protection of the native Taíno people who were subjected to slavery. For most of its history, up until independence, the colony was known simply as – the name of its present capital and patron saint, Saint Dominic – and continued to be commonly known as such in English until the early 20th century. The residents were called "Dominicans" (), the adjectival form of "Domingo", and as such, the revolutionaries named their newly independent country the "Dominican Republic" (). In the national anthem of the Dominican Republic (), the term "Dominicans" does not appear. The author of its lyrics, Emilio Prud'Homme, consistently uses the poetic term "Quisqueyans" (). The word "Quisqueya" derives from the Taíno language, and means "mother of the lands" (). It is often used in songs as another name for the country. The name of the country in English is often shortened to "the D.R." (), but this is rare in Spanish. History Pre-European history The Arawakan-speaking Taíno moved into Hispaniola from the north east region of what is now known as South America, displacing earlier inhabitants, c. 650 C.E. They engaged in farming, fishing, hunting and gathering. The fierce Caribs drove the Taíno to the northeastern Caribbean, during much of the 15th century. The estimates of Hispaniola's population in 1492 vary widely, including tens of thousands, one hundred thousand, three hundred thousand, and four hundred thousand to two million. Determining precisely how many people lived on the island in pre-Columbian times is next to impossible, as no accurate records exist. By 1492, the island was divided into five Taíno chiefdoms. The Taíno name for the entire island was either Ayiti or Quisqueya. The Spaniards arrived in 1492. Initially, after friendly relationships, the Taínos resisted the conquest, led by the female Chief Anacaona of Xaragua and her ex-husband Chief Caonabo of Maguana, as well as Chiefs Guacanagaríx, Guamá, Hatuey, and Enriquillo. The latter's successes gained his people an autonomous enclave for a time on the island. Within a few years after 1492, the population of Taínos had declined drastically, due to smallpox, measles, and other diseases that arrived with the Europeans. The first recorded smallpox outbreak, in the Americas, occurred on Hispaniola in 1507. The last record of pure Taínos in the country was from 1864. Still, Taíno biological heritage survived to an important extent, due to intermixing. Census records from 1514 reveal that 40% of Spanish men in Santo Domingo were married to Taíno women, and some present-day Dominicans have Taíno ancestry. Remnants of the Taíno culture include their cave paintings, such as the Pomier Caves, as well as pottery designs, which are still used in the small artisan village of Higüerito, Moca. European colonization Christopher Columbus arrived on the island on December 5, 1492, during the first of his four voyages to the Americas. He claimed the land for Spain and named it La Española, due to its diverse climate and terrain, which reminded him of the Spanish landscape. In 1496, Bartholomew Columbus, Christopher's brother, built the city of Santo Domingo, Western Europe's first permanent settlement in the "New World". The Spaniards created a plantation economy on the island. The colony was the springboard for the further Spanish conquest of America and for decades the headquarters of Spanish power in the hemisphere. The Taínos nearly disappeared, above all, due to European infectious diseases. Other causes were abuse, suicide, the breakup of family, starvation, the encomienda system, which resembled a feudal system in Medieval Europe, war with the Spaniards, changes in lifestyle, and mixing with other peoples. Laws passed for the native peoples' protection (beginning with the Laws of Burgos, 1512–1513) were never truly enforced. African slaves were imported to replace the dwindling Taínos. After its conquest of the Aztecs and Incas, Spain neglected its Caribbean holdings. Hispaniola's sugar plantation economy quickly declined. Most Spanish colonists left for the silver-mines of Mexico and Peru, while new immigrants from Spain bypassed the island. Agriculture dwindled, new imports of slaves ceased, and white colonists, free blacks, and slaves alike lived in poverty, weakening the racial hierarchy and aiding intermixing, resulting in a population of predominantly mixed Spaniard, Taíno, and African descent. Except for the city of Santo Domingo, which managed to maintain some legal exports, Dominican ports were forced to rely on contraband trade, which, along with livestock, became one of the main sources of livelihood for the island's inhabitants. In the mid-17th century, France sent colonists to settle the island of Tortuga and the northwestern coast of Hispaniola (which the Spaniards had abandoned by 1606) due to its strategic position in the region. In order to entice the pirates, France supplied them with women who had been taken from prisons, accused of prostitution and thieving. After decades of armed struggles with the French settlers, Spain ceded the western coast of the island to France with the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick, whilst the Central Plateau remained under Spanish domain. France created a wealthy colony on the island, while the Spanish colony continued to suffer economic decline. On April 17, 1655, English forces landed on Hispaniola, and marched 30 miles overland to Santo Domingo, the main Spanish stronghold on the island, where they laid siege to it. Spanish lancers attacked the English forces, sending them careening back toward the beach in confusion. The English commander hid behind a tree where, in the words of one of his soldiers, he was "so much possessed with terror that he could hardly speak". The Spanish defenders who had secured victory were rewarded with titles from the Spanish Crown. 18th century The House of Bourbon replaced the House of Habsburg in Spain in 1700, and introduced economic reforms that gradually began to revive trade in Santo Domingo. The crown progressively relaxed the rigid controls and restrictions on commerce between Spain and the colonies and among the colonies. The last flotas sailed in 1737; the monopoly port system was abolished shortly thereafter. By the middle of the century, the population was bolstered by emigration from the Canary Islands, resettling the northern part of the colony and planting tobacco in the Cibao Valley, and importation of slaves was renewed. Santo Domingo's exports soared and the island's agricultural productivity rose, which was assisted by the involvement of Spain in the Seven Years' War, allowing privateers operating out of Santo Domingo to once again patrol surrounding waters for enemy merchantmen. Dominican privateers in the service of the Spanish Crown had already been active in the War of Jenkins' Ear just two decades prior, and they sharply reduced the amount of enemy trade operating in West Indian waters. The prizes they took were carried back to Santo Domingo, where their cargoes were sold to the colony's inhabitants or to foreign merchants doing business there. The enslaved population of the colony also rose dramatically, as numerous captive Africans were taken from enemy slave ships in West Indian waters. Between 1720 and 1774, Dominican privateers cruised the waters from Santo Domingo to the coast of Tierra Firme, taking British, French, and Dutch ships with cargoes of African slaves and other commodities. During the American Revolutionary War (1775–83), Dominican troops, shoulder to shoulder with Mexicans, Spaniards, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans fought under General Bernardo de Gálvez' command in West Florida. The colony of Santo Domingo saw a population increase during the 18th century, as it rose to about 91,272 in 1750. Of this number, approximately 38,272 were white landowners, 38,000 were free mixed people of color, and some 15,000 were slaves. This contrasted sharply with the population of the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) – the wealthiest colony in the Caribbean and whose population of one-half a million was 90% enslaved and overall, seven times as numerous as the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo. The 'Spanish' settlers, whose blood by now was mixed with that of Taínos, Africans, and Canary Guanches, proclaimed: 'It does not matter if the French are richer than us, we are still the true inheritors of this island. In our veins runs the blood of the heroic conquistadores who won this island of ours with sword and blood.' As restrictions on colonial trade were relaxed, the colonial elites of Saint-Domingue offered the principal market for Santo Domingo's exports of beef, hides, mahogany, and tobacco. With the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution in 1791, the rich urban families linked to the colonial bureaucracy fled the island, while most of the rural hateros (cattle ranchers) remained, even though they lost their principal market. Inspired by disputes between whites and mulattoes in Saint-Domingue, a slave revolt broke out in the French colony. Although the population of Santo Domingo was perhaps one-fourth that of Saint-Domingue, this did not prevent the King of Spain from launching an invasion of the French side of the island in 1793, attempting to seize all, or part, of the western third of the island in an alliance of convenience with the rebellious slaves. In August 1793, a column of Dominican troops advanced into Saint-Domingue and were joined by Haitian rebels. However, these rebels soon turned against Spain and instead joined France. The Dominicans were not defeated militarily, but their advance was restrained, and when in 1795 Spain ceded Santo Domingo to France by the Treaty of Basel, Dominican attacks on Saint-Domingue ceased. After Haiti received independence in 1804, the French retained Santo Domingo until 1809, when combined Spanish and Dominican forces, aided by the British, defeated the French, leading to a recolonization by Spain. Ephemeral independence After a dozen years of discontent and failed independence plots by various opposing groups, Santo Domingo's former Lieutenant-Governor (top administrator), José Núñez de Cáceres, declared the colony's independence from the Spanish crown as Spanish Haiti, on November 30, 1821. This period is also known as the Ephemeral independence. Unification of Hispaniola (1822–44) The newly independent republic ended two months later under the Haitian government led by Jean-Pierre Boyer. As Toussaint Louverture had done two decades earlier, the Haitians abolished slavery. In order to raise funds for the huge indemnity of 150 million francs that Haiti agreed to pay the former French colonists, and which was subsequently lowered to 60 million francs, the Haitian government imposed heavy taxes on the Dominicans. Since Haiti was unable to adequately provision its army, the occupying forces largely survived by commandeering or confiscating food and supplies at gunpoint. Attempts to redistribute land conflicted with the system of communal land tenure (terrenos comuneros), which had arisen with the ranching economy, and some people resented being forced to grow cash crops under Boyer and Joseph Balthazar Inginac's Code Rural. In the rural and rugged mountainous areas, the Haitian administration was usually too inefficient to enforce its own laws. It was in the city of Santo Domingo that the effects of the occupation were most acutely felt, and it was there that the movement for independence originated. The Haitians associated the Roman Catholic Church with the French slave-masters who had exploited them before independence and confiscated all church property, deported all foreign clergy, and severed the ties of the remaining clergy to the Vatican. All levels of education collapsed; the university was shut down, as it was starved both of resources and students, with young Dominican men from 16 to 25 years old being drafted into the Haitian army. Boyer's occupation troops, who were largely Dominicans, were unpaid and had to "forage and sack" from Dominican civilians. Haiti imposed a "heavy tribute" on the Dominican people. Haiti's constitution forbade white elites from owning land, and Dominican major landowning families were forcibly deprived of their properties. During this time, many white elites in Santo Domingo did not consider owning slaves due to the economic crisis that Santo Domingo faced during the España Boba period. The few landowners that wanted slavery established in Santo Domingo had to emigrate to Cuba, Puerto Rico, or Gran Colombia. Many landowning families stayed on the island, with a heavy concentration of landowners settling in the Cibao region. After independence, and eventually being under Spanish rule once again in 1861, many families returned to Santo Domingo including new waves of immigration from Spain. Dominican War of Independence (1844–56) In 1838, Juan Pablo Duarte founded a secret society called La Trinitaria, which sought the complete independence of Santo Domingo without any foreign intervention. Also Francisco del Rosario Sánchez and Ramon Matias Mella, despite not being among the founding members of La Trinitaria, were decisive in the fight for independence. Duarte, Mella, and Sánchez are considered the three Founding Fathers of the Dominican Republic. In 1843, the new Haitian president, Charles Rivière-Hérard, exiled or imprisoned the leading Trinitarios (Trinitarians). After subduing the Dominicans, Rivière-Hérard, a mulatto, faced a rebellion by blacks in Port-au-Prince. Haiti had formed two regiments composed of Dominicans from the city of Santo Domingo; these were used by Rivière-Hérard to suppress the uprising. On February 27, 1844, the surviving members of La Trinitaria, now led by Tomás Bobadilla, declared the independence from Haiti. The Trinitarios were backed by Pedro Santana, a wealthy cattle rancher from El Seibo, who became general of the army of the nascent republic. The Dominican Republic's first Constitution was adopted on November 6, 1844, and was modeled after the United States Constitution. The decades that followed were filled with tyranny, factionalism, economic difficulties, rapid changes of government, and exile for political opponents. Archrivals Santana and Buenaventura Báez held power most of the time, both ruling arbitrarily. They promoted competing plans to annex the new nation to another power: Santana favored Spain, and Báez the United States. Threatening the nation's independence were renewed Haitian invasions. In March 1844, Rivière-Hérard attempted to reimpose his authority, but the Dominicans put up stiff opposition and inflicted heavy casualties on the Haitians. In early July 1844, Duarte was urged by his followers to take the title of President of the Republic. Duarte agreed, but only if free elections were arranged. However, Santana's forces took Santo Domingo on July 12, and they declared Santana ruler of the Dominican Republic. Santana then put Mella, Duarte, and Sánchez in jail. On February 27, 1845, Santana executed María Trinidad Sánchez, heroine of La Trinitaria, and others for conspiracy. On June 17, 1845, small Dominican detachments invaded Haiti, capturing Lascahobas and Hinche. The Dominicans established an outpost at Cachimán, but the arrival of Haitian reinforcements soon compelled them to retreat back across the frontier. Haiti launched a new invasion on August 6. The Dominicans repelled the Haitian forces, on both land and sea, by December 1845. The Haitians invaded again in 1849, forcing the president of the Dominican Republic, Manuel Jimenes, to call upon Santana, whom he had ousted as president, to lead the Dominicans against this new invasion. Santana met the enemy at Ocoa, April 21, with only 400 militiamen, and succeeded in defeating the 18,000-strong Haitian army. The battle began with heavy cannon fire by the entrenched Haitians and ended with a Dominican assault followed by hand-to-hand combat. In November 1849, Dominican seamen raided the Haitian coasts, plundered seaside villages, as far as Dame Marie, and butchered crews of captured enemy ships. By 1854 both countries were at war again. In November, a Dominican squadron composed of the brigantine 27 de Febrero and schooner Constitución captured a Haitian warship and bombarded Anse-à-Pitres and Saltrou. In November 1855, Haiti invaded again. Over 1,000 Haitian soldiers were killed in the battles of Santomé and Cambronal in December 1855. The Haitians suffered even greater losses at Sabana Larga and Jácuba in January 1856. That same month, an engagement at Ouanaminthe again resulted in heavy Haitian casualties, bringing an effective halt to the invasion. Battles of the Dominican War of Independence Key: (D)  – Dominican Victory; (H) – Haitian Victory 1844 March 18 – Battle of Cabeza de Las Marías (H) March 19 – Battle of Azua (D) March 30 – Battle of Santiago (D) April 13 – Battle of El Memiso (D) April 15 – Battle of Tortuguero (D) December 6 – Battle of Fort Cachimán (D) 1845 September 17 – Battle of Estrelleta (D) November 27 – Battle of Beler (D) 1849 April 19 – Battle of El Número (D) April 21 – Battle of Las Carreras (D) 1855 December 22 – Battle of Santomé (D) December 22 – Battle of Cambronal (D) 1856 January 24 – Battle of Sabana Larga (D) First Republic The Dominican Republic's first constitution was adopted on November 6, 1844. The state was commonly known as Santo Domingo in English until the early 20th century. It featured a presidential form of government with many liberal tendencies, but it was marred by Article 210, imposed by Pedro Santana on the constitutional assembly by force, giving him the privileges of a dictatorship until the war of independence was over. These privileges not only served him to win the war but also allowed him to persecute, execute and drive into exile his political opponents, among which Duarte was the most important. The population of the Dominican Republic in 1845 was approximately 230,000 people (100,000 whites; 40,000 blacks; and 90,000 mulattoes). Due to the rugged mountainous terrain of the island the regions of the Dominican Republic developed in isolation from one another. In the south, also known at the time as Ozama, the economy was dominated by cattle-ranching (particularly in the southeastern savannah) and cutting mahogany and other hardwoods for export. This region retained a semi-feudal character, with little commercial agriculture, the hacienda as the dominant social unit, and the majority of the population living at a subsistence level. In the north (better-known as Cibao), the nation's richest farmland, farmers supplemented their subsistence crops by growing tobacco for export, mainly to Germany. Tobacco required less land than cattle ranching and was mainly grown by smallholders, who relied on itinerant traders to transport their crops to Puerto Plata and Monte Cristi. Santana antagonized the Cibao farmers, enriching himself and his supporters at their expense by resorting to multiple peso printings that allowed him to buy their crops for a fraction of their value. In 1848, he was forced to resign and was succeeded by his vice-president, Manuel Jimenes. After defeating a new Haitian invasion in 1849, Santana marched on Santo Domingo and deposed Jimenes in a coup d'état. At his behest, Congress elected Buenaventura Báez as president, but Báez was unwilling to serve as Santana's puppet, challenging his role as the country's acknowledged military leader. In 1853, Santana was elected president for his second term, forcing Báez into exile. Three years later, after repulsing another Haitian invasion, he negotiated a treaty leasing a portion of Samaná Peninsula to a U.S. company; popular opposition forced him to abdicate, enabling Báez to return and seize power. With the treasury depleted, Báez printed eighteen million uninsured pesos, purchasing the 1857 tobacco crop with this currency and exporting it for hard cash at immense profit to himself and his followers. Cibao tobacco planters, who were ruined when hyperinflation ensued, revolted and formed a new government headed by José Desiderio Valverde and headquartered in Santiago de los Caballeros. In July 1857, General Juan Luis Franco Bidó besieged Santo Domingo. The Cibao-based government declared an amnesty to exiles and Santana returned and managed to replace Franco Bidó in September 1857. After a year of civil war, Santana captured Santo Domingo in June 1858, overthrew both Báez and Valverde and installed himself as president. Restoration republic In 1861, Santana asked Queen Isabella II of Spain to retake control of the Dominican Republic, after a period of only 17 years of independence. Spain, which had not come to terms with the loss of its American colonies 40 years earlier, accepted his proposal and made the country a colony again. Haiti, fearful of the reestablishment of Spain as colonial power, gave refuge and logistics to revolutionaries seeking to reestablish the independent nation of the Dominican Republic. The ensuing civil war, known as the War of Restoration, claimed more than 50,000 lives. The War of Restoration began in Santiago on August 16, 1863. Spain had a difficult time fighting the Dominican guerrillas. Over the course of the war, they would spend over 33 million pesos and suffer 30,000 casualties. In the south, Dominican forces under José María Cabral defeated the Spanish in the Battle of La Canela on December 4, 1864. The victory showed the Dominicans that they could defeat the Spaniards in pitched battle. After two years of fighting, Spain abandoned the island in 1865. Political strife again prevailed in the following years; warlords ruled, military revolts were extremely common, and the nation amassed debt. After the Ten Years' War (1868–78) broke out in Spanish Cuba, Dominican exiles, including Máximo Gómez, Luis Marcano and Modesto Díaz, joined the Cuban Revolutionary Army and provided its initial training and leadership. In 1869, U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant ordered U.S. Marines to the island for the first time. Pirates operating from Haiti had been raiding U.S. commercial shipping in the Caribbean, and Grant directed the Marines to stop them at their source. Following the virtual takeover of the island, Báez offered to sell the country to the United States. Grant desired a naval base at Samaná and also a place for resettling newly freed African Americans. The treaty, which included U.S. payment of $1.5 million for Dominican debt repayment, was defeated in the United States Senate in 1870 on a vote of 28–28, two-thirds being required. Báez was toppled in 1874, returned, and was toppled for good in 1878. A new generation was thence in charge, with the passing of Santana (he died in 1864) and Báez from the scene. Relative peace came to the country in the 1880s, which saw the coming to power of General Ulises Heureaux. "Lilís", as the new president was nicknamed, enjoyed a period of popularity. He was, however, "a consummate dissembler", who put the nation deep into debt while using much of the proceeds for his personal use and to maintain his police state. Heureaux became rampantly despotic and unpopular. In 1899, he was assassinated. However, the relative calm over which he presided allowed improvement in the Dominican economy. The sugar industry was modernized, and the country attracted foreign workers and immigrants. Lebanese, Syrians, Turks, and Palestinians began to arrive in the country during the latter part of the 19th century. At first, the Arab immigrants often faced discrimination in the Dominican Republic, but they were eventually assimilated into Dominican society, giving up their own culture and language. During the U.S. occupation of 1916–24, peasants from the countryside, called Gavilleros, would not only kill U.S. Marines, but would also attack and kill Arab vendors traveling through the countryside. 20th century (1900–30) From 1902 on, short-lived governments were again the norm, with their power usurped by caudillos in parts of the country. Furthermore, the national government was bankrupt and, unable to pay its debts to European creditors, faced the threat of military intervention by France, Germany, and Italy. United States President Theodore Roosevelt sought to prevent European intervention, largely to protect the routes to the future Panama Canal, as the canal was already under construction. He made a small military intervention to ward off European powers, to proclaim his famous Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, and also to obtain his 1905 Dominican agreement for U.S. administration of Dominican customs, which was the chief source of income for the Dominican government. A 1906 agreement provided for the arrangement to last 50 years. The United States agreed to use part of the customs proceeds to reduce the immense foreign debt of the Dominican Republic and assumed responsibility for said debt. After six years in power, President Ramón Cáceres (who had himself assassinated Heureaux) was assassinated in 1911. The result was several years of great political instability and civil war. U.S. mediation by the William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson administrations achieved only a short respite each time. A political deadlock in 1914 was broken after an ultimatum by Wilson telling the Dominicans to choose a president or see the U.S. impose one. A provisional president was chosen, and later the same year relatively free elections put former president (1899–1902) Juan Isidro Jimenes Pereyra back in power. To achieve a more broadly supported government, Jimenes named opposition individuals to his cabinet. But this brought no peace and, with his former Secretary of War Desiderio Arias maneuvering to depose him and despite a U.S. offer of military aid against Arias, Jimenes resigned on May 7, 1916. Wilson thus ordered the U.S. occupation of the Dominican Republic. U.S. Marines landed on May 16, 1916, and had control of the country two months later. The military government established by the U.S., led by Vice Admiral Harry Shepard Knapp, was widely repudiated by the Dominicans, with caudillos in the mountainous eastern regions leading guerrilla campaigns against U.S. forces. Arias's forces, who had no machine guns or modern artillery, tried to take on the U.S. Marines in conventional battles, but were defeated at the Battle of Guayacanas and the Battle of San Francisco de Macoris. The occupation regime kept most Dominican laws and institutions and largely pacified the general population. The occupying government also revived the Dominican economy, reduced the nation's debt, built a road network that at last interconnected all regions of the country, and created a professional National Guard to replace the warring partisan units. Opposition to the occupation continued, nevertheless, and after World War I it increased in the U.S. as well. There, President Warren G. Harding (1921–23), Wilson's successor, worked to put an end to the occupation, as he had promised to do during his campaign. The U.S. government's rule ended in October 1922, and elections were held in March 1924. The victor was former president (1902–03) Horacio Vásquez, who had cooperated with the U.S. He was inaugurated on July 13, 1924, and the last U.S. forces left in September. In six years, the Marines were involved in at least 370 engagements, with 950 "bandits" killed or wounded in action to the Marines' 144 killed. Vásquez gave the country six years of stable governance, in which political and civil rights were respected and the economy grew strongly, in a relatively peaceful atmosphere. During the government of Horacio Vásquez, Rafael Trujillo held the rank of lieutenant colonel and was chief of police. This position helped him launch his plans to overthrow the government of Vásquez. Trujillo had the support of Carlos Rosario Peña, who formed the Civic Movement, which had as its main objective to overthrow the government of Vásquez. In February 1930, when Vásquez attempted to win another term, his opponents rebelled in secret alliance with the commander of the National Army (the former National Guard), General Rafael Trujillo. Trujillo secretly cut a deal with rebel leader Rafael Estrella Ureña; in return for letting Ureña take power, Trujillo would be allowed to run for president in new elections. As the rebels marched toward Santo Domingo, Vásquez ordered Trujillo to suppress them. However, feigning "neutrality," Trujillo kept his men in barracks, allowing Ureña's rebels to take the capital virtually uncontested. On March 3, Ureña was proclaimed acting president with Trujillo confirmed as head of the police and the army. As per their agreement, Trujillo became the presidential nominee of the newly formed Patriotic Coalition of Citizens (Spanish: Coalición patriotica de los ciudadanos), with Ureña as his running mate. During the election campaign, Trujillo used the army to unleash his repression, forcing his opponents to withdraw from the race. Trujillo stood to elect himself, and in May he was elected president virtually unopposed after a violent campaign against his opponents, ascending to power on August 16, 1930. Trujillo Era (1930–61) There was considerable economic growth during Rafael Trujillo's long and iron-fisted regime, although a great deal of the wealth was taken by the dictator and other regime elements. There was progress in healthcare, education, and transportation, with the building of hospitals, clinics, schools, roads, and harbors. Trujillo also carried out an important housing construction program, and instituted a pension plan. He finally negotiated an undisputed border with Haiti in 1935, and achieved the end of the 50-year customs agreement in 1941, instead of 1956. He made the country debt-free in 1947. This was accompanied by absolute repression and the copious use of murder, torture, and terrorist methods against the opposition. It has been estimated that Trujillo's tyrannical rule was responsible for the death of more than 50,000 Dominicans. Trujillo's henchmen did not hesitate to use intimidation, torture, or assassination of political foes both at home and abroad. Trujillo was responsible for the deaths of the Spaniards José Almoina in Mexico City and Jesús Galíndez in New York City. In 1930, Hurricane San Zenon destroyed Santo Domingo and killed 8,000 people. During the rebuilding process, Trujillo renamed Santo Domingo to "Ciudad Trujillo" (Trujillo City), and the nation's – and the Caribbean's – highest mountain La Pelona Grande (Spanish for: The Great Bald) to "Pico Trujillo" (Spanish for: Trujillo Peak). By the end of his first term in 1934 he was the country's wealthiest person, and one of the wealthiest in the world by the early 1950s; near the end of his regime his fortune was an estimated $800 million ($5.3 billion today). Trujillo, who neglected the fact that his maternal great-grandmother was from Haiti's mulatto class, actively promoted propaganda against Haitian people. In 1937, he ordered what became known as the Parsley Massacre or, in the Dominican Republic, as El Corte (The Cutting), directing the army to kill Haitians living on the Dominican side of the border. The army killed an estimated 17,000 to 35,000 Haitian men, women, and children over six days, from the night of October 2, 1937, through October 8, 1937. To avoid leaving evidence of the army's involvement, the soldiers used edged weapons rather than guns. The soldiers were said to have interrogated anyone with dark skin, using the shibboleth perejil (parsley) to distinguish Haitians from Afro-Dominicans when necessary; the 'r' of perejil was of difficult pronunciation for Haitians. As a result of the massacre, the Dominican Republic agreed to pay Haiti US$750,000, later reduced to US$525,000. During World War II, Trujillo symbolically sided with the Allies and declared war on Japan the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor and on Nazi Germany and Italy four days later. Soon after, German U-boats torpedoed and sank two Dominican merchant vessels that Trujillo had named after himself. German U-boats also sank four Dominican-manned ships in the Caribbean. The country did not make a military contribution to the war, but Dominican sugar and other agricultural products supported the Allied war effort. American Lend-Lease and raw material purchases proved a powerful inducement in obtaining cooperation of the various Latin American republics. Over a hundred Dominicans served in the American armed forces. Many were political exiles from the Trujillo regime. Trujillo's dictatorship was marred by botched invasions, international scandals and assassination attempts. 1947 brought the failure of a planned invasion by leftist Dominican exiles from the Cuban island of Cayo Confites. July 1949 was the year of a failed invasion from Guatemala, and on June 14, 1959, there was a failed invasion at Constanza, Maimón and Estero Hondo by Dominican rebels from Cuba. On June 26, 1959, Cuba broke diplomatic relations with the Dominican Republic due to widespread Dominican human rights abuses and hostility toward the Cuban people. On November 25, 1960, Trujillo's henchmen killed three of the four Mirabal sisters, nicknamed Las Mariposas (The Butterflies). The victims were Patria Mercedes Mirabal (born on February 27, 1924), Argentina Minerva Mirabal (born on March 12, 1926), and Antonia María Teresa Mirabal (born on October 15, 1935). Along with their husbands, the sisters were conspiring to overthrow Trujillo in a violent revolt. The Mirabals had communist ideological leanings, as did their husbands. The sisters have received many honors posthumously and have many memorials in various cities in the Dominican Republic. Salcedo, their home province, changed its name to Provincia Hermanas Mirabal (Mirabal Sisters Province). The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is observed on the anniversary of their deaths. For a long time, the U.S. and the Dominican elite supported the Trujillo government. This support persisted despite the assassinations of political opposition, the massacre of Haitians, and Trujillo's plots against other countries. The U.S. believed Trujillo was the lesser of two or more evils. The U.S. finally broke with Trujillo in 1960, after Trujillo's agents attempted to assassinate the Venezuelan president, Rómulo Betancourt, a fierce critic of Trujillo. Dominican agents placed a bomb in the Venezuelan president's car in Caracas, which exploded, injuring Betancourt and killing a number of his advisers. In June 1960, Trujillo legalized the Communist Party and attempted to establish close political relations with the Soviet Bloc. Both the assassination attempt and the maneuver toward the Soviet Bloc provoked immediate condemnation throughout Latin America. Once its representatives confirmed Trujillo's complicity in the assassination attempt, the Organization of American States, for the first time in its history, decreed sanctions against a member state. The United States severed diplomatic relations with the Dominican Republic on August 26, 1960, and in January 1961 suspended the export of trucks, parts, crude oil, gasoline and other petroleum products. U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower also took advantage of OAS sanctions to cut drastically purchases of Dominican sugar, the country's major export. This action ultimately cost the Dominican Republic almost $22,000,000 in lost revenues at a time when its economy was in a rapid decline. Trujillo had become expendable. Dissidents inside the Dominican Republic argued that assassination was the only certain way to remove Trujillo. According to Chester Bowles, the U.S. Undersecretary of State, internal Department of State discussions in 1961 on the topic were vigorous. Richard N. Goodwin, Assistant Special Counsel to the President, who had direct contacts with the rebel alliance, argued for intervention against Trujillo. Quoting Bowles directly: The next morning I learned that in spite of the clear decision against having the dissident group request our assistance Dick Goodwin following the meeting sent a cable to CIA people in the Dominican Republic without checking with State or CIA; indeed, with the protest of the Department of State. The cable directed the CIA people in the Dominican Republic to get this request at any cost. When Allen Dulles found this out the next morning, he withdrew the order. We later discovered it had already been carried out. Post-Trujillo (1961–1996) Trujillo was assassinated by Dominican dissidents in Chicago gangland-style on May 30, 1961. Although the dissidents possessed Dominican-made San Cristóbal submachine guns, they symbolically used U.S.-made M-1 carbines supplied by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Ramfis Trujillo, the dictator's son, remained in de facto control of the government for the next six months through his position as commander of the armed forces. Trujillo's brothers, Hector Bienvenido and Jose Arismendi Trujillo, returned to the country and began immediately to plot against President Balaguer. On November 18, 1961, as a planned coup became more evident, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk issued a warning that the United States would not "remain idle" if the Trujillos attempted to "reassert dictatorial domination" over the Dominican Republic. Following this warning, and the arrival of a fourteen-vessel U.S. naval task force within sight of Santo Domingo, Ramfis and his uncles fled the country on November 19 with $200 million from the Dominican treasury. On December 28, 1962, the Dominican military suppressed a rebellion in Palma Sola, burning six hundred people to death by a napalm airstrike. In February 1963, a democratically elected government under leftist Juan Bosch took office but it was overthrown in September. On April 24, 1965, after 19 months of military rule, a pro-Bosch revolt broke out in Santo Domingo. The pro-Bosch forces called themselves Constitutionalists. The revolution took on the dimensions of a civil war when conservative military forces struck back against the Constitutionalists on April 25. These conservative forces called themselves Loyalists. Despite tank assaults and bombing runs by Loyalist forces, the Constitutionalists held their positions in the capital. By April 26, armed civilians outnumbered the original rebel military regulars. Radio Santo Domingo, now fully under rebel control, began to call for more violent actions and for killing of all the policemen. On April 28, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson, concerned that communists might take over the revolt and create a "second Cuba," sent 42,000 troops into Santo Domingo, in Operation Powerpack. "We don't propose to sit here in a rocking chair with our hands folded and let the Communist set up any government in the Western Hemisphere," Johnson said. The forces were soon joined by comparatively small contingents from the Organization of American States (OAS). The Loyalists used the U.S. presence to deploy its forces and attack Constitutionalists. As a result, Loyalist forces destroyed most Constitutionalist bases and captured the rebel radio station, effectively ending the war. On May 13, Loyalist forces launched Operation Limpieza and captured the northern part of Santo Domingo. Many black civilians were killed during the operation. A cease-fire was declared on May 21. The U.S. began withdrawing some of its troops by late May. However, Col. Francisco Caamaño's untrained civilians attacked American positions on June 15. Despite the coordinated attack involving mortars, rocket launchers, and several light tanks, the rebels lost a 56-square-block area to 82nd Airborne Division units which had received OAS permission to advance. The Dominican death toll for the entire period of civil war and occupation totaled more than 3,000. A total of 44 American peacekeepers died and 283 were wounded. U.S. and OAS troops remained in the country for over a year and left after supervising elections in 1966 won by Joaquín Balaguer. He had been Trujillo's last puppet-president. Balaguer remained in power as president for 12 years. His tenure was a period of repression of human rights and civil liberties, ostensibly to keep pro-Castro or pro-communist parties out of power; 11,000 persons were killed, tortured or forcibly disappeared. His rule was criticized for a growing disparity between rich and poor. It was, however, praised for an ambitious infrastructure program, which included the construction of large housing projects, sports complexes, theaters, museums, aqueducts, roads, highways, and the massive Columbus Lighthouse, completed in 1992 during a later tenure. During Balaguer's administration, the Dominican military forced Haitians to cut sugarcane on Dominican sugar plantations. In September 1977, twelve Cuban-manned MiG-21s conducted strafing flights over Puerto Plata to warn Balaguer against intercepting Cuban warships headed to or returning from Angola. Hurricane David hit the Dominican Republic in August 1979, which left upwards of 2,000 people dead and 200,000 homeless. The hurricane caused over $1 billion in damage. In 1978, Balaguer was succeeded in the presidency by opposition candidate Antonio Guzmán Fernández, of the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD). Another PRD win in 1982 followed, under Salvador Jorge Blanco. Balaguer regained the presidency in 1986 and was re-elected in 1990 and 1994, this last time just defeating PRD candidate José Francisco Peña Gómez, a former mayor of Santo Domingo. During this period, the international community condemned the Dominican government for their continued exploitation of Haitian sugar cane workers; it had been alleged that thousands of these workers had essentially been put into slavery, forced to do backbreaking work under the supervision of armed guards. The 1994 elections were flawed, bringing on international pressure, to which Balaguer responded by scheduling another presidential contest in 1996. Balaguer was not a candidate. The PSRC candidate was his Vice President Jacinto Peynado Garrigosa. 1996–present In the 1996 presidential election, Leonel Fernández achieved the first-ever win for the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), which Bosch had founded in 1973 after leaving the PRD (which he also had founded). Fernández oversaw a fast-growing economy: growth averaged 7.7% per year, unemployment fell, and there were stable exchange and inflation rates. In 2000, the PRD's Hipólito Mejía won the election. This was a time of economic troubles. Mejía was defeated in his re-election effort in 2004 by Leonel Fernández of the PLD. In 2008, Fernández was as elected for a third term. Fernández and the PLD are credited with initiatives that have moved the country forward technologically, such as the construction of the Metro Railway ("El Metro"). On the other hand, his administrations have been accused of corruption. Danilo Medina of the PLD was elected president in 2012 and re-elected in 2016. On the other hand, a significant increase in crime, government corruption and a weak justice system threaten to overshadow their administrative period. He was succeeded by the opposition candidate Luis Abinader in the 2020 election, marking the end to 16 years in power of the centre-left Dominican Liberation Party (PLD). Geography The Dominican Republic comprises the eastern five-eighths of Hispaniola, the second-largest island in the Greater Antilles, with the Atlantic Ocean to the north and the Caribbean Sea to the south. It shares the island roughly at a 2:1 ratio with Haiti, the north-to-south (though somewhat irregular) border between the two countries being . To the north and north-west lie The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, and to the east, across the Mona Passage, the US Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The country's area is reported variously as (by the embassy in the United States) and , making it the second largest country in the Antilles, after Cuba. The Dominican Republic's capital and largest city Santo Domingo is on the southern coast. The Dominican Republic has four important mountain ranges. The most northerly is the Cordillera Septentrional ("Northern Mountain Range"), which extends from the northwestern coastal town of Monte Cristi, near the Haitian border, to the Samaná Peninsula in the east, running parallel to the Atlantic coast. The highest range in the Dominican Republic – indeed, in the whole of the West Indies – is the Cordillera Central ("Central Mountain Range"). It gradually bends southwards and finishes near the town of Azua, on the Caribbean coast. In the Cordillera Central are the four highest peaks in the Caribbean: Pico Duarte ( above sea level), La Pelona (), La Rucilla (), and Pico Yaque (). In the southwest corner of the country, south of the Cordillera Central, there are two other ranges: the more northerly of the two is the Sierra de Neiba, while in the south the Sierra de Bahoruco is a continuation of the Massif de la Selle in Haiti. There are other, minor mountain ranges, such as the Cordillera Oriental ("Eastern Mountain Range"), Sierra Martín García, Sierra de Yamasá, and Sierra de Samaná. Between the Central and Northern mountain ranges lies the rich and fertile Cibao valley. This major valley is home to the cities of Santiago and La Vega and most of the farming areas of the nation. Rather less productive are the semi-arid San Juan Valley, south of the Central Cordillera, and the Neiba Valley, tucked between the Sierra de Neiba and the Sierra de Bahoruco. Much of the land around the Enriquillo Basin is below sea level, with a hot, arid, desert-like environment. There are other smaller valleys in the mountains, such as the Constanza, Jarabacoa, Villa Altagracia, and Bonao valleys. The Llano Costero del Caribe ("Caribbean Coastal Plain") is the largest of the plains in the Dominican Republic. Stretching north and east of Santo Domingo, it contains many sugar plantations in the savannahs that are common there. West of Santo Domingo its width is reduced to as it hugs the coast, finishing at the mouth of the Ocoa River. Another large plain is the Plena de Azua ("Azua Plain"), a very arid region in Azua Province. A few other small coastal plains are on the northern coast and in the Pedernales Peninsula. Four major rivers drain the numerous mountains of the Dominican Republic. The Yaque del Norte is the longest and most important Dominican river. It carries excess water down from the Cibao Valley and empties into Monte Cristi Bay, in the northwest. Likewise, the Yuna River serves the Vega Real and empties into Samaná Bay, in the northeast. Drainage of the San Juan Valley is provided by the San Juan River, tributary of the Yaque del Sur, which empties into the Caribbean, in the south. The Artibonito is the longest river of Hispaniola and flows westward into Haiti. There are many lakes and coastal lagoons. The largest lake is Enriquillo, a salt lake at below sea level, the lowest elevation in the Caribbean. Other important lakes are Laguna de Rincón or Cabral, with fresh water, and Laguna de Oviedo, a lagoon with brackish water. There are many small offshore islands and cays that form part of the Dominican territory. The two largest islands near shore are Saona, in the southeast, and Beata, in the southwest. Smaller islands include the Cayos Siete Hermanos, Isla Cabra, Cayo Jackson, Cayo Limón, Cayo Levantado, Cayo la Bocaina, Catalanita, Cayo Pisaje and Isla Alto Velo. To the north, at distances of , are three extensive, largely submerged banks, which geographically are a southeast continuation of the Bahamas: Navidad Bank, Silver Bank, and Mouchoir Bank. Navidad Bank and Silver Bank have been officially claimed by the Dominican Republic. Isla Cabritos lies within Lago Enriquillo. The Dominican Republic is located near fault action in the Caribbean. In 1946, it suffered a magnitude 8.1 earthquake off the northeast coast, triggering a tsunami that killed about 1,800, mostly in coastal communities. Caribbean countries and the United States have collaborated to create tsunami warning systems and are mapping high-risk low-lying areas. The country is home to five terrestrial ecoregions: Hispaniolan moist forests, Hispaniolan dry forests, Hispaniolan pine forests, Enriquillo wetlands, and Greater Antilles mangroves. It had a 2018 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 4.18/10, ranking it 134th globally out of 172 countries. Climate The Dominican Republic has a tropical rainforest climate in the coastal and lowland areas. Some areas, such as most of the Cibao region, have a tropical savanna climate. Due to its diverse topography, Dominican Republic's climate shows considerable variation over short distances and is the most varied of all the Antilles. The annual average temperature is . At higher elevations the temperature averages while near sea level the average temperature is . Low temperatures of are possible in the mountains while high temperatures of are possible in protected valleys. January and February are the coolest months of the year while August is the hottest month. Snowfall can be seen on rare occasions on the summit of Pico Duarte. The wet season along the northern coast lasts from November through January. Elsewhere the wet season stretches from May through November, with May being the wettest month. Average annual rainfall is countrywide, with individual locations in the Valle de Neiba seeing averages as low as while the Cordillera Oriental averages . The driest part of the country lies in the west. Tropical cyclones strike the Dominican Republic every couple of years, with 65% of the impacts along the southern coast. Hurricanes are most likely between June and October. The last major hurricane that struck the country was Hurricane Georges in 1998. Government and politics The Dominican Republic is a representative democracy or democratic republic, with three branches of power: executive, legislative, and judicial. The president of the Dominican Republic heads the executive branch and executes laws passed by the congress, appoints the cabinet, and is commander in chief of the armed forces. The president and vice-president run for office on the same ticket and are elected by direct vote for 4-year terms. The national legislature is bicameral, composed of a senate, which has 32 members, and the Chamber of Deputies, with 178 members. Judicial authority rests with the Supreme Court of Justice's 16 members. The court "alone hears actions against the president, designated members of his Cabinet, and members of Congress when the legislature is in session." The court is appointed by a council known as the National Council of the Magistracy which is composed of the president, the leaders of both houses of Congress, the President of the Supreme Court, and an opposition or non–governing-party member. The Dominican Republic has a multi-party political system. Elections are held every two years, alternating between the presidential elections, which are held in years evenly divisible by four, and the congressional and municipal elections, which are held in even-numbered years not divisible by four. "International observers have found that presidential and congressional elections since 1996 have been generally free and fair." The Central Elections Board (JCE) of nine members supervises elections, and its decisions are unappealable. Starting from 2016, elections will be held jointly, after a constitutional reform. Political culture The three major parties are the conservative Social Christian Reformist Party (), in power 1966–78 and 1986–96; and the social democratic Dominican Revolutionary Party (), in power in 1963, 1978–86, and 2000–04; and the Dominican Liberation Party (), in power 1996–2000 and since 2004. The presidential elections of 2008 were held on May 16, 2008, with incumbent Leonel Fernández winning 53% of the vote. He defeated Miguel Vargas Maldonado, of the PRD, who achieved a 40.48% share of the vote. Amable Aristy, of the PRSC, achieved 4.59% of the vote. Other minority candidates, which included former Attorney General Guillermo Moreno from the Movement for Independence, Unity and Change (), and PRSC former presidential candidate and defector Eduardo Estrella, obtained less than 1% of the vote. In the 2012 presidential elections, the incumbent president Leonel Fernández (PLD) declined his aspirations and instead the PLD elected Danilo Medina as its candidate. This time the PRD presented ex-president Hipolito Mejia as its choice. The contest was won by Medina with 51.21% of the vote, against 46.95% in favor of Mejia. Candidate Guillermo Moreno obtained 1.37% of the votes. In 2014, the Modern Revolutionary Party () was created by a faction of leaders from the PRD, and has since become the predominant opposition party, polling in second place for the May 2016 general elections. In 2020, the presidential candidate for the opposition Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM), Luis Abinader, won the election, defeating the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), which had governed since 2004. Foreign relations The Dominican Republic has a close relationship with the United States, and has close cultural ties with the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and other states and jurisdictions of the United States. The Dominican Republic's relationship with neighbouring Haiti is strained over mass Haitian migration to the Dominican Republic, with citizens of the Dominican Republic blaming the Haitians for increased crime and other social problems. The Dominican Republic is a regular member of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. The Dominican Republic has a Free Trade Agreement with the United States, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua via the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement. And an Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union and the Caribbean Community via the Caribbean Forum. Military Congress authorizes a combined military force of 44,000 active duty personnel. Actual active duty strength is approximately 32,000. Approximately 50% of those are used for non-military activities such as security providers for government-owned non-military facilities, highway toll stations, prisons, forestry work, state enterprises, and private businesses. The commander in chief of the military is the president. The army is larger than the other services combined with approximately 56,780 active duty personnel, consisting of six infantry brigades, a combat support brigade, and a combat service support brigade. The air force operates two main bases, one in the southern region near Santo Domingo and one in the northern region near Puerto Plata. The navy operates two major naval bases, one in Santo Domingo and one in Las Calderas on the southwestern coast, and maintains 12 operational vessels. The Dominican Republic has the largest number of active military personnel in the Caribbean region surpassing Cuba. The armed forces have organized a Specialized Airport Security Corps (CESA) and a Specialized Port Security Corps (CESEP) to meet international security needs in these areas. The secretary of the armed forces has also announced plans to form a specialized border corps (CESEF). The armed forces provide 75% of personnel to the National Investigations Directorate (DNI) and the Counter-Drug Directorate (DNCD). The Dominican National Police force contains 32,000 agents. The police are not part of the Dominican armed forces but share some overlapping security functions. Sixty-three percent of the force serve in areas outside traditional police functions, similar to the situation of their military counterparts. In 2018, Dominican Republic signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Administrative divisions The Dominican Republic is divided into 31 provinces. Santo Domingo, the capital, is designated Distrito Nacional (National District). The provinces are divided into municipalities (municipios; singular municipio). They are the second-level political and administrative subdivisions of the country. The president appoints the governors of the 31 provinces. Mayors and municipal councils administer the 124 municipal districts and the National District (Santo Domingo). They are elected at the same time as congressional representatives. The provinces are the first–level administrative subdivisions of the country. The headquarters of the central government's regional offices are normally found in the capital cities of provinces. The president appoints an administrative governor (Gobernador Civil) for each province but not for the Distrito Nacional (Title IX of the constitution). The Distrito Nacional was created in 1936. Prior to this, the Distrito National was the old Santo Domingo Province, in existence since the country's independence in 1844. It is not to be confused with the new Santo Domingo Province split off from it in 2001. While it is similar to a province in many ways, the Distrito Nacional differs in its lack of an administrative governor and consisting only of one municipality, Santo Domingo, the city council (ayuntamiento) and mayor (síndico) which are in charge of its administration. Economy During the last three decades, the Dominican economy, formerly dependent on the export of agricultural commodities (mainly sugar, cocoa and coffee), has transitioned to a diversified mix of services, manufacturing, agriculture, mining, and trade. The service sector accounts for almost 60% of GDP; manufacturing, for 22%; tourism, telecommunications and finance are the main components of the service sector; however, none of them accounts for more than 10% of the whole. The Dominican Republic has a stock market, Bolsa de Valores de la Republica Dominicana (BVRD). and advanced telecommunication system and transportation infrastructure. High unemployment and income inequality are long-term challenges. International migration affects the Dominican Republic greatly, as it receives and sends large flows of migrants. Mass illegal Haitian immigration and the integration of Dominicans of Haitian descent are major issues. A large Dominican diaspora exists, mostly in the United States, contributes to development, sending billions of dollars to Dominican families in remittances. Remittances in Dominican Republic increased to US$4571.30 million in 2014 from US$3333 million in 2013 (according to data reported by the Inter-American Development Bank). Economic growth takes place in spite of a chronic energy shortage, which causes frequent blackouts and very high prices. Despite a widening merchandise trade deficit, tourism earnings and remittances have helped build foreign exchange reserves. Following economic turmoil in the late 1980s and 1990, during which the gross domestic product (GDP) fell by up to 5% and consumer price inflation reached an unprecedented 100%, the Dominican Republic entered a period of growth and declining inflation until 2002, after which the economy entered a recession. This recession followed the collapse of the second-largest commercial bank in the country, Baninter, linked to a major incident of fraud valued at US$3.5 billion. The Baninter fraud had a devastating effect on the Dominican economy, with GDP dropping by 1% in 2003 as inflation ballooned by over 27%. All defendants, including the star of the trial, Ramón Báez Figueroa (the great-grandson of President Buenaventura Báez), were convicted. According to the 2005 Annual Report of the United Nations Subcommittee on Human Development in the Dominican Republic, the country is ranked No. 71 in the world for resource availability, No. 79 for human development, and No. 14 in the world for resource mismanagement. These statistics emphasize national government corruption, foreign economic interference in the country, and the rift between the rich and poor. The Dominican Republic has a noted problem of child labor in its coffee, rice, sugarcane, and tomato industries. The labor injustices in the sugarcane industry extend to forced labor according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Three large groups own 75% of the land: the State Sugar Council (Consejo Estatal del Azúcar, CEA), Grupo Vicini, and Central Romana Corporation. According to the 2016 Global Slavery Index, an estimated 104,800 people are enslaved in the modern day Dominican Republic, or 1.00% of the population. Some slaves in the Dominican Republic are held on sugar plantations, guarded by men on horseback with rifles, and forced to work. Currency The Dominican peso (abbreviated $ or RD$; ISO 4217 code is "DOP") is the national currency, with the United States dollar, the Euro, the Canadian dollar and the Swiss franc also accepted at most tourist sites. The exchange rate to the U.S. dollar, liberalized by 1985, stood at 2.70 pesos per dollar in August 1986, 14.00 pesos in 1993, and 16.00 pesos in 2000. the rate was 50.08 pesos per dollar. Tourism Tourism is one of the fueling factors in the Dominican Republic's economic growth. The Dominican Republic is the most popular tourist destination in the Caribbean. With the construction of projects like Cap Cana, San Souci Port in Santo Domingo, Casa De Campo and the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino (ancient Moon Palace Resort) in Punta Cana, the Dominican Republic expects increased tourism activity in the upcoming years. Ecotourism has also been a topic increasingly important in this nation, with towns like Jarabacoa and neighboring Constanza, and locations like the Pico Duarte, Bahia de las Aguilas, and others becoming more significant in efforts to increase direct benefits from tourism. Most residents from other countries are required to get a tourist card, depending on the country they live in. In the last 10 years the Dominican Republic has become one of the worlds notably progressive states in terms of recycling and waste disposal. A UN report cited there was a 221.3% efficiency increase in the previous 10 years due, in part, to the opening of the largest open air landfill site located in the north 10 km from the Haitian border. Infrastructure Transportation The country has three national trunk highways, which connect every major town. These are DR-1, DR-2, and DR-3, which depart from Santo Domingo toward the northern (Cibao), southwestern (Sur), and eastern (El Este) parts of the country respectively. These highways have been consistently improved with the expansion and reconstruction of many sections. Two other national highways serve as spur (DR-5) or alternative routes (DR-4). In addition to the national highways, the government has embarked on an expansive reconstruction of spur secondary routes, which connect smaller towns to the trunk routes. In the last few years the government constructed a 106-kilometer toll road that connects Santo Domingo with the country's northeastern peninsula. Travelers may now arrive in the Samaná Peninsula in less than two hours. Other additions are the reconstruction of the DR-28 (Jarabacoa – Constanza) and DR-12 (Constanza – Bonao). Despite these efforts, many secondary routes still remain either unpaved or in need of maintenance. There is currently a nationwide program to pave these and other commonly used routes. Also, the Santiago light rail system is in planning stages but currently on hold. Bus services There are two main bus transportation services in the Dominican Republic: one controlled by the government, through the Oficina Técnica de Transito Terrestre (OTTT) and the Oficina Metropolitana de Servicios de Autobuses (OMSA), and the other controlled by private business, among them, Federación Nacional de Transporte La Nueva Opción (FENATRANO) and the Confederacion Nacional de Transporte (CONATRA). The government transportation system covers large routes in metropolitan areas such as Santo Domingo and Santiago. There are many privately owned bus companies, such as Metro Servicios Turísticos and Caribe Tours, that run daily routes. Santo Domingo Metro The Dominican Republic has a rapid transit system in Santo Domingo, the country's capital. It is the most extensive metro system in the insular Caribbean and Central American region by length and number of stations. The Santo Domingo Metro is part of a major "National Master Plan" to improve transportation in Santo Domingo as well as the rest of the nation. The first line was planned to relieve traffic congestion in the Máximo Gómez and Hermanas Mirabal Avenue. The second line, which opened in April 2013, is meant to relieve the congestion along the Duarte-Kennedy-Centenario Corridor in the city from west to east. The current length of the Metro, with the sections of the two lines open , is . Before the opening of the second line, 30,856,515 passengers rode the Santo Domingo Metro in 2012. With both lines opened, ridership increased to 61,270,054 passengers in 2014. Communications The Dominican Republic has a well developed telecommunications infrastructure, with extensive mobile phone and landline services. Cable Internet and DSL are available in most parts of the country, and many Internet service providers offer 3G wireless internet service. The Dominican Republic became the second country in Latin America to have 4G LTE wireless service. The reported speeds are from 1 Mbit/s up to 100 Mbit/s for residential services. For commercial service there are speeds from 256 kbit/s up to 154 Mbit/s. (Each set of numbers denotes downstream/upstream speed; that is, to the user/from the user.) Projects to extend Wi-Fi hot spots have been made in Santo Domingo. The country's commercial radio stations and television stations are in the process of transferring to the digital spectrum, via HD Radio and HDTV after officially adopting ATSC as the digital medium in the country with a switch-off of analog transmission by September 2015. The telecommunications regulator in the country is INDOTEL (Instituto Dominicano de Telecomunicaciones). The largest telecommunications company is Claro – part of Carlos Slim's América Móvil – which provides wireless, landline, broadband, and IPTV services. In June 2009 there were more than 8 million phone line subscribers (land and cell users) in the D.R., representing 81% of the country's population and a fivefold increase since the year 2000, when there were 1.6 million. The communications sector generates about 3.0% of the GDP. There were 2,439,997 Internet users in March 2009. In November 2009, the Dominican Republic became the first Latin American country to pledge to include a "gender perspective" in every information and communications technology (ICT) initiative and policy developed by the government. This is part of the regional eLAC2010 plan. The tool the Dominicans have chosen to design and evaluate all the public policies is the APC Gender Evaluation Methodology (GEM). Electricity Electric power service has been unreliable since the Trujillo era, and as much as 75% of the equipment is that old. The country's antiquated power grid causes transmission losses that account for a large share of billed electricity from generators. The privatization of the sector started under a previous administration of Leonel Fernández. The recent investment in a 345 kilovolt "Santo Domingo–Santiago Electrical Highway" with reduced transmission losses, is being heralded as a major capital improvement to the national grid since the mid-1960s. During the Trujillo regime electrical service was introduced to many cities. Almost 95% of usage was not billed at all. Around half of the Dominican Republic's 2.1 million houses have no meters and most do not pay or pay a fixed monthly rate for their electric service. Household and general electrical service is delivered at 110 volts alternating at 60 Hz. Electrically powered items from the United States work with no modifications. The majority of the Dominican Republic has access to electricity. Tourist areas tend to have more reliable power, as do business, travel, healthcare, and vital infrastructure. Concentrated efforts were announced to increase efficiency of delivery to places where the collection rate reached 70%. The electricity sector is highly politicized. Some generating companies are undercapitalized and at times unable to purchase adequate fuel supplies. Society Demographics The Dominican Republic's population was in . In 2010, 31.2% of the population was under 15 years of age, with 6% of the population over 65 years of age. There were an estimated 102.3 males for every 100 females in 2020. The annual population growth rate for 2006–2007 was 1.5%, with the projected population for the year 2015 being 10,121,000. The population density in 2007 was 192 per km2 (498 per sq mi), and 63% of the population lived in urban areas. The southern coastal plains and the Cibao Valley are the most densely populated areas of the country. The capital city Santo Domingo had a population of 2,907,100 in 2010. Other important cities are Santiago de los Caballeros ( 745,293), La Romana (pop. 214,109), San Pedro de Macorís (pop. 185,255), Higüey (153,174), San Francisco de Macorís (pop. 132,725), Puerto Plata (pop. 118,282), and La Vega (pop. 104,536). Per the United Nations, the urban population growth rate for 2000–2005 was 2.3%. Ethnic groups In a 2014 population survey, 70.4% self-identified as mixed (mestizo/indio 58%, mulatto 12.4%), 15.8% as black, 13.5% as white, and 0.3% as "other". Ethnic immigrant groups in the country include West Asians—mostly Lebanese, Syrians, and Palestinians; the current president, Luis Abinader, is of Lebanese descent. East Asians, Koreans, ethnic Chinese and Japanese, can also be found. Europeans are represented mostly by Spanish whites but also with smaller populations of Germans, Italians, French, British, Dutch, Swiss, Russians, and Hungarians. Languages The population of the Dominican Republic is mostly Spanish-speaking. The local variant of Spanish is called Dominican Spanish, which closely resembles other Spanish vernaculars in the Caribbean and has similarities to Canarian Spanish. In addition, it has influences from African languages and borrowed words from indigenous Caribbean languages particular to the island of Hispaniola. Schools are based on a Spanish educational model; English and French are mandatory foreign languages in both private and public schools, although the quality of foreign languages teaching is poor. Some private educational institutes provide teaching in other languages, notably Italian, Japanese and Mandarin. Haitian Creole is the largest minority language in the Dominican Republic and is spoken by Haitian immigrants and their descendants. There is a community of a few thousand people whose ancestors spoke Samaná English in the Samaná Peninsula. They are the descendants of formerly enslaved African Americans who arrived in the nineteenth century, but only a few elders speak the language today. Tourism, American pop culture, the influence of Dominican Americans, and the country's economic ties with the United States motivate other Dominicans to learn English. The Dominican Republic is ranked 2nd in Latin America and 23rd in the World on English proficiency.EF English Proficiency Index – Dominican Republic, EF Education First. Retrieved on July 10, 2017. Population centres Religion 95.0% Christians 2.6% No religion 2.2% Other religions , 57% of the population (5.7 million) identified themselves as Roman Catholics and 23% (2.3 million) as Protestants (in Latin American countries, Protestants are often called Evangelicos because they emphasize personal and public evangelising and many are Evangelical Protestant or of a Pentecostal group). From 1896 to 1907 missionaries from the Episcopal, Free Methodist, Seventh-day Adventist and Moravians churches began work in the Dominican Republic. Three percent of the 10.63 million Dominican Republic population are Seventh-day Adventists. Recent immigration as well as proselytizing efforts have brought in other religious groups, with the following shares of the population: Spiritist: 2.2%, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: 1.3%, Buddhist: 0.1%, Baháʼí: 0.1%, Chinese Folk Religion: 0.1%, Islam: 0.02%, Judaism: 0.01%. The Catholic Church began to lose its strong dominance in the late 19th century. This was due to a lack of funding, priests, and support programs. During the same time, Protestant Evangelicalism began to gain a wider support "with their emphasis on personal responsibility and family rejuvenation, economic entrepreneurship, and biblical fundamentalism". The Dominican Republic has two Catholic patroness saints: Nuestra Señora de la Altagracia (Our Lady Of High Grace) and Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes (Our Lady Of Mercy). The Dominican Republic has historically granted extensive religious freedom. According to the United States Department of State, "The constitution specifies that there is no state church and provides for freedom of religion and belief. A concordat with the Vatican designates Catholicism as the official religion and extends special privileges to the Catholic Church not granted to other religious groups. These include the legal recognition of church law, use of public funds to underwrite some church expenses, and complete exoneration from customs duties." In the 1950s restrictions were placed upon churches by the government of Trujillo. Letters of protest were sent against the mass arrests of government adversaries. Trujillo began a campaign against the Catholic Church and planned to arrest priests and bishops who preached against the government. This campaign ended before it was put into place, with his assassination. During World War II a group of Jews escaping Nazi Germany fled to the Dominican Republic and founded the city of Sosúa. It has remained the center of the Jewish population since. 20th century immigration In the 20th century, many Arabs (from Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine), Japanese, and, to a lesser degree, Koreans settled in the country as agricultural laborers and merchants. The Chinese companies found business in telecom, mining, and railroads. The Arab community is rising at an increasing rate and is estimated at 80,000. In addition, there are descendants of immigrants who came from other Caribbean islands, including St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua, St. Vincent, Montserrat, Tortola, St. Croix, St. Thomas, and Guadeloupe. They worked on sugarcane plantations and docks and settled mainly in the cities of San Pedro de Macorís and Puerto Plata. Puerto Rican, and to a lesser extent, Cuban immigrants fled to the Dominican Republic from the mid-1800s until about 1940 due to a poor economy and social unrest in their respective home countries. Many Puerto Rican immigrants settled in Higüey, among other cities, and quickly assimilated due to similar culture. Before and during World War II, 800 Jewish refugees moved to the Dominican Republic. Numerous immigrants have come from other Caribbean countries, as the country has offered economic opportunities. There is an increasing number of Puerto Rican immigrants, especially in and around Santo Domingo; they are believed to number around 10,000. There are many Haitians and Venezuelans living in the Dominican Republic illegally. Haitian immigration Human Rights Watch estimated that 70,000 documented Haitian immigrants and 1,930,000 undocumented immigrants were living in Dominican Republic. Haiti is the neighboring nation to the Dominican Republic and is considerably poorer, less developed and is additionally the least developed country in the western hemisphere. In 2003, 80% of all Haitians were poor (54% living in abject poverty) and 47.1% were illiterate. The country of nine million people also has a fast growing population, but over two-thirds of the labor force lack formal jobs. Haiti's per capita GDP (PPP) was $1,800 in 2017, or just over one-tenth of the Dominican figure. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Haitians have migrated to the Dominican Republic, with some estimates of 800,000 Haitians in the country, while others put the Haitian-born population as high as one million. They usually work at low-paying and unskilled jobs in building construction and house cleaning and in sugar plantations. There have been accusations that some Haitian immigrants work in slavery-like conditions and are severely exploited. Due to the lack of basic amenities and medical facilities in Haiti a large number of Haitian women, often arriving with several health problems, cross the border to Dominican soil. They deliberately come during their last weeks of pregnancy to obtain medical attention for childbirth, since Dominican public hospitals do not refuse medical services based on nationality or legal status. Statistics from a hospital in Santo Domingo report that over 22% of childbirths are by Haitian mothers. Haiti also suffers from severe environmental degradation. Deforestation is rampant in Haiti; today less than 4 percent of Haiti's forests remain, and in many places the soil has eroded right down to the bedrock. Haitians burn wood charcoal for 60% of their domestic energy production. Because of Haiti running out of plant material to burn, some Haitian bootleggers have created an illegal market for charcoal on the Dominican side. Conservative estimates calculate the illegal movement of 115 tons of charcoal per week from the Dominican Republic to Haiti. Dominican officials estimate that at least 10 trucks per week are crossing the border loaded with charcoal. In 2005, Dominican President Leonel Fernández criticized collective expulsions of Haitians as having taken place "in an abusive and inhuman way." After a UN delegation issued a preliminary report stating that it found a profound problem of racism and discrimination against people of Haitian origin, Dominican Foreign Minister Carlos Morales Troncoso issued a formal statement denouncing it, asserting that "our border with Haiti has its problems[;] this is our reality and it must be understood. It is important not to confuse national sovereignty with indifference, and not to confuse security with xenophobia." Haitian nationals send half a billion dollars total yearly in remittance from the Dominican Republic to Haiti, according to the World Bank. The government of the Dominican Republic invested a total of $16 billion pesos in health services offered to foreign patients in 2013–2016, according to official data, which includes medical expenses in blood transfusion, clinical analysis, surgeries and other care. According to official reports, the country spends more than five billion Dominican pesos annually in care for pregnant women who cross the border ready to deliver. The children of Haitian immigrants are eligible for Haitian nationality, but they may be denied it by Haiti because of a lack of proper documents or witnesses. Emigration The first of three late-20th century emigration waves began in 1961 after the assassination of dictator Trujillo, due to fear of retaliation by Trujillo's allies and political uncertainty in general. In 1965, the United States began a military occupation of the Dominican Republic to end a civil war. Upon this, the U.S. eased travel restrictions, making it easier for Dominicans to obtain U.S. visas. From 1966 to 1978, the exodus continued, fueled by high unemployment and political repression. Communities established by the first wave of immigrants to the U.S. created a network that assisted subsequent arrivals. In the early 1980s, underemployment, inflation, and the rise in value of the dollar all contributed to a third wave of emigration from the Dominican Republic. Today, emigration from the Dominican Republic remains high. In 2012, there were approximately 1.7 million people of Dominican descent in the U.S., counting both native- and foreign-born. There was also a growing Dominican immigration to Puerto Rico, with nearly 70,000 Dominicans living there . Although that number is slowly decreasing and immigration trends have reversed because of Puerto Rico's economic crisis . There is a significant Dominican population in Spain. Health In 2020, the Dominican Republic had an estimated birth rate of 18.5 per 1000 and a death rate of 6.3 per 1000. Education Primary education is regulated by the Ministry of Education, with education being a right of all citizens and youth in the Dominican Republic. Preschool education is organized in different cycles and serves the 2–4 age group and the 4–6 age group. Preschool education is not mandatory except for the last year. Basic education is compulsory and serves the population of the 6–14 age group. Secondary education is not compulsory, although it is the duty of the state to offer it for free. It caters to the 14–18 age group and is organized in a common core of four years and three modes of two years of study that are offered in three different options: general or academic, vocational (industrial, agricultural, and services), and artistic. The higher education system consists of institutes and universities. The institutes offer courses of a higher technical level. The universities offer technical careers, undergraduate and graduate; these are regulated by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology. The Dominican Republic was ranked 90th in the Global Innovation Index in 2020, down from 87th in 2019. Crime In 2012, the Dominican Republic had a murder rate of 22.1 per 100,000 population. There was a total of 2,268 murders in the Dominican Republic in 2012. The Dominican Republic has become a trans-shipment point for Colombian drugs destined for Europe as well as the United States and Canada. Money-laundering via the Dominican Republic is favored by Colombian drug cartels for the ease of illicit financial transactions. In 2004, it was estimated that 8% of all cocaine smuggled into the United States had come through the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic responded with increased efforts to seize drug shipments, arrest and extradite those involved, and combat money-laundering. The often light treatment of violent criminals has been a continuous source of local controversy. In April 2010, five teenagers, aged 15 to 17, shot and killed two taxi drivers and killed another five by forcing them to drink drain-cleaning acid. On September 24, 2010, the teens were sentenced to prison terms of three to five years, despite the protests of the taxi drivers' families. Culture Due to cultural syncretism, the culture and customs of the Dominican people have a European cultural basis, influenced by both African and native Taíno elements, although endogenous elements have emerged within Dominican culture; culturally the Dominican Republic is among the most-European countries in Spanish America, alongside Puerto Rico, Cuba, Central Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay. Spanish institutions in the colonial era were able to predominate in the Dominican culture's making-of as a relative success in the acculturation and cultural assimilation of African slaves diminished African cultural influence in comparison to other Caribbean countries. Visual arts Dominican art is perhaps most commonly associated with the bright, vibrant colors and images that are sold in every tourist gift shop across the country. However, the country has a long history of fine art that goes back to the middle of the 1800s when the country became independent and the beginnings of a national art scene emerged. Historically, the painting of this time were centered around images connected to national independence, historical scenes, portraits but also landscapes and images of still life. Styles of painting ranged between neoclassicism and romanticism. Between 1920 and 1940 the art scene was influenced by styles of realism and impressionism. Dominican artists were focused on breaking from previous, academic styles in order to develop more independent and individual styles. Literature The 20th century brought many prominent Dominican writers, and saw a general increase in the perception of Dominican literature. Writers such as Juan Bosch (one of the greatest storytellers in Latin America), Pedro Mir (national poet of the Dominican Republic), Aida Cartagena Portalatin (poetess par excellence who spoke in the Era of Rafael Trujillo), Emilio Rodríguez Demorizi (the most important Dominican historian, with more than 1000 written works), Manuel del Cabral (main Dominican poet featured in black poetry), Hector Inchustegui Cabral (considered one of the most prominent voices of the Caribbean social poetry of the twentieth century), Miguel Alfonseca (poet belonging to Generation 60), Rene del Risco (acclaimed poet who was a participant in the June 14 Movement), Mateo Morrison (excellent poet and writer with numerous awards), among many more prolific authors, put the island in one of the most important in Literature in the twentieth century. New 21st century Dominican writers have not yet achieved the renown of their 20th century counterparts. However, writers such as Frank Báez (won the 2006 Santo Domingo Book Fair First Prize) and Junot Díaz (2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao) lead Dominican literature in the 21st century. Architecture The architecture in the Dominican Republic represents a complex blend of diverse cultures. The deep influence of the European colonists is the most evident throughout the country. Characterized by ornate designs and baroque structures, the style can best be seen in the capital city of Santo Domingo, which is home to the first cathedral, castle, monastery, and fortress in all of the Americas, located in the city's Colonial Zone, an area declared as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The designs carry over into the villas and buildings throughout the country. It can also be observed on buildings that contain stucco exteriors, arched doors and windows, and red tiled roofs. The indigenous peoples of the Dominican Republic have also had a significant influence on the architecture of the country. The Taíno people relied heavily on the mahogany and guano (dried palm tree leaf) to put together crafts, artwork, furniture, and houses. Utilizing mud, thatched roofs, and mahogany trees, they gave buildings and the furniture inside a natural look, seamlessly blending in with the island's surroundings. Lately, with the rise in tourism and increasing popularity as a Caribbean vacation destination, architects in the Dominican Republic have now begun to incorporate cutting-edge designs that emphasize luxury. In many ways an architectural playground, villas and hotels implement new styles, while offering new takes on the old. This new style is characterized by simplified, angular corners and large windows that blend outdoor and indoor spaces. As with the culture as a whole, contemporary architects embrace the Dominican Republic's rich history and various cultures to create something new. Surveying modern villas, one can find any combination of the three major styles: a villa may contain angular, modernist building construction, Spanish Colonial-style arched windows, and a traditional Taíno hammock in the bedroom balcony. Cuisine Dominican cuisine is predominantly Spanish, Taíno, and African. The typical cuisine is quite similar to what can be found in other Latin American countries. One breakfast dish consists of eggs and mangú (mashed, boiled plantain). Heartier versions of mangú are accompanied by deep-fried meat (Dominican salami, typically), cheese, or both. Lunch, generally the largest and most important meal of the day, usually consists of rice, meat, beans, and salad. "La Bandera" (literally "The Flag") is the most popular lunch dish; it consists of meat and red beans on white rice. Sancocho is a stew often made with seven varieties of meat. Meals tend to favor meats and starches over dairy products and vegetables. Many dishes are made with sofrito, which is a mix of local herbs used as a wet rub for meats and sautéed to bring out all of a dish's flavors. Throughout the south-central coast, bulgur, or whole wheat, is a main ingredient in quipes or tipili (bulgur salad). Other favorite Dominican foods include chicharrón, yuca, casabe, pastelitos(empanadas), batata, yam, pasteles en hoja, chimichurris, and tostones. Some treats Dominicans enjoy are arroz con leche (or arroz con dulce), bizcocho dominicano (lit. Dominican cake), habichuelas con dulce, flan, frío frío (snow cones), dulce de leche, and caña (sugarcane). The beverages Dominicans enjoy are Morir Soñando, rum, beer, Mama Juana, batida (smoothie), jugos naturales (freshly squeezed fruit juices), mabí, coffee, and chaca (also called maiz caqueao/casqueado, maiz con dulce and maiz con leche), the last item being found only in the southern provinces of the country such as San Juan. Music and dance Musically, the Dominican Republic is known for the world popular musical style and genre called merengue, a type of lively, fast-paced rhythm and dance music consisting of a tempo of about 120 to 160 beats per minute (though it varies) based on musical elements like drums, brass, chorded instruments, and accordion, as well as some elements unique to the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, such as the tambora and güira. Its syncopated beats use Latin percussion, brass instruments, bass, and piano or keyboard. Between 1937 and 1950 merengue music was promoted internationally by Dominican groups like Billo's Caracas Boys, Chapuseaux and Damiron "Los Reyes del Merengue," Joseito Mateo, and others. Radio, television, and international media popularized it further. Some well known merengue performers are Wilfrido Vargas, Johnny Ventura, singer-songwriter Los Hermanos Rosario, Juan Luis Guerra, Fernando Villalona, Eddy Herrera, Sergio Vargas, Toño Rosario, Milly Quezada, and Chichí Peralta. Merengue became popular in the United States, mostly on the East Coast, during the 1980s and 1990s, when many Dominican artists residing in the U.S. (particularly New York) started performing in the Latin club scene and gained radio airplay. They included Victor Roque y La Gran Manzana, Henry Hierro, Zacarias Ferreira, Aventura, and Milly Jocelyn Y Los Vecinos. The emergence of bachata, along with an increase in the number of Dominicans living among other Latino groups in New York, New Jersey, and Florida, has contributed to Dominican music's overall growth in popularity. Bachata, a form of music and dance that originated in the countryside and rural marginal neighborhoods of the Dominican Republic, has become quite popular in recent years. Its subjects are often romantic; especially prevalent are tales of heartbreak and sadness. In fact, the original name for the genre was amargue ("bitterness," or "bitter music,"), until the rather ambiguous (and mood-neutral) term bachata became popular. Bachata grew out of, and is still closely related to, the pan-Latin American romantic style called bolero. Over time, it has been influenced by merengue and by a variety of Latin American guitar styles. Palo is an Afro-Dominican sacred music that can be found throughout the island. The drum and human voice are the principal instruments. Palo is played at religious ceremonies—usually coinciding with saints' religious feast days—as well as for secular parties and special occasions. Its roots are in the Congo region of central-west Africa, but it is mixed with European influences in the melodies. Salsa music has had a great deal of popularity in the country. During the late 1960s Dominican musicians like Johnny Pacheco, creator of the Fania All Stars, played a significant role in the development and popularization of the genre. Dominican rock and Reggaeton are also popular. Many, if not the majority, of its performers are based in Santo Domingo and Santiago. Fashion The country boasts one of the ten most important design schools in the region, La Escuela de Diseño de Altos de Chavón, which is making the country a key player in the world of fashion and design. Noted fashion designer Oscar de la Renta was born in the Dominican Republic in 1932, and became a US citizen in 1971. He studied under the leading Spaniard designer Cristóbal Balenciaga and then worked with the house of Lanvin in Paris. By 1963, he had designs bearing his own label. After establishing himself in the US, de la Renta opened boutiques across the country. His work blends French and Spaniard fashion with American styles.Oscar de la Renta. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved October 31, 2012. Although he settled in New York, de la Renta also marketed his work in Latin America, where it became very popular, and remained active in his native Dominican Republic, where his charitable activities and personal achievements earned him the Juan Pablo Duarte Order of Merit and the Order of Cristóbal Colón. De la Renta died of complications from cancer on October 20, 2014. National symbols Some of the Dominican Republic's important symbols are the flag, the coat of arms, and the national anthem, titled Himno Nacional. The flag has a large white cross that divides it into four quarters. Two quarters are red and two are blue. Red represents the blood shed by the liberators. Blue expresses God's protection over the nation. The white cross symbolizes the struggle of the liberators to bequeath future generations a free nation. An alternative interpretation is that blue represents the ideals of progress and liberty, whereas white symbolizes peace and unity among Dominicans. In the center of the cross is the Dominican coat of arms, in the same colors as the national flag. The coat of arms pictures a red, white, and blue flag-draped shield with a Bible, a gold cross, and arrows; the shield is surrounded by an olive branch (on the left) and a palm branch (on the right). The Bible traditionally represents the truth and the light. The gold cross symbolizes the redemption from slavery, and the arrows symbolize the noble soldiers and their proud military. A blue ribbon above the shield reads, "Dios, Patria, Libertad" (meaning "God, Fatherland, Liberty"). A red ribbon under the shield reads, "República Dominicana" (meaning "Dominican Republic"). Out of all the flags in the world, the depiction of a Bible is unique to the Dominican flag. The national flower is the Bayahibe Rose and the national tree is the West Indian Mahogany. The national bird is the Cigua Palmera or Palmchat ("Dulus dominicus"). The Dominican Republic celebrates Dia de la Altagracia on January 21 in honor of its patroness, Duarte's Day on January 26 in honor of one of its founding fathers, Independence Day on February 27, Restoration Day on August 16, Virgen de las Mercedes on September 24, and Constitution Day on November 6. Sports Baseball is by far the most popular sport in the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Professional Baseball League consists of six teams. Its season usually begins in October and ends in January. After the United States, the Dominican Republic has the second highest number of Major League Baseball (MLB) players. Ozzie Virgil Sr. became the first Dominican-born player in the MLB on September 23, 1956. Juan Marichal, Pedro Martínez, and Vladimir Guerrero are the only Dominican-born players in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Other notable baseball players born in the Dominican Republic are José Bautista, Adrián Beltré, Juan Soto, Robinson Canó, Rico Carty, Bartolo Colón, Nelson Cruz, Edwin Encarnación, Ubaldo Jiménez, Francisco Liriano, David Ortiz, Plácido Polanco, Albert Pujols, Hanley Ramírez, Manny Ramírez, José Reyes, Alfonso Soriano, Sammy Sosa, Fernando Tatís Jr., and Miguel Tejada. Felipe Alou has also enjoyed success as a manager and Omar Minaya as a general manager. In 2013, the Dominican team went undefeated en route to winning the World Baseball Classic. In boxing, the country has produced scores of world-class fighters and several world champions, such as Carlos Cruz, his brother Leo, Juan Guzman, and Joan Guzman. Basketball also enjoys a relatively high level of popularity. Tito Horford, his son Al, Felipe Lopez, and Francisco Garcia are among the Dominican-born players currently or formerly in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Olympic gold medalist and world champion hurdler Félix Sánchez hails from the Dominican Republic, as does NFL defensive end Luis Castillo. Other important sports are volleyball, introduced in 1916 by U.S. Marines and controlled by the Dominican Volleyball Federation, taekwondo, in which Gabriel Mercedes won an Olympic silver medal in 2008, and judo. See also Index of Dominican Republic-related articles Outline of the Dominican Republic Notes References Bibliography Further reading Wiarda, Howard J., and Michael J. Kryzanek. The Dominican Republic: a Caribbean Crucible, in series, Nations of Contemporary Latin America, and also Westview Profiles. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1982. pbk. Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Penguin Books, 2005 and 2011 (). See chapter 11 entitled "One Island, Two People, Two Histories: The Dominican Republic and Haiti". External links Presidency of the Dominican Republic Official country website Dominican Republic at UCB Libraries GovPubs'' Dominican Republic profile from the BBC News Official Website of the Ministry of Tourism of the Dominican Republic Official Commercial Website Ministry of Tourism of the Dominican Republic Official Website of the IDDI, Instituto Dominicano de Desarrollo Integral Caribbean Connections: Dominican Republic teaching guide for middle and high school students 1844 establishments in North America Christian states Countries in North America Countries in the Caribbean Former French colonies Former Spanish colonies Former colonies in North America New Spain Greater Antilles Island countries Current member states of the United Nations Republics Small Island Developing States Spanish Caribbean Spanish West Indies 1492 establishments in the Spanish West Indies 1821 establishments in the Dominican Republic 1822 establishments in Haiti 1844 disestablishments in Haiti 1861 establishments in the Spanish West Indies 1865 disestablishments in the Spanish West Indies Spanish-speaking countries and territories Spanish colonization of the Americas States and territories established in 1844

Dutch commonly refers to: Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands Dutch people () Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States Pennsylvania Dutch Country People Ethnic groups Germanic peoples, the original meaning of the term Dutch in English Pennsylvania Dutch, a group of early Germanic immigrants to Pennsylvania Dutch people, the Germanic group native to the Netherlands Specific people Dutch (nickname), a list of people Johnny Dutch (born 1989), American hurdler Dutch Schultz (1902–1935), American mobster born Arthur Simon Flegenheimer Dutch Mantel, ring name of American retired professional wrestler Wayne Maurice Keown (born 1949) Dutch Savage, ring name of professional wrestler and promoter Frank Stewart (1935–2013) Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters Dutch (Black Lagoon), an African-American character from the Japanese manga and anime Black Lagoon Alan "Dutch" Schaefer, the protagonist of the 1987 film Predator played by Arnold Schwarzenegger Dutch van der Linde, a character from the Red Dead video games Dutch Wagenbach, on the TV series The Shield Other uses in arts, entertainment, and media Dutch (film), a 1991 American comedy film starring Ed O'Neill Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan, a 1999 biography with fictional elements by Edmund Morris Dutch, the magazine, an English-language magazine about the Netherlands and the Dutch Dutching, a gambling term that signifies betting on more than one outcome Dutch, an American trip-hop duo that released the 2010 album A Bright Cold Day Chess Bird's Opening, a chess opening also known as the "Dutch attack" Dutch Defence, a chess opening Sports and mascots Dutch Grand Prix, a Formula One car race Dutch Open (disambiguation) Dutch TT, a motorcycle race, part of the MotoGP World Championship Dutch, nickname of college athletic teams of Central College in Pella, Iowa Dutch, the mascot of the Union Dutchmen, the athletic teams of Union College See also Deutsch (disambiguation) Double Dutch (disambiguation) Dutch Boy (disambiguation) Dutch Hill (disambiguation) Dutch oven (disambiguation) Going Dutch or Dutch treat, an arrangement whereby each person in a group pays for him/herself Netherlands (disambiguation) Language and nationality disambiguation pages

Dennis the Menace may refer to either of two comic strip characters that both appeared in March 1951, one in the UK and one in the US. British character Dennis the Menace (UK comics) is the original title of a British comic strip which first appeared in "The Beano" on March 12, 1951 (in the edition cover dated March 17, 1951); it is now published as Dennis the Menace and Gnasher. Dennis the Menace Annual, now known as the Dennis and Gnasher Annual, is a compilation of the comics plus new material. Various television adaptations of the comic strip: Dennis the Menace and Gnasher (1996 TV series) is an animated television series based on the Beano comic strip, known internationally as Dennis and Gnasher. Dennis the Menace and Gnasher (2009 TV series) was released on September 7, 2009. Dennis & Gnasher: Unleashed! (2017 TV series) is the latest animated CGI series, first broadcast in November 2017. A Second series has subsequently been made. American character Dennis the Menace (U.S. comics), a daily US syndicated newspaper comic strip since March 12, 1951 Various television and film adaptations of the comic strip: Dennis the Menace (1959 TV series), a CBS network live action television show Dennis the Menace (1986 TV series), an animated TV series Dennis the Menace (1987 film), a made-for-television live action film released in 1987; a.k.a. Dennis the Menace: Dinosaur Hunter All-New Dennis the Menace, a 1993 animated television series Dennis the Menace (film), A live-action film released in 1993 Dennis the Menace (video game), based on the 1993 film Dennis the Menace Strikes Again, a 1998 direct-to-video sequel of the 1993 film Dennis the Menace in Cruise Control (2002, animated) A Dennis the Menace Christmas, a 2007 direct-to-video sequel of the 1993 film Other Storm Dennis in the UK in 2020

Death is the permanent, irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. Brain death is sometimes used as a legal definition of death. The remains of a former organism normally begin to decompose shortly after death. Death is an inevitable, universal process that eventually occurs in all organisms. Death is generally applied to whole organisms; the similar process seen in individual components of an organism, such as cells or tissues, is necrosis. Something that is not considered an organism, such as a virus, can be physically destroyed but is not said to die. As of the early 21st century, over 150,000 humans die each day, with aging being by far the most common cause of death. Death, particularly of humans, has commonly been considered a sad or unpleasant occasion, due to the affection for the deceased and the termination of social and familial bonds. Other concerns include fear of death or anxiety from the thought of death, necrophobia, feelings of sorrow, grief, depression, solitude or saudade for the deceased and/or feelings of sympathy or compassion for the deceased or the loved ones of the deceased. Many cultures and religions have the idea of an afterlife, and also may hold the idea of judgement of good and bad deeds in one's life (Heaven, Hell, Karma). Diagnosis Problems of definition The concept of death is a key to human understanding of the phenomenon. There are many scientific approaches and various interpretations of the concept. Additionally, the advent of life-sustaining therapy and the numerous criteria for defining death from both a medical and legal standpoint, have made it difficult to create a single unifying definition. One of the challenges in defining death is in distinguishing it from life. As a point in time, death would seem to refer to the moment at which life ends. Determining when death has occurred is difficult, as cessation of life functions is often not simultaneous across organ systems. Such determination, therefore, requires drawing precise conceptual boundaries between life and death. This is difficult, due to there being little consensus on how to define life. It is possible to define life in terms of consciousness. When consciousness ceases, an organism can be said to have died. One of the flaws in this approach is that there are many organisms that are alive but probably not conscious (for example, single-celled organisms). Another problem is in defining consciousness, which has many different definitions given by modern scientists, psychologists and philosophers. Additionally, many religious traditions, including Abrahamic and Dharmic traditions, hold that death does not (or may not) entail the end of consciousness. In certain cultures, death is more of a process than a single event. It implies a slow shift from one spiritual state to another. Other definitions for death focus on the character of cessation of something. More specifically, death occurs when a living entity experiences irreversible cessation of all functioning. As it pertains to human life, death is an irreversible process where someone loses their existence as a person. Historically, attempts to define the exact moment of a human's death have been subjective, or imprecise. Death was once defined as the cessation of heartbeat (cardiac arrest) and of breathing, but the development of CPR and prompt defibrillation have rendered that definition inadequate because breathing and heartbeat can sometimes be restarted. This type of death where circulatory and respiratory arrest happens is known as the circulatory definition of death (DCDD). Proponents of the DCDD believe that this definition is reasonable because a person with permanent loss of circulatory and respiratory function should be considered dead. Critics of this definition state that while cessation of these functions may be permanent, it does not mean the situation is irreversible, because if CPR was applied, the person could be revived. Thus, the arguments for and against the DCDD boil down to a matter of defining the actual words "permanent" and "irreversible," which further complicates the challenge of defining death. Furthermore, events which were causally linked to death in the past no longer kill in all circumstances; without a functioning heart or lungs, life can sometimes be sustained with a combination of life support devices, organ transplants and artificial pacemakers. Today, where a definition of the moment of death is required, doctors and coroners usually turn to "brain death" or "biological death" to define a person as being dead; people are considered dead when the electrical activity in their brain ceases. It is presumed that an end of electrical activity indicates the end of consciousness. Suspension of consciousness must be permanent, and not transient, as occurs during certain sleep stages, and especially a coma. In the case of sleep, EEGs can easily tell the difference. The category of "brain death" is seen as problematic by some scholars. For instance, Dr. Franklin Miller, senior faculty member at the Department of Bioethics, National Institutes of Health, notes: "By the late 1990s... the equation of brain death with death of the human being was increasingly challenged by scholars, based on evidence regarding the array of biological functioning displayed by patients correctly diagnosed as having this condition who were maintained on mechanical ventilation for substantial periods of time. These patients maintained the ability to sustain circulation and respiration, control temperature, excrete wastes, heal wounds, fight infections and, most dramatically, to gestate fetuses (in the case of pregnant "brain-dead" women)." While "brain death" is viewed as problematic by some scholars, there are certainly proponents of it that believe this definition of death is the most reasonable for distinguishing life from death. The reasoning behind the support for this definition is that brain death has a set of criteria that is reliable and reproducible. Also, the brain is crucial in determining our identity or who we are as human beings. The distinction should be made that "brain death" cannot be equated with one who is in a vegetative state or coma, in that the former situation describes a state that is beyond recovery. Those people maintaining that only the neo-cortex of the brain is necessary for consciousness sometimes argue that only electrical activity should be considered when defining death. Eventually it is possible that the criterion for death will be the permanent and irreversible loss of cognitive function, as evidenced by the death of the cerebral cortex. All hope of recovering human thought and personality is then gone given current and foreseeable medical technology. At present, in most places the more conservative definition of death – irreversible cessation of electrical activity in the whole brain, as opposed to just in the neo-cortex – has been adopted (for example the Uniform Determination Of Death Act in the United States). In 2005, the Terri Schiavo case brought the question of brain death and artificial sustenance to the front of American politics. Even by whole-brain criteria, the determination of brain death can be complicated. EEGs can detect spurious electrical impulses, while certain drugs, hypoglycemia, hypoxia, or hypothermia can suppress or even stop brain activity on a temporary basis. Because of this, hospitals have protocols for determining brain death involving EEGs at widely separated intervals under defined conditions. In the past, adoption of this whole-brain definition was a conclusion of the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research in 1980. They concluded that this approach to defining death sufficed in reaching a uniform definition nationwide. A multitude of reasons were presented to support this definition including: uniformity of standards in law for establishing death; consumption of a family's fiscal resources for artificial life support; and legal establishment for equating brain death with death in order to proceed with organ donation. Aside from the issue of support of or dispute against brain death, there is another inherent problem in this categorical definition: the variability of its application in medical practice. In 1995, the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), established a set of criteria that became the medical standard for diagnosing neurologic death. At that time, three clinical features had to be satisfied in order to determine "irreversible cessation" of the total brain including: coma with clear etiology, cessation of breathing, and lack of brainstem reflexes. This set of criteria was then updated again most recently in 2010, but substantial discrepancies still remain across hospitals and medical specialties. The problem of defining death is especially imperative as it pertains to the dead donor rule, which could be understood as one of the following interpretations of the rule: there must be an official declaration of death in a person before starting organ procurement or that organ procurement cannot result in death of the donor. A great deal of controversy has surrounded the definition of death and the dead donor rule. Advocates of the rule believe the rule is legitimate in protecting organ donors while also countering against any moral or legal objection to organ procurement. Critics, on the other hand, believe that the rule does not uphold the best interests of the donors and that the rule does not effectively promote organ donation. Signs Signs of death or strong indications that a warm-blooded animal is no longer alive are: Respiratory arrest (no breathing) Cardiac arrest (no pulse) Brain death (no neuronal activity) The stages that follow after death are: , paleness which happens in the 15–120 minutes after death , the reduction in body temperature following death. This is generally a steady decline until matching ambient temperature , the limbs of the corpse become stiff (Latin rigor) and difficult to move or manipulate , a settling of the blood in the lower (dependent) portion of the body Putrefaction, the beginning signs of decomposition Decomposition, the reduction into simpler forms of matter, accompanied by a strong, unpleasant odor. Skeletonization, the end of decomposition, where all soft tissues have decomposed, leaving only the skeleton. Fossilization, the natural preservation of the skeletal remains formed over a very long period Legal The death of a person has legal consequences that may vary between different jurisdictions. A death certificate is issued in most jurisdictions, either by a doctor, or by an administrative office upon presentation of a doctor's declaration of death. Misdiagnosed There are many anecdotal references to people being declared dead by physicians and then "coming back to life", sometimes days later in their own coffin, or when embalming procedures are about to begin. From the mid-18th century onwards, there was an upsurge in the public's fear of being mistakenly buried alive, and much debate about the uncertainty of the signs of death. Various suggestions were made to test for signs of life before burial, ranging from pouring vinegar and pepper into the corpse's mouth to applying red hot pokers to the feet or into the rectum. Writing in 1895, the physician J.C. Ouseley claimed that as many as 2,700 people were buried prematurely each year in England and Wales, although others estimated the figure to be closer to 800. In cases of electric shock, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) for an hour or longer can allow stunned nerves to recover, allowing an apparently dead person to survive. People found unconscious under icy water may survive if their faces are kept continuously cold until they arrive at an emergency room. This "diving response", in which metabolic activity and oxygen requirements are minimal, is something humans share with cetaceans called the mammalian diving reflex. As medical technologies advance, ideas about when death occurs may have to be re-evaluated in light of the ability to restore a person to vitality after longer periods of apparent death (as happened when CPR and defibrillation showed that cessation of heartbeat is inadequate as a decisive indicator of death). The lack of electrical brain activity may not be enough to consider someone scientifically dead. Therefore, the concept of information-theoretic death has been suggested as a better means of defining when true death occurs, though the concept has few practical applications outside the field of cryonics. There have been some scientific attempts to bring dead organisms back to life, but with limited success. In science fiction scenarios where such technology is readily available, real death is distinguished from reversible death. Causes The leading cause of human death in developing countries is infectious disease. The leading causes in developed countries are atherosclerosis (heart disease and stroke), cancer, and other diseases related to obesity and aging. By an extremely wide margin, the largest unifying cause of death in the developed world is biological aging, leading to various complications known as aging-associated diseases. These conditions cause loss of homeostasis, leading to cardiac arrest, causing loss of oxygen and nutrient supply, causing irreversible deterioration of the brain and other tissues. Of the roughly 150,000 people who die each day across the globe, about two thirds die of age-related causes. In industrialized nations, the proportion is much higher, approaching 90%. With improved medical capability, dying has become a condition to be managed. Home deaths, once commonplace, are now rare in the developed world. In developing nations, inferior sanitary conditions and lack of access to modern medical technology makes death from infectious diseases more common than in developed countries. One such disease is tuberculosis, a bacterial disease which killed 1.8M people in 2015. Malaria causes about 400–900M cases of fever and 1–3M deaths annually. AIDS death toll in Africa may reach 90–100M by 2025. According to Jean Ziegler (United Nations Special Reporter on the Right to Food, 2000 – Mar 2008), mortality due to malnutrition accounted for 58% of the total mortality rate in 2006. Ziegler says worldwide approximately 62M people died from all causes and of those deaths more than 36M died of hunger or diseases due to deficiencies in micronutrients. Tobacco smoking killed 100 million people worldwide in the 20th century and could kill 1 billion people around the world in the 21st century, a World Health Organization report warned. Many leading developed world causes of death can be postponed by diet and physical activity, but the accelerating incidence of disease with age still imposes limits on human longevity. The evolutionary cause of aging is, at best, only just beginning to be understood. It has been suggested that direct intervention in the aging process may now be the most effective intervention against major causes of death. Selye proposed a unified non-specific approach to many causes of death. He demonstrated that stress decreases adaptability of an organism and proposed to describe the adaptability as a special resource, adaptation energy. The animal dies when this resource is exhausted. Selye assumed that the adaptability is a finite supply, presented at birth. Later on, Goldstone proposed the concept of a production or income of adaptation energy which may be stored (up to a limit), as a capital reserve of adaptation. In recent works, adaptation energy is considered as an internal coordinate on the "dominant path" in the model of adaptation. It is demonstrated that oscillations of well-being appear when the reserve of adaptability is almost exhausted. In 2012, suicide overtook car crashes for leading causes of human injury deaths in the U.S., followed by poisoning, falls and murder. Causes of death are different in different parts of the world. In high-income and middle income countries nearly half up to more than two thirds of all people live beyond the age of 70 and predominantly die of chronic diseases. In low-income countries, where less than one in five of all people reach the age of 70, and more than a third of all deaths are among children under 15, people predominantly die of infectious diseases. Autopsy An autopsy, also known as a postmortem examination or an obduction, is a medical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a human corpse to determine the cause and manner of a person's death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present. It is usually performed by a specialized medical doctor called a pathologist. Autopsies are either performed for legal or medical purposes. A forensic autopsy is carried out when the cause of death may be a criminal matter, while a clinical or academic autopsy is performed to find the medical cause of death and is used in cases of unknown or uncertain death, or for research purposes. Autopsies can be further classified into cases where external examination suffices, and those where the body is dissected and an internal examination is conducted. Permission from next of kin may be required for internal autopsy in some cases. Once an internal autopsy is complete the body is generally reconstituted by sewing it back together. Autopsy is important in a medical environment and may shed light on mistakes and help improve practices. A necropsy, which is not always a medical procedure, was a term previously used to describe an unregulated postmortem examination . In modern times, this term is more commonly associated with the corpses of animals. Senescence Senescence refers to a scenario when a living being is able to survive all calamities, but eventually dies due to causes relating to old age. Animal and plant cells normally reproduce and function during the whole period of natural existence, but the aging process derives from deterioration of cellular activity and ruination of regular functioning. Aptitude of cells for gradual deterioration and mortality means that cells are naturally sentenced to stable and long-term loss of living capacities, even despite continuing metabolic reactions and viability. In the United Kingdom, for example, nine out of ten of all the deaths that occur on a daily basis relates to senescence, while around the world it accounts for two-thirds of 150,000 deaths that take place daily (Hayflick & Moody, 2003). Almost all animals who survive external hazards to their biological functioning eventually die from biological aging, known in life sciences as "senescence". Some organisms experience negligible senescence, even exhibiting biological immortality. These include the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii, the hydra, and the planarian. Unnatural causes of death include suicide and predation. From all causes, roughly 150,000 people die around the world each day. Of these, two thirds die directly or indirectly due to senescence, but in industrialized countries – such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany – the rate approaches 90% (i.e., nearly nine out of ten of all deaths are related to senescence). Physiological death is now seen as a process, more than an event: conditions once considered indicative of death are now reversible. Where in the process a dividing line is drawn between life and death depends on factors beyond the presence or absence of vital signs. In general, clinical death is neither necessary nor sufficient for a determination of legal death. A patient with working heart and lungs determined to be brain dead can be pronounced legally dead without clinical death occurring. Cryonics Cryonics (from Greek κρύος 'kryos-' meaning 'icy cold') is the low-temperature preservation of animals and humans who cannot be sustained by contemporary medicine, with the hope that healing and resuscitation may be possible in the future. Cryopreservation of people or large animals is not reversible with current technology. The stated rationale for cryonics is that people who are considered dead by current legal or medical definitions may not necessarily be dead according to the more stringent information-theoretic definition of death. Some scientific literature is claimed to support the feasibility of cryonics. Medical science and cryobiologists generally regards cryonics with skepticism. Reperfusion "One of medicine's new frontiers: treating the dead", recognizes that cells that have been without oxygen for more than five minutes die, not from lack of oxygen, but rather when their oxygen supply is resumed. Therefore, practitioners of this approach, e.g., at the Resuscitation Science institute at the University of Pennsylvania, "aim to reduce oxygen uptake, slow metabolism and adjust the blood chemistry for gradual and safe reperfusion." Life extension Life extension refers to an increase in maximum or average lifespan, especially in humans, by slowing down or reversing the processes of aging through anti-aging measures. Despite the fact that aging is by far the most common cause of death worldwide, it is socially mostly ignored as such and seen as "necessary" and "inevitable" anyway, which is why little money is spent on research into anti-aging therapies, a phenomenon known as the pro-aging trance. Average lifespan is determined by vulnerability to accidents and age or lifestyle-related afflictions such as cancer, or cardiovascular disease. Extension of average lifespan can be achieved by good diet, exercise and avoidance of hazards such as smoking. Maximum lifespan is also determined by the rate of aging for a species inherent in its genes. Currently, the only widely recognized method of extending maximum lifespan is calorie restriction. Theoretically, extension of maximum lifespan can be achieved by reducing the rate of aging damage, by periodic replacement of damaged tissues, or by molecular repair or rejuvenation of deteriorated cells and tissues. A United States poll found that religious people and irreligious people, as well as men and women and people of different economic classes have similar rates of support for life extension, while Africans and Hispanics have higher rates of support than white people. 38 percent of the polled said they would desire to have their aging process cured. Researchers of life extension are a subclass of biogerontologists known as "biomedical gerontologists". They try to understand the nature of aging and they develop treatments to reverse aging processes or to at least slow them down, for the improvement of health and the maintenance of youthful vigor at every stage of life. Those who take advantage of life extension findings and seek to apply them upon themselves are called "life extensionists" or "longevists". The primary life extension strategy currently is to apply available anti-aging methods in the hope of living long enough to benefit from a complete cure to aging once it is developed. Location Before about 1930, most people in Western countries died in their own homes, surrounded by family, and comforted by clergy, neighbors, and doctors making house calls. By the mid-20th century, half of all Americans died in a hospital. By the start of the 21st century, only about 20–25% of people in developed countries died outside of a medical institution. The shift away from dying at home towards dying in a professional medical environment has been termed the "Invisible Death". This shift occurred gradually over the years, until most deaths now occur outside the home. Psychology Death studies is a field within psychology. Many people are afraid of dying. Discussing, thinking, or planning their own deaths causes them discomfort. This fear may cause them to put off financial planning, preparing a will and testament, or requesting help from a hospice organization. Different people have different responses to the idea of their own deaths. Philosopher Galen Strawson writes that the death that many people wish for is an instant, painless, unexperienced annihilation. In this unlikely scenario, the person dies without realizing it and without being able to fear it. One moment the person is walking, eating, or sleeping, and the next moment, the person is dead. Strawson reasons that this type of death would not take anything away from the person, as he believes that a person cannot have a legitimate claim to ownership in the future. Society and culture In society, the nature of death and humanity's awareness of its own mortality has for millennia been a concern of the world's religious traditions and of philosophical inquiry. This includes belief in resurrection or an afterlife (associated with Abrahamic religions), reincarnation or rebirth (associated with Dharmic religions), or that consciousness permanently ceases to exist, known as eternal oblivion (associated with Secular humanism). Commemoration ceremonies after death may include various mourning, funeral practices and ceremonies of honouring the deceased. The physical remains of a person, commonly known as a corpse or body, are usually interred whole or cremated, though among the world's cultures there are a variety of other methods of mortuary disposal. In the English language, blessings directed towards a dead person include rest in peace (originally the Latin requiescat in pace), or its initialism RIP. Death is the center of many traditions and organizations; customs relating to death are a feature of every culture around the world. Much of this revolves around the care of the dead, as well as the afterlife and the disposal of bodies upon the onset of death. The disposal of human corpses does, in general, begin with the last offices before significant time has passed, and ritualistic ceremonies often occur, most commonly interment or cremation. This is not a unified practice; in Tibet, for instance, the body is given a sky burial and left on a mountain top. Proper preparation for death and techniques and ceremonies for producing the ability to transfer one's spiritual attainments into another body (reincarnation) are subjects of detailed study in Tibet. Mummification or embalming is also prevalent in some cultures, to retard the rate of decay. Legal aspects of death are also part of many cultures, particularly the settlement of the deceased estate and the issues of inheritance and in some countries, inheritance taxation. Capital punishment is also a culturally divisive aspect of death. In most jurisdictions where capital punishment is carried out today, the death penalty is reserved for premeditated murder, espionage, treason, or as part of military justice. In some countries, sexual crimes, such as adultery and sodomy, carry the death penalty, as do religious crimes such as apostasy, the formal renunciation of one's religion. In many retentionist countries, drug trafficking is also a capital offense. In China, human trafficking and serious cases of corruption are also punished by the death penalty. In militaries around the world courts-martial have imposed death sentences for offenses such as cowardice, desertion, insubordination, and mutiny. Death in warfare and in suicide attack also have cultural links, and the ideas of dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, mutiny punishable by death, grieving relatives of dead soldiers and death notification are embedded in many cultures. Recently in the western world, with the increase in terrorism following the September 11 attacks, but also further back in time with suicide bombings, kamikaze missions in World War II and suicide missions in a host of other conflicts in history, death for a cause by way of suicide attack, and martyrdom have had significant cultural impacts. Suicide in general, and particularly euthanasia, are also points of cultural debate. Both acts are understood very differently in different cultures. In Japan, for example, ending a life with honor by seppuku was considered a desirable death, whereas according to traditional Christian and Islamic cultures, suicide is viewed as a sin. Death is personified in many cultures, with such symbolic representations as the Grim Reaper, Azrael, the Hindu god Yama and Father Time. In Brazil, a human death is counted officially when it is registered by existing family members at a cartório, a government-authorized registry. Before being able to file for an official death, the deceased must have been registered for an official birth at the cartório. Though a Public Registry Law guarantees all Brazilian citizens the right to register deaths, regardless of their financial means, of their family members (often children), the Brazilian government has not taken away the burden, the hidden costs and fees, of filing for a death. For many impoverished families, the indirect costs and burden of filing for a death lead to a more appealing, unofficial, local, cultural burial, which in turn raises the debate about inaccurate mortality rates. Talking about death and witnessing it is a difficult issue with most cultures. Western societies may like to treat the dead with the utmost material respect, with an official embalmer and associated rites. Eastern societies (like India) may be more open to accepting it as a fait accompli, with a funeral procession of the dead body ending in an open-air burning-to-ashes of the same. Consciousness Much interest and debate surround the question of what happens to one's consciousness as one's body dies. The belief in the permanent loss of consciousness after death is often called eternal oblivion. Belief that the stream of consciousness is preserved after physical death is described by the term afterlife. Neither are likely to ever be confirmed without the ponderer having to actually die. In biology After death, the remains of a former organism become part of the biogeochemical cycle, during which animals may be consumed by a predator or a scavenger. Organic material may then be further decomposed by detritivores, organisms which recycle detritus, returning it to the environment for reuse in the food chain, where these chemicals may eventually end up being consumed and assimilated into the cells of an organism. Examples of detritivores include earthworms, woodlice and dung beetles. Microorganisms also play a vital role, raising the temperature of the decomposing matter as they break it down into yet simpler molecules. Not all materials need to be fully decomposed. Coal, a fossil fuel formed over vast tracts of time in swamp ecosystems, is one example. Natural selection Contemporary evolutionary theory sees death as an important part of the process of natural selection. It is considered that organisms less adapted to their environment are more likely to die having produced fewer offspring, thereby reducing their contribution to the gene pool. Their genes are thus eventually bred out of a population, leading at worst to extinction and, more positively, making the process possible, referred to as speciation. Frequency of reproduction plays an equally important role in determining species survival: an organism that dies young but leaves numerous offspring displays, according to Darwinian criteria, much greater fitness than a long-lived organism leaving only one. Extinction Extinction is the cessation of existence of a species or group of taxa, reducing biodiversity. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species (although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point). Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where species presumed extinct abruptly "reappear" (typically in the fossil record) after a period of apparent absence. New species arise through the process of speciation, an aspect of evolution. New varieties of organisms arise and thrive when they are able to find and exploit an ecological niche – and species become extinct when they are no longer able to survive in changing conditions or against superior competition. Evolution of aging and mortality Inquiry into the evolution of aging aims to explain why so many living things and the vast majority of animals weaken and die with age (exceptions include Hydra and the already cited jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii, which research shows to be biologically immortal). The evolutionary origin of senescence remains one of the fundamental puzzles of biology. Gerontology specializes in the science of human aging processes. Organisms showing only asexual reproduction (e.g. bacteria, some protists, like the euglenoids and many amoebozoans) and unicellular organisms with sexual reproduction (colonial or not, like the volvocine algae Pandorina and Chlamydomonas) are "immortal" at some extent, dying only due to external hazards, like being eaten or meeting with a fatal accident. In multicellular organisms (and also in multinucleate ciliates), with a Weismannist development, that is, with a division of labor between mortal somatic (body) cells and "immortal" germ (reproductive) cells, death becomes an essential part of life, at least for the somatic line. The Volvox algae are among the simplest organisms to exhibit that division of labor between two completely different cell types, and as a consequence include death of somatic line as a regular, genetically regulated part of its life history. Religious views Buddhism In Buddhist doctrine and practice, death plays an important role. Awareness of death was what motivated Prince Siddhartha to strive to find the "deathless" and finally to attain enlightenment. In Buddhist doctrine, death functions as a reminder of the value of having been born as a human being. Being reborn as a human being is considered the only state in which one can attain enlightenment. Therefore, death helps remind oneself that one should not take life for granted. The belief in rebirth among Buddhists does not necessarily remove death anxiety, since all existence in the cycle of rebirth is considered filled with suffering, and being reborn many times does not necessarily mean that one progresses. Death is part of several key Buddhist tenets, such as the Four Noble Truths and dependent origination. Christianity While there are different sects of Christianity with different branches of belief; the overarching ideology on death grows from the knowledge of afterlife. Meaning after death the individual will undergo a separation from mortality to immortality; their soul leaves the body entering a realm of spirits. Following this separation of body and spirit (i.e. death)resurrection will occur. Representing the same transformation Jesus Christ embodied after his body was placed in the tomb for three days. Like Him, each person's body will be resurrected reuniting the spirit and body in a perfect form. This process allows the individuals soul to withstand death and transform into life after death. Hinduism In Hindu texts, death is described as the individual eternal spiritual jiva-atma (soul or conscious self) exiting the current temporary material body. The soul exits this body when the body can no longer sustain the conscious self (life), which may be due to mental or physical reasons, or more accurately, the inability to act on one's kama (material desires). During conception, the soul enters a compatible new body based on the remaining merits and demerits of one's karma (good/bad material activities based on dharma) and the state of one's mind (impressions or last thoughts) at the time of death. Usually the process of reincarnation (soul's transmigration) makes one forget all memories of one's previous life. Because nothing really dies and the temporary material body is always changing, both in this life and the next, death simply means forgetfulness of one's previous experiences (previous material identity). Material existence is described as being full of miseries arising from birth, disease, old age, death, mind, weather, etc. To conquer samsara (the cycle of death and rebirth) and become eligible for one of the different types of moksha (liberation), one has to first conquer kama (material desires) and become self-realized. The human form of life is most suitable for this spiritual journey, especially with the help of sadhu (self-realized saintly persons), sastra (revealed spiritual scriptures), and guru (self-realized spiritual masters), given all three are in agreement. Islam Judaism There are a variety of beliefs about the afterlife within Judaism, but none of them contradict the preference of life over death. This is partially because death puts a cessation to the possibility of fulfilling any commandments. Language around death The word death comes from Old English dēaþ, which in turn comes from Proto-Germanic *dauþuz (reconstructed by etymological analysis). This comes from the Proto-Indo-European stem *dheu- meaning the "process, act, condition of dying". The concept and symptoms of death, and varying degrees of delicacy used in discussion in public forums, have generated numerous scientific, legal, and socially acceptable terms or euphemisms for death. When a person has died, it is also said they have passed away, passed on, expired, or are gone, among numerous other socially accepted, religiously specific, slang, and irreverent terms. As a formal reference to a dead person, it has become common practice to use the participle form of "decease", as in the deceased; another noun form is decedent. Bereft of life, the dead person is then a corpse, cadaver, a body, a set of remains, and when all flesh has rotted away, a skeleton. The terms carrion and carcass can also be used, though these more often connote the remains of non-human animals. The ashes left after a cremation are sometimes referred to by the neologism cremains. See also Casualty (person) Day of Judgment Day of the Dead Deathbed Death drive Death row Death trajectory Dying Dying declaration End-of-life care Eschatology Faked death Karōshi Last rites List of deaths by year List of expressions related to death Memento mori Near-death experience Origin-of-death myth Spiritual death Survivalism (life after death) Taboo on the dead Thanatology Yama References Bibliography Further reading Interviews with people dying in hospices, and portraits of them before, and shortly after, death. How the medical profession categorized causes of death. A biologist explains life and death in different kinds of organisms, in relation to evolution. External links "Death" (video; 10:18) by Timothy Ferris, producer of the Voyager Golden Record for NASA. 2021 Senescence

A domino effect or chain reaction is the cumulative effect produced when one event sets off a chain of similar events. This term is best known as a mechanical effect and is used as an analogy to a falling row of dominoes. It typically refers to a linked sequence of events where the time between successive events is relatively small. It can be used literally (an observed series of actual collisions) or metaphorically (causal linkages within systems such as global finance or politics). The term domino effect is used both to imply that an event is inevitable or highly likely (as it has already started to happen), and conversely to imply that an event is impossible or highly unlikely (the one domino left standing). Demonstration of the effect The domino effect can easily be visualized by placing a row of dominoes upright, each separated by a small distance. Upon pushing the first domino, the next domino in line will be knocked over, and so on, thus firing a linear chain in which each domino's fall is triggered by the domino immediately preceding it. The effect is the same regardless of the length of the chain. The energy used in this chain reaction is the potential energy of the dominoes due to them being in a meta-stable state; when the first domino is toppled, the energy transferred by the fall is greater than the energy needed to knock over the following domino, and so on. The domino effect is exploited in Rube Goldberg machines. Appearances in media Domino Day – world record attempt for the highest number of toppling domino stones. See also Domino effect accident Ripple effect Rube Goldberg machine Ablation cascade Relevant physical theory: Butterfly effect Cascading failure Causality Chain reaction Snowball effect Mathematical theory Mathematical induction Political theory Domino theory Social Chinese whispers Behavioral contagion Copycat crime References Further reading Impact Mechanics, W. J. Stronge, Cambridge University Press, 2004, , Metaphors referring to objects Causality

Events Pre-1600 63 BC – Cicero gives the fourth and final of the Catiline Orations. 633 – Fourth Council of Toledo takes place. 1082 – Ramon Berenguer II, Count of Barcelona is assassinated. 1408 – Emir Edigu of Golden Horde reaches Moscow. 1456 – The first of the two 1456 Central Italy earthquakes measuring 7.2 causes extreme destruction and kills as many as 70,000 people. 1484 – Pope Innocent VIII issues the Summis desiderantes affectibus, a papal bull that deputizes Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger as inquisitors to root out alleged witchcraft in Germany. 1496 – King Manuel I of Portugal issues a decree ordering the expulsion of Jewish "heretics" from the country. 1560 – Charles IX becomes king of France. 1578 – Sir Francis Drake, after sailing through Strait of Magellan raids Valparaiso. 1601–1900 1649 – The town of Raahe () was founded by Count Per Brahe the Younger. 1757 – Seven Years' War: Battle of Leuthen: Frederick II of Prussia leads Prussian forces to a decisive victory over Austrian forces under Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine. 1766 – In London, auctioneer James Christie holds his first sale. 1775 – At Fort Ticonderoga, Henry Knox begins his historic transport of artillery to Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1776 – Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest academic honor society in the U.S., holds its first meeting at the College of William & Mary. 1831 – Former U.S. President John Quincy Adams takes his seat in the House of Representatives. 1847 – Jefferson Davis is elected to the U.S. Senate. 1848 – California Gold Rush: In a message to the United States Congress, U.S. President James K. Polk confirms that large amounts of gold had been discovered in California. 1865 – Chincha Islands War: Peru allies with Chile against Spain. 1895 – New Haven Symphony Orchestra of Connecticut performs its first concert. 1901–present 1921 - The Football Association bans women's football in England from league grounds, a ban that stays in place for 50 years. 1931 – Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow is destroyed on orders from Joseph Stalin. 1933 – The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified. 1934 – Abyssinia Crisis: Italian troops attack Wal Wal in Abyssinia, taking four days to capture the city. 1935 – Mary McLeod Bethune founds the National Council of Negro Women in New York City. 1936 – The Soviet Union adopts a new constitution and the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic is established as a full Union Republic of the USSR. 1941 – World War II: In the Battle of Moscow, Georgy Zhukov launches a massive Soviet counter-attack against the German army. 1941 – World War II: Great Britain declares war on Finland, Hungary and Romania. 1943 – World War II: Allied air forces begin attacking Germany's secret weapons bases in Operation Crossbow. 1945 – Flight 19, a group of TBF Avengers, disappears in the Bermuda Triangle. 1952 – Beginning of the Great Smog in London. A cold fog combines with air pollution and brings the city to a standstill for four days. Later, a Ministry of Health report estimates 4,000 fatalities as a result of it. 1955 – The American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merge and form the AFL–CIO. 1955 – E. D. Nixon and Rosa Parks lead the Montgomery bus boycott. 1958 – Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) is inaugurated in the United Kingdom by Queen Elizabeth II when she speaks to the Lord Provost in a call from Bristol to Edinburgh. 1958 – The Preston By-pass, the UK's first stretch of motorway, opens to traffic for the first time. (It is now part of the M6 and M55 motorways.) 1964 – Vietnam War: For his heroism in battle earlier in the year, Captain Roger Donlon is awarded the first Medal of Honor of the war. 1964 – Lloyd J. Old discovers the first linkage between the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and disease—mouse leukemia—opening the way for the recognition of the importance of the MHC in the immune response. 1971 – Battle of Gazipur: Pakistani forces stand defeated as India cedes Gazipur to Bangladesh. 1977 – Egypt breaks diplomatic relations with Syria, Libya, Algeria, Iraq and South Yemen. The move is in retaliation for the Declaration of Tripoli against Egypt. 1983 – Dissolution of the Military Junta in Argentina. 1991 – Leonid Kravchuk is elected the first president of Ukraine. 1995 – Sri Lankan Civil War: Sri Lanka's government announces the conquest of the Tamil stronghold of Jaffna. 1995 – Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 56 crashes near Nakhchivan International Airport in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic located in Azerbaijan, killing 52 people. 2004 – The Civil Partnership Act comes into effect in the United Kingdom, and the first civil partnership is registered there. 2005 – The 6.8 Lake Tanganyika earthquake shakes the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), killing six people. 2006 – Commodore Frank Bainimarama overthrows the government in Fiji. 2007 – Westroads Mall shooting: Nineteen-year-old Robert A. Hawkins kills nine people, including himself, with a WASR-10 at a Von Maur department store in Omaha, Nebraska. 2013 – Militants attack a Defense Ministry compound in Sana'a, Yemen, killing at least 56 people and injuring 200 others. 2014 – Exploration Flight Test 1, the first flight test of Orion, is launched. 2017 – The International Olympic Committee bans Russia from competing at the 2018 Winter Olympics for doping at the 2014 Winter Olympics. Births Pre-1600 852 – Zhu Wen, Chinese emperor (d. 912) 1377 – Jianwen Emperor of China (d. 1402) 1389 – Zbigniew Oleśnicki, Polish cardinal and statesman (d. 1455) 1443 – Pope Julius II (d. 1513) 1470 – Willibald Pirckheimer, German lawyer and author (d. 1530) 1495 – Nicolas Cleynaerts, Flemish philologist and lexicographer (d. 1542) 1537 – Ashikaga Yoshiaki, Japanese shōgun (d. 1597) 1539 – Fausto Sozzini, Italian theologian and author (d. 1604) 1547 – Ubbo Emmius, Dutch historian and geographer (d. 1625) 1556 – Anne Cecil, Countess of Oxford, English countess (d. 1588) 1596 – Henry Lawes, English composer (d. 1662) 1601–1900 1661 – Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, English lawyer and politician, Secretary of State for the Northern Department (d. 1724) 1666 – Francesco Scarlatti, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1741) 1687 – Francesco Geminiani, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1762) 1697 – Giuseppe de Majo, Italian organist and composer (d. 1771) 1782 – Martin Van Buren, American lawyer and politician, 8th President of the United States (d. 1862) 1784 – George Shepherd, English illustrator and painter (d. 1862) 1803 – Fyodor Tyutchev, Russian poet and diplomat (d. 1873) 1820 – Afanasy Fet, Russian poet and author (d. 1892) 1822 – Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz, American philosopher and academic, co-founded Radcliffe College (d. 1907) 1829 – Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière, French-Canadian lawyer and politician, 4th Premier of Quebec (d. 1908) 1830 – Christina Rossetti, English poet and author (d. 1894) 1839 – George Armstrong Custer, American general (d. 1876) 1841 – Marcus Daly, Irish-American businessman (d. 1900) 1849 – Eduard Seler, German anthropologist, ethnohistorian, linguist, and academic (d. 1922) 1855 – Clinton Hart Merriam, American zoologist, ornithologist, entomologist, and ethnographer (d. 1942) 1859 – John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, English admiral and politician, 2nd Governor-General of New Zealand (d. 1935) 1861 – Konstantin Korovin, Russian-French painter and set designer (d. 1939) 1862 – John Henry Leech, English entomologist (d. 1900) 1863 – Paul Painlevé, French mathematician and politician, 84th Prime Minister of France (d. 1933) 1866 – John Beresford, Irish polo player (d. 1944) 1866 – Traian Demetrescu, Romanian poet and author (d. 1896) 1867 – Antti Aarne, Finnish author and academic (d. 1925) 1867 – Józef Piłsudski, Polish field marshal and politician, 15th Prime Minister of Poland (d. 1935) 1868 – Arnold Sommerfeld, German physicist and academic (d. 1951) 1869 – Ellis Parker Butler, American author and poet (d. 1937) 1870 – Vítězslav Novák, Czech composer and educator (d. 1949) 1872 – Harry Nelson Pillsbury, American chess player (d. 1906) 1875 – Arthur Currie, Canadian general (d. 1933) 1879 – Clyde Vernon Cessna, American pilot and businessman, founded the Cessna Aircraft Corporation (d. 1954) 1881 – René Cresté, French actor and director (d. 1922) 1886 – Rose Wilder Lane, American journalist and author (d. 1968) 1886 – Pieter Oud, Dutch historian, academic, and politician, Minister of Finance of the Netherlands (d. 1968) 1886 – Nikolai Uglanov, Soviet politician (d. 1937) 1890 – David Bomberg, English painter, illustrator, and academic (d. 1957) 1890 – Fritz Lang, Austrian-American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1976) 1891 – Paul Kogerman, Estonian chemist and academic (d. 1951) 1894 – Charles Robberts Swart, South African lawyer and politician, 1st State President of South Africa (d. 1982) 1895 – Elbert Frank Cox, American mathematician and academic (d. 1969) 1896 – Ann Nolan Clark, American historian, author, and educator (d. 1995) 1896 – Carl Ferdinand Cori, Czech-American biochemist and pharmacologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1984) 1897 – Nunnally Johnson, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1977) 1897 – Gershom Scholem, German-Israeli philosopher and historian (d. 1982) 1898 – Josh Malihabadi, Indian-Pakistani poet and translator (d. 1982) 1898 – Grace Moore, American soprano and actress (d. 1947) 1900 – Jimmy Dimmock, English footballer (d. 1972) 1901–present 1901 – Walt Disney, American animator, director, producer, and screenwriter, co-founded The Walt Disney Company (d. 1966) 1901 – Milton H. Erickson, American psychiatrist and author (d. 1980) 1901 – Werner Heisenberg, German physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1976) 1902 – Emeric Pressburger, Hungarian-English director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1988) 1902 – Strom Thurmond, American educator, general, and politician, 103rd Governor of South Carolina (d. 2003) 1903 – Johannes Heesters, Dutch-German actor and singer (d. 2011) 1903 – C. F. Powell, English-Italian physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1969) 1905 – Gus Mancuso, American baseball player, coach, and sportscaster (d. 1984) 1905 – Otto Preminger, Austrian-American actor, director, and producer (d. 1986) 1905 – Francisco Javier Arana, Guatemalan Army colonel and briefly Guatemalan head of state (d.1949) 1907 – Lin Biao, Chinese general and politician, 2nd Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China (d. 1971) 1907 – Giuseppe Occhialini, Italian-French physicist and academic (d. 1993) 1910 – Abraham Polonsky, American director and screenwriter (d. 1999) 1911 – Władysław Szpilman, Polish pianist and composer (d. 2000) 1912 – Sonny Boy Williamson II, American singer-songwriter and harmonica player (d. 1965) 1912 – Kate Simon, American travel writer (d. 1990) 1913 – Esther Borja, Cuban soprano and actress (d. 2013) 1914 – Hans Hellmut Kirst, German lieutenant and author (d. 1989) 1916 – Hilary Koprowski, Polish-American virologist and immunologist, created the world's first effective live polio vaccine (d. 2013) 1916 – Walt McPherson, American basketball player and coach (d. 2013) 1917 – Ken Downing, English race car driver (d. 2004) 1918 – Charity Adams Earley, Black American Army officer (d. 2002) 1919 – Alun Gwynne Jones, Baron Chalfont, English historian and politician (d. 2020) 1921 – Alvy Moore, American actor and producer (d. 1997) 1922 – Casey Ribicoff, American philanthropist (d. 2011) 1922 – Don Robertson, American songwriter and pianist (d. 2015) 1924 – Robert Sobukwe, South African banker and politician (d. 1978) 1925 – Anastasio Somoza Debayle, Nicaraguan politician, 73rd President of Nicaragua (d. 1980) 1926 – Adetowun Ogunsheye, first female Nigerian professor and university dean 1927 – Bhumibol Adulyadej, Thai king (d. 2016) 1927 – W.D. Amaradeva, Sri Lankan musician and composer (d. 2016) 1929 – Madis Kõiv, Estonian physicist, philosopher, and author (d. 2014) 1930 – Yi-Fu Tuan, Chinese-American geographer 1931 – Ladislav Novák, Czech footballer and manager (d. 2011) 1932 – Alf Dubs, Baron Dubs, British politician 1932 – Sheldon Glashow, American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate 1932 – Jim Hurtubise, American race car driver (d. 1989) 1932 – Little Richard, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and actor (d. 2020) 1932 – Nadira, Indian actress (d. 2006) 1933 – Gennadiy Agapov, Russian race walker (d. 1999) 1933 – Harry Holgate, Australian politician, 36th Premier of Tasmania (d. 1997) 1934 – Joan Didion, American novelist and screenwriter (d. 2021) 1935 – Calvin Trillin, American novelist, humorist, and journalist 1935 – Yury Vlasov, Ukrainian-Russian weightlifter and politician (d. 2021) 1936 – James Lee Burke, American journalist, author, and academic 1938 – J. J. Cale, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2013) 1940 – Tony Crafter, Australian cricket umpire 1940 – Boris Ignatyev, Russian footballer and manager 1940 – Peter Pohl, Swedish author, director, and screenwriter 1940 – Frank Wilson, American singer-songwriter and producer (d. 2012) 1942 – Bryan Murray, Canadian ice hockey coach (d. 2017) 1943 – Eva Joly, Norwegian-French judge and politician 1943 – Andrew Yeom Soo-jung, South Korean cardinal 1944 – Jeroen Krabbé, Dutch actor, director, and producer 1945 – Serge Chapleau, Canadian cartoonist 1945 – Moshe Katsav, Iranian-Israeli educator and politician, 8th President of Israel 1946 – José Carreras, Spanish tenor and actor 1946 – Andy Kim, Canadian pop singer-songwriter 1946 – Sarel van der Merwe, South African race car driver 1947 – Rudy Fernandez, Filipino triathlete 1947 – Bruce Golding, Jamaican lawyer and politician, 8th Prime Minister of Jamaica 1947 – Tony Gregory, Irish activist and politician (d. 2009) 1947 – Jim Messina, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer 1947 – Jim Plunkett, American football player and radio host 1947 – Kim Simmonds, Welsh blues-rock singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer 1947 – Don Touhig, Welsh journalist and politician 1948 – Denise Drysdale, Australian television host and actress 1949 – John Altman, English composer and conductor 1949 – David Manning, English civil servant and diplomat, British Ambassador to the United States 1951 – Link Byfield, Canadian journalist and author (d. 2015) 1951 – Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven, Belgian painter and illustrator 1952 – Eva Dillner, Swedish author 1953 – Gwen Lister, South African-Namibian journalist, publisher, and activist 1954 – Hanif Kureishi, English author and playwright 1954 – Gary Roenicke, American baseball player and scout 1955 – Miyuki Kawanaka, Japanese singer 1955 – Juha Tiainen, Finnish hammer thrower (d. 2003) 1956 – Klaus Allofs, German footballer and manager 1956 – Adam Thorpe, French-English author, poet, and playwright 1956 – Krystian Zimerman, Polish virtuoso pianist 1957 – Raquel Argandoña, Chilean model, actress, and politician 1958 – Dynamite Kid, English wrestler (d. 2018) 1959 – Lee Chapman, English footballer 1959 – Oleksandr Yaroslavsky, Ukrainian businessman 1960 – Frans Adelaar, Dutch footballer and manager 1960 – Osvaldo Golijov, Argentinian-American composer and educator 1960 – Jack Russell, American singer-songwriter and producer 1960 – Matthew Taylor, English businessman and politician 1961 – Ralf Dujmovits, German mountaineer 1961 – Laura Flanders, British journalist 1962 – José Cura, Argentinian tenor, conductor, and director 1962 – Pablo Morales, American swimmer and coach 1962 – Nivek Ogre, Canadian singer-songwriter 1962 – Fred Rutten, Dutch footballer and manager 1963 – Doctor Dré, American television and radio host 1963 – Carrie Hamilton, American actress and playwright (d. 2002) 1963 – Alberto Nisman, Argentinian lawyer (d. 2015) 1963 – Michael “Eddie the Eagle” Edwards, British Olympic ski jumper 1964 – Martin Vinnicombe, Australian cyclist 1965 – Manish Malhotra, Indian fashion designer 1965 – John Rzeznik, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer 1965 – Wayne Smith, Jamaican rapper (d. 2014) 1965 – Valeriy Spitsyn, Russian race walker 1967 – Gary Allan, American singer-songwriter and guitarist 1968 – Margaret Cho, American comedian, actress, producer, and screenwriter 1968 – Lisa Marie, American model and actress 1968 – Lydia Millet, American novelist 1968 – Falilat Ogunkoya, Nigerian sprinter 1969 – Eric Etebari, American actor, director, and producer 1969 – Morgan J. Freeman, American director, producer, and screenwriter 1969 – Sajid Javid, British Pakistani banker and politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer 1969 – Lewis Pugh, English swimmer and lawyer 1969 – Ramón Ramírez, Mexican footballer 1970 – Kevin Haller, Canadian ice hockey player 1970 – Michel'le, American singer-songwriter 1971 – Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, German businessman and politician, German Federal Minister of Defence 1971 – Ashia Hansen, American-English triple jumper 1971 – Gabriel Hjertstedt, Swedish golfer 1972 – Cliff Floyd, American baseball player and sportscaster 1972 – Mike Mahoney, American baseball player 1972 – Duane Ross, American hurdler and coach 1973 – Argo Arbeiter, Estonian footballer 1973 – Arik Benado, Israeli footballer 1973 – Andrei Krasnopjorov, Estonian footballer 1973 – Mikelangelo Loconte, Italian singer-songwriter, producer, and actor 1973 – Luboš Motl, Czech physicist and academic 1973 – Shalom Harlow, Canadian model 1974 – Charlie Batch, American football player and sportscaster 1974 – Ravish Kumar, Indian journalist and author 1974 – Brian Lewis, American sprinter 1975 – Ronnie O'Sullivan, English snooker player and radio host 1975 – Paula Patton, American actress 1976 – Amy Acker, American actress 1976 – Xavier Garbajosa, French rugby player 1976 – Sachiko Kokubu, Japanese actress and model 1976 – Rachel Komisarz, American swimmer and coach 1977 – Peter van der Vlag, Dutch footballer 1978 – Neil Druckmann, American video game designer and author 1978 – Olli Jokinen, Finnish ice hockey player 1978 – Marcelo Zalayeta, Uruguayan footballer 1979 – Matteo Ferrari, Italian footballer 1979 – Niklas Hagman, Finnish ice hockey player 1979 – Gareth McAuley, Northern Irish footballer 1979 – Nick Stahl, American actor and producer 1980 – Ibrahim Maalouf, Lebanese-French trumpet player and composer 1980 – Jessica Paré, Canadian actress 1982 – Eddy Curry, American basketball player 1982 – Trai Essex, American football player 1982 – Keri Hilson, American singer-songwriter and actress 1983 – Cooper Cronk, Australian rugby league player 1985 – Shikhar Dhawan, Indian cricketer 1985 – Frankie Muniz, American actor, drummer, and race car driver 1985 – Nico Verdonck, Belgian race car driver 1985 – Danny Wicks, Australian rugby league player 1986 – LeGarrette Blount, American football player 1986 – James Hinchcliffe, Canadian race car driver 1986 – Justin Smoak, American baseball player 1987 – Tommy Fraser, English footballer 1988 – Joanna Rowsell, English cyclist 1989 – Jurrell Casey, American football player 1990 – Montee Ball, American football player 1991 – Jacopo Sala, Italian footballer 1992 – Ilja Antonov, Estonian footballer 1992 – Natalie Sourisseau, Canadian field hockey player 1993 – Ross Barkley, English footballer 1994 – Ondrej Duda, Slovak footballer 1994 – Grant Ward, English footballer 1995 – Danny Levi, New Zealand rugby league player 1995 – Anthony Martial, French footballer 1995 – Kaetlyn Osmond, Canadian figure skater 1997 – Maddie Poppe, American singer-songwriter and musician Deaths Pre-1600 63 BC – Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura, Roman politician (b. 114 BC) 334 – Li Ban, emperor of Cheng Han (b. 288) 902 – Ealhswith, queen consort and wife of Alfred the Great, King of Wessex 1082 – Ramon Berenguer II, Count of Barcelona (b. 1053) 1212 – Dirk van Are, bishop and lord of Utrecht 1244 – Joan, Countess of Flanders and Hainault(b. 1199 or 1200) 1355 – John III, Duke of Brabant (b. 1300) 1560 – Francis II of France (b. 1544) 1570 – Johan Friis, Danish politician (b. 1494) 1601–1900 1624 – Gaspard Bauhin, Swiss botanist and physician (b. 1560) 1654 – Jean François Sarrazin, French author and poet (b. 1611) 1663 – Severo Bonini, Italian organist and composer (b. 1582) 1749 – Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye, Canadian commander and explorer (b. 1685) 1758 – Johann Friedrich Fasch, German violinist and composer (b. 1688) 1770 – James Stirling, Scottish mathematician and surveyor (b. 1692) 1784 – Phillis Wheatley, Senegal-born slave, later American poet (b. 1753) 1791 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Austrian composer and musician (b. 1756) 1819 – Friedrich Leopold zu Stolberg-Stolberg, German poet and lawyer (b. 1750) 1870 – Alexandre Dumas, French novelist and playwright (b. 1802) 1887 – Eliza R. Snow, American poet and songwriter (b. 1804) 1891 – Pedro II of Brazil (b. 1825) 1901–present 1918 – Schalk Willem Burger, South African commander, lawyer, and politician, 6th President of the South African Republic (b. 1852) 1925 – Władysław Reymont, Polish novelist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1867) 1926 – Claude Monet, French painter (b. 1840) 1931 – Vachel Lindsay, American poet (b. 1879) 1940 – Jan Kubelík, Czech violinist and composer (b. 1880) 1941 – Amrita Sher-Gil, Hungarian-Pakistani painter (b. 1913) 1942 – Jock Delves Broughton, English captain (b. 1883) 1946 – Louis Dewis, Belgian-French painter and educator (b. 1872) 1951 – Shoeless Joe Jackson, American baseball player and manager (b. 1887) 1951 – Abanindranath Tagore, Indian painter, author, and academic (b. 1871) 1953 – William Sterling Parsons, American admiral (b. 1901) 1955 – Glenn L. Martin, American pilot and businessman, founded the Glenn L. Martin Company (b. 1886) 1961 – Emil Fuchs, German-American lawyer and businessman (b. 1878) 1963 – Karl Amadeus Hartmann, German composer and educator (b. 1905) 1963 – Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, Indian-Pakistani lawyer and politician, 5th Prime Minister of Pakistan (b. 1892) 1964 – V. Veerasingam, Sri Lankan educator and politician (b. 1892) 1965 – Joseph Erlanger, American physiologist, neuroscientist, and academic Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1874) 1968 – Fred Clark, American actor (b. 1914) 1969 – Claude Dornier, German engineer and businessman, founded Dornier Flugzeugwerke (b. 1884) 1969 – Princess Alice of Battenberg (b. 1885) 1973 – Robert Watson-Watt, Scottish engineer, invented the radar (b. 1892) 1975 – Constance McLaughlin Green, American historian and author (b. 1897) 1977 – Katherine Milhous, American author and illustrator (b. 1894) 1977 – Aleksandr Vasilevsky, Russian marshal and politician, Minister of Defence for the Soviet Union (b. 1895) 1979 – Jesse Pearson, American actor, singer, and screenwriter (b. 1930) 1983 – Robert Aldrich, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1918) 1984 – Cecil M. Harden, American politician (b. 1894) 1986 – Edward Youde, Welsh-Chinese sinologist and diplomat, 26th Governor of Hong Kong (b. 1924) 1989 – John Pritchard, English conductor and director (b. 1921) 1990 – Alfonso A. Ossorio, Filipino-American painter and sculptor (b. 1916) 1994 – Harry Horner, Czech-American director, producer, and production designer (b. 1910) 1995 – L. B. Cole, American illustrator and publisher (b. 1918) 1995 – Charles Evans, English mountaineer, surgeon, and educator (b. 1918) 1995 – Gwen Harwood, Australian poet and playwright (b. 1920) 1995 – Clair Cameron Patterson, American scientist (b. 1922) 1997 – Eugen Cicero, Romanian-German jazz pianist (b. 1940) 1998 – Albert Gore, Sr., American lawyer and politician (b. 1907) 2001 – Franco Rasetti, Italian-American physicist and academic (b. 1901) 2002 – Roone Arledge, American sportscaster and producer (b. 1931) 2002 – Ne Win, Burmese general and politician, 4th President of Burma (b. 1911) 2005 – Edward L. Masry, American lawyer and politician (b. 1932) 2006 – David Bronstein, Ukrainian-Belarusian chess player and theoretician (b. 1924) 2007 – Andrew Imbrie, American composer and academic (b. 1921) 2007 – George Paraskevaides, Greek-Cypriot businessman and philanthropist, co-founded Joannou & Paraskevaides (b. 1916) 2007 – Karlheinz Stockhausen, German composer and academic (b. 1928) 2008 – Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow (b. 1929) 2008 – George Brecht, American chemist and composer (b. 1926) 2008 – Nina Foch, Dutch-American actress (b. 1924) 2008 – Beverly Garland, American actress and businesswoman (b. 1926) 2008 – Anca Parghel, Romanian singer-songwriter and pianist (b. 1957) 2009 – William Lederer, American soldier and author (b. 1912) 2010 – Alan Armer, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1922) 2010 – Don Meredith, American football player, sportscaster, and actor (b. 1938) 2011 – Peter Gethin, English race car driver (b. 1940) 2011 – Gennady Logofet, Russian footballer and manager (b. 1942) 2012 – Dave Brubeck, American pianist and composer (b. 1920) 2012 – Elisabeth Murdoch, Australian philanthropist (b. 1909) 2012 – Oscar Niemeyer, Brazilian architect, designed the United Nations Headquarters and Cathedral of Brasília (b. 1907) 2012 – Ignatius IV of Antioch, Syrian patriarch (b. 1920) 2013 – Fred Bassetti, American architect and academic, founded Bassetti Architects (b. 1917) 2013 – William B. Edmondson, American lawyer and diplomat, United States Ambassador to South Africa (b. 1927) 2013 – Nelson Mandela, South African lawyer and politician, 1st President of South Africa, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1918) 2014 – Ernest C. Brace, American captain and pilot (b. 1931) 2014 – Fabiola, Queen of Belgium (b. 1928) 2014 – Talât Sait Halman, Turkish poet, translator, and historian (b. 1931) 2014 – Jackie Healy-Rae, Irish hurdler and politician (b. 1931) 2014 – Silvio Zavala, Mexican historian and author (b. 1909) 2015 – Vic Eliason, American clergyman and radio host, founded VCY America (b. 1936) 2015 – Tibor Rubin, Hungarian-American soldier, Medal of Honor recipient (b. 1929) 2015 – Chuck Williams, American businessman and author, founded Williams Sonoma (b. 1915) 2016 – Jayalalithaa, Indian politician, chief minister of Tamil Nadu (b. 1948) 2016 – Tyruss Himes ("Big Syke"), American rapper (b. 1968) 2017 – Michael I of Romania, fifth and last king of Romania (b. 1921) 2017 – August Ames, Canadian American pornographic actress (b. 1994) 2018 – Dynamite Kid, English wrestler (b. 1958) 2019 – Robert Walker, American actor (b. 1940) 2020 – Peter Alliss, English professional golfer (b. 1931) 2021 – Bob Dole, American politician (b. 1923) Holidays and observances Christian feast day: Abercius Clement of Alexandria (Episcopal Church) Crispina Dalmatius of Pavia Gerbold Justinian of Ramsey Island Nicetius (Nizier) Pelinus of Brindisi Sabbas the Sanctified December 5 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Children's Day (Suriname) Day of Military Honour - Battle of Moscow (Russia) Discovery Day (Haiti and Dominican Republic) International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development Klozum (Schiermonnikoog, Netherlands) Saint Nicholas' Eve (Belgium, Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Hungary, Romania, Germany, Poland and the UK) Krampusnacht (Austria) The King Bhumibol Adulyadej Memorial Birthday (Thailand) World Soil Day References External links BBC: On This Day Historical Events on December 5 Today in Canadian History Days of the year December

In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a drink". In this example, the dative marks what would be considered the indirect object of a verb in English. Sometimes the dative has functions unrelated to giving. In Scottish Gaelic and Irish, the term dative case is used in traditional grammars to refer to the prepositional case-marking of nouns following simple prepositions and the definite article. In Georgian and Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu), the dative case can also mark the subject of a sentence. This is called the dative construction. In Hindi, the dative construction is not limited to only certain verbs or tenses and it can be used with any verb in any tense or mood. The dative was common among early Indo-European languages and has survived to the present in the Balto-Slavic branch and the Germanic branch, among others. It also exists in similar forms in several non-Indo-European languages, such as the Uralic family of languages. In some languages, the dative case has assimilated the functions of other, now extinct cases. In Ancient Greek, the dative has the functions of the Proto-Indo-European locative and instrumental as well as those of the original dative. Under the influence of English, which uses the preposition "to" for (among other uses) both indirect objects (give to) and directions of movement (go to), the term "dative" has sometimes been used to describe cases that in other languages would more appropriately be called lative. Etymology "Dative" comes from Latin cāsus datīvus ("case for giving"), a translation of Greek δοτικὴ πτῶσις, dotikē ptôsis ("inflection for giving"). Dionysius Thrax in his Art of Grammar also refers to it as epistaltikḗ "for sending (a letter)", from the verb epistéllō "send to", a word from the same root as epistle. English The Old English language had a dative case; however, the English case system gradually fell into disuse during the Middle English period, when the accusative and dative of pronouns merged into a single oblique case that was also used with all prepositions. This conflation of case in Middle and Modern English has led most modern grammarians to discard the "accusative" and "dative" labels as obsolete in reference to English, often using the term "objective" for oblique. Set expressions The dative case is rare in modern English usage, but it can be argued that it survives in a few set expressions. One example is the word "methinks", with the meaning "it seems to me". It survives in this fixed form from Old English (having undergone, however, phonetic changes with the rest of the language), in which it was constructed as "[it]" + "me" (the dative case of the personal pronoun) + "thinks" (i.e., "seems", < Old English þyncan, "to seem", a verb closely related to the verb þencan, "to think", but distinct from it in Old English; later it merged with "think" and lost this meaning). Relic pronouns The modern objective case pronoun whom is derived from the dative case in Old English, specifically the Old English dative pronoun "hwām" (as opposed to the modern subjective "who", which descends from Old English "hwā") – though "whom" also absorbed the functions of the Old English accusative pronoun "hwone". It is also cognate to the word "wem" (the dative form of "wer") in German. The OED defines all classical uses of the word "whom" in situations where the indirect object is not known – in effect, indicating the anonymity of the indirect object. Likewise, some of the object forms of personal pronouns are remnants of Old English datives. For example, "him" goes back to the Old English dative him (accusative was hine), and "her" goes back to the dative hire (accusative was hīe). These pronouns are not pure datives in modern English; they are also used for functions previously indicated by the accusative. Modern English The indirect object of the verb may be placed between the verb and the direct object of the verb: "he gave me a book" or "he wrote me a poem." The indirect object may also be expressed using a prepositional phrase using "to" or "for": "he gave a book to me " or "he wrote a poem for me." German In general, the dative (German: Dativ) is used to mark the indirect object of a German sentence. For example: Ich schickte dem Mann(e) das Buch. (literally: I sent "to the man" the book.) – Masculine Ich gab der Frau den Stift zurück. (literally: I gave "to the woman" the pencil back.) – Feminine Ich überreiche dem Kind(e) ein Geschenk. (literally: I hand "to the child" a present.) – Neuter In English, the first sentence can be rendered as "I sent the book to the man" and as "I sent the man the book", where the indirect object is identified in English by standing in front of the direct object. The normal word order in German is to put the dative in front of the accusative (as in the example above). However, since the German dative is marked in form, it can also be put after the accusative: Ich schickte das Buch dem Mann(e). The (e) after Mann and Kind signifies a now largely archaic -e ending for certain nouns in the dative. It survives today almost exclusively in set phrases such as zu Hause (at home, lit. to house), im Zuge (in the course of), and am Tage (during the day, lit. at the day), as well as in occasional usage in formal prose, poetry, and song lyrics. Some masculine nouns (and one neuter noun, Herz [heart]), referred to as weak nouns or n-nouns, take an -n or -en in the dative singular and plural. Many are masculine nouns ending in -e in the nominative (such as Name [name], Beamte [officer], and Junge [boy]), although not all such nouns follow this rule. Many also, whether or not they fall into the former category, refer to people, animals, professions, or titles; exceptions to this include the aforementioned Herz and Name, as well as Buchstabe (letter), Friede (peace), Obelisk (obelisk), Planet (planet), and others. Certain German prepositions require the dative: aus (from), außer (out of), bei (at, near), entgegen (against), gegenüber (opposite), mit (with), nach (after, to), seit (since), von (from), and zu (at, in, to). Some other prepositions (an [at], auf [on], entlang [along], hinter [behind], in [in, into], neben (beside, next to), über [over, across], unter [under, below], vor [in front of], and zwischen [among, between]) may be used with dative (indicating current location), or accusative (indicating direction toward something). Das Buch liegt auf dem Tisch(e) (dative: The book is lying on the table), but Ich lege das Buch auf den Tisch (accusative: I put the book onto the table). In addition the four prepositions [an]statt (in place of), trotz (in spite of), während (during), and wegen (because of) which require the genitive in modern formal language, are most commonly used with the dative in colloquial German. For example, "because of the weather" is expressed as wegen dem Wetter instead of the formally correct wegen des Wetters. Other prepositions requiring the genitive in formal language, are combined with von ("of") in colloquial style, e.g. außerhalb vom Garten instead of außerhalb des Gartens ("outside the garden"). Note that the concept of an indirect object may be rendered by a prepositional phrase. In this case, the noun's or pronoun's case is determined by the preposition, NOT by its function in the sentence. Consider this sentence: Ich sandte das Buch zum Verleger. 'I sent the book to the editor.' Here, the subject, Ich, is in the nominative case, the direct object, das Buch, is in the accusative case, and zum Verleger is in the dative case, since zu always requires the dative (zum is a contraction of zu + dem). However: Ich habe das Buch an meinen Freund (accusative) weitergegeben. 'I forwarded the book to my friend.' (weitergeben = lit.: to give further). In this sentence, Freund is the indirect object, but, because it follows an (direction), the accusative is required, not the dative. All of the articles change in the dative case. Some German verbs require the dative for their direct objects. Common examples are antworten (to answer), danken (to thank), gefallen (to please), folgen (to follow), glauben (to believe), helfen (to help), and raten (to advise). In each case, the direct object of the verb is rendered in the dative. For example: Meine Freunde helfen mir. (My friends help me.) These verbs cannot be used in normal passive constructions, because German allows these only for verbs with accusative objects. It is therefore ungrammatical to say: *Ich werde geholfen. "I am helped." Instead a special construction called "impersonal passive" must be used: Mir wird geholfen, literally: "To me is helped." A colloquial (non-standard) way to form the passive voice for dative verbs is the following: Ich kriege geholfen, or: Ich bekomme geholfen, literally: "I get helped". The use of the verb "to get" here reminds us that the dative case has something to do with giving and receiving. In German, help is not something you perform on somebody, but rather something you offer them. The dative case is also used with reflexive (sich) verbs when specifying what part of the self the verb is being done to: Ich wasche mich. – accusative (I wash myself.) Ich wasche mir die Hände. – dative (I wash my hands, literally "I wash for myself the hands") Cf. the respective accord in French: "Les enfants se sont lavés" (the children have washed themselves) vs. "Les enfants se sont lavé" [uninflected] "les mains" (... their hands). German can use two datives to make sentences like: Sei mir meinem Sohn(e) gnädig! "For my sake, have mercy on my son!" Literally: "Be for me to my son merciful." The first dative mir ("for me") expresses the speaker's commiseration (much like the dativus ethicus in Latin, see below). The second dative meinem Sohn(e) ("to my son") names the actual object of the plea. Mercy is to be given to the son for or on behalf of his mother/father. Adjective endings also change in the dative case. There are three inflection possibilities depending on what precedes the adjective. They most commonly use weak inflection when preceded by a definite article (the), mixed inflection after an indefinite article (a/an), and strong inflection when a quantity is indicated (many green apples). Latin There are several uses for the dative case (): (dative of purpose), e.g. – "[we learn] not for school, but for life", – "to call for help", – "I'm coming for help", – "I receive [this] as a gift" or – "[this] is for the girl's decoration", or "... for decoration for the girl" (as could be either dative or genitive) , which means action for (or against) somebody, e.g., – "to till fields for Greeks"; Combination of and (double dative): "to you for joy" (possessive dative) which means possession, e.g. – literally "to (or for) the angels are wings", this is typically found with a copula and translated as "angels have wings". (ethic dative) indicates that the person in the dative is or should be especially concerned about the action, e.g. "What is Celsus doing for me?" (expressing the speaker being especially interested in what Celsus is doing for him or her); or "Whose interest does this serve?" (literally "To whom does this do good?") , meaning; 'in the eyes of', e.g., 'he seems to me to be a good man'. The dative expresses agency with the gerundive when the gerundive is used to convey obligation or necessity, e.g., , 'these things must be done by us.' Greek Ancient In addition to its main function as the dativus, the dative case has other functions in Classical Greek: (The chart below uses the Latin names for the types of dative; the Greek name for the dative is δοτική πτῶσις, like its Latin equivalent, derived from the verb "to give"; in Ancient Greek, δίδωμι.) Dativus finalis: The dativus finalis, or the 'dative of purpose', is when the dative is used to denote the purpose of a certain action. For example: "" "I fight for the king". "" "I die for honour". Dativus commŏdi (incommodi): The dativus commodi sive incommodi, or the 'dative of benefit (or harm)' is the dative that expresses the advantage or disadvantage of something for someone. For example: For the benefit of: "" (Sophocles, Ajax 1366). "Every man toils for himself". For the harm or disadvantage of: "" (Thucydides 2.12.4). "This day will be the beginning of great sorrows for the Greeks (i.e., for their disadvantage)". Dativus possessivus: The dativus possessivus, or the 'dative of possession' is the dative used to denote the possessor of a certain object or objects. For example: "" (Thucycdides 1.86.3). "For others have a lot of money and ships and horses, but we have good allies (i.e., To others there is a lot of money...)". Dativus ethicus: The dativus ethicus, or the 'ethic or polite dative,' is when the dative is used to signify that the person or thing spoken of is regarded with interest by someone. This dative is mostly, if not exclusively, used in pronouns. As such, it is also called the "dative of pronouns." For example: "" (Demosthenes 18.178). "Pay close attention to this, I beg you (i.e., please pay..)". "" (Xenophon, Cyropaedia 18.178). "Oh, mother, how handsome grandpa is (I've just realized!)". Dativus auctoris: The dativus auctoris, or the 'dative of agent,' is the dative used to denote the doer of an action. Note, however, that in Classical Greek, the agent is usually in the genitive after (by, at the hands of). The agent is in the dative most often with the perfect and pluperfect passive, and with the verbal adjective in . For example: "" (Isocrates 8.39) "Many cures have been discovered by doctors." Dativus instrumenti: The dativus instrumenti, or the 'dative of instrument,' is when the dative is used to denote an instrument or means of a certain action (or, more accurately, as the instrumental case). For example: "." (Homer, Odyssey 9.407) "He kills me with a bait (i.e., by means of a bait)." Dativus modi: The dativus modi, or the 'dative of manner,' is the dative used to describe the manner or way by which something happened. For example: "" (Thucydides 8.84) "having died of (from) a disease." Dativus mensurae: The dativus mensurae, or the 'dative of measurement,' is the dative used to denote the measurement of difference. For example: "" (Plato, Phaedo 101a) "taller by a head." "" (Plato, Laws 729d) "by far the best." The articles in the Greek dative are Modern The dative case, strictly speaking, no longer exists in Modern Greek, except in fossilized expressions like δόξα τω Θεώ (from the ecclesiastical τῷ Θεῷ δόξα, "Glory to God") or εν τάξει (ἐν τάξει, lit. "in order", i.e. "all right" or "OK"). Otherwise, most of the functions of the dative have been subsumed in the accusative. Slavic languages In Russian, the dative case is used for indicating the indirect object of an action (that to which something is given, thrown, read, etc.). In the instance where a person is the goal of motion, dative is used instead of accusative to indicate motion toward. This is usually achieved with the preposition κ + destination in dative case; К врачу, meaning "to the doctor." Dative is also the necessary case taken by certain prepositions when expressing certain ideas. For instance, when the preposition по is used to mean "along," its object is always in dative case, as in По бокам, meaning "along the sides." Other Slavic languages apply the dative case (and the other cases) more or less the same way as does Russian; some languages may use the dative in other ways. The following examples are from Polish: after certain verbs (dziękować komuś "to thank someone", pomóc komuś "to help someone", wierzyć komuś "to believe someone") in certain expressions (Czy podoba ci się piosenka? "Do you like the song?", Jest mi zimno "I'm cold", Jest nam smutno "We're feeling sad", Będzie wam trudniej... "It will be more difficult for you guys"), Śniło jej się, że... "She dreamt that" dativus commodi to indicate action for somebody (Zbuduję temu człowiekowi dom "I will build a house for this person") when something is taken away or something occurs to someone (Zdechł im pies "Their dog died"; Zabrali mu komputer "They took away his computer"; Zepsuł nam się samochód "Our car broke down"; Coś mi się przypomniało "I just remembered something") Some other kinds of dative use as found in the Serbo-Croatian language are: Dativus finalis (Titaniku u pomoć "to Titanic's rescue"), Dativus commodi/incommodi (Operi svojoj majci suđe "Wash the dishes for your mother"), Dativus possessivus (Ovcama je dlaka gusta "Sheep's hair is thick"), Dativus ethicus (Šta mi radi Boni? "What is Boni doing? (I am especially interested in what it is)") and Dativus auctoris (Izgleda mi okej "It seems okay to me"). Unusual in other Indo-European branches but common among Slavic languages, endings of nouns and adjectives are different based on grammatical function. Other factors are gender and number. In some cases, the ending may not be obvious, even when those three factors (function, gender, number) are considered. For example, in Polish, 'syn' ("son") and 'ojciec' ("father") are both masculine singular nouns, yet appear as syn → synowi and ojciec → ojcu in the dative. Baltic languages Both Lithuanian and Latvian have a distinct dative case in the system of nominal declensions. Lithuanian nouns preserve Indo-European inflections in the dative case fairly well: (o-stems) vaikas -> sg. vaikui, pl. vaikams; (ā-stems) ranka -> sg. rankai, pl. rankoms; (i-stems) viltis -> sg. vilčiai, pl. viltims; (u-stems) sūnus -> sg. sūnui, pl. sūnums; (consonant stems) vanduo -> sg. vandeniui, pl. vandenims. Adjectives in the dative case receive pronominal endings (this might be the result of a more recent development): tas geras vaikas -> sg. tam geram vaikui, pl. tiems geriems vaikams. The dative case in Latvian underwent further simplifications – the original masculine endings of both nouns and adjectives have been replaced with pronominal inflections: tas vīrs -> sg. tam vīram, pl. vīriem. Also, the final "s" in all Dative forms has been dropped. The only exception is personal pronouns in the plural: mums (to us), jums (to you). Note that in colloquial Lithuanian the final "s" in the dative is often omitted, as well: time geriem vaikam. In both Latvian and Lithuanian, the main function of the dative case is to render the indirect object in a sentence: (lt) aš duodu vyrui knygą; (lv) es dodu [duodu] vīram grāmatu – I am giving a book to the man. The dative case can also be used with gerundives to indicate an action preceding or simultaneous with the main action in a sentence: (lt) jam įėjus, visi atsistojo – when he walked in, everybody stood up, lit. to him having walked in, all stood up; (lt) jai miegant, visi dirbo – while she slept, everybody was working, lit. to her sleeping, all were working. In modern standard Lithuanian, Dative case is not required by prepositions, although in many dialects it is done frequently: (dial.) iki (+D) šiai dienai, (stand.) iki (+G) šios dienos – up until this day. In Latvian, the dative case is taken by several prepositions in the singular and all prepositions in the plural (due to peculiar historical changes): sg. bez (+G) tevis (without thee) ~ pl. bez (+D) jums (without you); sg. pa (+A) ceļu (along the road) ~ pl. pa (+D) ceļiem (along the roads). Armenian In modern Eastern Armenian, the dative is attained by adding any article to the genitive: dog = շուն GEN > շան (of the dog; dog's) with no articles DAT > շանը or շանն (to the dog) with definite articles (-ն if preceding a vowel) DAT > մի շան (to a dog) with indefinite article DAT > շանս (to my dog) with 1st person possessive article DAT > շանդ (to your dog) with 2nd person possessive article There is a general tendency to view -ին as the standard dative suffix, but only because that is its most productive (and therefore common) form. The suffix -ին as a dative marker is nothing but the standard, most common, genitive suffix -ի accompanied by the definite article -ն. But the dative case encompasses indefinite objects as well, which will not be marked by -ին: Definite DAT > Ես գիրքը տվեցի տղային: (I gave the book to the boy) Indefinite DAT> Ես գիրքը տվեցի մի տղայի: (I gave the book to a boy) The main function of the dative marking in Armenian is to indicate the receiving end of an action, more commonly the indirect object which in English is preceded by the preposition to. In the use of "giving" verbs like give, donate, offer, deliver, sell, bring... the dative marks the recipient. With communicative verbs like tell, say, advise, explain, ask, answer... the dative marks the listener. Other verbs whose indirect objects are marked by the dative case in Armenian are show, reach, look, approach... Eastern Armenian also uses the dative case to mark the time of an event, in the same way English uses the preposition at, as in Meet me at nine o' clock. Indo-Aryan languages Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu) Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu) has true dative case for pronouns, but for nouns the dative case has to be constructed using the dative case-marker (postposition) को کو (ko) to the nouns in their oblique case. Pronouns in Hindustani also have an oblique case, so dative pronouns can also be alternatively constructed using the dative case-marker को کو (ko) with the pronouns in their oblique case, hence forming two sets of synonymous dative pronouns. The following table shows the pronouns in their nominative and their dative forms. Hindustani lacks pronouns in the third person and the demonstrative pronouns double as the third person pronouns. The table below shows the oblique cases of Hindustani for the nouns boy and girl which take in the dative case-marker after them to assign the combination of the oblique case and the case-marker the dative case. The oblique case of Hindustani by itself has no meaning and adding the case-marker को کو (ko) assigns the oblique case the function of the dative case. Dative case in Hindustani can also mark the subject of a sentence. This is called the dative construction or quirky subjects. In the examples below the dative pronoun passes the subjecthood test of subject-oriented anaphora binding. The dative subject मुझे مجھے (mujhe) binds the anaphora अपने اپنے (apne). Sanskrit The dative case is known as the "fourth case" (chaturthi-vibhakti) in the usual procedure in the declension of nouns. Its use is mainly for the indirect object. Non-Indo-European languages Hungarian As with many other languages, the dative case is used in Hungarian to show the indirect object of a verb. For example, Dánielnek adtam ezt a könyvet (I gave this book to Dániel). It has two suffixes, -nak and -nek; the correct one is selected by vowel harmony. The personal dative pronouns follow the -nek version: nekem, neked, etc. This case is also used to express "for" in certain circumstances, such as "I bought a gift for Mother". In possessive constructions the nak/nek endings are also used but this is not the dative form (rather, the attributive or possessive case) Finnish Finnish does not have a separate dative case. However, the allative case can fulfill essentially the same role as dative, beyond its primary meaning of directional movement (that is, going somewhere or approaching someone). For example: He lahjoittivat kaikki rahansa köyhille (They donated all their money to the poor.) Tsez In the Northeast Caucasian languages, such as Tsez, the dative also takes the functions of the lative case in marking the direction of an action. By some linguists, they are still regarded as two separate cases in those languages, although the suffixes are exactly the same for both cases. Other linguists list them separately only for the purpose of separating syntactic cases from locative cases. An example with the ditransitive verb "show" (literally: "make see") is given below: The dative/lative is also used to indicate possession, as in the example below, because there is no such verb as "to have". As in the examples above, the dative/lative case usually occurs in combination with another suffix as poss-lative case; this should not be regarded as a separate case, however, as many of the locative cases in Tsez are constructed analytically; hence, they are, in fact, a combination of two case suffixes. See Tsez language#Locative case suffixes for further details. Verbs of perception or emotion (like "see", "know", "love", "want") also require the logical subject to stand in the dative/lative case. Note that in this example the "pure" dative/lative without its POSS-suffix is used. Turkish The dative case (yönelme durumu) in Turkish language is formed by adding the ''-e" or "-a'' suffixes to the end of the noun, in accordance with the effected noun's vowel harmony. The word that should be in the dative case can be found as an answer to the questions 'neye?' (to what?), 'kime?' (to whom?) and 'nereye?' (to where?) will lead to find a dative case in a sentence. There are many different uses for the dative case. The dative also is for objects, usually indirect objects, but sometimes objects that in English would be considered direct: The dative case tells whither, that is, the place to which''. Thus it has roughly the meaning of the English prepositions "to" and "into", and also "in" when it can be replaced with "into": See also Dative construction Declension in English Double dative References External links German dative case A lesson covering the dative case in the German language Hungarian dative case from www. HungarianReference.com Russian Dative: , , Grammatical cases

Dorado () is a constellation in the southern sky. It was named in the late 16th century and is now one of the 88 modern constellations. Its name refers to the dolphinfish (Coryphaena hippurus), which is known as dorado in Spanish, although it has also been depicted as a swordfish. Dorado contains most of the Large Magellanic Cloud, the remainder being in the constellation Mensa. The South Ecliptic pole also lies within this constellation. Even though the name Dorado is not Latin but Spanish, astronomers give it the Latin genitive form Doradus when naming its stars; it is treated (like the adjacent asterism Argo Navis) as a feminine proper name of Greek origin ending in -ō (like Io or Callisto or Argo), which have a genitive ending -ūs. History Dorado was one of twelve constellations named by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. It appeared: On Plancius's maps of 1592 and 1594, figured as an elderly bearded man named Polophylax (Greek for "guardian of the pole"). On a celestial globe published in 1597 (or 1598) in Amsterdam by Plancius with Jodocus Hondius. First depiction in a celestial atlas, in Johann Bayer's Uranometria of 1603, where it was named Dorado. In Johannes Kepler's edition of Tycho Brahe's star list in the Rudolphine Tables of 1627: first time that it was named Xiphias, the swordfish. Dorado has been represented historically as a dolphinfish and a swordfish; the latter depiction is inaccurate. It has also been represented as a goldfish. The constellation was also known in the 17th and 18th centuries as Xiphias. The name Dorado ultimately become dominant and was adopted by the IAU. Features Stars Alpha Doradus is a blue-white star of magnitude 3.3, 176 light-years from Earth. It is the brightest star in Dorado. Beta Doradus is a notably bright Cepheid variable star. It is a yellow-tinged supergiant star that has a minimum magnitude of 4.1 and a maximum magnitude of 3.5. One thousand and forty light-years from Earth, Beta Doradus has a period of 9 days and 20 hours. R Doradus is one of the many variable stars in Dorado. S Dor, 9.721 hypergiant in the Large Magellanic Cloud, is the prototype of S Doradus variable stars. The variable star R Doradus 5.73 has the largest-known apparent size of any star other than the Sun. Gamma Doradus is the prototype of the Gamma Doradus variable stars. Supernova 1987A was the closest supernova to occur since the invention of the telescope. SNR 0509-67.5 is the remnant of an unusually energetic Type 1a supernova from about 400 years ago. HE 0437-5439 is a hypervelocity star escaping from the Milky Way/Magellanic Cloud system. Dorado is also the location of the South Ecliptic pole, which lies near the fish's head. The pole was called "Polus Doradinalis" by Willem Jansson Blaeu. Deep-sky objects Because Dorado contains part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, it is rich in deep sky objects. The Large Magellanic Cloud, 25,000 light-years in diameter, is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way Galaxy, located at a distance of 179,000 light-years. It has been deformed by its gravitational interactions with the larger Milky Way. In 1987, it became host to SN 1987A, the first supernova of 1987 and the closest since 1604. This 25,000-light-year-wide galaxy contains over 10,000 million stars. All coordinates given are for Epoch J2000.0. N 180B is an emission nebula located in the Large Magellanic Cloud. NGC 1566 (RA 04h 20m 00s Dec -56° 56.3′) is a face-on spiral galaxy. It gives its name to the NGC 1566 Group of galaxies. NGC 1755 (RA 04h 55m 13s Dec -68° 12.2′) is a globular cluster. NGC 1763 (RA 04h 56m 49s Dec -68° 24.5′) is a bright nebula associated with three type B stars. NGC 1820 (RA 05h 04m 02s Dec -67° 15.9′) is an open cluster. NGC 1850 (RA 05h 08m 44s Dec -68° 45.7′) is a globular cluster. NGC 1854 (RA 05h 09m 19s Dec -68° 50.8′) is a globular cluster. NGC 1869 (RA 05h 13m 56s Dec -67° 22.8′) is an open cluster. NGC 1901 (RA 05h 18m 15s Dec -68° 26.2′) is an open cluster. NGC 1910 (RA 05h 18m 43s Dec -69° 13.9′) is an open cluster. NGC 1936 (RA 05h 22m 14s Dec -67° 58.7′) is a bright nebula and is one of four NGC objects in close proximity, the others being NGC 1929, NGC 1934 and NGC 1935. NGC 1978 (RA 05h 28m 36s Dec -66° 14.0′) is an open cluster. NGC 2002 (RA 05h 30m 17s Dec -66° 53.1′) is an open cluster. NGC 2014 (RA 05h 44m 12.7s Dec −67° 42′ 57″) is a red emission nebula. NGC 2020 (RA 05h 44m 12.7s Dec −67° 42′ 57″) is an HII region surrounding a Wolf–Rayet star. NGC 2027 (RA 05h 35m 00s Dec -66° 55.0′) is an open cluster. NGC 2032 (RA 05h 35m 21s Dec -67° 34.1′; also known as "Seagull Nebula") is a nebula complex that contains four NGC designations: NGC 2029, NGC 2032, NGC 2035 and NGC 2040. NGC 2074 (RA 05h 39m 03.0s, Dec −69° 29′ 54″) is an emission nebula. NGC 2080, also called the "Ghost Head Nebula", is an emission nebula that is 50 light-years wide in the Large Magellanic Cloud. It is named for the two distinct white patches that it possesses, which are regions of recent star formation. The western portion is colored green from doubly ionized oxygen, the southern portion is red from hydrogen alpha emissions, and the center region is colored yellow from both oxygen and hydrogen emissions. The western white patch, A1, has one massive, recently formed star inside. The eastern patch, A2, has several stars hidden in its dust. Tarantula Nebula is in the Large Magellanic Cloud, named for its spiderlike shape. It is also designated 30 Doradus, as it is visible to the naked eye as a slightly out-of-focus star. Larger than any nebula in the Milky Way at 1,000 light-years in diameter, it is also brighter, because it is illuminated by the open star cluster NGC 2070, which has at its center the star cluster R136. The illuminating stars are supergiants. NGC 2164 (RA 05h 58m 53s Dec -68° 30.9′) is a globular cluster. N44 is a superbubble in the Large Magellanic Cloud that is 1,000 light-years wide. Its overall structure is shaped by the 40 hot stars towards its center. Within the superbubble of N44 is a smaller bubble catalogued as N44F. It is approximately 35 light-years in diameter and is shaped by an incredibly hot star at its center, which has a stellar wind speed of 7 million kilometers per hour. N44F also features dust columns with probable star formation hidden inside. Equivalents In Chinese astronomy, the stars of Dorado are in two of Xu Guangqi's Southern Asterisms (近南極星區, Jìnnánjíxīngōu): the White Patches Attached (夾白, Jiābái) and the Goldfish (金魚, Jīnyú). Namesakes Dorado (SS-248) and Dorado (SS-526), two United States Navy submarines, were named after the same sea creature as the constellation. Gallery See also Dorado in Chinese astronomy Dutch celestial cartography in the Age of Exploration IAU-recognized constellations References Notes The above deep sky objects appear in Norton's Star Atlas, 1973 edition. Co-ordinates are obtained from Uranometria Chart Index and Skyview. Images of the deep sky objects described herein may be viewed at Skyview. Citations Sources External links The Deep Photographic Guide to the Constellations: Dorado The clickable Dorado Peoria Astronomical Society - Dorado Star Tales – Dorado Southern constellations Constellations listed by Petrus Plancius Dutch celestial cartography in the Age of Discovery Astronomy in the Dutch Republic 1590s in the Dutch Republic

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist. He is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century and one of its most popular composers. Shostakovich achieved fame in the Soviet Union under the patronage of the Soviet chief of staff Mikhail Tukhachevsky, but later had a complex relationship with the government, from which he earned state awards and privileges. Throughout his life he participated in bureaucratic functions and delegations, including serving in the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR (1947) and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union (from 1962 until his death). Shostakovich combined a variety of different musical techniques into his works. His music is characterized by sharp contrasts, elements of the grotesque, and ambivalent tonality; he was also heavily influenced by the neoclassical style pioneered by Igor Stravinsky, and (especially in his symphonies) by the late Romanticism of Gustav Mahler. Shostakovich's orchestral works include 15 symphonies and six concerti. His chamber output includes 15 string quartets, a piano quintet, two piano trios, and two pieces for string octet. His solo piano works include two sonatas, an early set of 24 preludes, and a later set of 24 preludes and fugues. Other works include three operas, three ballets, several song cycles, and a substantial quantity of music for theatre and film. Of the latter genre, the waltz from The First Echelon (in an alternate arrangement as the "Waltz No. 2" for the Suite for Variety Orchestra), the suite of music extracted from The Gadfly, and the theme from the Counterplan are especially well known. Biography Youth Born at Podolskaya Street in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Shostakovich was the second of three children of Dmitri Boleslavovich Shostakovich and Sofiya Vasilievna Kokoulina. Shostakovich's paternal grandfather, originally surnamed Szostakowicz, was of Polish Roman Catholic descent (his family roots trace to the region of the town of Vileyka in today's Belarus), but his immediate forebears came from Siberia. A Polish revolutionary in the January Uprising of 1863–4, Bolesław Szostakowicz was exiled to Narym (432 km from Tomsk on the highway) in 1866 in the crackdown that followed Dmitry Karakozov's assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander II. When his term of exile ended, Szostakowicz decided to remain in Siberia. He eventually became a successful banker in Irkutsk and raised a large family. His son Dmitri Boleslavovich Shostakovich, the composer's father, was born in exile in Narim in 1875 and studied physics and mathematics at Saint Petersburg University, graduating in 1899. He then went to work as an engineer under Dmitri Mendeleev at the Bureau of Weights and Measures in Saint Petersburg. In 1903 he married another Siberian transplant to the capital, Sofiya Vasilievna Kokoulina, one of six children born to a Siberian Russian. Their son, Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, displayed significant musical talent after he began piano lessons with his mother at the age of nine. On several occasions he displayed a remarkable ability to remember what his mother had played at the previous lesson, and would get "caught in the act" of playing the previous lesson's music while pretending to read different music placed in front of him. In 1918 he wrote a funeral march in memory of two leaders of the Kadet party murdered by Bolshevik sailors. In 1919, at age 13, Shostakovich was admitted to the Petrograd Conservatory, then headed by Alexander Glazunov, who monitored his progress closely and promoted him. Shostakovich studied piano with Leonid Nikolayev after a year in the class of Elena Rozanova, composition with Maximilian Steinberg, and counterpoint and fugue with Nikolay Sokolov, with whom he became friends. He also attended Alexander Ossovsky's music history classes. In 1925, he enrolled in the conducting classes of Nikolai Malko. On 20 March 1925, Shostakovich's music was played in Moscow for the first time, in a program which also included works by his friend Vissarion Shebalin. To the composer's disappointment, the critics and public there received his music coolly. While Shostakovich visited the Russian capital, Mikhail Kvadri introduced him to Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who helped the composer find accommodation and work in Moscow, and sent a driver around in "a very stylish automobile" to take him to a concert. His musical breakthrough was the First Symphony, written as his graduation piece at the age of 19. At first, Shostakovich aspired only to perform it privately with the conservatory orchestra and prepared to conduct the scherzo himself. By late 1925, Steinberg and Shostakovich's friend Boleslav Yavorsky brought the symphony to Malko's attention, whereupon he agreed to conduct its premiere with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra. On 12 May 1926, Malko premiered the symphony, which was received enthusiastically by the audience, who demanded an encore of the scherzo. Thereafter, Shostakovich would celebrate the date of his symphonic debut for the rest of his life. Early career After graduation, Shostakovich embarked on a dual career as concert pianist and composer, but his dry playing style was often remarked upon negatively. Shostakovich maintained a heavy performance schedule until 1930; after 1933, he performed only his own compositions. Along with , Grigory Ginzburg, Lev Oborin, and Josif Shvarts, he was among the Soviet contestants in the inaugural I International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1927. According to the later reminiscences of : , who heard Shostakovich play his Chopin programs before he went to Warsaw, said that his "anti-sentimental" playing, which eschewed rubato and extreme dynamic contrasts, was unlike anything he had ever heard. called Shostakovich's playing "profound and lacking any salon-like mannerisms." Shostakovich was stricken with appendicitis on the opening day of the competition, but his condition improved by the time of his first performance on 27 January 1927. (He had his appendix removed on 25 April.) According to Shostakovich, his playing found favor with the audience. He persisted into the final round of the competition, but ultimately earned only a diploma, no prize; Oborin was declared the winner. Shostakovich was upset about the result, but for a time resolved to continue a career as performer. While recovering from his appendectomy in April 1927, Shostakovich said he was beginning to reassess those plans: After the competition, Shostakovich and Oborin spent a week in Berlin. There he met the conductor Bruno Walter, who was so impressed by Shostakovich's First Symphony that he conducted its first performance outside Russia later that year. Leopold Stokowski led the American premiere the next year in Philadelphia and also made the work's first recording. In 1927 Shostakovich wrote his Second Symphony (subtitled To October), a patriotic piece with a pro-Soviet choral finale. Owing to its experimental nature, as with the subsequent Third Symphony, it was not critically acclaimed with the enthusiasm given to the First. 1927 also marked the beginning of Shostakovich's relationship with Ivan Sollertinsky, who remained his closest friend until the latter's death in 1944. Sollertinsky introduced the composer to Mahler's music, which had a strong influence on Shostakovich from the Fourth Symphony onward. While writing the Second Symphony, Shostakovich also began work on his satirical opera The Nose, based on the story by Nikolai Gogol. In June 1929, against the composer's wishes, the opera was given a concert performance; it was ferociously attacked by the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM). Its stage premiere on 18 January 1930 opened to generally poor reviews and widespread incomprehension among musicians. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Shostakovich worked at TRAM, a proletarian youth theatre. Although he did little work in this post, it shielded him from ideological attack. Much of this period was spent writing his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, which was first performed in 1934. It was immediately successful, on both popular and official levels. It was described as "the result of the general success of Socialist construction, of the correct policy of the Party", and as an opera that "could have been written only by a Soviet composer brought up in the best tradition of Soviet culture". Shostakovich married his first wife, Nina Varzar, in 1932. Difficulties led to a divorce in 1935, but the couple soon remarried when Nina became pregnant with their first child, Galina. First denunciation On 17 January 1936, Joseph Stalin paid a rare visit to the opera for a performance of a new work, Quiet Flows the Don, based on the novel by Mikhail Sholokhov, by the little-known composer Ivan Dzerzhinsky, who was called to Stalin's box at the end of the performance and told that his work had "considerable ideological-political value". On 26 January, Stalin revisited the opera, accompanied by Vyacheslav Molotov, Andrei Zhdanov and Anastas Mikoyan, to hear Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. He and his entourage left without speaking to anyone. Shostakovich had been forewarned by a friend that he should postpone a planned concert tour in Arkhangelsk in order to be present at that particular performance. Eyewitness accounts testify that Shostakovich was "white as a sheet" when he went to take his bow after the third act. The next day, Shostakovich left for Arkhangelsk, where he heard on 28 January that Pravda had published an editorial titled Muddle Instead of Music, complaining that the opera was a "deliberately dissonant, muddled stream of sounds...[that] quacks, hoots, pants and gasps." Shostakovich continued his performance tour as scheduled, with no disruptions. From Arkhangelsk he instructed Isaak Glikman to subscribe to a clipping service. The editorial was the signal for a nationwide campaign, during which even Soviet music critics who had praised the opera were forced to recant in print, saying they "failed to detect the shortcomings of Lady Macbeth as pointed out by Pravda". There was resistance from those who admired Shostakovich, including Sollertinsky, who turned up at a composers' meeting in Leningrad called to denounce the opera and praised it instead. Two other speakers supported him. When Shostakovich returned to Leningrad, he had a telephone call from the commander of the Leningrad Military District, who had been asked by Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky to make sure that he was all right. When the writer Isaac Babel was under arrest four years later, he told his interrogators that "it was common ground for us to proclaim the genius of the slighted Shostakovich." On 6 February, Shostakovich was again attacked in Pravda, this time for his light comic ballet The Limpid Stream, which was denounced because "it jangles and expresses nothing" and did not give an accurate picture of peasant life on a collective farm. Fearful that he was about to be arrested, Shostakovich secured an appointment with the Chairman of the USSR State Committee on Culture, Platon Kerzhentsev, who reported to Stalin and Molotov that he had instructed the composer to "reject formalist errors and in his art attain something that could be understood by the broad masses", and that Shostakovich had admitted being in the wrong and had asked for a meeting with Stalin, which was not granted. The Pravda campaign against Shostakovich caused his commissions, concert appearances, and performances of his music to decline markedly. His monthly earnings dropped from an average of as much as 12,000 rubles to as little as 2,000. Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony, which had been scheduled to be premiered on 11 December 1936, was withdrawn and remained unperformed in its orchestral guise until 1961. Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District was also suppressed. In the mid-1950s, Shostakovich composed a revised version with a new title, Katerina Izmailova, which premiered on 8 January 1963. More widely, 1936 marked the beginning of the Great Terror, in which many of Shostakovich's friends and relatives were imprisoned or killed. These included Tukhachevsky, executed 12 June 1937; his brother-in-law Vsevolod Frederiks, who was eventually released, but died before he returned home; his close friend Nikolai Zhilyayev, a musicologist who had taught Tukhachevsky; his mother-in-law, the astronomer Sofiya Mikhaylovna Varzar, who was sent to a camp in Karaganda; his friend the Marxist writer Galina Serebryakova, who spent 20 years in the gulag; his uncle Maxim Kostrykin (died); and his colleagues Boris Kornilov and Adrian Piotrovsky (executed). Shostakovich's daughter Galina was born during this period in 1936; his son Maxim was born two years later. Withdrawal of the Fourth Symphony The publication of the Pravda editorials coincided with the composition of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony. The work continued a shift in his style, owing to the influence of Mahler. The symphony gave Shostakovich compositional trouble, as he attempted to reform his style into a new idiom. He was well into the work when the Pravda article appeared. He continued to compose the symphony and planned a premiere at the end of 1936. Rehearsals began that December, but after a number of rehearsals, Shostakovich decided to withdraw the symphony from performance. According to Isaac Glikman, who had attended the rehearsals with the composer, the manager of the Leningrad Philharmonic persuaded Shostakovich to withdraw the symphony. Shostakovich did not repudiate the work and retained its designation as his Fourth Symphony. A reduction for two pianos was performed and published in 1946, and the work was finally premiered in 1961. In the months between the withdrawal of the Fourth Symphony and the completion of the Fifth on 20 July 1937, the only concert work Shostakovich composed was the Four Romances on Texts by Pushkin. Fifth Symphony and return to favor The composer's response to his denunciation was the Fifth Symphony of 1937, which was musically more conservative than his earlier works. Premiered on 21 November 1937 in Leningrad, it was a phenomenal success. The Fifth brought many to tears and welling emotions. Later, Shostakovich's purported memoir, Testimony, stated: "I'll never believe that a man who understood nothing could feel the Fifth Symphony. Of course they understood, they understood what was happening around them and they understood what the Fifth was about." The success put Shostakovich in good standing once again. Music critics and the authorities alike, including those who had earlier accused him of formalism, claimed that he had learned from his mistakes and become a true Soviet artist. In a newspaper article published under Shostakovich's name, the Fifth was characterized as "A Soviet artist's creative response to just criticism." The composer Dmitry Kabalevsky, who had been among those who disassociated themselves from Shostakovich when the Pravda article was published, praised the Fifth and congratulated Shostakovich for "not having given in to the seductive temptations of his previous 'erroneous' ways." It was also at this time that Shostakovich composed the first of his string quartets. His chamber works allowed him to experiment and express ideas that would have been unacceptable in his more public symphonies. In September 1937 he began to teach composition at the Leningrad Conservatory, which provided some financial security. Second World War In 1939, before Soviet forces attempted to invade Finland, the Party Secretary of Leningrad Andrei Zhdanov commissioned a celebratory piece from Shostakovich, the Suite on Finnish Themes, to be performed as the marching bands of the Red Army paraded through Helsinki. The Winter War was a bitter experience for the Red Army, the parade never happened, and Shostakovich never laid claim to the authorship of this work. It was not performed until 2001. After the outbreak of war between the Soviet Union and Germany in 1941, Shostakovich initially remained in Leningrad. He tried to enlist in the military but was turned away because of his poor eyesight. To compensate, he became a volunteer for the Leningrad Conservatory's firefighter brigade and delivered a radio broadcast to the Soviet people. The photograph for which he posed was published in newspapers throughout the country. His most famous wartime contribution was the Seventh Symphony. The composer wrote the first three movements in Leningrad and completed the work in Kuybyshev (now Samara), where he and his family had been evacuated. It remains unclear whether Shostakovich really conceived the idea of the symphony with the siege of Leningrad in mind. It was officially claimed as a representation of the people of Leningrad's brave resistance to the German invaders and an authentic piece of patriotic art at a time when morale needed boosting. The symphony was first premiered by the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra in Kuibyshev and was soon performed abroad in London and the United States. It was subsequently performed in Leningrad while the city was still under siege. The orchestra had only 14 musicians left, so the conductor Karl Eliasberg was forced to recruit anyone who could play an instrument as reinforcements. The family moved to Moscow in spring 1943. At the time of the Eighth Symphony's premiere, the tide had turned for the Red Army. As a consequence, the public, and most importantly the authorities, wanted another triumphant piece from the composer. Instead, they got the Eighth Symphony, perhaps the ultimate in sombre and violent expression in Shostakovich's output. To preserve Shostakovich's image (a vital bridge to the people of the Union and to the West), the government assigned the name "Stalingrad" to the symphony, giving it the appearance of mourning of the dead in the bloody Battle of Stalingrad. But the piece did not escape criticism. Its composer is reported to have said: "When the Eighth was performed, it was openly declared counter-revolutionary and anti-Soviet. They said, 'Why did Shostakovich write an optimistic symphony at the beginning of the war and a tragic one now? At the beginning, we were retreating and now we're attacking, destroying the Fascists. And Shostakovich is acting tragic, that means he's on the side of the fascists.'" The work was unofficially but effectively banned until 1956. The Ninth Symphony (1945), in contrast, was much lighter in tone. Gavriil Popov wrote that it was "splendid in its joie de vivre, gaiety, brilliance, and pungency!" But by 1946 it too was the subject of criticism. Israel Nestyev asked whether it was the right time for "a light and amusing interlude between Shostakovich's significant creations, a temporary rejection of great, serious problems for the sake of playful, filigree-trimmed trifles." The New York World-Telegram of 27 July 1946 was similarly dismissive: "The Russian composer should not have expressed his feelings about the defeat of Nazism in such a childish manner". Shostakovich continued to compose chamber music, notably his Second Piano Trio (Op. 67), dedicated to the memory of Sollertinsky, with a bittersweet, Jewish-themed totentanz finale. In 1947, the composer was made a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. Second denunciation In 1948, Shostakovich, along with many other composers, was again denounced for formalism in the Zhdanov decree. Andrei Zhdanov, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, accused the composers (including Sergei Prokofiev and Aram Khachaturian) of writing inappropriate and formalist music. This was part of an ongoing anti-formalism campaign intended to root out all Western compositional influence as well as any perceived "non-Russian" output. The conference resulted in the publication of the Central Committee's Decree "On V. Muradeli's opera The Great Friendship", which targeted all Soviet composers and demanded that they write only "proletarian" music, or music for the masses. The accused composers, including Shostakovich, were summoned to make public apologies in front of the committee. Most of Shostakovich's works were banned, and his family had privileges withdrawn. Yuri Lyubimov says that at this time "he waited for his arrest at night out on the landing by the lift, so that at least his family wouldn't be disturbed." The decree's consequences for composers were harsh. Shostakovich was among those dismissed from the Conservatory altogether. For him, the loss of money was perhaps the largest blow. Others still in the Conservatory experienced an atmosphere thick with suspicion. No one wanted his work to be understood as formalist, so many resorted to accusing their colleagues of writing or performing anti-proletarian music. During the next few years Shostakovich composed three categories of work: film music to pay the rent, official works aimed at securing official rehabilitation, and serious works "for the desk drawer". The latter included the Violin Concerto No. 1 and the song cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry. The cycle was written at a time when the postwar anti-Semitic campaign was already under way, with widespread arrests, including that of Dobrushin and Yiditsky, the compilers of the book from which Shostakovich took his texts. The restrictions on Shostakovich's music and living arrangements were eased in 1949, when Stalin decided that the Soviets needed to send artistic representatives to the Cultural and Scientific Congress for World Peace in New York City, and that Shostakovich should be among them. For Shostakovich, it was a humiliating experience, culminating in a New York press conference where he was expected to read a prepared speech. Nicolas Nabokov, who was present in the audience, witnessed Shostakovich starting to read "in a nervous and shaky voice" before he had to break off "and the speech was continued in English by a suave radio baritone". Fully aware that Shostakovich was not free to speak his mind, Nabokov publicly asked him whether he supported the then recent denunciation of Stravinsky's music in the Soviet Union. A great admirer of Stravinsky who had been influenced by his music, Shostakovich had no alternative but to answer in the affirmative. Nabokov did not hesitate to write that this demonstrated that Shostakovich was "not a free man, but an obedient tool of his government." Shostakovich never forgave Nabokov for this public humiliation. That same year he was obliged to compose the cantata Song of the Forests, which praised Stalin as the "great gardener". Stalin's death in 1953 was the biggest step toward Shostakovich's rehabilitation as a creative artist, which was marked by his Tenth Symphony. It features a number of musical quotations and codes (notably the DSCH and Elmira motifs, Elmira Nazirova being a pianist and composer who had studied under Shostakovich in the year before his dismissal from the Moscow Conservatory), the meaning of which is still debated, while the savage second movement, according to Testimony, is intended as a musical portrait of Stalin. The Tenth ranks alongside the Fifth and Seventh as one of Shostakovich's most popular works. 1953 also saw a stream of premieres of the "desk drawer" works. During the forties and fifties, Shostakovich had close relationships with two of his pupils, Galina Ustvolskaya and Elmira Nazirova. In the background to all this remained Shostakovich's first, open marriage to Nina Varzar until her death in 1954. He taught Ustvolskaya from 1939 to 1941 and then from 1947 to 1948. The nature of their relationship is far from clear: Mstislav Rostropovich described it as "tender". Ustvolskaya rejected a proposal of marriage from him after Nina's death. Shostakovich's daughter, Galina, recalled her father consulting her and Maxim about the possibility of Ustvolskaya becoming their stepmother. Ustvolskaya's friend Viktor Suslin said that she had been "deeply disappointed" in Shostakovich by the time of her graduation in 1947. The relationship with Nazirova seems to have been one-sided, expressed largely in his letters to her, and can be dated to around 1953 to 1956. He married his second wife, Komsomol activist Margarita Kainova, in 1956; the couple proved ill-matched, and divorced five years later. In 1954, Shostakovich wrote the Festive Overture, opus 96; it was used as the theme music for the 1980 Summer Olympics. (His '"Theme from the film Pirogov, Opus 76a: Finale" was played as the cauldron was lit at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.) In 1959, Shostakovich appeared on stage in Moscow at the end of a concert performance of his Fifth Symphony, congratulating Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for their performance (part of a concert tour of the Soviet Union). Later that year, Bernstein and the Philharmonic recorded the symphony in Boston for Columbia Records. Joining the Party The year 1960 marked another turning point in Shostakovich's life: he joined the Communist Party. The government wanted to appoint him General Secretary of the Composers' Union, but to hold that position he was required to attain Party membership. It was understood that Nikita Khrushchev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party from 1953 to 1964, was looking for support from the intelligentsia's leading ranks in an effort to create a better relationship with the Soviet Union's artists. This event has variously been interpreted as a show of commitment, a mark of cowardice, the result of political pressure, or his free decision. On the one hand, the apparat was undoubtedly less repressive than it had been before Stalin's death. On the other, his son recalled that the event reduced Shostakovich to tears, and that he later told his wife Irina that he had been blackmailed. Lev Lebedinsky has said that the composer was suicidal. From 1962, he served as a delegate in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Once he joined the Party, several articles he did not write denouncing individualism in music were published under his name in Pravda. By joining the party, Shostakovich also committed himself to finally writing the homage to Lenin that he had promised before. His Twelfth Symphony, which portrays the Bolshevik Revolution and was completed in 1961, was dedicated to Lenin and called "The Year 1917". Around this time, his health began to deteriorate. Shostakovich's musical response to these personal crises was the Eighth String Quartet, composed in only three days. He subtitled the piece "To the victims of fascism and war", ostensibly in memory of the Dresden fire bombing that took place in 1945. Yet like the Tenth Symphony, the quartet incorporates quotations from several of his past works and his musical monogram. Shostakovich confessed to his friend Isaak Glikman, "I started thinking that if some day I die, nobody is likely to write a work in memory of me, so I had better write one myself." Several of Shostakovich's colleagues, including Natalya Vovsi-Mikhoels and the cellist Valentin Berlinsky, were also aware of the Eighth Quartet's biographical intent. Peter J. Rabinowitz has also pointed to covert references to Richard Strauss's Metamorphosen in it. In 1962 Shostakovich married for the third time, to Irina Supinskaya. In a letter to Glikman, he wrote, "her only defect is that she is 27 years old. In all other respects she is splendid: clever, cheerful, straightforward and very likeable." According to Galina Vishnevskaya, who knew the Shostakoviches well, this marriage was a very happy one: "It was with her that Dmitri Dmitriyevich finally came to know domestic peace... Surely, she prolonged his life by several years." In November he made his only venture into conducting, conducting a couple of his own works in Gorky; otherwise he declined to conduct, citing nerves and ill health. That year saw Shostakovich again turn to the subject of anti-Semitism in his Thirteenth Symphony (subtitled Babi Yar). The symphony sets a number of poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, the first of which commemorates a massacre of Ukrainian Jews during the Second World War. Opinions are divided as to how great a risk this was: the poem had been published in Soviet media, and was not banned, but remained controversial. After the symphony's premiere, Yevtushenko was forced to add a stanza to his poem that said that Russians and Ukrainians had died alongside the Jews at Babi Yar. In 1965 Shostakovich raised his voice in defence of poet Joseph Brodsky, who was sentenced to five years of exile and hard labor. Shostakovich co-signed protests with Yevtushenko, fellow Soviet artists Kornei Chukovsky, Anna Akhmatova, Samuil Marshak, and the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. After the protests the sentence was commuted, and Brodsky returned to Leningrad. Later life, and death In 1964 Shostakovich composed the music for the Russian film Hamlet, which was favorably reviewed by The New York Times: "But the lack of this aural stimulation—of Shakespeare's eloquent words—is recompensed in some measure by a splendid and stirring musical score by Dmitri Shostakovich. This has great dignity and depth, and at times an appropriate wildness or becoming levity". In later life, Shostakovich suffered from chronic ill health, but he resisted giving up cigarettes and vodka. Beginning in 1958 he suffered from a debilitating condition that particularly affected his right hand, eventually forcing him to give up piano playing; in 1965 it was diagnosed as poliomyelitis. He also suffered heart attacks the following year and again in 1971, and several falls in which he broke both his legs; in 1967 he wrote in a letter: "Target achieved so far: 75% (right leg broken, left leg broken, right hand defective). All I need to do now is wreck the left hand and then 100% of my extremities will be out of order." A preoccupation with his own mortality permeates Shostakovich's later works, such as the later quartets and the Fourteenth Symphony of 1969 (a song cycle based on a number of poems on the theme of death). This piece also finds Shostakovich at his most extreme with musical language, with 12-tone themes and dense polyphony throughout. He dedicated the Fourteenth to his close friend Benjamin Britten, who conducted its Western premiere at the 1970 Aldeburgh Festival. The Fifteenth Symphony of 1971 is, by contrast, melodic and retrospective in nature, quoting Wagner, Rossini and the composer's own Fourth Symphony. Shostakovich died of heart failure on 9 August 1975. A civic funeral was held; he was interred in Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow. Even before his death he had been commemorated with the naming of the Shostakovich Peninsula on Alexander Island, Antarctica. Despite suffering from Motor Neurone Disease (or ALS) from as early as the 1960s, Shostakovich insisted upon writing all his own correspondence and music himself, even when his right hand was virtually unusable. Shostakovich himself left behind several recordings of his own piano works; other noted interpreters of his music include Emil Gilels, Mstislav Rostropovich, Tatiana Nikolayeva, Maria Yudina, David Oistrakh, and members of the Beethoven Quartet. His last work was his Viola Sonata, which was first performed officially on 1 October 1975. Shostakovich's musical influence on later composers outside the former Soviet Union has been relatively slight, although Alfred Schnittke took up his eclecticism and his contrasts between the dynamic and the static, and some of André Previn's music shows clear links to Shostakovich's style of orchestration. His influence can also be seen in some Nordic composers, such as Lars-Erik Larsson. Many of his Russian contemporaries, and his pupils at the Leningrad Conservatory were strongly influenced by his style (including German Okunev, Sergei Slonimsky, and Boris Tishchenko, whose 5th Symphony of 1978 is dedicated to Shostakovich's memory). Shostakovich's conservative idiom has grown increasingly popular with audiences both within and outside Russia, as the avant-garde has declined in influence and debate about his political views has developed. Music Overview Shostakovich's works are broadly tonal and in the Romantic tradition, but with elements of atonality and chromaticism. In some of his later works (e.g., the Twelfth Quartet), he made use of tone rows. His output is dominated by his cycles of symphonies and string quartets, each totaling 15. The symphonies are distributed fairly evenly throughout his career, while the quartets are concentrated towards the latter part. Among the most popular are the Fifth and Seventh Symphonies and the Eighth and Fifteenth Quartets. Other works include the operas Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, The Nose and the unfinished The Gamblers, based on the comedy by Gogol; six concertos (two each for piano, violin and cello); two piano trios; and a large quantity of film music. Shostakovich's music shows the influence of many of the composers he most admired: Bach in his fugues and passacaglias; Beethoven in the late quartets; Mahler in the symphonies; and Berg in his use of musical codes and quotations. Among Russian composers, he particularly admired Modest Mussorgsky, whose operas Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina he reorchestrated; Mussorgsky's influence is most prominent in the wintry scenes of Lady Macbeth and the Eleventh Symphony, as well as in satirical works such as "Rayok". Prokofiev's influence is most apparent in the earlier piano works, such as the first sonata and first concerto. The influence of Russian church and folk music is evident in his works for unaccompanied choir of the 1950s. Shostakovich's relationship with Stravinsky was profoundly ambivalent; as he wrote to Glikman, "Stravinsky the composer I worship. Stravinsky the thinker I despise." He was particularly enamoured of the Symphony of Psalms, presenting a copy of his own piano version of it to Stravinsky when the latter visited the USSR in 1962. (The meeting of the two composers was not very successful; observers commented on Shostakovich's extreme nervousness and Stravinsky's "cruelty" to him.) Many commentators have noted the disjunction between the experimental works before the 1936 denunciation and the more conservative ones that followed; the composer told Flora Litvinova, "without 'Party guidance' ... I would have displayed more brilliance, used more sarcasm, I could have revealed my ideas openly instead of having to resort to camouflage." Articles Shostakovich published in 1934 and 1935 cited Berg, Schoenberg, Krenek, Hindemith, "and especially Stravinsky" among his influences. Key works of the earlier period are the First Symphony, which combined the academicism of the conservatory with his progressive inclinations; The Nose ("The most uncompromisingly modernist of all his stage-works"); Lady Macbeth, which precipitated the denunciation; and the Fourth Symphony, described in Grove's Dictionary as "a colossal synthesis of Shostakovich's musical development to date". The Fourth was also the first piece in which Mahler's influence came to the fore, prefiguring the route Shostakovich took to secure his rehabilitation, while he himself admitted that the preceding two were his least successful. In the years after 1936, Shostakovich's symphonic works were outwardly musically conservative, regardless of any subversive political content. During this time he turned increasingly to chamber works, a field that allowed him to explore different and often darker ideas without scrutiny. While his chamber works were largely tonal, they gave Shostakovich an outlet for sombre reflection not welcomed in his more public works. This is most apparent in the late chamber works, which portray what Grove's Dictionary calls "world of purgatorial numbness"; in some of these he included tone rows, although he treated these as melodic themes rather than serially. Vocal works are also a prominent feature of his late output, setting texts often concerned with love, death and art. Jewish themes Even before the alleged Stalinist anti-Semitic campaigns in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Shostakovich showed an interest in Jewish themes. He was intrigued by Jewish music's "ability to build a jolly melody on sad intonations". Examples of works that included Jewish themes are the Fourth String Quartet (1949), the First Violin Concerto (1948), and the Four Monologues on Pushkin Poems (1952), as well as the Piano Trio in E minor (1944). He was further inspired to write with Jewish themes when he examined Moisei Beregovski's 1944 thesis on Jewish folk music. In 1948, Shostakovich acquired a book of Jewish folk songs, from which he composed the song cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry. He initially wrote eight songs meant to represent the hardships of being Jewish in the Soviet Union. To disguise this, he added three more meant to demonstrate the great life Jews had under the Soviet regime. Despite his efforts to hide the real meaning in the work, the Union of Composers refused to approve his music in 1949 under the pressure of the anti-Semitism that gripped the country. From Jewish Folk Poetry could not be performed until after Stalin's death in March 1953, along with all the other works that were forbidden. Self-quotations Throughout his compositions, Shostakovich demonstrated a controlled use of musical quotation. This stylistic choice had been common among earlier composers, but Shostakovich developed it into a defining characteristic of his music. Rather than quoting other composers, Shostakovich preferred to quote himself. Musicologists such as Sofia Moshevich, Ian McDonald, and Stephen Harris have connected his works through their quotations. One example is the main theme of Katerina's aria, Seryozha, khoroshiy moy, from the fourth act of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. It accompanies Katerina as she reunites with her lover Sergei. The aria's beauty comes as a breath of fresh air in the intense, overbearing tone of the scene. This goes well with the dialogue, as Katerina visits her lover in prison. The theme is made tragic when Sergei betrays her and finds a new lover upon blaming Katerina for his incarceration. More than 25 years later, Shostakovich quoted this theme in his eighth string quartet. In the midst of this quartet's oppressive and somber themes, the only light and cheerful moment is when the cello introduces the Seryozha theme about three minutes into the fourth movement. The quotation uses Katerina's hope amid misery as a means to demonstrate the hope of those oppressed by fascists. This theme emerges once again in his 14th string quartet. As in the eighth, the cello introduces the theme, but for an entirely different purpose. The last in Shostakovich's "quartet of quartets", the fourteenth serves to honor the cellist of the Beethoven String Quartet, Sergei Shirinsky. Rather than reflecting the original theme's intentions, the quotation serves as a dedication to Shirinsky. Posthumous publications In 2004, the musicologist Olga Digonskaya discovered a trove of Shostakovich manuscripts at the Glinka State Central Museum of Musical Culture in Moscow. In a cardboard file were some "300 pages of musical sketches, pieces and scores" in Shostakovich's hand. "A composer friend bribed Shostakovich's housemaid to regularly deliver the contents of Shostakovich's office waste bin to him, instead of taking it to the garbage. Some of those cast-offs eventually found their way into the Glinka. ... The Glinka archive 'contained a huge number of pieces and compositions which were completely unknown or could be traced quite indirectly,' Digonskaya said." Among these were Shostakovich's piano and vocal sketches for a prologue to an opera, Orango (1932). They were orchestrated by the British composer Gerard McBurney and premiered in December 2011 by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Criticism According to McBurney, opinion is divided on whether Shostakovich's music is "of visionary power and originality, as some maintain, or, as others think, derivative, trashy, empty and second-hand". William Walton, his British contemporary, described him as "the greatest composer of the 20th century". Musicologist David Fanning concludes in Grove's Dictionary that "Amid the conflicting pressures of official requirements, the mass suffering of his fellow countrymen, and his personal ideals of humanitarian and public service, he succeeded in forging a musical language of colossal emotional power." Some modern composers have been critical. Pierre Boulez dismissed Shostakovich's music as "the second, or even third pressing of Mahler". The Romanian composer and Webern disciple Philip Gershkovich called Shostakovich "a hack in a trance". A related complaint is that Shostakovich's style is vulgar and strident: Stravinsky wrote of Lady Macbeth: "brutally hammering ... and monotonous". English composer and musicologist Robin Holloway described his music as "battleship-grey in melody and harmony, factory-functional in structure; in content all rhetoric and coercion." In the 1980s, the Finnish conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen was critical of Shostakovich and refused to conduct his music. For instance, he said in 1987: Shostakovich is in many ways a polar counter-force for Stravinsky. [...] When I have said that the 7th symphony of Shostakovich is a dull and unpleasant composition, people have responded: "Yes, yes, but think of the background of that symphony." Such an attitude does no good to anyone. Salonen has since performed and recorded several of Shostakovich's works, including leading the world premiere of Orango, but has dismissed the Fifth Symphony as "overrated," adding that he was "very suspicious of heroic things in general." Shostakovich borrows extensively from the material and styles both of earlier composers and of popular music; the vulgarity of "low" music is a notable influence on this "greatest of eclectics". McBurney traces this to the avant-garde artistic circles of the early Soviet period in which Shostakovich moved early in his career, and argues that these borrowings were a deliberate technique to allow him to create "patterns of contrast, repetition, exaggeration" that gave his music large-scale structure. Personality Shostakovich was in many ways an obsessive man: according to his daughter he was "obsessed with cleanliness". He synchronised the clocks in his apartment and regularly sent himself cards to test how well the postal service was working. Elizabeth Wilson's Shostakovich: A Life Remembered indexes 26 references to his nervousness. Mikhail Druskin remembers that even as a young man the composer was "fragile and nervously agile". Yuri Lyubimov comments, "The fact that he was more vulnerable and receptive than other people was no doubt an important feature of his genius." In later life, Krzysztof Meyer recalled, "his face was a bag of tics and grimaces." In Shostakovich's lighter moods, sport was one of his main recreations, although he preferred spectating or umpiring to participating (he was a qualified football referee). His favorite football club was Zenit Leningrad (now Zenit Saint Petersburg), which he would watch regularly. He also enjoyed card games, particularly patience. Shostakovich was fond of satirical writers such as Gogol, Chekhov and Mikhail Zoshchenko. Zoshchenko's influence in particular is evident in his letters, which include wry parodies of Soviet officialese. Zoshchenko noted the contradictions in the composer's character: "he is ... frail, fragile, withdrawn, an infinitely direct, pure child ... [but also] hard, acid, extremely intelligent, strong perhaps, despotic and not altogether good-natured (although cerebrally good-natured)." Shostakovich was diffident by nature: Flora Litvinova has said he was "completely incapable of saying 'No' to anybody." This meant he was easily persuaded to sign official statements, including a denunciation of Andrei Sakharov in 1973. His widow later told Helsingin Sanomat that his name was included without his permission. But he was willing to try to help constituents in his capacities as chairman of the Composers' Union and Deputy to the Supreme Soviet. Oleg Prokofiev said, "he tried to help so many people that ... less and less attention was paid to his pleas." When asked if he believed in God, Shostakovich said "No, and I am very sorry about it." Orthodoxy and revisionism Shostakovich's response to official criticism and whether he used music as a kind of covert dissidence is a matter of dispute. He outwardly conformed to government policies and positions, reading speeches and putting his name to articles expressing the government line. But it is evident he disliked many aspects of the regime, as confirmed by his family, his letters to Isaak Glikman, and the satirical cantata "Rayok", which ridiculed the "anti-formalist" campaign and was kept hidden until after his death. He was a close friend of Marshal of the Soviet Union Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who was executed in 1937 during the Great Purge. It is also uncertain to what extent Shostakovich expressed his opposition to the state in his music. The revisionist view was put forth by Solomon Volkov in the 1979 book Testimony, which claimed to be Shostakovich's memoirs dictated to Volkov. The book alleged that many of the composer's works contained coded anti-government messages, placing Shostakovich in a tradition of Russian artists outwitting censorship that goes back at least to Alexander Pushkin. He incorporated many quotations and motifs in his work, most notably his musical signature DSCH. His longtime musical collaborator Yevgeny Mravinsky said, "Shostakovich very often explained his intentions with very specific images and connotations." The revisionist perspective has subsequently been supported by his children, Maxim and Galina, although Maxim said in 1981 that Volkov's book was not his father's work. Volkov has further argued, both in Testimony and in Shostakovich and Stalin, that Shostakovich adopted the role of the yurodivy or holy fool in his relations with the government. Other prominent revisionists are Ian MacDonald, whose book The New Shostakovich put forward further revisionist interpretations of his music, and Elizabeth Wilson, whose Shostakovich: A Life Remembered provides testimony from many of the composer's acquaintances. Musicians and scholars including Laurel Fay and Richard Taruskin contest the authenticity and debate the significance of Testimony, alleging that Volkov compiled it from a combination of recycled articles, gossip, and possibly some information directly from the composer. Fay documents these allegations in her 2002 article 'Volkov's Testimony reconsidered', showing that the only pages of the original Testimony manuscript that Shostakovich had signed and verified are word-for-word reproductions of earlier interviews he gave, none of which are controversial. Against this, Allan B. Ho and Dmitry Feofanov have pointed out that at least two of the signed pages contain controversial material: for instance, "on the first page of chapter 3, where [Shostakovich] notes that the plaque that reads 'In this house lived [Vsevolod] Meyerhold' should also say 'And in this house his wife was brutally murdered'." Recorded legacy In May 1958, during a visit to Paris, Shostakovich recorded his two piano concertos with André Cluytens, as well as some short piano works. These were issued on LP by EMI and later reissued on CD. Shostakovich recorded the two concertos in stereo in Moscow for Melodiya. Shostakovich also played the piano solos in recordings of the Cello Sonata, Op. 40 with cellist Daniil Shafran and also with Mstislav Rostropovich; the Violin Sonata, Op. 134, in a private recording made with violinist David Oistrakh; and the Piano Trio, Op. 67 with violinist David Oistrakh and cellist Miloš Sádlo. There is also a short newsreel of Shostakovich as soloist in a 1930s concert performance of the closing moments of his first piano concerto. A color film of Shostakovich supervising the Soviet revival of The Nose in 1974 was also made. Awards Belgium: Member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium (1960) Denmark: Léonie Sonning Music Prize (1973) Finland: Wihuri Sibelius Prize (1958) Soviet Union: Hero of Socialist Labour (1966) Order of Lenin (1946, 1956, 1966) Order of the October Revolution (1971) Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1940) People's Artist of the USSR (1954) People's Artist of the RSFSR (1948) International Peace Prize (1954) Lenin Prize (1958 – for the 11th symphony "1905") Stalin Prize (1941 – for Piano Quintet; 1942 – for the 7th ("Leningrad") Symphony; 1946 – for Piano Trio no. 2; 1950 – for Song of the Forests and The Fall of Berlin; 1952 – for 10 poems for chorus) USSR State Prize (1968 – for the poem "The Execution of Stepan Razin" for bass, chorus and orchestra) Glinka State Prize of the RSFSR (1974 – for the 14th string quartet and choral cycle "Fidelity") Shevchenko National Prize (1976 (posthumously)) – for opera "Katerina Izmailova" United Kingdom: Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society (1966) In 1962, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture for Khovanshchina (1959). See also Music written in all major and/or minor keys Sinyavsky–Daniel trial The Noise of Time – a novel concerning Shostakovich by English author Julian Barnes. Notes Citations References - (2nd ed. - Kindle) Faber and Faber. 2010. . External links Complete catalogue of works, with many additional comments by Sikorski The Shostakovich Debate: Interpreting the composer's life and music University of Houston Moderated Discussion List: Dmitri Shostakovich and other Russian Composers 1906 births 1975 deaths 20th-century classical composers 20th-century classical pianists 20th-century Russian male musicians People from Saint Petersburg Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the Royal Academy of Belgium Members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts Moscow Conservatory faculty Saint Petersburg Conservatory alumni Saint Petersburg Conservatory faculty Sixth convocation members of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union Seventh convocation members of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union Eighth convocation members of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union Ninth convocation members of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union Heroes of Socialist Labour People's Artists of Azerbaijan People's Artists of the RSFSR People's Artists of the USSR Stalin Prize winners Lenin Prize winners Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres Glinka State Prize of the RSFSR winners Recipients of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art Recipients of the Léonie Sonning Music Prize Recipients of the Order of Friendship of Peoples Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Recipients of the Shevchenko National Prize Recipients of the USSR State Prize Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medallists Composers for piano Composers for viola Jazz-influenced classical composers Male classical pianists Male film score composers Male opera composers Modernist composers Operetta composers String quartet composers Russian anti-fascists Russian atheists Russian ballet composers Russian classical pianists Russian film score composers Russian male classical composers Russian opera composers Soviet people of Belarusian descent Soviet people of Polish descent Soviet atheists Soviet classical pianists Soviet film score composers Soviet male classical composers Soviet opera composers Deaths from cancer in the Soviet Union Deaths from lung cancer Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery

The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit. The Lions compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North Division. The team plays its home games at Ford Field in Downtown Detroit. The franchise was founded in Portsmouth, Ohio as the Portsmouth Spartans and joined the NFL on July 12, 1930. Amid financial struggles, the team was relocated to Detroit in 1934. The team was also renamed the Lions in reference to the city's Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise, the Tigers. The Lions won four NFL Championship Games between 1935 and 1957, all prior to the Super Bowl era. Since the 1957 championship, the franchise has won only a single playoff game during the 1991 season and holds the league's longest postseason win drought. They are the only franchise operational for the entirety of the Super Bowl era to not appear in the Super Bowl. Franchise history Logos and uniforms Aside from a brief change to scarlet and black from 1948 to 1950 instituted by then head coach Bo McMillin, which was influenced by his years as coach at Indiana, the Lions' uniforms have basically remained the same since they moved to Detroit in 1934–silver helmets, silver pants, and either blue or white jerseys. Glenn Presnell, the then last surviving member of the 1934 Lions, recalled that after the Portsmouth Spartans relocated to Detroit, team owner George A. Richards asked him and his wife to pick the Lions' colors from combinations that included red and white, orange and black, and blue and silver. The Presnells liked blue and silver the best, so Richards selected it. The blue used by the Lions is officially known as "Honolulu blue", which is inspired by the color of the waves off the coast of Hawaii. There have been minor changes to the uniform design throughout the years, such as changing the silver stripe patterns on the jersey sleeves, and changing the colors of the jersey numbers. "TV numbers", which are auxiliary uniform numbers to help TV broadcasters identify players from the line of scrimmage, were added to the jersey sleeves in 1956. White trim was added to the logo in 1970, with outlines (white on the blue jersey, silver on the white jersey) added to the numbers in 1972; the color arrangement on the numbers on the blue jerseys was reversed in 1982. The silver facemasks became blue in 1984. In 1998, the team wore blue pants with their white jerseys along with grey socks but dropped that combination after the season. In 1999, the "TV numbers" on the sleeves were moved to the shoulders. In 1994, every NFL team wore throwback jerseys, and the Lions' were similar to the jerseys used during their 1935 championship season. The helmets and pants were solid silver, the jerseys Honolulu blue with silver numbers and the jersey did not have "TV numbers" on the sleeves. The team wore solid blue socks and black cleats. The helmets also did not have logos, as helmets were simple leather back then. The Lions also wore 1950s-style jerseys during their traditional Thanksgiving Day games from 2001 to 2004 as the NFL encouraged teams to wear throwback jerseys on Thanksgiving Day. In 2003, the team added black trim to their logo and jerseys. The face masks on the helmet changed from blue to black with the introduction of the new color. In 2005, the team introduced an alternate, black, jersey. For 2008, the team dropped the black jersey in favor of a throwback uniform to commemorate the franchise's 75th anniversary. The throwback uniform became the team's permanent alternate jersey in 2009, replacing the former black alternate. The Lions officially unveiled a new logo and uniforms on April 20, 2009. The logo was given a flowing mane and fangs, while the typeface featured a modern font. On February 1, 2017, the Lions announced a new typeface, logo, and the complete removal of the color black from the team identity. While the previous logo was retained, the border was changed from black to silver. The Lions then unveiled the new uniforms on April 13, 2017, which include blue pants for the first time since 1998, and an alternate all-silver uniform; the facemasks also became chrome. The Lions also added the initials "WCF" to the left sleeve as a permanent tribute to William Clay Ford, who owned the team from 1963 until his death in 2014. The sleeve addition replaces the black "WCF" patch on the left breast that was added after Ford's death. On September 20, 2021, the Lions wore white pants with their road white uniforms against the Green Bay Packers. The white pants, which lacked striping, were previously worn during the "scarlet and black" era in the 1948 and 1949 seasons. Thanksgiving Day tradition In 1934, then team owner George A. Richards, who also was the owner of a major radio affiliate of the NBC Blue Network, WJR in Detroit, the forerunner to today's ABC, negotiated an agreement with NBC to carry his Thanksgiving games live across all of the network's stations. Since then, the tradition of the Lions playing on Thanksgiving has continued uninterrupted. Players of note Current roster Retired numbers Notes: 1 The No. 56 was unretired with Schmidt's blessing when the Lions acquired linebacker Pat Swilling from the New Orleans Saints. No player has worn it since Swilling left. 2 Posthumous. Hughes died of a heart attack during a game on October 24, 1971, and his No. 85 was withdrawn from circulation. Over the years, however, the number would return to circulation. Special cases The Lions retired No. 93 for the 2009 season after Corey Smith disappeared, presumed dead, when a boat he was fishing in with friends capsized off the Florida coast. The Lions also wore 93 decals on their helmets that season. The number was assigned to Kyle Vanden Bosch in 2010. Pro Football Hall of Fame members Pride of the Lions In 2009, the Pride of the Lions was established. The Pride of the Lions is the ring of honor for the franchise's greatest players. 75th Season All-Time Team On November 9, 2008, the Lions honored the 75th Season All-Time Team during halftime against the Jacksonville Jaguars. The team was chosen via an online fan poll and selection committee. Bold indicates those elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Note: 1 Hanson was active at the time of the selection. Lions All-Time Team On September 29, 2019, the Lions honored their All-Time Team in celebration of the NFL's centennial during halftime against the Kansas City Chiefs. The team was chosen via fan voting, contributions from the Detroit Lions Legends Community, team executives, and select members of the media. Bold indicates those elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Note: 1 Muhlbach was active at the time of the selection. Michigan Sports Hall of Fame Staff Current staff Head coaches The Lions have had 30 head coaches throughout their franchise history. Their first head coach was Hal Griffin, who compiled a 5–6–3 (.464) overall record with the team of 1930. Wayne Fontes was the longest-tenured head coach in Lions history, serving from 1988 to 1996. The current head coach of the Lions is Dan Campbell, who was hired on January 20, 2021. Offensive coordinators Defensive coordinators Rivalries The Lions have had several division rivals in their existence. Their oldest rivals are the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers, whom they have faced since 1930. The Minnesota Vikings have been in a division with Detroit ever since their inaugural season in 1961. Another notable longtime division opponent was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (25 seasons from 1977 to 2001). The Lions also have a preseason rivalry with the Cleveland Browns, dubbed the Great Lakes Classic. The two teams have been playing for The Barge Trophy since 2002. The Lions and Browns had a solid rivalry in the 1950s, when they met four times for the NFL championship (Detroit won three of the matchups); they have met much less frequently during the regular season since the 1970 AFL–NFL merger due to the Browns' move to the AFC. Radio and television Radio The Lions' flagship radio station is WXYT-FM. Dan Miller does play-by-play, Lomas Brown does color commentary, and T. J. Lang is the sideline reporter. In 2015, the team announced that they were moving from WXYT-FM to WJR for the 2016 NFL season, ending a 20-year relationship with CBS Radio. The decision to part with WXYT was reportedly instigated by a demand by the team for the station to fire on-air personality Mike Valenti, who has had a history of making critical comments about the Lions during his drivetime show, as a condition of any future renewal. A CBS Radio spokesperson stated that their refusal was meant to maintain the station's integrity. The Lions' flagship station returned to WXYT-FM starting with the 2021 season. TV Preseason In 2015, WJBK took over from WXYZ-TV as the flagship station for Lions preseason games. In 2021, the announcers were Brandon Gaudin with play-by-play, Herman Moore with color commentary, and Dannie Rogers with sideline reports. Games are produced by Bally Sports Detroit. Regular season Regular season games are broadcast regionally on Fox, except when the Lions play an AFC team in Detroit, in which case the game airs regionally on CBS; however, since 2014, with the institution of the NFL's "cross flex" broadcast rules, any Lions game slated to air on Fox can be moved to CBS. The Thanksgiving Day game in Detroit is always televised nationally. In 2011, the Lions became the last NFC team to play on NBC's Sunday Night Football since the network began airing Sunday night games in 2006. Blackouts The Lions' winless performance in 2008 and 2–14 season in 2009, coupled with the effects of the Great Recession in Michigan, led to several local broadcast blackouts, as local fans did not purchase enough tickets by the 72-hour blackout deadline. The first blackout in the then seven-year history of Ford Field was on October 26, 2008, against the Washington Redskins. The previous 50 regular season home games had been sellouts. The second home game of the 2009 season in which the Lions broke the losing streak, also against the Redskins, was blacked out locally, as well as the comeback victory over the Cleveland Browns. The Lions had only one blackout in 2010, yet another Redskins game, which the Lions won 37–25. However, in 2015, the NFL suspended its blackout policies, meaning that all Lions games will be shown on local TV, regardless of tickets sold. Games were also often blacked out at the Lions' previous home, the 80,000-seat Pontiac Silverdome, despite winning seasons and the success and popularity of star players such as Barry Sanders. Lions cheerleaders On June 13, 2016, the Lions announced their decision to add official cheerleaders to the organization. The team also announced that Rebecca Girard-Smoker, formerly the director of the Detroit Pistons dance team, would be the coach of the cheerleading squad. It marked the first time in over 40 years the team had an official cheerleading squad. The cheerleading squad is a part of the entertainment during football games, and active at community events. See also NFL on Thanksgiving Day History of the Portsmouth Spartans Notes and references Bibliography External links Detroit Lions at the National Football League official website Lions American football teams in Michigan Culture of Detroit National Football League teams American football teams established in 1934 Sports in Pontiac, Michigan 1934 establishments in Michigan

Dimmu Borgir () is a Norwegian symphonic black metal band from Jessheim, formed in 1993. The name is derived from Dimmuborgir, a volcanic formation in Iceland, the name of which means "dark cities" or "dark castles/fortresses" in Icelandic, Faroese and Old Norse. The band has been through numerous lineup changes over the years; vocalist Shagrath and rhythm guitarist Silenoz are the only original members who still remain, with lead guitarist Galder being a longstanding member. History For All Tid and Stormblåst period Dimmu Borgir was founded in 1993 by Silenoz and Tjodalv. Shagrath, Brynjard Tristan, & Stian Aarstad later joined Dimmu Borgir, and then released an EP in 1994 entitled Inn i evighetens mørke ("Into the Darkness of Eternity" in English). This short EP sold out within weeks, and the band followed up with the 1994 full-length album For All Tid ("For All Time" in English). This album featured vocal contributions by Vicotnik of Ved Buens Ende and Dødheimsgard and Aldrahn of Dødheimsgard and Zyklon-B. The initial line-up consisted of Shagrath playing drums with Tjodalv on guitar and Silenoz contributing lead vocals. This line-up changed before the release of Stormblåst ("Stormblown" in English) on Cacophonous Records in 1996, an album considered by many to be their finest. It is also the last album which features all lyrics written and sung in Norwegian. Enthrone Darkness Triumphant period After Stormblåst, keyboardist Stian Aarstad left the band due to his obligation to serve in the Norwegian army, thus being unable to participate in the 1996 recording of Devil's Path. That period was also marked by the departure of bassist Brynjard Tristan and the arrival of Nagash. Stian Aarstad returned for the recording of 1997's Enthrone Darkness Triumphant. He had trouble attending rehearsals and was unable to tour. He was then subsequently dismembered and replaced by Kimberly Goss for their 1997/1998 world tour. Enthrone Darkness Triumphant was a huge success for the band, and was their first release signed to Nuclear Blast, a German record label. The album was recorded in the Abyss Studios, owned by Hypocrisy's frontman Peter Tägtgren. After the release of Enthrone Darkness Triumphant, the band went on tour with In Flames, Dissection and other bands who were prominent in the scene at the time. Spiritual Black Dimensions and Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia period After the tour for Enthrone Darkness Triumphant, the band recruited new members Mustis on keyboards and Astennu on lead guitar. Dimmu Borgir's following full-length albums Spiritual Black Dimensions in 1999 and 2001's Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia, both met critical acclaim. However, another line-up change occurred between the two albums; Nagash quit and was replaced by new bassist/singer ICS Vortex, and Tjodalv left due to his family commitments, and to form the subsequent band Susperia, only to be replaced with Nicholas Barker of Cradle of Filth. Astennu was fired from his guitar duties as well due to creative differences, and was replaced by Galder. Death Cult Armageddon and Stormblåst MMV period Despite the regular video play on MTV2 and Fuse that their follow-up album would receive, the band stated that they were not "commercially-oriented", and instead, they 'simply wished to spread their message to more people'. In 2003, Dimmu Borgir recorded Death Cult Armageddon. Death Cult Armageddon was recorded with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Adam Klemens. All orchestrations were arranged by Gaute Storaas (who had previously worked with Dimmu Borgir on the album Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia). In 2004, Dimmu Borgir performed on the mainstage at Ozzfest. In 2005, the band did a complete re-recording of the Stormblåst album, featuring Hellhammer of Mayhem fame as the session drummer. The album also featured a DVD with a live performance from the 2004 Ozzfest tour. In Sorte Diaboli period Dimmu Borgir's eighth studio album, In Sorte Diaboli, was released on 24 April 2007. A special edition version was released in a boxed case with a DVD, backward-printed lyrics, and a mirror. The album artwork was released on 14 February 2007 on a promotional webpage for the album. This album features once more the drumming of Hellhammer of Mayhem. Blomberg left the band in mid-tour in 2007 because of a neck injury that resulted in limited movement of his right arm. With the release of this album, Dimmu Borgir became the first black metal band with a number one album on the charts in their native country. In October 2008, they released their second live DVD set titled The Invaluable Darkness, which was based on several shows during the world tour supporting 'In Sorte Diaboli'. In 2009, members ICS Vortex and Mustis independently announced their departure from Dimmu Borgir. Mustis released a statement claiming his disfavor with the band, stating that he was not properly credited for his writing contributions to the band's music, mentioning possibly taking legal action. Dimmu Borgir soon after confirmed the pair's dismissal from the band, releasing a statement explaining why the two were fired. Shagrath, Silenoz and Galder wrote: "Funny then, how the new album is half-way finished written already by the rest of us without any of these guys' input, still having all those elements we're known for." Many fans were quite disappointed, however, without the composition of Mustis, and soaring signature voice of ICS Vortex. Abrahadabra period Dimmu Borgir's ninth studio album, Abrahadabra, was released on 24 September 2010 in Germany, 27 September 2010 for the rest of Europe and 12 October 2010 in North America. Silenoz explained that the growing periods of time between albums was because the band had stopped writing music while touring, which was affecting the quality of the music. He described the new album as having an "eerie and haunting feel to it", adding that the material is "epic", "primal", atmospheric and ambient. A promotional image released with the statement showed Shagrath returning to the keyboards. The album features an ensemble orchestra, the Kringkastingsorkestret (the Norwegian Broadcasting Orchestra), as well as the Schola Cantorum choir, totaling more than 100 musicians and singers. Gaute Storaas, composer of the orchestral arrangements, released a statement on his role in working on the album. "Their music is epic, thematic and symphonic already from the creation; they are clearly having an orchestral approach to composing. My role in this is sometimes just to transcribe their themes, sometimes to take their ideas, tear them apart and build them back up in ways that are true to the band's intentions. The music must also be both interesting and playable for the musicians, and hopefully, meet the quality standards of the orchestral world." On 8 July the band confirmed that they had tapped Swedish multi-instrumentalist Snowy Shaw (Therion, Dream Evil) to replace bassist/clean vocalist ICS Vortex on their then-upcoming album, Abrahadabra, and world tour. On 25 August it was announced that Snowy Shaw had left Dimmu Borgir to rejoin Therion. On 17 September 2010 Dimmu Borgir released the song "Born Treacherous" from Abrahadabra on their official Myspace page. Then on 24 September the band announced they would stream Abrahadabra in its entirety until 7 p.m. EST that evening. The keyboards and bass are currently played by Gerlioz from Apoptygma Berzerk and Cyrus of Susperia respectively, and the clean vocals are sampled. 28 May 2011 saw Dimmu Borgir, for the first time in the band's career, perform live with a full symphony orchestra and choir in a one-off show with the Norwegian Broadcasting Orchestra and Schola Cantorum Choir (who collaborated on Abrahadabra the previous year) at the Oslo Spectrum entitled "Forces of the Northern Night". This was broadcast live on Norway's main national TV carrier NRK. The setlist for this show consisted of tracks from the band's recent transfiguration Abrahadabra, leading tracks "Vredysbyrd" and "Progenies of the Great Apocalypse" from Death Cult Armageddon, as well as newly updated versions of tracks from their standard back catalog; "The Serpentine Offering", "Kings of the Carnival Creation", and "Mourning Palace" which were re-orchestrated by Gaute Storaas. The band played a similar show the following year at the Wacken Open Air festival, having yet performed a second live show with a symphony orchestra and choir. This time, they were accompanied by the Czech National Orchestra with the same choir, being the second band in the festival's history to play with a live orchestra and choir (next to German power metal band Rage's 2007 performance). The show was broadcast live on Germany's Kultur TV arts channel. Silenoz has also said in several recent interviews that both live sets have been fully mixed and will be accompanied by a feature-length documentary and bonus material when released. In late 2011-2012 the band went on a special tour for fans in various European countries, including playing in some small, intimate venues celebrating their 1997 album Enthrone Darkness Triumphant by playing the album in its entirety, alongside an additional set of various fan favourite tracks, following a poll to fans directly, asking which of their first 3 albums would they want to see played in full on their next European tour. Forces of the Northern Night and Eonian The band originally announced in August 2013 that work had commenced on the band's next album. However, the production and release of the album has faced numerous delays. It will mark the longest ever gap between each studio release. Following various delays, The Oslo and Wacken Orchestra performances, recorded between 2011 and 2012, were released on CD/DVD/Blu-ray format on 28 April 2017 worldwide as their third live video release titled 'Forces of the Northern Night'. Silenoz recently revealed that the band is in the mixing stage of the follow-up to Abrahadabra. Ten songs will feature on the next album and they have said it has since been completed. On 18 December 2017 it was announced that the first single from the new album will be initially released on a 7-inch vinyl EP, and will be titled 'Interdimensional Summit', and was released on 23 February 2018. The new album was titled Eonian and was released on 4 May through Nuclear Blast, and marked the band's first new release of original material in almost eight years. A second song from the new album, 'Council of Wolves and Snakes' was made available for streaming online on 30 March. On 28 May, it was announced that Victor Brandt (Entombed A.D., Firespawn) had officially joined as the band's new bassist. Eleventh studio album According to recent updates on the band member's Instagram accounts, the band are now in the process of writing and pre-production for their eleventh studio album. Silenoz has stated in a recent interview that the band would not take as long to release their next album. Influences and musical style Dimmu Borgir's older releases (since 1994 to 1999) are, according to AllMusic journalist Bradley Torreano, strongly influenced by Darkthrone, Mayhem, Bathory, Emperor, Celtic Frost, Immortal, Venom, and Iron Maiden. The band became more progressive and symphonic through the years; many black metal purists consider the band's second album, Stormblåst, to be "the act's last true contribution to black metal". Enthrone Darkness Triumphant, Dimmu Borgir's third album, "distinguished itself in two important areas, firstly forgoing their native language for English and secondly for its dramatic increase in synthesizer content." Significant experimentation began with 1999's Spiritual Black Dimensions (due to the addition of Vortex's clean vocals, and the variety of musical ideas from then-new member Mustis), as well as Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia due to addition of influences from composers such as Antonín Dvořák, Enya, Richard Wagner, and Frédéric Chopin. As the music strongly differed from the older, rawer black metal style, Jon "Metalion" Kristiansen called Spiritual Black Dimensions "a fine case of melodic, over-produced symphonic metal. If you like this melodic style I can't really think of anyone doing it better [...]. No, I wouldn't call this black metal. Read the interview with Funeral Mist for the right definition of black metal." Discography For all tid (1995) Stormblåst (1996) Enthrone Darkness Triumphant (1997) Spiritual Black Dimensions (1999) Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia (2001) Death Cult Armageddon (2003) Stormblåst MMV (2005) In Sorte Diaboli (2007) Abrahadabra (2010) Eonian (2018) Members Current official members Silenoz – rhythm guitar , lead vocals Shagrath – lead vocals , drums , lead guitar Galder – lead guitar Current session/touring members Daray – drums Gerlioz – keyboards, synthesizers Victor Brandt – bass guitar References External links Norwegian symphonic black metal musical groups Musical groups established in 1993 1993 establishments in Norway Spellemannprisen winners Musical groups from Oslo People from Jessheim Nuclear Blast artists Articles which contain graphical timelines

"Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) was the official United States policy on military service by gay men, bisexuals, and lesbians, instituted during the Clinton administration. The policy was issued under Department of Defense Directive 1304.26 on December 21, 1993, and was in effect from February 28, 1994, until September 20, 2011. The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while barring openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons from military service. This relaxation of legal restrictions on service by gays and lesbians in the armed forces was mandated by United States federal law (), which was signed November 30, 1993. The policy prohibited people who "demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts" from serving in the armed forces of the United States, because their presence "would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability". The act prohibited any homosexual male, lesbian, or bisexual from disclosing their sexual orientation or from speaking about any same-sex relationships, including marriages or other familial attributes, while serving in the United States armed forces. The act specified that service members who disclose that they are homosexual or engage in homosexual conduct should be separated (discharged) except when a service member's conduct was "for the purpose of avoiding or terminating military service" or when it "would not be in the best interest of the armed forces". Since DADT ended in 2011, persons who are openly homosexual and bisexual have been able to serve. The "don't ask" part of the DADT policy specified that superiors should not initiate an investigation of a service member's orientation without witnessing disallowed behaviors. However, evidence of homosexual behavior deemed credible could be used to initiate an investigation. Unauthorized investigations and harassment of suspected servicemen and women led to an expansion of the policy to "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue, don't harass". Beginning in the early 2000s, several legal challenges to DADT were filed, and legislation to repeal DADT was enacted in December 2010, specifying that the policy would remain in place until the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certified that repeal would not harm military readiness, followed by a 60-day waiting period. A July 6, 2011, ruling from a federal appeals court barred further enforcement of the U.S. military's ban on openly gay service members. President Barack Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen sent that certification to Congress on July 22, 2011, which set the end of DADT to September 20, 2011. Although DADT was officially repealed, the legal definition of marriage as being one man and one woman under the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) meant that, although same-sex partners could get married, their marriage was not recognized by the federal government. This barred partners from access to the same benefits afforded to heterosexual couples such as base access, health care, and United States military pay, including family separation allowance and Basic Allowance for Housing with dependents. The Department of Defense attempted to open some of the benefits that were not restricted by DOMA, but the Supreme Court decision in United States v. Windsor made these efforts unnecessary. Background Engaging in homosexual activity had been grounds for discharge from the American military since the Revolutionary War. Policies based on sexual orientation appeared as the United States prepared to enter World War II. When the military added psychiatric screening to its induction process, it included homosexuality as a disqualifying trait, then seen as a form of psychopathology. When the army issued revised mobilization regulations in 1942, it distinguished "homosexual" recruits from "normal" recruits for the first time. Before the buildup to the war, gay service members were court-martialed, imprisoned, and dishonorably discharged; but in wartime, commanding officers found it difficult to convene court-martial boards of commissioned officers and the administrative blue discharge became the military's standard method for handling gay and lesbian personnel. In 1944, a new policy directive decreed that homosexuals were to be committed to military hospitals, examined by psychiatrists, and discharged under Regulation 615–360, section 8. In 1947, blue discharges were discontinued and two new classifications were created: "general" and "undesirable". Under such a system, a serviceman or woman found to be gay but who had not committed any sexual acts while in service would tend to receive an undesirable discharge. Those found guilty of engaging in sexual conduct were usually dishonorably discharged. A 1957 U.S. Navy study known as the Crittenden Report dismissed the charge that homosexuals constitute a security risk, but nonetheless did not advocate for an end to anti-gay discrimination in the navy on the basis that "The service should not move ahead of civilian society nor attempt to set substantially different standards in attitude or action with respect to homosexual offenders." It remained secret until 1976. Fannie Mae Clackum was the first service member to successfully appeal such a discharge, winning eight years of back pay from the US Court of Claims in 1960. From the 1950s through the Vietnam War, some notable gay service members avoided discharges despite pre-screening efforts, and when personnel shortages occurred, homosexuals were allowed to serve. The gay and lesbian rights movement in the 1970s and 1980s raised the issue by publicizing several noteworthy dismissals of gay service members. Air Force TSgt Leonard Matlovich, the first service member to purposely out himself to challenge the ban, appeared on the cover of Time in 1975. In 1982 the Department of Defense issued a policy stating that, "Homosexuality is incompatible with military service." It cited the military's need "to maintain discipline, good order, and morale" and "to prevent breaches of security". In 1988, in response to a campaign against lesbians at the Marines' Parris Island Depot, activists launched the Gay and Lesbian Military Freedom Project (MFP) to advocate for an end to the exclusion of gays and lesbians from the armed forces. In 1989, reports commissioned by the Personnel Security Research and Education Center (PERSEREC), an arm of the Pentagon, were discovered in the process of Joseph Steffan's lawsuit fighting his forced resignation from the U.S. Naval Academy. One report said that "having a same-gender or an opposite-gender orientation is unrelated to job performance in the same way as is being left- or right-handed." Other lawsuits fighting discharges highlighted the service record of service members like Tracy Thorne and Margarethe (Grethe) Cammermeyer. The MFP began lobbying Congress in 1990, and in 1991 Senator Brock Adams (D-Washington) and Rep. Barbara Boxer introduced the Military Freedom Act, legislation to end the ban completely. Adams and Rep. Pat Schroeder (D-Colorado) re-introduced it the next year. In July 1991, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, in the context of the outing of his press aide Pete Williams, dismissed the idea that gays posed a security risk as "a bit of an old chestnut" in testimony before the House Budget Committee. In response to his comment, several major newspapers endorsed ending the ban, including USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and the Detroit Free Press. In June 1992, the General Accounting Office released a report that members of Congress had requested two years earlier estimating the costs associated with the ban on gays and lesbians in the military at $27 million annually. During the 1992 U.S. presidential election campaign, the civil rights of gays and lesbians, particularly their open service in the military, attracted some press attention, and all candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination supported ending the ban on military service by gays and lesbians, but the Republicans did not make a political issue of that position. In an August cover letter to all his senior officers, General Carl Mundy Jr., Commandant of the Marine Corps, praised a position paper authored by a Marine Corps chaplain that said that "In the unique, intensely close environment of the military, homosexual conduct can threaten the lives, including the physical (e.g. AIDS) and psychological well-being of others". Mundy called it "extremely insightful" and said it offered "a sound basis for discussion of the issue". The murder of gay U.S. Navy petty officer Allen R. Schindler Jr. on October 27, 1992, brought calls from advocates of allowing open service by gays and lesbians for prompt action from the incoming Clinton administration. Origin The policy was introduced as a compromise measure in 1993 by President Bill Clinton who campaigned in 1992 on the promise to allow all citizens to serve in the military regardless of sexual orientation. Commander Craig Quigley, a Navy spokesman, expressed the opposition of many in the military at the time when he said, "Homosexuals are notoriously promiscuous" and that in shared shower situations, heterosexuals would have an "uncomfortable feeling of someone watching". During the 1993 policy debate, the National Defense Research Institute prepared a study for the Office of the Secretary of Defense published as Sexual Orientation and U.S. Military Personnel Policy: Options and Assessment. It concluded that "circumstances could exist under which the ban on homosexuals could be lifted with little or no adverse consequences for recruitment and retention" if the policy were implemented with care, principally because many factors contribute to individual enlistment and re-enlistment decisions. On May 5, 1993, Gregory M. Herek, associate research psychologist at the University of California at Davis and an authority on public attitudes toward lesbians and gay men, testified before the House Armed Services Committee on behalf of several professional associations. He stated, "The research data show that there is nothing about lesbians and gay men that makes them inherently unfit for military service, and there is nothing about heterosexuals that makes them inherently unable to work and live with gay people in close quarters." Herek added, "The assumption that heterosexuals cannot overcome their prejudices toward gay people is a mistaken one." In Congress, Democratic Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia and Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee led the contingent that favored maintaining the absolute ban on gays. Reformers were led by Democratic Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who favored modification (but ultimately voted for the defense authorization bill with the gay ban language), and Barry Goldwater, a former Republican Senator and a retired Major General, who argued on behalf of allowing service by open gays and lesbians but was not allowed to appear before the Committee by Nunn. In a June 1993 Washington Post opinion piece, Goldwater wrote: "You don't have to be straight to shoot straight". Congress rushed to enact the existing gay ban policy into federal law, outflanking Clinton's planned repeal effort. Clinton called for legislation to overturn the ban, but encountered intense opposition from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, members of Congress, and portions of the public. DADT emerged as a compromise policy. Congress included text in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994 (passed in 1993) requiring the military to abide by regulations essentially identical to the 1982 absolute ban policy. The Clinton administration on December 21, 1993, issued Defense Directive 1304.26, which directed that military applicants were not to be asked about their sexual orientation. This policy is now known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". The phrase was coined by Charles Moskos, a military sociologist. In accordance with the December 21, 1993, Department of Defense Directive 1332.14, it was legal policy (10 U.S.C. § 654) that homosexuality was incompatible with military service and that persons who engaged in homosexual acts or stated that they are homosexual or bisexual were to be discharged. The Uniform Code of Military Justice, passed by Congress in 1950 and signed by President Harry S Truman, established the policies and procedures for discharging service members. The full name of the policy at the time was "Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue". The "Don't Ask" provision mandated that military or appointed officials not ask about or require members to reveal their sexual orientation. The "Don't Tell" stated that a member may be discharged for claiming to be a homosexual or bisexual or making a statement indicating a tendency towards or intent to engage in homosexual activities. The "Don’t Pursue" established what was minimally required for an investigation to be initiated. A "Don’t Harass" provision was added to the policy later. It ensured that the military would not allow harassment or violence against service members for any reason. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network was founded in 1993 to advocate an end to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the U.S. Armed Forces. Court challenges DADT was upheld by five federal Courts of Appeal. The Supreme Court, in Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights, Inc. (2006), unanimously held that the federal government could constitutionally withhold funding from universities, no matter what their nondiscrimination policies might be, for refusing to give military recruiters access to school resources. An association of law schools had argued that allowing military recruiting at their institutions compromised their ability to exercise their free speech rights in opposition to discrimination based on sexual orientation as represented by DADT. McVeigh v. Cohen In January 1998, Senior Chief Petty Officer Timothy R. McVeigh (not to be confused with convicted Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy J. McVeigh) won a preliminary injunction from a U.S. district court that prevented his discharge from the U.S. Navy for "homosexual conduct" after 17 years of service. His lawsuit did not challenge the DADT policy but asked the court to hold the military accountable for adhering to the policy's particulars. The Navy had investigated McVeigh's sexual orientation based on his AOL email account name and user profile. District Judge Stanley Sporkin ruled in McVeigh v. Cohen that the Navy had violated its own DADT guidelines: "Suggestions of sexual orientation in a private, anonymous email account did not give the Navy a sufficient reason to investigate to determine whether to commence discharge proceedings." He called the Navy's investigation "a search and destroy mission" against McVeigh. The case also attracted attention because a navy paralegal had misrepresented himself when querying AOL for information about McVeigh's account. Frank Rich linked the two issues: "McVeigh is as clear-cut a victim of a witch hunt as could be imagined, and that witch hunt could expand exponentially if the military wants to add on-line fishing to its invasion of service members' privacy." AOL apologized to McVeigh and paid him damages. McVeigh reached a settlement with the Navy that paid his legal expenses and allowed him to retire with full benefits in July. The New York Times called Sporkin's ruling "a victory for gay rights, with implications for the millions of people who use computer on-line services". Witt v. Department of the Air Force In April 2006, Margaret Witt, a major in the United States Air Force who was being investigated for homosexuality, filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington seeking declaratory and injunctive relief on the grounds that DADT violates substantive due process, the Equal Protection Clause, and procedural due process. In July 2007 the Secretary of the Air Force ordered her honorable discharge. Dismissed by the district court, the case was heard on appeal, and the Ninth Circuit issued its ruling on May 21, 2008. Its decision in Witt v. Department of the Air Force reinstated Witt's substantive-due-process and procedural-due-process claims and affirmed the dismissal of her Equal Protection claim. The Ninth Circuit, analyzing the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), determined that DADT had to be subjected to heightened scrutiny, meaning that there must be an "important" governmental interest at issue, that DADT must "significantly" further the governmental interest, and that there can be no less intrusive way for the government to advance that interest. The Obama administration declined to appeal, allowing a May 3, 2009, deadline to pass, leaving Witt as binding on the entire Ninth Circuit, and returning the case to the District Court. On September 24, 2010, District Judge Ronald B. Leighton ruled that Witt's constitutional rights had been violated by her discharge and that she must be reinstated to the Air Force. The government filed an appeal with the Ninth Circuit on November 23, but did not attempt to have the trial court's ruling stayed pending the outcome. In a settlement announced on May 10, 2011, the Air Force agreed to drop its appeal and remove Witt's discharge from her military record. She will retire with full benefits. Log Cabin Republicans v. United States of America In 2010, a lawsuit filed in 2004 by the Log Cabin Republicans (LCR), the nation's largest Republican gay organization, went to trial. Challenging the constitutionality of DADT, the plaintiffs stated that the policy violates the rights of gay military members to free speech, due process and open association. The government argued that DADT was necessary to advance a legitimate governmental interest. Plaintiffs introduced statements by President Barack Obama, from prepared remarks, that DADT "doesn't contribute to our national security", "weakens our national security", and that reversal is "essential for our national security". According to plaintiffs, these statements alone satisfied their burden of proof on the due process claims. On September 9, 2010, Judge Virginia A. Phillips ruled in Log Cabin Republicans v. United States of America that the ban on service by openly gay service members was an unconstitutional violation of the First and Fifth Amendments. On October 12, 2010, she granted an immediate worldwide injunction prohibiting the Department of Defense from enforcing the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy and ordered the military to suspend and discontinue any investigation or discharge, separation, or other proceedings based on it. The Department of Justice appealed her decision and requested a stay of her injunction, which Phillips denied but which the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted on October 20 and stayed pending appeal on November 1. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to overrule the stay. District Court neither anticipated questions of constitutional law nor formulated a rule broader than is required by the facts. The constitutional issues regarding DADT are well-defined, and the District Court focused specifically on the relevant inquiry of whether the statute impermissibly infringed upon substantive due process rights with regard to a protected area of individual liberty. Engaging in a careful and detailed review of the facts presented to it at trial, the District Court properly concluded that the Government put forward no persuasive evidence to demonstrate that the statute is a valid exercise of congressional authority to legislate in the realm of protected liberty interests. See Log Cabin, 716 F. Supp. 2d at 923. Hypothetical questions were neither presented nor answered in reaching this decision. On October 19, 2010, military recruiters were told they could accept openly gay applicants. On October 20, 2010, Lt. Daniel Choi, an openly gay man honorably discharged under DADT, re-enlisted in the U.S. Army. Following the passage of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, the Justice Department asked the Ninth Circuit to suspend LCR's suit in light of the legislative repeal. LCR opposed the request, noting that gay personnel were still subject to discharge. On January 28, 2011, the Court denied the Justice Department's request. The Obama administration responded by requesting that the policy be allowed to stay in place while they completed the process of assuring that its end would not impact combat readiness. On March 28, the LCR filed a brief asking that the court deny the administration's request. In 2011, while waiting for certification, several service members were discharged under DADT at their own insistence, until July 6 when a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals re-instated Judge Phillips' injunction barring further enforcement of the U.S. military's ban on openly gay service members. On July 11, the appeals court asked the DOJ to inform the court if it intended to proceed with its appeal. On July 14, the Justice Department filed a motion "to avoid short-circuiting the repeal process established by Congress during the final stages of the implementation of the repeal". and warning of "significant immediate harms on the government". On July 15, the Ninth Circuit restored most of the DADT policy, but continued to prohibit the government from discharging or investigating openly gay personnel. Following the implementation of DADT's repeal, a panel of three judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the Phillips ruling. Debate Following the July 1999 murder of Army Pfc. Barry Winchell, apparently motivated by anti-gay bias, President Clinton issued an executive order modifying the Uniform Code of Military Justice to permit evidence of a hate crime to be admitted during the sentencing phase of a trial. In December, Secretary of Defense William Cohen ordered a review of DADT to determine if the policy's anti-gay harassment component was being observed. When that review found anti-gay sentiments were widely expressed and tolerated in the military, the DOD adopted a new anti-harassment policy in July 2000, though its effectiveness was disputed. On December 7, 1999, Hillary Clinton told an audience of gay supporters that "Gays and lesbians already serve with distinction in our nation's armed forces and should not face discrimination. Fitness to serve should be based on an individual's conduct, not their sexual orientation." Later that month, retired General Carl E. Mundy Jr. defended the implementation of DADT against what he called the "politicization" of the issue by both Clintons. He cited discharge statistics for the Marines for the past five years that showed 75% were based on "voluntary admission of homosexuality" and 49% occurred during the first six months of service, when new recruits were most likely to reevaluate their decision to enlist. He also argued against any change in the policy, writing in the New York Times: "Conduct that is widely rejected by a majority of Americans can undermine the trust that is essential to creating and maintaining the sense of unity that is critical to the success of a military organization operating under the very different and difficult demands of combat." The conviction of Winchell's murderer, according to the New York Times, "galvanized opposition" to DADT, an issue that had "largely vanished from public debate". Opponents of the policy focused on punishing harassment in the military rather than the policy itself, which Senator Chuck Hagel defended on December 25: "The U.S. armed forces aren't some social experiment." The principal candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000, Al Gore and Bill Bradley, both endorsed military service by open gays and lesbians, provoking opposition from high-ranking retired military officers, notably the recently retired commandant of the Marine Corps, General Charles C. Krulak. He and others objected to Gore's statement that he would use support for ending DADT as a "litmus test" when considering candidates for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The 2000 Democratic Party platform was silent on the issue, while the Republican Party platform that year said: "We affirm that homosexuality is incompatible with military service." Following the election of George W. Bush in 2000, observers expected him to avoid any changes to DADT, since his nominee for Secretary of State Colin Powell had participated in its creation. In February 2004, members of the British Armed Forces, Lt Rolf Kurth and Lt Cdr Craig Jones, along with Aaron Belkin, Director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military met with members of Congress and spoke at the National Defense University. They spoke about their experience of the current situation in the UK. The UK lifted the gay ban on members serving in their forces in 2000. In July 2004, the American Psychological Association issued a statement that DADT "discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation" and that "Empirical evidence fails to show that sexual orientation is germane to any aspect of military effectiveness including unit cohesion, morale, recruitment and retention." It said that the U.S. military's track record overcoming past racial and gender discrimination demonstrated its ability to integrate groups previously excluded. The Republican Party platform that year reiterated its support for the policy—"We affirm traditional military culture, and we affirm that homosexuality is incompatible with military service."—while the Democratic Party maintained its silence. In February 2005, the Government Accountability Office released estimates of the cost of DADT. It reported at least $95.4 million in recruiting costs and at least $95.1 million for training replacements for the 9,488 troops discharged from 1994 through 2003, while noting that the true figures might be higher. In September, as part of its campaign to demonstrate that the military allowed open homosexuals to serve when its workforce requirements were greatest, the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military (now the Palm Center) reported that army regulations allowed the active-duty deployment of Army Reservists and National Guard troops who claim to be or who are accused of being gay. A U.S. Army Forces Command spokesperson said the regulation was intended to prevent Reservists and National Guard members from pretending to be gay to escape combat. Advocates of ending DADT repeatedly publicized discharges of highly trained gay and lesbian personnel, especially those in positions with critical shortages, including fifty-nine Arabic speakers and nine Persian speakers. Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, later argued that the military's failure to ask about sexual orientation at recruitment was the cause of the discharges: [Y]ou could reduce this number to zero or near zero if the Department of Defense dropped Don't Ask, Don't Tell. ... We should not be training people who are not eligible to be in the Armed Forces." In February 2006, a University of California Blue Ribbon Commission that included Lawrence Korb, a former assistant defense secretary during the Reagan administration, William Perry, Secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration, and professors from the United States Military Academy released their assessment of the GAO's analysis of the cost of DADT released a year earlier. The commission report stated that the GAO did not take into account the value the military lost from the departures. They said that that total cost was closer to $363 million, including $14.3 million for "separation travel" following a service member's discharge, $17.8 million for training officers, $252.4 million for training enlistees, and $79.3 million in recruiting costs. In 2006, Soulforce, a national LGBT rights organization, organized its Right to Serve Campaign, in which gay men and lesbians in several cities attempted to enlist in the Armed Forces or National Guard. Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness stated in September: "I think the people involved here do not have the best interests of the military at heart. They never have. They are promoting an agenda to normalize homosexuality in America using the military as a battering ram to promote that broader agenda." She said that "pro-homosexual activists ... are creating media events all over the country and even internationally." In 2006, a speaking tour of gay former service members, organized by SLDN, Log Cabin Republicans, and Meehan, visited 18 colleges and universities. Patrick Guerriero, executive director of Log Cabin, thought the repeal movement was gaining "new traction" but "Ultimately", said, "we think it's going to take a Republican with strong military credentials to make a shift in the policy." Elaine Donnelly called such efforts "a big P.R. campaign" and said that "The law is there to protect good order and discipline in the military, and it's not going to change." In December 2006, Zogby International released the results of a poll of military personnel conducted in October 2006 that found that 26% favored allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, 37% were opposed, while 37% expressed no preference or were unsure. Of respondents who had experience with gay people in their unit, 6% said their presence had a positive impact on their personal morale, 66% said no impact, and 28% said negative impact. Regarding overall unit morale, 3% said positive impact, 64% no impact, and 27% negative impact. Retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Shalikashvili and former Senator and Secretary of Defense William Cohen opposed the policy in January 2007: "I now believe that if gay men and lesbians served openly in the United States military, they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces" Shalikashvili wrote. "Our military has been stretched thin by our deployments in the Middle East, and we must welcome the service of any American who is willing and able to do the job." Shalikashvili cited the recent "Zogby poll of more than 500 service members returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, three-quarters of whom said they were comfortable interacting with gay people. The debate took a different turn in March when General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune he supported DADT because "homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and ... we should not condone immoral acts." His remarks became, according to the Tribune, "a huge news story on radio, television and the Internet during the day and showed how sensitive the Pentagon's policy has become." Senator John Warner, who backed DADT, said "I respectfully, but strongly, disagree with the chairman's view that homosexuality is immoral", and Pace expressed regret for expressing his personal views and said that DADT "does not make a judgment about the morality of individual acts." Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, then in the early stages of his campaign for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, defended DADT: That summer, after U.S. senator Larry Craig was arrested for lewd conduct in a men's restroom, conservative commentator Michael Medved argued that any liberalization of DADT would "compromise restroom integrity and security". He wrote: "The national shudder of discomfort and queasiness associated with any introduction of homosexual eroticism into public men's rooms should make us more determined than ever to resist the injection of those lurid attitudes into the even more explosive situation of the U.S. military." In November 2007, 28 retired generals and admirals urged Congress to repeal the policy, citing evidence that 65,000 gay men and women were serving in the armed forces and that there were over a million gay veterans. On November 17, 2008, 104 retired generals and admirals signed a similar statement. In December, SLDN arranged for 60 Minutes to interview Darren Manzella, an Army medic who served in Iraq after coming out to his unit. On May 4, 2008, while Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen addressed the graduating cadets at West Point, a cadet asked what would happen if the next administration were supportive of legislation allowing gays to serve openly. Mullen responded, "Congress, and not the military, is responsible for DADT." Previously, during his Senate confirmation hearing in 2007, Mullen told lawmakers, "I really think it is for the American people to come forward, really through this body, to both debate that policy and make changes, if that's appropriate." He went on to say, "I'd love to have Congress make its own decisions" with respect to considering repeal. In May 2009, when a committee of military law experts at the Palm Center, an anti-DADT research institute, concluded that the President could issue an Executive Order to suspend homosexual conduct discharges, Obama rejected that option and said he wanted Congress to change the law. On July 5, 2009, Colin Powell told CNN that the policy was "correct for the time" but that "sixteen years have now gone by, and I think a lot has changed with respect to attitudes within our country, and therefore I think this is a policy and a law that should be reviewed." Interviewed for the same broadcast, Mullen said the policy would continue to be implemented until the law was repealed, and that his advice was to "move in a measured way. ... At a time when we're fighting two conflicts there is a great deal of pressure on our forces and their families." In September, Joint Force Quarterly published an article by an Air Force colonel that disputed the argument that unit cohesion is compromised by the presence of openly gay personnel. In October 2009, the Commission on Military Justice, known as the Cox Commission, repeated its 2001 recommendation that Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which bans sodomy, be repealed, noting that "most acts of consensual sodomy committed by consenting military personnel are not prosecuted, creating a perception that prosecution of this sexual behavior is arbitrary." In January 2010, the White House and congressional officials started work on repealing the ban by inserting language into the 2011 defense authorization bill. During Obama's State of the Union Address on January 27, 2010, he said that he would work with Congress and the military to enact a repeal of the gay ban law and for the first time set a timetable for repeal. At a February 2, 2010, congressional hearing, Senator John McCain read from a letter signed by "over one thousand former general and flag officers". It said: "We firmly believe that this law, which Congress passed to protect good order, discipline and morale in the unique environment of the armed forces, deserves continued support." The signature campaign had been organized by Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness, a longtime supporter of a traditional all-male and all-heterosexual military. Servicemembers United, a veterans group opposed to DADT, issued a report critical of the letter's legitimacy. They said that among those signing the letter were officers who had no knowledge of their inclusion or who had refused to be included, and even one instance of a general's widow who signed her husband's name to the letter though he had died before the survey was published. The average age of the officers whose names were listed as signing the letter was 74, the oldest was 98, and Servicemembers United noted that "only a small fraction of these officers have even served in the military during the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' period, much less in the 21st century military." The Center for American Progress issued a report in March 2010 that said a smooth implementation of an end to DADT required eight specified changes to the military's internal regulations. On March 25, 2010, Defense Secretary Gates announced new rules mandating that only flag officers could initiate discharge proceedings and imposing more stringent rules of evidence on discharge proceedings. Repeal The underlying justifications for DADT had been subjected to increasing suspicion and outright rejection by the early 21st century. Mounting evidence obtained from the integration efforts of foreign militaries, surveys of U.S. military personnel, and studies conducted by the DoD gave credence to the view that the presence of open homosexuals within the military would not be detrimental at all to the armed forces. A DoD study conducted at the behest of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in 2010 supports this most. The DoD working group conducting the study considered the impact that lifting the ban would have on unit cohesion and effectiveness, good order and discipline, and military morale. The study included a survey that revealed significant differences between respondents who believed they had served with homosexual troops and those who did not believe they had. In analyzing such data, the DoD working group concluded that it was actually generalized perceptions of homosexual troops that led to the perceived unrest that would occur without DADT. Ultimately, the study deemed the overall risk to military effectiveness of lifting the ban to be low. Citing the ability of the armed forces to adjust to the previous integration of African-Americans and women, the DoD study asserted that the United States military could adjust as had it before in history without an impending serious effect. In March 2005, Rep. Martin T. Meehan introduced the Military Readiness Enhancement Act in the House. It aimed "to amend title 10, United States Code, to enhance the readiness of the Armed Forces by replacing the current policy concerning homosexuality in the Armed Forces, referred to as 'Don't ask, don't tell,' with a policy of nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation". As of 2006, it had 105 Democrats and 4 Republicans as co-sponsors. He introduced the bill again in 2007 and 2009. During the 2008 U.S. presidential election campaign, Senator Barack Obama advocated a full repeal of the laws barring gays and lesbians from serving in the military. Nineteen days after his election, Obama's advisers announced that plans to repeal the policy might be delayed until 2010, because Obama "first wants to confer with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his new political appointees at the Pentagon to reach a consensus, and then present legislation to Congress". As president he advocated a policy change to allow gay personnel to serve openly in the armed forces, stating that the U.S. government has spent millions of dollars replacing troops expelled from the military, including language experts fluent in Arabic, because of DADT. On the eve of the National Equality March in Washington, D.C., October 10, 2009, Obama stated in a speech before the Human Rights Campaign that he would end the ban, but he offered no timetable. Obama said in his 2010 State of the Union Address: "This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are." This statement was quickly followed up by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs chairman Michael Mullen voicing their support for a repeal of DADT. Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 Democrats in both houses of Congress first attempted to end DADT by amending the Defense Authorization Act. On May 27, 2010, on a 234–194 vote, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the Murphy amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011. It provided for repeal of the DADT policy and created a process for lifting the policy, including a U.S. Department of Defense study and certification by key officials that the change in policy would not harm military readiness followed by a waiting period of 60 days. The amended defense bill passed the House on May 28, 2010. On September 21, 2010, John McCain led a successful filibuster against the debate on the Defense Authorization Act, in which 56 Senators voted to end debate, four short of the 60 votes required. Some advocates for repeal, including the Palm Center, OutServe, and Knights Out, opposed any attempt to block the passage of NDAA if it failed to include DADT repeal language. The Human Rights Campaign, the Center for American Progress, Servicemembers United and SLDN refused to concede that possibility. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit, Collins v. United States, against the Department of Defense in November 2010 seeking full compensation for those discharged under the policy. On November 30, 2010, the Joint Chiefs of Staff released the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Comprehensive Review Working Group (CRWG) report authored by Jeh C. Johnson, General Counsel of the Department of Defense, and Army General Carter F. Ham. It outlined a path to the implementation of repeal of DADT. The report indicated that there was a low risk of service disruptions due to repealing the ban, provided time was provided for proper implementation and training. It included the results of a survey of 115,000 active-duty and reserve service members. Across all service branches, 30 percent thought that integrating gays into the military would have negative consequences. In the Marine Corps and combat specialties, the percentage with that negative assessment ranged from 40 to 60 percent. The CRWG also said that 69 percent of all those surveyed believed they had already worked with a gay or lesbian and of those, 92 percent reported that the impact of that person's presence was positive or neutral. The same day, in response to the CRWG, 30 professors and scholars, most from military institutions, issued a joint statement saying that the CRWG "echoes more than 20 studies, including studies by military researchers, all of which reach the same conclusion: allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly will not harm the military ... We hope that our collective statement underscores that the debate about the evidence is now officially over". The Family Research Council's president, Tony Perkins, interpreted the CRWG data differently, writing that it "reveals that 40 percent of Marines and 25 percent of the Army could leave". Gates encouraged Congress to act quickly to repeal the law so that the military could carefully adjust rather than face a court decision requiring it to lift the policy immediately. The United States Senate held two days of hearings on December 2 and 3, 2010, to consider the CRWG report. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs chairman Michael Mullen urged immediate repeal. The heads of the Marine Corps, Army, and Navy all advised against immediate repeal and expressed varied views on its eventual repeal. Oliver North, writing in National Review the next week, said that Gates' testimony showed "a deeply misguided commitment to political correctness". He interpreted the CRWG's data as indicating a high risk that large numbers of resignations would follow the repeal of DADT. Service members, especially combat troops, he wrote, "deserve better than to be treated like lab rats in Mr. Obama's radical social experiment". On December 9, 2010, another filibuster prevented debate on the Defense Authorization Act. In response to that vote, Senators Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins introduced a bill that included the policy-related portions of the Defense Authorization Act that they considered more likely to pass as a stand-alone bill. It passed the House on a vote of 250 to 175 on December 15, 2010. On December 18, 2010, the Senate voted to end debate on its version of the bill by a cloture vote of 63–33. The final Senate vote was held later that same day, with the measure passing by a vote of 65–31. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates released a statement following the vote indicating that the planning for implementation of a policy repeal would begin right away and would continue until Gates certified that conditions were met for orderly repeal of the policy. President Obama signed the repeal into law on December 22, 2010. Implementation of repeal The repeal act established a process for ending the DADT policy. The President, the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were required to certify in writing that they had reviewed the Pentagon's report on the effects of DADT repeal, that the appropriate regulations had been reviewed and drafted, and that implementation of repeal regulations "is consistent with the standards of military readiness, military effectiveness, unit cohesion, and recruiting and retention of the Armed Forces". Once certification was given, DADT would be lifted after a 60-day waiting period. Representative Duncan D. Hunter announced plans in January 2011 to introduce a bill designed to delay the end of DADT. His proposed legislation required all of the chiefs of the armed services to submit the certification at the time required only of the President, Defense Secretary and Joint Chiefs chairman. In April, Perkins of the Family Research Council argued that the Pentagon was misrepresenting its own survey data and that hearings by the House Armed Services Committee, now under Republican control, could persuade Obama to withhold certification. Congressional efforts to prevent the change in policy from going into effect continued into May and June 2011. On January 29, 2011, Pentagon officials stated that the training process to prepare troops for the end of DADT would begin in February and would proceed quickly, though they suggested that it might not be completed in 2011. On the same day, the DOD announced it would not offer any additional compensation to service members who had been discharged under DADT, who received half of the separation pay other honorably discharged service members received. In May 2011, the U.S. Army reprimanded three colonels for performing a skit in March 2011 at a function at Yongsan Garrison, South Korea, that mocked the repeal. In May 2011, revelations that an April Navy memo relating to its DADT training guidelines contemplated allowing same-sex weddings in base chapels and allowing chaplains to officiate if they so chose resulted in a letter of protest from 63 Republican congressman, citing the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as controlling the use of federal property. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council said the guidelines "make it even more uncomfortable for men and women of faith to perform their duties". A Pentagon spokesperson replied that DOMA "does not limit the type of religious ceremonies a chaplain may perform in a chapel on a military installation", and a Navy spokesperson said that "A chaplain can conduct a same-sex ceremony if it is in the tenets of his faith". A few days later the Navy rescinded its earlier instructions "pending additional legal and policy review and interdepartmental coordination". While waiting for certification, several service members were discharged at their own insistence until a July 6 ruling from a federal appeals court barred further enforcement of the U.S. military's ban on openly gay service members, which the military promptly did. Anticipating the lifting of DADT, some active duty service members wearing civilian clothes marched in San Diego's gay pride parade on July 16. The DOD noted that participation "does not constitute a declaration of sexual orientation". President Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, and Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sent the certification required by the Repeal Act to Congress on July 22, 2011, setting the end of DADT for September 20, 2011. A Pentagon spokesman said that service members discharged under DADT would be able to re-apply to rejoin the military then. At the end of August 2011, the DOD approved the distribution of the magazine produced by OutServe, an organization of gay and lesbian service members, at Army and Air Force base exchanges beginning with the September 20 issue, coinciding with the end of DADT. On September 20, Air force officials announced that 22 Air Force Instructions were "updated as a result of the repeal of DADT". On September 30, 2011, the Department of Defense modified regulations to reflect the repeal by deleting "homosexual conduct" as a ground for administrative separation. Day of repeal and aftermath On the eve of repeal, US Air Force 1st Lt. Josh Seefried, one of the founders of OutServe, an organization of LGBT troops, revealed his identity after two years of hiding behind a pseudonym. Senior Airman Randy Phillips, after conducting a social media campaign seeking encouragement coming out and already out to his military co-workers, came out to his father on the evening of September 19. When the video of their conversation he posted on YouTube went viral, it made him, in one journalist's estimation, "the poster boy for the DADT repeal". The moment the repeal took effect at midnight on September 19, US Navy Lt. Gary C. Ross married his same-sex partner of eleven and a half years, Dan Swezy, making them the first same-sex military couple to legally marry in the United States. Retired Rear Adm. Alan M. Steinman became the highest-ranking person to come out immediately following the end of DADT. HBO produced a World of Wonder documentary, The Strange History of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and premiered it on September 20. Variety called it "an unapologetic piece of liberal advocacy" and "a testament to what formidable opponents ignorance and prejudice can be". Discharge proceedings on the grounds of homosexuality, some begun years earlier, came to an end. In the weeks that followed, a series of firsts attracted press attention to the impact of the repeal. The Marine Corps were the first branch of the armed services to recruit from the LGBTQ community. Reservist Jeremy Johnson became the first person discharged under DADT to re-enlist. Jase Daniels became the first to return to active duty, re-joining the Navy as a third class petty officer. On December 2, Air Force intelligence officer Ginger Wallace became the first open LGBT service member to have a same-sex partner participate in the "pinning-on" ceremony that marked her promotion to colonel. On December 23, after 80 days at sea, US Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta won the right to the traditional "first kiss" upon returning to port and shared it with her same-sex partner. On January 20, 2012, U.S. service members deployed to Bagram, Afghanistan, produced a video in support of the It Gets Better Project, which aims to support LGBT at-risk youth. Widespread news coverage continued even months after the repeal date, when a photograph of Marine Sgt. Brandon Morgan kissing his partner at a February 22, 2012, homecoming celebration on Marine Corps Base Hawaii went viral. When asked for a comment, a spokesperson for the Marine Corps said: "It's your typical homecoming photo." On September 30, 2011, Under Secretary of Defense Clifford Stanley announced the DOD's policy that military chaplains are allowed to perform same-sex marriages "on or off a military installation" where local law permits them. His memo noted that "a chaplain is not required to participate in or officiate a private ceremony if doing so would be in variance with the tenets of his or her religion" and "a military chaplain's participation in a private ceremony does not constitute an endorsement of the ceremony by DoD". Some religious groups announced that their chaplains would not participate in such weddings, including an organization of evangelical Protestants, the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty and Roman Catholics led by Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA. In late October 2011, speaking at the Air Force Academy, Colonel Gary Packard, leader of the team that drafted the DOD's repeal implementation plan, said: "The best quote I've heard so far is, 'Well, some people's Facebook status changed, but that was about it. In late November, discussing the repeal of DADT and its implementation, Marine General James F. Amos said "I'm very pleased with how it has gone" and called it a "non-event". He said his earlier public opposition was appropriate based on ongoing combat operations and the negative assessment of the policy given by 56% of combat troops under his command in the Department of Defense's November 2010 survey. A Defense Department spokesperson said implementation of repeal occurred without incident and added: "We attribute this success to our comprehensive pre-repeal training program, combined with the continued close monitoring and enforcement of standards by our military leaders at all levels." In December 2011, Congress considered two DADT-related amendments in the course of work on the National Defense Authorization Act for 2012. The Senate approved 97–3, an amendment removing the prohibition on sodomy found in Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice as recommended by the Comprehensive Review Working Group (CRWG) a year earlier. The House approved an amendment banning same-sex marriages from being performed at military bases or by military employees, including chaplains and other employees of the military when "acting in an official capacity". Neither amendment appeared in the final legislation. In July 2012, the Department of Defense granted permission for military personnel to wear their uniforms while participating in the San Diego Pride Parade. This was the first time that U.S. military personnel were permitted to wear their service uniforms in such a parade. Marking the first anniversary of the passage of the Repeal Act, television news networks reported no incidents in the three months since DADT ended. One aired video of a social gathering for gay service members at a base in Afghanistan. Another reported on the experience of lesbian and gay troops, including some rejection after coming out to colleagues. The Palm Center, a think tank that studies issues of sexuality and the military, released a study in September 2012 that found no negative consequences, nor any effect on military effectiveness from DADT repeal. This study began six months following repeal and concluded at the one year mark. The study included surveys of 553 generals and admirals who had opposed repeal, experts who supported DADT, and more than 60 heterosexual, gay, lesbian and bisexual active duty service personnel. On January 7, 2013, the ACLU reached a settlement with the federal government in Collins v. United States. It provided for the payment of full separation pay to service members discharged under DADT since November 10, 2004, who had previously been granted only half that. 2012 presidential campaign issue Several candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination called for the restoration of DADT, including Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Rick Santorum. Newt Gingrich called for an extensive review of DADT's repeal. Ron Paul, having voted for the Repeal Act, maintained his support for allowing military service by open homosexuals. Herman Cain called the issue "a distraction" and opposed reinstating DADT. Mitt Romney said that the winding down of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan obviated his opposition to the repeal and said he was not proposing any change to policy. On September 22, 2011, the audience at a Republican candidates' debate booed a U.S. soldier posted in Iraq who asked a question via video about the repeal of DADT, and none of the candidates noticed or responded to the crowd's behavior. Two days later, Obama commented on the incident while addressing a dinner of the Human Rights Campaign: "You want to be commander in chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it's not politically convenient". In June 2012, Rep. Howard McKeon, Republican chair of the House Armed Services Committee, said he considered the repeal of DADT a settled issue and if Romney became president would not advocate its reinstatement, though others in his party might. 2021 benefits restoration In September 2021, on the 10th anniversary of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell repeal, President Joe Biden announced that the Veterans Administration would start providing benefits for servicemembers who received other-than-honorable discharges (before DADT was enacted and while it was in effect) because of their sexual orientation. Views of the policy Public opinion In 1993, Time reported that 44% of those polled supported openly gay servicemembers, and in 1994, a CNN poll indicated 53% of Americans believed gays and lesbians should be permitted to serve openly. According to a December 2010 The Washington Post-ABC News poll 77% of Americans said gays and lesbians who publicly disclose their sexual orientation should be able to serve in the military. That number showed little change from polls over the previous two years, but represented the highest level of support in a Post-ABC poll. The support also cut across partisan and ideological lines, with majorities of Democrats (86%), Republicans (74%), independents (74%), liberals (92%), conservatives (67%), white evangelical Protestants (70%) and non-religious (84%) in favor of homosexuals serving openly. A November 2010 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 58% of the U.S. public favored allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, while less than half as many (27%) were opposed. According to a November 2010 CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, 72% of adult Americans favored permitting people who are openly gay or lesbian to serve in the military, while 23% opposed it. "The main difference between the CNN poll and the Pew poll is in the number of respondents who told pollsters that they didn't have an opinion on this topic – 16 percent in the Pew poll compared to only five percent in the CNN survey", said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "The two polls report virtually the same number who say they oppose gays serving openly in the military, which suggests that there are some people who favor that change in policy but for some reason were reluctant to admit that to the Pew interviewers. That happens occasionally on topics where moral issues and equal-treatment issues intersect." A February 2010 Quinnipiac University Polling Institute national poll showed 57% of American voters favored gays serving openly, compared to 36% opposed, while 66% said not allowing openly gay personnel to serve is discrimination, compared to 31% who did not see it as discrimination. A CBS News/The New York Times national poll done at the same time showed 58% of Americans favored gays serving openly, compared to 28% opposed. Chaplains and religious groups Chaplain groups and religious organizations took various positions on DADT. Some felt that the policy needed to be withdrawn to make the military more inclusive. The Southern Baptist Convention battled the repeal of DADT, warning that their endorsements for chaplains might be withdrawn if the repeal took place. They took the position that allowing gay men and women to serve in the military without restriction would have a negative impact on the ability of chaplains who think homosexuality is a sin to speak freely regarding their religious beliefs. The Roman Catholic Church called for the retention of the policy, but had no plans to withdraw its priests from serving as military chaplains. Sixty-five retired chaplains signed a letter opposing repeal, stating that repeal would make it impossible for chaplains whose faith teaches that same-sex behavior is immoral to minister to military service members. Other religious organizations and agencies called the repeal of the policy a "non-event" or "non-issue" for chaplains, claiming that chaplains have always supported military service personnel, whether or not they agree with all their actions or beliefs. Discharges under DADT After the policy was introduced in 1993, the military discharged over 13,000 troops from the military under DADT. The number of discharges per fiscal year under DADT dropped sharply after the September 11 attacks and remained comparatively low through to the repeal. Discharges exceeded 600 every year until 2009. State-based gay and lesbian military veteran laws In November 2019, both Rhode Island and New York State signed into law and implemented restoring military benefits to gay and lesbian military veterans. An estimated approximately 100,000 individuals were affected by the "don't ask don't tell policy" (since it was repealed in September 2011). See also Liberal homophobia Steve May, gay Republican Arizona legislator, Army reservist until May 2001 Sexual orientation and gender identity in the United States military Sexual orientation and military service – for information on policies in military services worldwide References Citations Bibliography Allan Bérubé, "How Gay Stays White and What Kind of White It Stays", in My Desire for History: Essays in Gay, Community, and Labor History, John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freeman, eds. (University of North Carolina Press, 2011) Tim McFeeley, "Getting It Straight: A Review of the 'Gays in the Military' Debate", in John D'Emilio, William B. Turner, and Urvashi Vaid, eds., Creating Change: Sexuality, Public Policy, and Civil Rights (NY: St. Martin's Press, 2000) David Mixner, Stranger Among Friends (NY: Bantam, 1996) Further reading Belkin, Aaron (2013). Readiness and DADT Repeal: Has the New Policy of Open Service Undermined the Military? Armed Forces & Society, Forthcoming ... Access OnlineFirst at http://afs.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/12/06/0095327X12466248.abstract Carter, Chad C. and Antony B. Kolenc (2005). "'Don't Ask, Don't Tell': Has the Policy Met Its Goals?", University of Dayton Law Review, Fall 2005 Eitelberg, Mark J. (2003). "Spacemen, Scholars, and Sailors: Another Look at the Military's Treatment of Gays." Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School. Retrieved from , February 5, 2022. Eitelberg, Mark J. (2013). "Gays and the Military: A 20-Year Study at the Naval Postgraduate School." Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School. Retrieved from , February 5, 2022. Huffman, J. Ford and Schultz, Tammy S. (editors) (2012), The End of Don't Ask Don't Tell: The Impact in Studies and Personal Essays by Service Members and Veterans, Marine Corps University External links Document Library, Robert Crown Law Library at Stanford Law Library Text of Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 Elaine Donnelly and Aaron Belkin Debate DADT at Maxwell Air Force Base, summer 2010 Don't Ask Don't Tell Review, House of Representatives, Military Personnel Subcommittee, July 23, 2008 1993 in LGBT history 1993 in American law 1993 in military history American political catchphrases Clinton administration controversies Clinton Administration initiatives Discrimination against LGBT people in the United States LGBT rights in the United States Secrecy Sexual orientation and the United States military United States federal civil rights legislation United States federal defense and national security legislation United States military law LGBT-related controversies Censorship of LGBT issues

The Document Object Model (DOM) is a cross-platform and language-independent interface that treats an XML or HTML document as a tree structure wherein each node is an object representing a part of the document. The DOM represents a document with a logical tree. Each branch of the tree ends in a node, and each node contains objects. DOM methods allow programmatic access to the tree; with them one can change the structure, style or content of a document. Nodes can have event handlers attached to them. Once an event is triggered, the event handlers get executed. The principal standardization of the DOM was handled by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which last developed a recommendation in 2004. WHATWG took over the development of the standard, publishing it as a living document. The W3C now publishes stable snapshots of the WHATWG standard. History The history of the Document Object Model is intertwined with the history of the "browser wars" of the late 1990s between Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer, as well as with that of JavaScript and JScript, the first scripting languages to be widely implemented in the JavaScript engines of web browsers. JavaScript was released by Netscape Communications in 1995 within Netscape Navigator 2.0. Netscape's competitor, Microsoft, released Internet Explorer 3.0 the following year with a reimplementation of JavaScript called JScript. JavaScript and JScript let web developers create web pages with client-side interactivity. The limited facilities for detecting user-generated events and modifying the HTML document in the first generation of these languages eventually became known as "DOM Level 0" or "Legacy DOM." No independent standard was developed for DOM Level 0, but it was partly described in the specifications for HTML 4. Legacy DOM was limited in the kinds of elements that could be accessed. Form, link and image elements could be referenced with a hierarchical name that began with the root document object. A hierarchical name could make use of either the names or the sequential index of the traversed elements. For example, a form input element could be accessed as either document.formName.inputName or document.forms[0].elements[0]. The Legacy DOM enabled client-side form validation and simple interface interactivity like creating tooltips. In 1997, Netscape and Microsoft released version 4.0 of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer respectively, adding support for Dynamic HTML (DHTML) functionality enabling changes to a loaded HTML document. DHTML required extensions to the rudimentary document object that was available in the Legacy DOM implementations. Although the Legacy DOM implementations were largely compatible since JScript was based on JavaScript, the DHTML DOM extensions were developed in parallel by each browser maker and remained incompatible. These versions of the DOM became known as the "Intermediate DOM." After the standardization of ECMAScript, the W3C DOM Working Group began drafting a standard DOM specification. The completed specification, known as "DOM Level 1", became a W3C Recommendation in late 1998. By 2005, large parts of W3C DOM were well-supported by common ECMAScript-enabled browsers, including Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6 (from 2001), Opera, Safari and Gecko-based browsers (like Mozilla, Firefox, SeaMonkey and Camino). Standards The W3C DOM Working Group published its final recommendation and subsequently disbanded in 2004. Development efforts migrated to the WHATWG, which continues to maintain a living standard. In 2009, the Web Applications group reorganized DOM activities at the W3C. In 2013, due to a lack of progress and the impending release of HTML5, the DOM Level 4 specification was reassigned to the HTML Working Group to expedite its completion. Meanwhile, in 2015, the Web Applications group was disbanded and DOM stewardship passed to the Web Platform group. Beginning with the publication of DOM Level 4 in 2015, the W3C creates new recommendations based on snapshots of the WHATWG standard. DOM Level 1 provided a complete model for an entire HTML or XML document, including the means to change any portion of the document. DOM Level 2 was published in late 2000. It introduced the getElementById function as well as an event model and support for XML namespaces and CSS. DOM Level 3, published in April 2004, added support for XPath and keyboard event handling, as well as an interface for serializing documents as XML. DOM Level 4 was published in 2015. It is a snapshot of the WHATWG living standard. Applications Web browsers To render a document such as a HTML page, most web browsers use an internal model similar to the DOM. The nodes of every document are organized in a tree structure, called the DOM tree, with the topmost node named as "Document object". When an HTML page is rendered in browsers, the browser downloads the HTML into local memory and automatically parses it to display the page on screen. However, the DOM does not necessarily need to be represented as a tree, and some browsers have used other internal models. JavaScript When a web page is loaded, the browser creates a Document Object Model of the page, which is an object oriented representation of an HTML document that acts as an interface between JavaScript and the document itself. This allows the creation of dynamic web pages, because within a page JavaScript can: add, change, and remove any of the HTML elements and attributes change any of the CSS styles react to all the existing events create new events Implementations Because the DOM supports navigation in any direction (e.g., parent and previous sibling) and allows for arbitrary modifications, an implementation must at least buffer the document that has been read so far (or some parsed form of it). Layout engines Web browsers rely on layout engines to parse HTML into a DOM. Some layout engines, such as Trident/MSHTML, are associated primarily or exclusively with a particular browser, such as Internet Explorer. Others, including Blink, WebKit, and Gecko, are shared by a number of browsers, such as Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, and Firefox. The different layout engines implement the DOM standards to varying degrees of compliance. Libraries DOM implementations: libxml2 MSXML Xerces is a collection of DOM implementations written in C++, Java and Perl xml.dom for Python XML for <SCRIPT> is a JavaScript-based DOM implementation PHP.Gt DOM is a server-side DOM implementation based on libxml2 and brings DOM level 4 compatibility to the PHP programming language Domino is a Server-side (Node.js) DOM implementation based on Mozilla's dom.js. Domino is used in the MediaWiki stack with Visual Editor. SimpleHtmlDom is a simple HTML document object model in C#, which can generate HTML string programmatically. APIs that expose DOM implementations: JAXP (Java API for XML Processing) is an API for accessing DOM providers Lazarus (Free Pascal IDE) contains two variants of the DOM - with UTF-8 and ANSI format Inspection tools: DOM Inspector is a web developer tool See also Shadow DOM Virtual DOM References General references External links DOM Living Standard by the WHATWG Original W3C DOM hub by the W3C DOM Working Group (outdated) Web Platform Working Group (current steward of W3C DOM) Application programming interfaces HTML Object models World Wide Web Consortium standards XML-based standards

Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), also known as androstenolone, is an endogenous steroid hormone precursor. It is one of the most abundant circulating steroids in humans. DHEA is produced in the adrenal glands, the gonads, and the brain. It functions as a metabolic intermediate in the biosynthesis of the androgen and estrogen sex steroids both in the gonads and in various other tissues. However, DHEA also has a variety of potential biological effects in its own right, binding to an array of nuclear and cell surface receptors, and acting as a neurosteroid and modulator of neurotrophic factor receptors. In the United States, DHEA is sold as an over-the-counter supplement, and medication called prasterone. Biological function As an androgen DHEA and other adrenal androgens such as androstenedione, although relatively weak androgens, are responsible for the androgenic effects of adrenarche, such as early pubic and axillary hair growth, adult-type body odor, increased oiliness of hair and skin, and mild acne. DHEA is potentiated locally via conversion into testosterone and dihydrotestosterone (DHT) in the skin and hair follicles. Women with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS), who have a non-functional androgen receptor (AR) and are immune to the androgenic effects of DHEA and other androgens, have absent or only sparse/scanty pubic and axillary hair and body hair in general, demonstrating the role of DHEA and other androgens in body hair development at both adrenarche and pubarche. As an estrogen DHEA is a weak estrogen. In addition, it is transformed into potent estrogens such as estradiol in certain tissues such as the vagina, and thereby produces estrogenic effects in such tissues. As a neurosteroid As a neurosteroid and neurotrophin, DHEA has important effects in the central nervous system. Biological activity Hormonal activity Androgen receptor Although it functions as an endogenous precursor to more potent androgens such as testosterone and DHT, DHEA has been found to possess some degree of androgenic activity in its own right, acting as a low affinity (Ki = 1 μM), weak partial agonist of the androgen receptor (AR). However, its intrinsic activity at the receptor is quite weak, and on account of that, due to competition for binding with full agonists like testosterone, it can actually behave more like an antagonist depending on circulating testosterone and dihydrotestosterone (DHT) levels, and hence, like an antiandrogen. However, its affinity for the receptor is very low, and for that reason, is unlikely to be of much significance under normal circumstances. Estrogen receptors In addition to its affinity for the androgen receptor, DHEA has also been found to bind to (and activate) the ERα and ERβ estrogen receptors with Ki values of 1.1 μM and 0.5 μM, respectively, and EC50 values of >1 μM and 200 nM, respectively. Though it was found to be a partial agonist of the ERα with a maximal efficacy of 30–70%, the concentrations required for this degree of activation make it unlikely that the activity of DHEA at this receptor is physiologically meaningful. Remarkably however, DHEA acts as a full agonist of the ERβ with a maximal response similar to or actually slightly greater than that of estradiol, and its levels in circulation and local tissues in the human body are high enough to activate the receptor to the same degree as that seen with circulating estradiol levels at somewhat higher than their maximal, non-ovulatory concentrations; indeed, when combined with estradiol with both at levels equivalent to those of their physiological concentrations, overall activation of the ERβ was doubled. Other nuclear receptors DHEA does not bind to or activate the progesterone, glucocorticoid, or mineralocorticoid receptors. Other nuclear receptor targets of DHEA besides the androgen and estrogen receptors include the PPARα, PXR, and CAR. However, whereas DHEA is a ligand of the PPARα and PXR in rodents, it is not in humans. In addition to direct interactions, DHEA is thought to regulate a handful of other proteins via indirect, genomic mechanisms, including the enzymes CYP2C11 and 11β-HSD1 – the latter of which is essential for the biosynthesis of the glucocorticoids such as cortisol and has been suggested to be involved in the antiglucocorticoid effects of DHEA – and the carrier protein IGFBP1. Neurosteroid activity Neurotransmitter receptors DHEA has been found to directly act on several neurotransmitter receptors, including acting as a positive allosteric modulator of the NMDA receptor, as a negative allosteric modulator of the GABAA receptor, and as an agonist of the σ1 receptor. Neurotrophin receptors In 2011, the surprising discovery was made that DHEA, as well as its sulfate ester, DHEA-S, directly bind to and activate TrkA and p75NTR, receptors of neurotrophins like nerve growth factor (NGF) and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), with high affinity. DHEA was subsequently also found to bind to TrkB and TrkC with high affinity, though it only activated TrkC not TrkB. DHEA and DHEA-S bound to these receptors with affinities in the low nanomolar range (around 5 nM), which were nonetheless approximately two orders of magnitude lower relative to highly potent polypeptide neurotrophins like NGF (0.01–0.1 nM). In any case, DHEA and DHEA-S both circulate at requisite concentrations to activate these receptors and were thus identified as important endogenous neurotrophic factors. They have since been labeled "steroidal microneurotrophins", due to their small-molecule and steroidal nature relative to their polypeptide neurotrophin counterparts. Subsequent research has suggested that DHEA and/or DHEA-S may in fact be phylogenetically ancient "ancestral" ligands of the neurotrophin receptors from early on in the evolution of the nervous system. The findings that DHEA binds to and potently activates neurotrophin receptors may explain the positive association between decreased circulating DHEA levels with age and age-related neurodegenerative diseases. Microtubule-associated protein 2 Similarly to pregnenolone, its synthetic derivative 3β-methoxypregnenolone (MAP-4343), and progesterone, DHEA has been found to bind to microtubule-associated protein 2 (MAP2), specifically the MAP2C subtype (Kd = 27 μM). However, it is unclear whether DHEA increases binding of MAP2 to tubulin like pregnenolone. Other activity G6PDH inhibitor DHEA is an uncompetitive inhibitor of (Ki = 17 μM; IC50 = 18.7 μM), and is able to lower levels and reduce NADPH-dependent free radical production. It is thought that this action may possibly be responsible for much of the antiinflammatory, antihyperplastic, chemopreventative, antihyperlipidemic, antidiabetic, and antiobesic, as well as certain immunomodulating activities of DHEA (with some experimental evidence to support this notion available). However, it has also been said that inhibition of G6PDH activity by DHEA in vivo has not been observed and that the concentrations required for DHEA to inhibit G6PDH in vitro are very high, thus making the possible contribution of G6PDH inhibition to the effects of DHEA uncertain. Cancer DHEA supplements have been promoted as chemopreventative, for their claimed cancer prevention properties. There is scientific evidence to support these claims. Miscellaneous DHEA has been found to competitively inhibit TRPV1. Biochemistry Biosynthesis DHEA is produced in the zona reticularis of the adrenal cortex under the control of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and by the gonads under the control of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH). It is also produced in the brain. DHEA is synthesized from cholesterol via the enzymes cholesterol side-chain cleavage enzyme (CYP11A1; P450scc) and 17α-hydroxylase/17,20-lyase (CYP17A1), with pregnenolone and 17α-hydroxypregnenolone as intermediates. It is derived mostly from the adrenal cortex, with only about 10% being secreted from the gonads. Approximately 50 to 70% of circulating DHEA originates from desulfation of DHEA-S in peripheral tissues. DHEA-S itself originates almost exclusively from the adrenal cortex, with 95 to 100% being secreted from the adrenal cortex in women. Increasing endogenous production Regular exercise is known to increase DHEA production in the body. Calorie restriction has also been shown to increase DHEA in primates. Some theorize that the increase in endogenous DHEA brought about by calorie restriction is partially responsible for the longer life expectancy known to be associated with calorie restriction. Distribution In the circulation, DHEA is mainly bound to albumin, with a small amount bound to sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG). The small remainder of DHEA not associated with albumin or SHBG is unbound and free in the circulation. DHEA easily crosses the blood–brain barrier into the central nervous system. Metabolism DHEA is transformed into DHEA-S by sulfation at the C3β position via the sulfotransferase enzymes SULT2A1 and to a lesser extent SULT1E1. This occurs naturally in the adrenal cortex and during first-pass metabolism in the liver and intestines when exogenous DHEA is administered orally. Levels of DHEA-S in circulation are approximately 250 to 300 times those of DHEA. DHEA-S in turn can be converted back into DHEA in peripheral tissues via steroid sulfatase (STS). The terminal half-life of DHEA is short at only 15 to 30 minutes. In contrast, the terminal half-life of DHEA-S is far longer, at 7 to 10 hours. As DHEA-S can be converted back into DHEA, it serves as a circulating reservoir for DHEA, thereby extending the duration of DHEA. Metabolites of DHEA include DHEA-S, 7α-hydroxy-DHEA, 7β-hydroxy-DHEA, 7-keto-DHEA, 7α-hydroxyepiandrosterone, and 7β-hydroxyepiandrosterone, as well as androstenediol and androstenedione. Pregnancy During pregnancy, DHEA-S is metabolized into the sulfates of 16α-hydroxy-DHEA and 15α-hydroxy-DHEA in the fetal liver as intermediates in the production of the estrogens estriol and estetrol, respectively. Levels Prior to puberty, DHEA and DHEA-S levels elevate upon differentiation of the zona reticularis of the adrenal cortex. Peak levels of DHEA and DHEA-S are observed around age 20, which is followed by an age-dependent decline throughout life eventually back to prepubertal concentrations. Plasma levels of DHEA in adult men are 10 to 25 nM, in premenopausal women are 5 to 30 nM, and in postmenopausal women are 2 to 20 nM. Conversely, DHEA-S levels are an order of magnitude higher at 1–10 μM. Levels of DHEA and DHEA-S decline to the lower nanomolar and micromolar ranges in men and women aged 60 to 80 years. DHEA levels are as follows: Adult men: 180–1250 ng/dL Adult women: 130–980 ng/dL Pregnant women: 135–810 ng/dL Prepubertal children (<1 year): 26–585 ng/dL Prepubertal children (1–5 years): 9–68 ng/dL Prepubertal children (6–12 years): 11–186 ng/dL Adolescent boys (Tanner II–III): 25–300 ng/dL Adolescent girls (Tanner II–III): 69–605 ng/dL Adolescent boys (Tanner IV–V): 100–400 ng/dL Adolescent girls (Tanner IV–V): 165–690 ng/dL Measurement As almost all DHEA is derived from the adrenal glands, blood measurements of DHEA-S/DHEA are useful to detect excess adrenal activity as seen in adrenal cancer or hyperplasia, including certain forms of congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Women with polycystic ovary syndrome tend to have elevated levels of DHEA-S. Chemistry DHEA, also known as androst-5-en-3β-ol-17-one, is a naturally occurring androstane steroid and a 17-ketosteroid. It is closely related structurally to androstenediol (androst-5-ene-3β,17β-diol), androstenedione (androst-4-ene-3,17-dione), and testosterone (androst-4-en-17β-ol-3-one). DHEA is the 5-dehydro analogue of epiandrosterone (5α-androstan-3β-ol-17-one) and is also known as 5-dehydroepiandrosterone or as δ5-epiandrosterone. Isomers The term "dehydroepiandrosterone" is ambiguous chemically because it does not include the specific positions within epiandrosterone at which hydrogen atoms are missing. DHEA itself is 5,6-didehydroepiandrosterone or 5-dehydroepiandrosterone. A number of naturally occurring isomers also exist and may have similar activities. Some isomers of DHEA are 1-dehydroepiandrosterone (1-androsterone) and 4-dehydroepiandrosterone. These isomers are also technically "DHEA", since they are dehydroepiandrosterones in which hydrogens are removed from the epiandrosterone skeleton. Dehydroandrosterone (DHA) is the 3α-epimer of DHEA and is also an endogenous androgen. History DHEA was first isolated from human urine in 1934 by Adolf Butenandt and Kurt Tscherning. See also Epigenetic clock References Further reading Androgens and anabolic steroids Androstanes Estrogens Hormones of the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonad axis GABAA receptor negative allosteric modulators Neurosteroids NMDA receptor agonists Pheromones Pregnane X receptor agonists Sex hormones Sigma agonists

A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance. A dandy could be a self-made man who strove to imitate an aristocratic lifestyle despite coming from a middle-class background, especially in late 18th- and early 19th-century Britain. Previous manifestations of the petit-maître (French for "small master") and the Muscadin have been noted by John C. Prevost, but the modern practice of dandyism first appeared in the revolutionary 1790s, both in London and in Paris. The dandy cultivated cynical reserve, yet to such extremes that novelist George Meredith, himself no dandy, once defined cynicism as "intellectual dandyism". Some took a more benign view; Thomas Carlyle wrote in Sartor Resartus that a dandy was no more than "a clothes-wearing man". Honoré de Balzac introduced the perfectly worldly and unmoved Henri de Marsay in La fille aux yeux d'or (1835), a part of La Comédie Humaine, who fulfils at first the model of a perfect dandy, until an obsessive love-pursuit unravels him in passionate and murderous jealousy. Charles Baudelaire defined the dandy, in the later "metaphysical" phase of dandyism, as one who elevates æsthetics to a living religion, that the dandy's mere existence reproaches the responsible citizen of the middle class: "Dandyism in certain respects comes close to spirituality and to stoicism" and "These beings have no other status, but that of cultivating the idea of beauty in their own persons, of satisfying their passions, of feeling and thinking .... Dandyism is a form of Romanticism. Contrary to what many thoughtless people seem to believe, dandyism is not even an excessive delight in clothes and material elegance. For the perfect dandy, these things are no more than the symbol of the aristocratic superiority of mind." The linkage of clothing with political protest had become a particularly English characteristic during the 18th century. Given these connotations, dandyism can be seen as a political protest against the levelling effect of egalitarian principles, often including nostalgic adherence to feudal or pre-industrial values, such as the ideals of "the perfect gentleman" or "the autonomous aristocrat". Paradoxically, the dandy required an audience, as Susann Schmid observed in examining the "successfully marketed lives" of Oscar Wilde and Lord Byron, who exemplify the dandy's roles in the public sphere, both as writers and as personae providing sources of gossip and scandal. Nigel Rodgers in The Dandy: Peacock or Enigma? questions Wilde's status as a genuine dandy, seeing him as someone who only assumed a dandified stance in passing, not a man dedicated to the exacting ideals of dandyism. Etymology The origin of the word is uncertain. Eccentricity, defined as taking characteristics such as dress and appearance to extremes, began to be applied generally to human behavior in the 1770s. Similarly, the word dandy first appears in the late 18th century. In the years immediately preceding the American Revolution, the first verse and chorus of "Yankee Doodle" derided the perceived poverty and rustic manners of American colonists, suggesting that whereas a fine horse and gold-braided clothing ("mac[c]aroni") were required to set a dandy apart from those around him, the average American colonist's means were so meager that ownership of a mere pony and a few feathers for personal ornamentation would qualify one of them as a "dandy" by comparison to and/or in the minds of his even less sophisticated Eurasian compatriots. A slightly later Scottish border ballad, circa 1780, also features the word, but probably without all the contextual aspects of its more recent meaning. The original, full form of 'dandy' may have been jack-a-dandy. It was a vogue word during the Napoleonic Wars. In that contemporary slang, a "dandy" was differentiated from a "fop" in that the dandy's dress was more refined and sober than the fop's. In the twenty-first century, the word dandy is a jocular, often sarcastic adjective meaning "fine" or "great"; when used in the form of a noun, it refers to a well-groomed and well-dressed man, but often to one who is also self-absorbed. Beau Brummell and early British dandyism The model dandy in British society was George Bryan "Beau" Brummell (1778–1840), in his early days, an undergraduate student at Oriel College, Oxford and later, an associate of the Prince Regent. Brummell was not from an aristocratic background; indeed, his greatness was "based on nothing at all," as J.A. Barbey d'Aurevilly observed in 1845. Never unpowdered or unperfumed, immaculately bathed and shaved, and dressed in a plain dark blue coat, he was always perfectly brushed, perfectly fitted, showing much perfectly starched linen, all freshly laundered, and composed with an elaborately knotted cravat. From the mid-1790s, Beau Brummell was the early incarnation of "the celebrity", a man chiefly famous for being famous. By the time Pitt taxed hair powder in 1795 to help pay for the war against France and to discourage the use of flour (which had recently increased in both rarity and price, owing to bad harvests) in such a frivolous product, Brummell had already abandoned wearing a wig, and had his hair cut in the Roman fashion, "à la Brutus". Moreover, he led the transition from breeches to snugly tailored dark "pantaloons," which directly led to modern trousers, the sartorial mainstay of men's clothes in the Western world for the past two centuries. In 1799, upon coming of age, Beau Brummell inherited from his father a fortune of thirty thousand pounds, which he spent mostly on costume, gambling, and high living. In 1816 he suffered bankruptcy, the dandy's stereotyped fate; he fled his creditors to France, quietly dying in 1840, in a lunatic asylum in Caen, aged 61. Men of more notable accomplishments than Beau Brummell also adopted the dandiacal pose: Lord Byron occasionally dressed the part, helping reintroduce the frilled, lace-cuffed and lace-collared "poet shirt". In that spirit, he had his portrait painted in Albanian costume. Another prominent dandy of the period was Alfred Guillaume Gabriel d'Orsay, the Count d'Orsay, who had been friends with Byron and who moved in the highest social circles of London. In 1836 Thomas Carlyle wrote: A Dandy is a clothes-wearing Man, a Man whose trade, office and existence consists in the wearing of Clothes. Every faculty of his soul, spirit, purse, and person is heroically consecrated to this one object, the wearing of Clothes wisely and well: so that the others dress to live, he lives to dress ... And now, for all this perennial Martyrdom, and Poesy, and even Prophecy, what is it that the Dandy asks in return? Solely, we may say, that you would recognise his existence; would admit him to be a living object; or even failing this, a visual object, or thing that will reflect rays of light... By the mid-19th century, the English dandy, within the muted palette of male fashion, exhibited minute refinements—"The quality of the fine woollen cloth, the slope of a pocket flap or coat revers, exactly the right colour for the gloves, the correct amount of shine on boots and shoes, and so on. It was an image of a well-dressed man who, while taking infinite pains about his appearance, affected indifference to it. This refined dandyism continued to be regarded as an essential strand of male Englishness." Dandyism in France The beginnings of dandyism in France were bound to the politics of the French revolution; the initial stage of dandyism, the gilded youth, was a political statement of dressing in an aristocratic style in order to distinguish its members from the sans-culottes. During his heyday, Beau Brummell's dictat on both fashion and etiquette reigned supreme. His habits of dress and fashion were much imitated, especially in France, where, in a curious development, they became the rage, especially in bohemian quarters. There, dandies sometimes were celebrated in revolutionary terms: self-created men of consciously designed personality, radically breaking with past traditions. With elaborate dress and idle, decadent styles of life, French bohemian dandies sought to convey contempt for and superiority to bourgeois society. In the latter 19th century, this fancy-dress bohemianism was a major influence on the Symbolist movement in French literature. Baudelaire was deeply interested in dandyism, and memorably wrote that a dandy aspirant must have "no profession other than elegance... no other status, but that of cultivating the idea of beauty in their own persons... The dandy must aspire to be sublime without interruption; he must live and sleep before a mirror." Other French intellectuals also were interested in the dandies strolling the streets and boulevards of Paris. Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly wrote On Dandyism and George Brummell, an essay devoted, in great measure, to examining the career of Beau Brummell. Later dandyism The literary dandy is a familiar figure in the writings, and sometimes the self-presentation, of Oscar Wilde, H.H. Munro (Clovis and Reginald), P.G. Wodehouse (Bertie Wooster) and Ronald Firbank, writers linked by their subversive air. The poets Algernon Charles Swinburne and Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater, the American artist James McNeill Whistler, Joris-Karl Huysmans, and Max Beerbohm were dandies of the Belle Époque, as was Robert de Montesquiou — Marcel Proust's inspiration for the Baron de Charlus. In Italy, Gabriele d'Annunzio and Carlo Bugatti exemplified the artistic bohemian dandyism of the fin de siecle. Wilde wrote that, "One should either be a work of Art, or wear a work of Art." At the end of the 19th century, American dandies were called dudes. Evander Berry Wall was nicknamed the "King of the Dudes". George Walden, in the essay Who's a Dandy?, identifies Noël Coward, Andy Warhol, and Quentin Crisp as modern dandies. The character Psmith in the novels of P. G. Wodehouse is considered a dandy, both physically and intellectually. Agatha Christie's Poirot is said to be a dandy. The artist Sebastian Horsley described himself as a "dandy in the underworld" in his eponymous autobiography. In Japan, dandyism has become a fashion subculture with historical roots dating back to the Edo period. In Spain during the early 19th century a curious phenomenon developed linked to the idea of dandyism. While in England and France individuals from the middle classes adopted aristocratic manners, the Spanish aristocracy adopted the fashions of the lower classes, called majos. They were characterized by their elaborate outfits and sense of style as opposed to the modern Frenchified "afrancesados", as for their cheeky arrogant attitude. Some famous dandies in later times were amongst other the Duke of Osuna, Mariano Tellez-Girón, artist Salvador Dalí and poet Luís Cernuda. Later thought Albert Camus said in L'Homme révolté (1951) that: The dandy creates his own unity by aesthetic means. But it is an aesthetic of negation. "To live and die before a mirror": that according to Baudelaire, was the dandy's slogan. It is indeed a coherent slogan. The dandy is, by occupation, always in opposition. He can only exist by defiance... The dandy, therefore, is always compelled to astonish. Singularity is his vocation, excess his way to perfection. Perpetually incomplete, always on the fringe of things, he compels others to create him, while denying their values. He plays at life because he is unable to live it. Jean Baudrillard said that dandyism is "an aesthetic form of nihilism". Quaintrelle The female counterpart is a quaintrelle, a woman who emphasizes a life of passion expressed through personal style, leisurely pastimes, charm, and cultivation of life's pleasures. In the 12th century, cointerrels (male) and cointrelles (female) emerged, based upon coint, a word applied to things skillfully made, later indicating a person of beautiful dress and refined speech. By the 18th century, coint became quaint, indicating elegant speech and beauty. Middle English dictionaries note quaintrelle as a beautifully dressed woman (or overly dressed), but do not include the favorable personality elements of grace and charm. The notion of a quaintrelle sharing the major philosophical components of refinement with dandies is a modern development that returns quaintrelles to their historic roots. Female dandies did overlap with male dandies for a brief period during the early 19th century when dandy had a derisive definition of "fop" or "over-the-top fellow"; the female equivalents were dandyess or dandizette. Charles Dickens, in All the Year Around (1869) comments, "The dandies and dandizettes of 1819–20 must have been a strange race. "Dandizette" was a term applied to the feminine devotees to dress, and their absurdities were fully equal to those of the dandies." In 1819, Charms of Dandyism, in three volumes, was published by Olivia Moreland, Chief of the Female Dandies; most likely one of many pseudonyms used by Thomas Ashe. Olivia Moreland may have existed, as Ashe did write several novels about living persons. Throughout the novel, dandyism is associated with "living in style". Later, as the word dandy evolved to denote refinement, it became applied solely to men. Popular Culture and Performance in the Victorian City (2003) notes this evolution in the latter 19th century: "...or dandizette, although the term was increasingly reserved for men." In popular culture Jason King The series featured the further adventures of the title character played by Peter Wyngarde who had first appeared in Department S (1969). In that series he was a dilettante, dandy, and author of a series of adventure novels, working as part of a team of investigators. In Jason King he had left that service to concentrate on writing the adventures of Mark Caine, who closely resembled Jason King in looks, manner, style, and personality. None of the other regular characters from Department S appeared in this series, although Department S itself is occasionally referred to in dialogue. See also Adonis Bishōnen Dandy and Dedicated Follower of Fashion, songs by The Kinks that parody modern (1960s) dandyism. Dude Effeminacy Flâneur Fop Gentleman Hipster (contemporary subculture) Incroyables and Merveilleuses La Sape Macaroni (fashion) Metrosexual Narcissus (mythology) Personal branding Preppy Risqué Swenkas Zoot suit (a style of clothing) References Further reading Barbey d'Aurevilly, Jules. Of Dandyism and of George Brummell. Translated by Douglas Ainslie. New York: PAJ Publications, 1988. Botz-Bornstein, Thorsten. 'Rulefollowing in Dandyism: Style as an Overcoming of Rule and Structure' in The Modern Language Review 90, April 1995, pp. 285–295. Carassus, Émile. Le Mythe du Dandy 1971. Carlyle, Thomas. Sartor Resartus. In A Carlyle Reader: Selections from the Writings of Thomas Carlyle. Edited by G.B. Tennyson. London: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Jesse, Captain William. The Life of Beau Brummell. London: The Navarre Society Limited, 1927. Lytton, Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton. Pelham or the Adventures of a Gentleman. Edited by Jerome McGann. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972. Moers, Ellen. The Dandy: Brummell to Beerbohm. London: Secker and Warburg, 1960. Murray, Venetia. An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England. New York: Viking, 1998. Nicolay, Claire. Origins and Reception of Regency Dandyism: Brummell to Baudelaire. PhD diss., Loyola U of Chicago, 1998. Prevost, John C., Le Dandysme en France (1817–1839) (Geneva and Paris) 1957. Nigel Rodgers The Dandy: Peacock or Enigma? (London) 2012 Stanton, Domna. The Aristocrat as Art 1980. Wharton, Grace and Philip. Wits and Beaux of Society. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1861. External links La Loge d'Apollon "Bohemianism and Counter-Culture": The Dandy Il Dandy (in Italian) Dandyism.net "The Dandy" Walter Thornbury, Dandysme.eu "London Parks: IV. Hyde Park", Belgravia: A London Magazine 1868 1790s fashion 19th-century fashion Androgyny History of clothing (Western fashion) Human appearance Middle class culture Narcissism Terms for men Upper class culture Art Nouveau Male beauty Lifestyles 1790s neologisms

Keno Don Hugo Rosa (), known simply as Don Rosa (born June 29, 1951), is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his Disney comics stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck, and other characters which Carl Barks created for Disney-licensed comic books, first published in America by Dell Comics. Many of his stories are built on characters and locations created by Carl Barks; among these was his first Duck story, "The Son of the Sun" (1987), which was nominated for a Harvey Award in the "Best Story of the Year" category. Rosa created about 90 stories between 1987 and 2006. In 1995, his 12-chapter work The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck won the Eisner Award for "Best Serialized Story". Early life Don Rosa's grandfather, Gioachino Rosa, lived in Maniago, a town at the foot of the Alps in Northern Italy, in the province of Pordenone. He immigrated to Kentucky, the United States around 1900, established a successful tile and terrazzo company, then returned to Italy to marry and start a family. In 1915 just after the birth of his son Ugo Rosa, Gioachino returned to Kentucky with his wife, two daughters and two sons. Ugo Rosa grew up and was later married in Kentucky. His wife was born to a German American father and a mother with both Scottish and Irish ancestry. Don Rosa was born Keno Don Hugo Rosa on June 29, 1951 in Louisville, Kentucky. He was named after both his father and grandfather. Gioachino was called "Keno" for short. Don's father was named Ugo Dante Rosa but used the name "Hugo Don" Rosa in America. Rosa was exposed to comics at a very early age, as his only sibling, an 11-year-older sister, Deanna, was a comics hoarder and had a large number of comics, which made it possible for Rosa to discover comics literally from birth as a storytelling medium by just "reading the pictures" and later also actually read. Rosa also began drawing comics before being able to write. The characters he would typically draw were a large cast of stick figures which he usually featured in comedy/adventures of a Barksian style, since the Carl Barks' stories were the ones Rosa was most fond of. Rosa stuck to drawing simple stick figures for these stories since these were mere illustrations as a means of getting the story told. The story was the pinnacle to him, not the actual drawings. Rosa kept drawing the stick figure stories until he attended High school at St. Xavier High School (Louisville), Kentucky. Rosa's favorite comic books while growing up were Uncle Scrooge and Little Lulu comics from Dell Comics, as well as his sister's collection of MAD magazines. When Rosa became 12 years old he also discovered and started to enjoy the Superman titles of DC Comics especially from the editor Mort Weisinger's period, drawn mostly by his favorite Superman artists Curt Swan and Kurt Schaffenberger. Shortly after Rosa started to collect Superman comics he also began to trade in the comics he had inherited from his older sister for old Superman comics. The reason behind this action was that a comic book shop in his living area offered to trade two used old comics for one new, a sound deal for the young Rosa. By the 1970s Rosa's comic trading had ended up with him only having two Barks duck comics issues left from the collection his sister originally passed on to him. One of them being Dell Comics' Four Color Comics #386 (also known as Dell Comics' One shot's) issue titled: "Uncle Scrooge in Only a Poor Old Man", which was unknown to him to be the first issue of the new Carl Barks Uncle Scrooge Title. The second issue is his other favorite Barks Comic from his youth, Dell's Donald Duck in "The Golden Helmet". Later when Rosa became a serious collector of all comics of the post-war years, he particularly enjoyed and collected the classic E.C. Comics of the horror and science fiction genres published in the early 1950s, Will Eisner's The Spirit, Walt Kelly's Pogo, and virtually all other comics from 1945 and onward. Rosa entered the University of Kentucky in 1969. He graduated in 1973 with a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering. Career In 1969 while still in college, Rosa won an award as "best political cartoonist in the nation in a college paper". "I'm not really an editorial cartoonist. I'd much rather be doing comedy adventure. But I must have done something right, for at one point The Journal of Higher Education named me one of the five or six best college newspaper cartoonists in the nation." Rosa's first published comic (besides the spot illustrations in his grade school and high school newspapers) was a comic strip featuring his own character, Lancelot Pertwillaby, titled The Pertwillaby Papers. He created the strip in 1971 for The Kentucky Kernel, a college newspaper of the University of Kentucky, which wanted the strip to focus on political satire. Rosa later switched the strip to comedy-adventure, his favorite style of comics, and drew the story Lost in (an alternative section of) the Andes. (The title is a reference to Lost in the Andes!, a Donald Duck story by Carl Barks, first published in April, 1949.) The so-called Pertwillaby Papers included 127 published episodes by the time Rosa graduated in 1973. Meanwhile, Rosa participated in contributing art and articles to comic collector fanzines. One contribution was An Index of Uncle Scrooge Comics. According to his introduction: "Scrooge being my favorite character in comic history and Barks my favorite pure cartoonist, I'll try not to get carried away too much." After attaining his bachelor's degree, Rosa continued to draw comics purely as a hobby, his only income came from working in the Keno Rosa Tile and Terrazzo Company, a company founded by his paternal grandfather. Rosa authored and illustrated the monthly Information Center column in the fanzine Rocket's Blast Comicollector from 1974 to 1979. This was a question-and-answer feature dealing with readers' queries on all forms of pop entertainment of which Rosa was a student, including comics, TV and movies. He also revived the Pertwillaby Papers in this "RBCC" fanzine as a comic book style story rather than a newspaper comic strip from 1976 to 1978. By now having become a locally known comics collector and cartoonist, Rosa accepted an offer from the editor of the local newspaper to create a weekly comic strip. This led to his creation of the comic strip character Captain Kentucky for the Saturday edition of the local newspaper Louisville Times. Captain Kentucky was the superhero alter ego of Lancelot Pertwillaby. The pay was $25/week and not worth the 12+ hours each week's strip entailed, but Rosa did it as part of his hobby. Publication started on October 6, 1979. The comic strip ended on August 15, 1982 after the publication of 150 episodes. After three years with Captain Kentucky, Don decided that it was not worth the effort. He retired from cartooning and did not draw a single line for the next four years. Years later, as his fame grew, his non-Disney work was published by the Norwegian publisher Gazette Bok in 2001, in the two hard-cover "Don Rosa Archives" volumes, The Pertwillaby Papers and The Adventures of Captain Kentucky. Gladstone In 1986, Rosa discovered a Gladstone Comics comic book. This was the first American comic book that contained Disney characters since Western Publishing's discontinuation of their Whitman Comics in the 1970s. Since early childhood Don Rosa had been fascinated by Carl Barks' stories about Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck. He immediately called the editor, Byron Erickson, and told him that he was the only American who was born to write and draw one Scrooge McDuck adventure. Erickson agreed to let him send a story, and Don Rosa started drawing his first Duck story, "The Son of the Sun," the very next day. "The Son of the Sun" was a success and Rosa's very first professional comic story was nominated for a Harvey Award "Best Story of the Year". The plot of the story was the same as his earlier story, Lost in (an alternative section of) the Andes. As Don Rosa explained it, he was just "(...) turning that old Pertwillaby Papers adventure back into the story it originally was in my head, starring Scrooge, Donald, the nephews, and Flintheart Glomgold." Rosa created a few more comics for Gladstone until 1989. He then stopped working for them, because the policies of their licensor, Disney, did not allow for the return of original art for a story to its creators. This was unacceptable to Don Rosa, since a part of his income came from selling the originals, and the original art is the property of the freelance artists, unless otherwise agreed upon. Without that extra money, he could not make a living drawing comic books. After making some stories for the Dutch publisher Oberon, the publishers of an American Disney children's magazine called DuckTales (based on the animated series of the same name) offered Rosa employment. They even offered him a much higher salary than the one he received at Gladstone. Rosa made just one script (Back in Time for a Dime). The publishers never asked him to make more, and due to problems with receiving the payment, he did not care. Egmont After working with the DuckTales magazine, Rosa found out that the Denmark-based International publisher Egmont (at that time called Gutenberghus) was publishing reprints of his stories and wanted more. Rosa joined Egmont in 1990. Two years later, at Rosa's suggestion, Byron Erickson, the former editor at Gladstone also went to work for Egmont and has been working there ever since as an editor and later as a freelancer. In 1991 Rosa started creating The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, a 12 chapter story about his favorite character. The series was a success, and in 1995 he won an Eisner Award for best continuing series. After the end of the original series, Rosa sometimes produced additional "missing" chapters. Some of the extra chapters were turned down by Egmont, because they were not interested in any more episodes. Fortunately, the French magazine Picsou was eager to publish the stories. From 1999, Rosa started working freelance for Picsou magazine as well. All of these chapters were compiled as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Companion. On strike During early summer 2002, Rosa suddenly laid down work. As an artist he could not live under the conditions Egmont was offering him, but he did not want to give up making Scrooge McDuck comics either. So, his only choice was to go on hiatus and try to come to an agreement with Egmont. His main issues were that he had no control over his works. Rosa had discovered too often that his stories were printed with incorrect pages of art, improper colors, poor lettering, or pixelated computer conversions of the illustrations. Another matter was that his name was used in promotion of these flawed books and collections of stories without his agreement. Rosa has never, nor has any other artist working on Disney-licensed characters, received royalties for the use or multi-national reprinting of any of his stories worldwide. Rosa came to an agreement with Egmont in December of the same year, which gave him more control over the stories and the manner in which they were publicized. Quitting Rosa's eyesight had been very poor since his childhood. In 2006 and 2007 he began having new difficulties, which made drawing a very slow and tedious process for him, even more so than normally. In March 2008, Rosa suffered a severe retinal detachment and underwent emergency eye surgery that proved to be only partially successful. Further surgery in both eyes made drawing even more difficult. On June 2, 2008, during an interview at the Danish Komiks.dk fair, Rosa stated that he would not do any more comics, citing eye troubles, low pay, and the constant use of his stories in special hardback or album editions by international Disney licensees without any payment of royalties or requests for permission for the use of his name. In 2012, Rosa wrote an essay about his retirement for Egmont's 9-volume Don Rosa Collection, which was to be published in Finland, Norway, Germany and Sweden. Rosa says that Egmont agreed to publish the essay, but Disney refused to allow them to print it under their license. Rosa arranged with Egmont to post the essay on his own website, and publish a link to the essay in the collection. The essay, posted at career-end.donrosa.de, cites the above reasons, with special emphasis on the "Disney comics system" for paying writers and artists a flat per-page rate, and then allowing publishers around the world to print the stories without payment to the creators. Rosa is more popular with readers in Europe than in his native United States. According to him, even his next-door neighbors do not know his profession. Personal life In 1980, Rosa married Ann Payne. Payne is a retired social studies middle school teacher. Character Don Rosa describes himself as an introvert due to being socially isolated as a child. Also, he thinks of himself as a workaholic. Rosa suffered from depression during the years before he quit. He believes that it was caused by working hard while taking little time for leisure, a result of his self-imposed work regimen due to his enthusiasm for Barks' characters. Hobbies Rosa is an avid collector of many things, including comic books, TV Guide, National Geographic, and movie magazines, fanzines, books, White Castle memorabilia, pinball machines and movies and more. Rosa also grows exotic chili plants and tends nearly 30 acres of a private nature preserve with wildflower fields and numerous forest trails. That and taking semi-annual European signing tours to visit his fellow BarksDucks fans, takes up all of his time. He is also working to complete his collections of All American comic books published between 1945 and 1970. Work In Europe, Rosa is recognized as one of the best Disney comics creators. Carl Barks and Rosa are among the few artists who have their name written on the covers of Disney magazines when their stories are published. Rosa enjoys including subtle references to his movies and comic as well as his own previous work. He normally uses about 12 panels per page, instead of the more common eight. He needs to use the extra panels, because his plot ideas usually are too long to be published if he does not condense them. Rosa has an especially large following in Finland, and in 1999, he created a special 32-page adventure featuring Scrooge McDuck for his Finnish fans called; Sammon Salaisuus (translates to The secret of the Sampo, but it is officially named The Quest for Kalevala in English), based on the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala. The publication of this story created a national sensation in Finland where Donald Duck and the Kalevala are important aspects of culture. It was published in many other countries as well. The cover for the comic book was a spoof of a famous painting by Akseli Gallen-Kallela. The latest work that Rosa has worked on is a cover for the album Music Inspired by the Life and Times of Scrooge by Tuomas Holopainen from Nightwish who is a fan of Rosa's comics. Drawing style With a bachelor of arts degree in civil engineering as his only real drawing education, Rosa has some unusual drawing methods, as he writes: "I suspect nothing I do is done the way anyone else does it." Because of being self-taught in making comics, Rosa relies mostly on the skills he learned in engineering school, which means using technical pens and templates extensively. He applies templates and other engineering tools to draw what other artists draw freehand. He usually drew just under a page per day, but that depended on the amount of detail he puts in the picture. Rosa's drawing style is considered much more detailed and "dirtier" than that of most Disney artists, living or dead, and often likened to that of underground artists, and he is frequently compared to Robert Crumb. When Rosa was first told of this similarity, he said that he "drew that bad" long before he discovered underground comics during college. He went on to explain these similarities to underground artists with a similar background of making comics as a hobby: "I think that both my style and that of Robert Crumb are similar only because we both grew up making comics for our personal enjoyment, without ever taking drawing seriously, and without ever trying to attain a style that would please the average comics publisher. We drew comics for fun!" Carl Barks "I want to take everything Barks wrote and forge it into a workable timeline. My original dream was to become the new Carl Barks. I wanted to write, draw, and letter all my own stories. People tell me that my pencils look just like Barks, but my inks are pure Rosa, and I can't letter properly! So I'll have to settle for being Don Rosa." – Don Rosa in 1987 "Don Rosa has often been called the heir of Carl Barks, especially for the way in which he has carried on the Ducks' Family Saga. But I don't think so: in my opinion Don Rosa [...] is an author who has used Barks' characters to make stories that are completely new, 'Donrosian' rather than 'Barksian', just like Barks can't be considered the heir of Al Taliaferro only because he has worked on the Ducks after him." – Carlo Chendi, Italian Disney comics writer Rosa's idol when it comes to comics is Carl Barks. Rosa builds almost all his stories on characters and locations that Barks invented. Many of Rosa's stories contain references to some fact pointed out in a Barks story. At the request of publishers in response to reader demands, Rosa has even created sequels of old Barks stories. For example, his Return to Plain Awful is a sequel to Lost in the Andes!, where the Ducks return to the same hidden country. To add more to his admiration and consistency to Barks and Barks' stories, Rosa makes all his ducks' stories set in the 1950s. This is because Barks writes most of the stories about Scrooge, Donald and all people of Duckburg in the 1950s (it also conveniently resolves potential continuity problems, such as Scrooge's age). As explained in text pages in the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck and its companion volume, Rosa does intense research of time periods to ensure not only that he gets the physical details right, but also to ensure that all characters could have been present. Barks either created most of the characters used by Rosa or is credited for greatly developing their personalities. Rosa thus feels obliged to make his stories factually consistent. He has spent a lot of time in making lists of facts and anecdotes pointed out in different stories by his mentor. Especially The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck was based mostly on the earlier works of Barks. Rosa admitted however that a scene of the first chapter was inspired by a story by Tony Strobl. As most of the characters Rosa uses were created by Barks, and because Rosa considers Scrooge rather than Donald to be the main character of the Duck universe, he does not regard himself as a pure Disney artist, nor the characters really as Disney's. "Rosa prefers to say that the characters he uses are Barks's, Barks having reshaped Donald Duck's personality and creating everything else we know of Duckburg while working as a freelancer in 1942–1967 for an independent licensed publisher (Dell/Western Comics). Barks even claimed to have also created Huey, Dewey and Louie while working as a writer on Donald Duck animated cartoons in 1937." Because of his idolization of Barks, he repeatedly discourages his fans to use an absolutist way of saying his clearly different drawing style would be better than Barks's, and he found that notion confirmed when Barks himself spoke about Rosa's style in a critical tone though it is uncertain whether those comments were Barks's or those of his temporary "business managers" who filtered his communications. "I usually don't like my stories. I mean I try really hard, but I know I don't draw that well. I know people like it because it's got lots of extra details, but art directors know good artwork, and they know mine is not good artwork. Now, people always say, 'You're being too modest, you're being too modest', and I say, 'What?' They just have to ask me the right question. I know it's not good artwork and I don't know if it's well-drawn, but I know it's entertaining." – Don Rosa, Torino Comics Festival, April 2011 "Don Rosa has a style that is a little bit different from the Disney style. I know that there is a great deal of people that like that style, which is extremely detailed. So there is room in the business for artists like Don Rosa and for others like Van Horn. They have a different style. But if they have a good story and tell it properly, then people are going to like it." – Carl Barks, interview given at Disneyland Paris, July 7, 1994 Beside Rosa's constant effort to remain faithful to the universe Barks created, there is also a number of notable differences between the two artists. The most obvious of these is Rosa's much more detailed drawing style, often with many background gags, which has been credited as being a result of Rosa's love of the Will Elder stories of MAD comics and magazines. While Barks himself discouraged the use of extreme grimacing and gesturing in any other panel for comical or dramatic effect, Rosa's stories are rich with colourful and bizarre facial renditions and physical slapstick. Barks had over 600 Duck stories to his name while Rosa only created 85 until his eye trouble set in, but whereas Barks made many short one and two-pagers centred around a subtle, compact gag, Rosa's oeuvre consists almost exclusively of long adventure stories. Andrea "Bramo" Bramini identifies the following four differences between Barks's and Rosa's way of storytelling: Rosa follows a very strict continuity, while Barks paid very little attention to continuity between stories. Rosa's characterization of Scrooge is that of a much more sentimental person for often relishing his memories of past adventures. Barks situated his stories in the present day of when he was creating them, and had a penchant for satire. Rosa strictly writes stories taking place in an era at least half a century prior to their creation, and mostly abstains from any political or social commentary. With his engineering degree, Rosa often goes to great lengths to give scientifically plausible explanations within his stories, whereas Barks never cared much for any detailed scientific rationalizations to his stories. D.U.C.K. Most of Rosa's stories have the letters D.U.C.K. hidden within either the first panel or, if Rosa has created the cover art, within the cover art itself. D.U.C.K. is an acronym for "Dedicated to Unca Carl from Keno" (Carl being Carl Barks and Keno being Rosa's given first name). Due to Disney's refusal to allow artists to sign their work, early Rosa dedications to Barks were deleted as they seemed to be a form of a signature. Later Rosa began hiding the dedication acronym from his editors in various and unlikely places within his drawings. Rosa has drawn covers for reprints of Carl Barks stories and has included his D.U.C.K. dedication within them as well. Mickeys Another curiosity is his Hidden Mickeys. Rosa is only interested in creating stories featuring the Duck family, but he often hides small Mickey Mouse heads or figures in the pictures, sometimes in a humiliating or unwanted situation. An example of this is in the story The Terror of the Transvaal where a flat Mickey can be seen under an elephant's foot. This is mostly a gag done for the fun of it. Rosa has admitted to neither liking nor disliking Mickey Mouse, but being indifferent to him. In the story Attack of the Hideous Space-Varmints, the asteroid with Uncle Scrooge's money bin on it crashes into the Moon along with two missiles, creating a large Mickey Mouse head on the surface. When Huey, Dewey and Louie tell Donald that the missiles hit the "dark" (far) side of the Moon, Donald is thankful no one is going to see it  — "For a minute there, I thought we were going to have some legal problems." In the second Rosa story featuring The Three Caballeros, Donald Duck is shocked by the sight of a capybara standing on its hind legs, with shrubs, leaves and fruit in front of its body, coincidentally making it look like Mickey Mouse. José Carioca and Panchito Pistoles, never having seen Mickey Mouse, ask Donald what is wrong, but Donald replies he is just tired. Later in the same story, the Caballeros free several animals from a poacher. One panel shows the animals fleeing; Mickey can be seen among them. In The Quest for Kalevala this running gag can be seen on the original, Akseli Gallen-Kallela-inspired cover art. In the original work, Louhi is depicted as bare-chested, but the Disneyfied version has been drawn a top, of fabric patterned with Mickey Mouse heads. Awards His work has won Rosa a good deal of recognition in the industry, including nominations for the Comics' Buyer's Guide Award for Favorite Writer in 1997, 1998, and 1999. Heidi MacDonald of Comics Buyer's Guide also mentioned Rosa's 1994 story Guardians of the Lost Library as "possibly the greatest comic book story of all time". In 1995 Rosa was awarded the Eisner Award for "Best Serialized Story" for The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. In 1997 he won an Eisner for "Best Artist/Writer – Humor Category". Rosa's story The Black Knight GLORPS Again! was nominated for the 2007 Eisner Award in the category Best Short Story. While The Prisoner of White Agony Creek, Rosa's latest Duck story to-date, was published in 2006, he was also nominated for the 2007 Harvey Awards in five categories (more than any other creator was that year) for his Uncle Scrooge comics: "Best Writer", "Best Artist", "Best Cartoonist", "Best Cover Artist", and "Special Award for Humor in Comics." In 2013 Rosa received the Bill Finger Award which recognizes excellence in comic book writing for writers who have not received their rightful reward and/or recognition. International "Best Cartoonist of the Year" awards include: Germany: International Grand Prize 2005 (Frankfurt Book Fair). Denmark: ORLA Award (DR Television Network). Sweden: Svenska Serieakademins (Swedish Comics Academy). Seriefrämjandets Unghunden (Swedish Comics Association). Norway: Sproing Award (Norsk Tegneserieforum / Norwegian Comics Forum). Italy: Yambo Award (Lucca Comics Festival). Premio U Giancu Award (U Giancu & Rapallo Comics Festival). Spain: Haxtur Award (Gijon Comics Festival). Biographical works In 1997 the Italian publishing house Editrice ComicArt published a lavish volume about Rosa's biography and work related to the Disney characters. It was titled Don Rosa e il Rinascimento Disneyano ("Don Rosa and the Disneyean Renaissance") and written by famous Disney and Rosa scholars, Alberto Becattini, Leonardo Gori and Francesco Stajano. This work not only discusses all of Rosa's creative life up to 1997, but it also gives a comprehensive biography, lists up to that date his Disney work and presents an extensive interview with Rosa. In 2009, Danish director Sebastian S. Cordes shot a 75-minute documentary called The Life and Times of Don Rosa, consisting of exclusive interviews with Rosa himself on his farm near Louisville, Kentucky. According to the project's Facebook group, the English-language DVD was released in Denmark on April 16, 2011. In 2011, Italian Disney fan forum papersera.net published Don Rosa: A Little Something Special (edited by Italian Rosa fan Paolo Castagno), a large folio format, bilingual (Italian and English) book about Rosa's life and work, containing interviews with Rosa and articles by many Italian and European Disney artists, Disney scholars, and established art critics commenting on Rosa's work and career, also including many exclusive, rare Rosa drawings and illustrations. The book was originally made as a gift by papersera.net for Rosa himself upon the occasion of Rosa's April 2011 visit to Turin, Italy. In 2017 the book, I Still Get Chills!, featuring text by German journalist Alex Jakubowski and photographs by Lois Lammerhuber, was published by Edition Lammerhuber in honour of Rosa's 66th birthday and the 70th anniversary of the first appearance of Scrooge McDuck. A feature documentary about Don Rosa and Scrooge McDuck by French director Morgann Gicquel titled The Scrooge Mystery was released in December 2017 and was released on DVD and Blu-ray in 2018. Comic collections United States The Don Rosa Classics — The Pertwillaby Papers The Don Rosa Classics — The Adventures of Captain Kentucky The Don Rosa Classics — The Early (So-Called) Art of Don Rosa The Don Rosa Library of Uncle Scrooge Adventures in Color Vols. 1–8 The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Companion The Barks/Rosa Collection Vols. 1–3 Walt Disney Treasury: Donald Duck Vols. 1–2 Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck: The Don Rosa Library Vols. 1–10 Don Rosa's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck: Artist's Edition Vols. 1–2 The Complete Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Vols. 1–2 Other countries Apart from the Don Rosa Collection in Germany and Don Rosas Samlade/Samlede Verk and Don Rosan kootut in the Nordic nations, the following collections only contain Rosa's work for Disney. See also List of Disney comics by Don Rosa List of people from the Louisville metropolitan area References External links Don Rosa at the Lambiek Comiclopedia The D.U.C.K.man Duckhunt DuckMaster Different information by Don Rosa Documentary with and about Don Rosa Don Rosa's official Facebook page 1951 births Living people 20th-century American artists 21st-century American artists 20th-century American writers 21st-century American writers American comics artists American comics writers American people of German descent American people of Irish descent American people of Italian descent American people of Scottish descent Artists from Louisville, Kentucky Writers from Louisville, Kentucky University of Kentucky alumni Disney comics writers Disney comics artists Eisner Award winners for Best Writer/Artist Bill Finger Award winners

Dynamic HTML, or DHTML, is a term which was used by some browser vendors to describe the combination of HTML, style sheets and client-side scripts (JavaScript, VBScript, or any other supported scripts) that enabled creation of interactive and animated documents. The application of DHTML was introduced by Microsoft with the release of Internet Explorer 4 in 1997. DHTML allows scripting languages to change variables in a web page's definition language, which in turn affects the look and function of otherwise "static" HTML page content, after the page has been fully loaded and during the viewing process. Thus the dynamic characteristic of DHTML is the way it functions while a page is viewed, not in its ability to generate a unique page with each page load. By contrast, a dynamic web page is a broader concept, covering any web page generated differently for each user, load occurrence, or specific variable values. This includes pages created by client-side scripting, and ones created by server-side scripting (such as PHP, Python, JSP or ASP.NET) where the web server generates content before sending it to the client. DHTML is predecessor of Ajax and DHTML pages are still request/reload-based. Under DHTML model, there may not be any interaction between the client and server after the page is loaded; all processing happens on the client side. By contrast, Ajax extends features of DHTML to allow page to initiate network requests (or 'subrequest') to the server even after page load to perform additional actions. For example, if there are multiple tabs on a page, pure DHTML approach would load the contents of all tabs and then dynamically display only the one that is active, while AJAX could load each tab only when it is really needed. Uses DHTML allows authors to add effects to their pages that are otherwise difficult to achieve, by changing the Document Object Model (DOM) and page style. The combination of HTML, CSS and JavaScript offers ways to: Animate text and images in their document. Embed a ticker or other dynamic display that automatically refreshes its content with the latest news, stock quotes, or other data. Use a form to capture user input, and then process, verify and respond to that data without having to send data back to the server. Include rollover buttons or drop-down menus. A less common use is to create browser-based action games. Although a number of games were created using DHTML during the late 1990s and early 2000s, differences between browsers made this difficult: many techniques had to be implemented in code to enable the games to work on multiple platforms. Recently browsers have been converging towards web standards, which has made the design of DHTML games more viable. Those games can be played on all major browsers and they can also be ported to Plasma for KDE, Widgets for macOS and Gadgets for Windows Vista, which are based on DHTML code. The term "DHTML" has fallen out of use in recent years as it was associated with practices and conventions that tended to not work well between various web browsers. DHTML support with extensive DOM access was introduced with Internet Explorer 4.0. Although there was a basic dynamic system with Netscape Navigator 4.0, not all HTML elements were represented in the DOM. When DHTML-style techniques became widespread, varying degrees of support among web browsers for the technologies involved made them difficult to develop and debug. Development became easier when Internet Explorer 5.0+, Mozilla Firefox 2.0+, and Opera 7.0+ adopted a shared DOM inherited from ECMAScript. More recently, JavaScript libraries such as jQuery have abstracted away many of the day-to-day difficulties in cross-browser DOM manipulation. Structure of a web page Typically a web page using DHTML is set up in the following way: <!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>DHTML example</title> </head> <body bgcolor="red"> <script> function init() { let myObj = document.getElementById("navigation"); // ... manipulate myObj } window.onload = init; </script> <!-- Often the code is stored in an external file; this is done by linking the file that contains the JavaScript. This is helpful when several pages use the same script: --> <script src="my-javascript.js"></script> </body> </html> Example: Displaying an additional block of text The following code illustrates an often-used function. An additional part of a web page will only be displayed if the user requests it. <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>Using a DOM function</title> <style> a { background-color: #eee; } a:hover { background: #ff0; } #toggleMe { background: #cfc; display: none; margin: 30px 0; padding: 1em; } </style> </head> <body> <h1>Using a DOM function</h1> <h2><a id="showhide" href="#">Show paragraph</a></h2> <p id="toggle-me">This is the paragraph that is only displayed on request.</p> <p>The general flow of the document continues.</p> <script> function changeDisplayState(displayElement, textElement) { if (displayElement.style.display === "none" || displayElement.style.display === "") { displayElement.style.display = "block"; textElement.innerHTML = "Hide paragraph"; } else { displayElement.style.display = "none"; textElement.innerHTML = "Show paragraph"; } } let displayElement = document.getElementById("toggle-me"); let textElement = document.getElementById("showhide"), textElement.addEventListener("click", function (e) { e.preventDefault(); changeDisplayState(displayElement, textElement); }); </script> </body> </html> Document Object Model DHTML is not a technology in and of itself; rather, it is the product of three related and complementary technologies: HTML, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and JavaScript. To allow scripts and components to access features of HTML and CSS, the contents of the document are represented as objects in a programming model known as the Document Object Model (DOM). The DOM API is the foundation of DHTML, providing a structured interface that allows access and manipulation of virtually anything in the document. The HTML elements in the document are available as a hierarchical tree of individual objects, making it possible to examine and modify an element and its attributes by reading and setting properties and by calling methods. The text between elements is also available through DOM properties and methods. The DOM also provides access to user actions such as pressing a key and clicking the mouse. It is possible to intercept and process these and other events by creating event handler functions and routines. The event handler receives control each time a given event occurs and can carry out any appropriate action, including using the DOM to change the document. Dynamic styles Dynamic styles are a key feature of DHTML. By using CSS, one can quickly change the appearance and formatting of elements in a document without adding or removing elements. This helps keep documents small and the scripts that manipulate the document fast. The object model provides programmatic access to styles. This means you can change inline styles on individual elements and change style rules using simple JavaScript programming. Inline styles are CSS style assignments that have been applied to an element using the style attribute. You can examine and set these styles by retrieving the style object for an individual element. For example, to highlight the text in a heading when the user moves the mouse pointer over it, you can use the style object to enlarge the font and change its color, as shown in the following simple example. <!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>Dynamic Styles</title> <style> ul { display: none; } </style> </head> <body> <h1 id="first-header">Welcome to Dynamic HTML</h1> <p><a id="clickable-link" href="#">Dynamic styles are a key feature of DHTML.</a></p> <ul id="unordered-list"> <li>Change the color, size, and typeface of text</li> <li>Show and hide text</li> <li>And much, much more</li> </ul> <p>We've only just begun!</p> <script> function showMe() { document.getElementById("first-header").style.color = "#990000"; document.getElementById("unordered-list").style.display = "block"; } document.getElementById("clickable-link").addEventListener("click", function (e) { e.preventDefault(); showMe(); }); </script> </body> </html> See also Dynamic web page References External links QuirksMode, a comprehensive site with test examples and instructions on how to write DHTML code which runs on several browsers. Introductory DHTML Tutorial HTML

Deep Space 1 (DS1) was a NASA technology demonstration spacecraft which flew by an asteroid and a comet. It was part of the New Millennium Program, dedicated to testing advanced technologies. Launched on 24 October 1998, the Deep Space 1 spacecraft carried out a flyby of asteroid 9969 Braille, which was its primary science target. The mission was extended twice to include an encounter with comet 19P/Borrelly and further engineering testing. Problems during its initial stages and with its star tracker led to repeated changes in mission configuration. While the flyby of the asteroid was only a partial success, the encounter with the comet retrieved valuable information. Three of twelve technologies on board had to work within a few minutes of separation from the carrier rocket for the mission to continue. The Deep Space series was continued by the Deep Space 2 probes, which were launched in January 1999 piggybacked on the Mars Polar Lander and were intended to strike the surface of Mars (though contact was lost and the mission failed). Deep Space 1 was the first NASA spacecraft to use ion propulsion rather than the traditional chemical-powered rockets. Technologies The purpose of Deep Space 1 was technology development and validation for future missions; 12 technologies were tested: Solar Electric Propulsion Solar Concentrator Arrays Multi-functional Structure Miniature Integrated Camera and Imaging Spectrometer Ion and Electron Spectrometer Small Deep Space Transponder Ka-Band Solid State Power Amplifier Beacon Monitor Operations Autonomous Remote Agent Low Power Electronics Power Actuation and Switching Module Autonomous Navigation Autonav The Autonav system, developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, takes images of known bright asteroids. The asteroids in the inner Solar System move in relation to other bodies at a noticeable, predictable speed. Thus a spacecraft can determine its relative position by tracking such asteroids across the star background, which appears fixed over such timescales. Two or more asteroids let the spacecraft triangulate its position; two or more positions in time let the spacecraft determine its trajectory. Existing spacecraft are tracked by their interactions with the transmitters of the NASA Deep Space Network (DSN), in effect an inverse GPS. However, DSN tracking requires many skilled operators, and the DSN is overburdened by its use as a communications network. The use of Autonav reduces mission cost and DSN demands. The Autonav system can also be used in reverse, tracking the position of bodies relative to the spacecraft. This is used to acquire targets for the scientific instruments. The spacecraft is programmed with the target's coarse location. After initial acquisition, Autonav keeps the subject in frame, even commandeering the spacecraft's attitude control. The next spacecraft to use Autonav was Deep Impact. SCARLET concentrating solar array Primary power for the mission was produced by a new solar array technology, the Solar Concentrator Array with Refractive Linear Element Technology (SCARLET), which uses linear Fresnel lenses made of silicone to concentrate sunlight onto solar cells. ABLE Engineering developed the concentrator technology and built the solar array for DS1, with Entech Inc, who supplied the Fresnel optics, and the NASA Glenn Research Center. The activity was sponsored by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. The concentrating lens technology was combined with dual-junction solar cells, which had considerably better performance than the GaAs solar cells that were the state of the art at the time of the mission launch. The SCARLET arrays generated 2.5 kilowatts at 1 AU, with less size and weight than conventional arrays. NSTAR ion engine Although ion engines had been developed at NASA since the late 1950s, with the exception of the SERT missions in the 1960s, the technology had not been demonstrated in flight on United States spacecraft, though hundreds of Hall-effect engines had been used on Soviet and Russian spacecraft. This lack of a performance history in space meant that despite the potential savings in propellant mass, the technology was considered too experimental to be used for high-cost missions. Furthermore, unforeseen side effects of ion propulsion might in some way interfere with typical scientific experiments, such as fields and particle measurements. Therefore, it was a primary mission of the Deep Space 1 demonstration to show long-duration use of an ion thruster on a scientific mission. The NASA Solar Technology Application Readiness (NSTAR) electrostatic ion thruster, developed at NASA Glenn, achieves a specific impulse of 1000–3000 seconds. This is an order of magnitude higher than traditional space propulsion methods, resulting in a mass savings of approximately half. This leads to much cheaper launch vehicles. Although the engine produces just thrust at maximal power (2,100 W on DS1), the craft achieved high speeds because ion engines thrust continuously for long periods. The next spacecraft to use NSTAR engines was Dawn, with three redundant units. Remote Agent Remote Agent (RAX), remote intelligent self-repair software developed at NASA's Ames Research Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was the first artificial-intelligence control system to control a spacecraft without human supervision. Remote Agent successfully demonstrated the ability to plan onboard activities and correctly diagnose and respond to simulated faults in spacecraft components through its built-in REPL environment. Autonomous control will enable future spacecraft to operate at greater distances from Earth and to carry out more sophisticated science-gathering activities in deep space. Components of the Remote Agent software have been used to support other NASA missions. Major components of Remote Agent were a robust planner (EUROPA), a plan-execution system (EXEC) and a model-based diagnostic system (Livingstone). EUROPA was used as a ground-based planner for the Mars Exploration Rovers. EUROPA II was used to support the Phoenix Mars lander and the Mars Science Laboratory. Livingstone2 was flown as an experiment aboard Earth Observing-1 and on an F/A-18 Hornet at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center. Beacon Monitor Another method for reducing DSN burdens is the Beacon Monitor experiment. During the long cruise periods of the mission, spacecraft operations are essentially suspended. Instead of data, the craft emits a carrier signal on a predetermined frequency. Without data decoding, the carrier can be detected by much simpler ground antennas and receivers. If the spacecraft detects an anomaly, it changes the carrier between four tones, based on urgency. Ground receivers then signal operators to divert DSN resources. This prevents skilled operators and expensive hardware from babysitting an unburdened mission operating nominally. A similar system was used on the New Horizons Pluto probe to keep costs down during its ten-year cruise from Jupiter to Pluto. SDST The Small Deep Space Transponder (SDST) is a compact and lightweight radio-communications system. Aside from using miniaturized components, the SDST is capable of communicating over the Ka band. Because this band is higher in frequency than bands currently in use by deep-space missions, the same amount of data can be sent by smaller equipment in space and on the ground. Conversely, existing DSN antennas can split time among more missions. At the time of launch, the DSN had a small number of Ka receivers installed on an experimental basis; Ka operations and missions are increasing. The SDST was later used on other space missions such as the Mars Science Laboratory (the Mars rover Curiosity). PEPE Once at a target, DS1 senses the particle environment with the PEPE (Plasma Experiment for Planetary Exploration) instrument. This instrument measured the flux of ions and electrons as a function of their energy and direction. The composition of the ions was determined by using a time-of-flight mass spectrometer. MICAS The MICAS (Miniature Integrated Camera And Spectrometer) instrument combined visible light imaging with infrared and ultraviolet spectroscopy to determine chemical composition. All channels share a telescope, which uses a silicon carbide mirror. Both PEPE and MICAS were similar in capabilities to larger instruments or suites of instruments on other spacecraft. They were designed to be smaller and require lower power than those used on previous missions. Mission overview Prior to launch, Deep Space 1 was intended to visit comet 76P/West–Kohoutek–Ikemura and asteroid 3352 McAuliffe. Because of the delayed launch, the targets were changed to asteroid 9969 Braille (at the time called 1992 KD) and comet 107P/Wilson–Harrington. It achieved an impaired flyby of Braille and, due to problems with the star tracker, was re-tasked to fly by comet 19P/Borrelly, which was successful. An August 2002 flyby of asteroid as another extended mission was considered, but ultimately was not advanced due to cost concerns. During the mission, high quality infrared spectra of Mars were also taken. Results and achievements The ion propulsion engine initially failed after 4.5 minutes of operation. However, it was later restored to action and performed excellently. Early in the mission, material ejected during launch vehicle separation caused the closely spaced ion extraction grids to short-circuit. The contamination was eventually cleared, as the material was eroded by electrical arcing, sublimed by outgassing, or simply allowed to drift out. This was achieved by repeatedly restarting the engine in an engine repair mode, arcing across trapped material. It was thought that the ion engine exhaust might interfere with other spacecraft systems, such as radio communications or the science instruments. The PEPE detectors had a secondary function to monitor such effects from the engine. No interference was found although the flux of ions from the thruster prevented PEPE from observing ions below approximately 20 eV. Another failure was the loss of the star tracker. The star tracker determines spacecraft orientation by comparing the star field to its internal charts. The mission was saved when the MICAS camera was reprogrammed to substitute for the star tracker. Although MICAS is more sensitive, its field-of-view is an order of magnitude smaller, creating a greater information processing burden. Ironically, the star tracker was an off-the-shelf component, expected to be highly reliable. Without a working star tracker, ion thrusting was temporarily suspended. The loss of thrust time forced the cancellation of a flyby past comet 107P/Wilson–Harrington. The Autonav system required occasional manual corrections. Most problems were in identifying objects that were too dim, or were difficult to identify because of brighter objects causing diffraction spikes and reflections in the camera, causing Autonav to misidentify targets. The Remote Agent system was presented with three simulated failures on the spacecraft and correctly handled each event. a failed electronics unit, which Remote Agent fixed by reactivating the unit. a failed sensor providing false information, which Remote Agent recognized as unreliable and therefore correctly ignored. an attitude control thruster (a small engine for controlling the spacecraft's orientation) stuck in the "off" position, which Remote Agent detected and compensated for by switching to a mode that did not rely on that thruster. Overall this constituted a successful demonstration of fully autonomous planning, diagnosis, and recovery. The MICAS instrument was a design success, but the ultraviolet channel failed due to an electrical fault. Later in the mission, after the star tracker failure, MICAS assumed this duty as well. This caused continual interruptions in its scientific use during the remaining mission, including the Comet Borrelly encounter. The flyby of the asteroid 9969 Braille was only a partial success. Deep Space 1 was intended to perform the flyby at at only from the asteroid. Due to technical difficulties, including a software crash shortly before approach, the craft instead passed Braille at a distance of . This, plus Braille's lower albedo, meant that the asteroid was not bright enough for the Autonav to focus the camera in the right direction, and the picture shoot was delayed by almost an hour. The resulting pictures were disappointingly indistinct. However, the flyby of Comet Borrelly was a great success and returned extremely detailed images of the comet's surface. Such images were of higher resolution than the only previous pictures of a comet -- Halley's Comet, taken by the Giotto spacecraft. The PEPE instrument reported that the comet's solar wind interaction was offset from the nucleus. This is believed to be due to emission of jets, which were not distributed evenly across the comet's surface. Despite having no debris shields, the spacecraft survived the comet passage intact. Once again, the sparse comet jets did not appear to point towards the spacecraft. Deep Space 1 then entered its second extended mission phase, focused on retesting the spacecraft's hardware technologies. The focus of this mission phase was on the ion engine systems. The spacecraft eventually ran out of hydrazine fuel for its attitude control thrusters. The highly efficient ion thruster had a sufficient amount of propellant left to perform attitude control in addition to main propulsion, thus allowing the mission to continue. During late October and early November 1999, during the spacecraft's post-Braille encounter coast phase, Deep Space 1 observed Mars with its MICAS instrument. Although this was a very distant flyby, the instrument did succeed in taking multiple infrared spectra of the planet. Current status Deep Space 1 succeeded in its primary and secondary objectives, returning valuable science data and images. DS1's ion engines were shut down on 18 December 2001 at approximately 20:00:00 UTC, signaling the end of the mission. On-board communications were set to remain in active mode in case the craft should be needed in the future. However, attempts to resume contact in March 2002 were unsuccessful. It remains within the Solar System, in orbit around the Sun. Statistics Launch mass: Dry mass: Fuel: of hydrazine for attitude control thrusters; of xenon for the NSTAR ion engine Power: 2,500 watts, of which 2,100 watts powers the ion engine Prime contractor: Spectrum Astro, later acquired by General Dynamics, and later sold to Orbital Sciences Corporation Launch vehicle: Boeing Delta II 7326 Launch site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch Complex 17A Total cost: Development cost: Personnel: Project manager: David Lehman Mission manager: Philip Varghese Chief mission engineer and deputy mission manager: Marc Rayman Project scientist: Robert Nelson See also Solar panels on spacecraft List of minor planets and comets visited by spacecraft References External links Deep Space 1 website by NASAJet Propulsion Laboratory Deep Space 1 website by NASANew Millennium Program Deep Space 1 by Encyclopedia Astronautica Deep Space 1 Mission Archive at the NASA Planetary Data System, Small Bodies Node Spacecraft launched in 1998 Derelict space probes NASA space probes New Millennium Program Spacecraft launched by Delta II rockets Missions to comets Missions to asteroids

In finance, a derivative is a contract that derives its value from the performance of an underlying entity. This underlying entity can be an asset, index, or interest rate, and is often simply called the "underlying". Derivatives can be used for a number of purposes, including insuring against price movements (hedging), increasing exposure to price movements for speculation, or getting access to otherwise hard-to-trade assets or markets. Some of the more common derivatives include forwards, futures, options, swaps, and variations of these such as synthetic collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps. Most derivatives are traded over-the-counter (off-exchange) or on an exchange such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, while most insurance contracts have developed into a separate industry. In the United States, after the financial crisis of 2007–2009, there has been increased pressure to move derivatives to trade on exchanges. Derivatives are one of the three main categories of financial instruments, the other two being equity (i.e., stocks or shares) and debt (i.e., bonds and mortgages). The oldest example of a derivative in history, attested to by Aristotle, is thought to be a contract transaction of olives, entered into by ancient Greek philosopher Thales, who made a profit in the exchange. Bucket shops, outlawed in 1936, are a more recent historical example. Basics Derivatives are contracts between two parties that specify conditions (especially the dates, resulting values and definitions of the underlying variables, the parties' contractual obligations, and the notional amount) under which payments are to be made between the parties. The assets include commodities, stocks, bonds, interest rates and currencies, but they can also be other derivatives, which adds another layer of complexity to proper valuation. The components of a firm's capital structure, e.g., bonds and stock, can also be considered derivatives, more precisely options, with the underlying being the firm's assets, but this is unusual outside of technical contexts. From the economic point of view, financial derivatives are cash flows that are conditioned stochastically and discounted to present value. The market risk inherent in the underlying asset is attached to the financial derivative through contractual agreements and hence can be traded separately. The underlying asset does not have to be acquired. Derivatives therefore allow the breakup of ownership and participation in the market value of an asset. This also provides a considerable amount of freedom regarding the contract design. That contractual freedom allows derivative designers to modify the participation in the performance of the underlying asset almost arbitrarily. Thus, the participation in the market value of the underlying can be effectively weaker, stronger (leverage effect), or implemented as inverse. Hence, specifically the market price risk of the underlying asset can be controlled in almost every situation. There are two groups of derivative contracts: the privately traded over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives such as swaps that do not go through an exchange or other intermediary, and exchange-traded derivatives (ETD) that are traded through specialized derivatives exchanges or other exchanges. Derivatives are more common in the modern era, but their origins trace back several centuries. One of the oldest derivatives is rice futures, which have been traded on the Dojima Rice Exchange since the eighteenth century. Derivatives are broadly categorized by the relationship between the underlying asset and the derivative (such as forward, option, swap); the type of underlying asset (such as equity derivatives, foreign exchange derivatives, interest rate derivatives, commodity derivatives, or credit derivatives); the market in which they trade (such as exchange-traded or over-the-counter); and their pay-off profile. Derivatives may broadly be categorized as "lock" or "option" products. Lock products (such as swaps, futures, or forwards) obligate the contractual parties to the terms over the life of the contract. Option products (such as interest rate swaps) provide the buyer the right, but not the obligation to enter the contract under the terms specified. Derivatives can be used either for risk management (i.e. to "hedge" by providing offsetting compensation in case of an undesired event, a kind of "insurance") or for speculation (i.e. making a financial "bet"). This distinction is important because the former is a prudent aspect of operations and financial management for many firms across many industries; the latter offers managers and investors a risky opportunity to increase profit, which may not be properly disclosed to stakeholders. Along with many other financial products and services, derivatives reform is an element of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The Act delegated many rule-making details of regulatory oversight to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and those details are not finalized nor fully implemented as of late 2012. Size of market To give an idea of the size of the derivative market, The Economist has reported that as of June 2011, the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market amounted to approximately $700 trillion, and the size of the market traded on exchanges totaled an additional $83 trillion. For the fourth quarter 2017 the European Securities Market Authority estimated the size of European derivatives market at a size of €660 trillion with 74 million outstanding contracts. However, these are "notional" values, and some economists say that these aggregated values greatly exaggerate the market value and the true credit risk faced by the parties involved. For example, in 2010, while the aggregate of OTC derivatives exceeded $600 trillion, the value of the market was estimated to be much lower, at $21 trillion. The credit-risk equivalent of the derivative contracts was estimated at $3.3 trillion. Still, even these scaled-down figures represent huge amounts of money. For perspective, the budget for total expenditure of the United States government during 2012 was $3.5 trillion, and the total current value of the U.S. stock market is an estimated $23 trillion. Meanwhile, the world annual Gross Domestic Product is about $65 trillion. At least for one type of derivative, Credit Default Swaps (CDS), for which the inherent risk is considered high , the higher, nominal value remains relevant. It was this type of derivative that investment magnate Warren Buffett referred to in his famous 2002 speech in which he warned against "financial weapons of mass destruction". CDS notional value in early 2012 amounted to $25.5 trillion, down from $55 trillion in 2008. Usage Derivatives are used for the following: Hedge or to mitigate risk in the underlying, by entering into a derivative contract whose value moves in the opposite direction to their underlying position and cancels part or all of it out Create option ability where the value of the derivative is linked to a specific condition or event (e.g., the underlying reaching a specific price level) Obtain exposure to the underlying where it is not possible to trade in the underlying (e.g., weather derivatives) Provide leverage (or gearing), such that a small movement in the underlying value can cause a large difference in the value of the derivative Speculate and make a profit if the value of the underlying asset moves the way they expect (e.g. moves in a given direction, stays in or out of a specified range, reaches a certain level) Switch asset allocations between different asset classes without disturbing the underlying assets, as part of transition management Avoid paying taxes. For example, an equity swap allows an investor to receive steady payments, e.g. based on SONIA rate, while avoiding paying capital gains tax and keeping the stock. For arbitraging purpose, allowing a riskless profit by simultaneously entering into transactions into two or more markets. Mechanics and valuation Lock products are theoretically valued at zero at the time of execution and thus do not typically require an up-front exchange between the parties. Based upon movements in the underlying asset over time, however, the value of the contract will fluctuate, and the derivative may be either an asset (i.e., "in the money") or a liability (i.e., "out of the money") at different points throughout its life. Importantly, either party is therefore exposed to the credit quality of its counterparty and is interested in protecting itself in an event of default. Option products have immediate value at the outset because they provide specified protection (intrinsic value) over a given time period (time value). One common form of option product familiar to many consumers is insurance for homes and automobiles. The insured would pay more for a policy with greater liability protections (intrinsic value) and one that extends for a year rather than six months (time value). Because of the immediate option value, the option purchaser typically pays an up front premium. Just like for lock products, movements in the underlying asset will cause the option's intrinsic value to change over time while its time value deteriorates steadily until the contract expires. An important difference between a lock product is that, after the initial exchange, the option purchaser has no further liability to its counterparty; upon maturity, the purchaser will execute the option if it has positive value (i.e., if it is "in the money") or expire at no cost (other than to the initial premium) (i.e., if the option is "out of the money"). Hedging Derivatives allow risk related to the price of the underlying asset to be transferred from one party to another. For example, a wheat farmer and a miller could sign a futures contract to exchange a specified amount of cash for a specified amount of wheat in the future. Both parties have reduced a future risk: for the wheat farmer, the uncertainty of the price, and for the miller, the availability of wheat. However, there is still the risk that no wheat will be available because of events unspecified by the contract, such as the weather, or that one party will renege on the contract. Although a third party, called a clearing house, insures a futures contract, not all derivatives are insured against counter-party risk. From another perspective, the farmer and the miller both reduce a risk and acquire a risk when they sign the futures contract: the farmer reduces the risk that the price of wheat will fall below the price specified in the contract and acquires the risk that the price of wheat will rise above the price specified in the contract (thereby losing additional income that he could have earned). The miller, on the other hand, acquires the risk that the price of wheat will fall below the price specified in the contract (thereby paying more in the future than he otherwise would have) and reduces the risk that the price of wheat will rise above the price specified in the contract. In this sense, one party is the insurer (risk taker) for one type of risk, and the counter-party is the insurer (risk taker) for another type of risk. Hedging also occurs when an individual or institution buys an asset (such as a commodity, a bond that has coupon payments, a stock that pays dividends, and so on) and sells it using a futures contract. The individual or institution has access to the asset for a specified amount of time, and can then sell it in the future at a specified price according to the futures contract. Of course, this allows the individual or institution the benefit of holding the asset, while reducing the risk that the future selling price will deviate unexpectedly from the market's current assessment of the future value of the asset. Derivatives trading of this kind may serve the financial interests of certain particular businesses. For example, a corporation borrows a large sum of money at a specific interest rate. The interest rate on the loan reprices every six months. The corporation is concerned that the rate of interest may be much higher in six months. The corporation could buy a forward rate agreement (FRA), which is a contract to pay a fixed rate of interest six months after purchases on a notional amount of money. If the interest rate after six months is above the contract rate, the seller will pay the difference to the corporation, or FRA buyer. If the rate is lower, the corporation will pay the difference to the seller. The purchase of the FRA serves to reduce the uncertainty concerning the rate increase and stabilize earnings. Speculation Derivatives can be used to acquire risk, rather than to hedge against risk. Thus, some individuals and institutions will enter into a derivative contract to speculate on the value of the underlying asset. Speculators look to buy an asset in the future at a low price according to a derivative contract when the future market price is high, or to sell an asset in the future at a high price according to a derivative contract when the future market price is less. Speculative trading in derivatives gained a great deal of notoriety in 1995 when Nick Leeson, a trader at Barings Bank, made poor and unauthorized investments in futures contracts. Through a combination of poor judgment, lack of oversight by the bank's management and regulators, and unfortunate events like the Kobe earthquake, Leeson incurred a $1.3 billion loss that bankrupted the centuries-old institution. Arbitrage Individuals and institutions may also look for arbitrage opportunities, as when the current buying price of an asset falls below the price specified in a futures contract to sell the asset. Proportion used for hedging and speculation The true proportion of derivatives contracts used for hedging purposes is unknown, but it appears to be relatively small. Also, derivatives contracts account for only 3–6% of the median firms' total currency and interest rate exposure. Nonetheless, we know that many firms' derivatives activities have at least some speculative component for a variety of reasons. Types In broad terms, there are two groups of derivative contracts, which are distinguished by the way they are traded in the market: Over-the-counter derivatives Over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives are contracts that are traded (and privately negotiated) directly between two parties, without going through an exchange or other intermediary. Products such as swaps, forward rate agreements, exotic options – and other exotic derivatives – are almost always traded in this way. The OTC derivative market is the largest market for derivatives, and is largely unregulated with respect to disclosure of information between the parties, since the OTC market is made up of banks and other highly sophisticated parties, such as hedge funds. Reporting of OTC amounts is difficult because trades can occur in private, without activity being visible on any exchange. According to the Bank for International Settlements, who first surveyed OTC derivatives in 1995, reported that the "gross market value, which represent the cost of replacing all open contracts at the prevailing market prices, ... increased by 74% since 2004, to $11 trillion at the end of June 2007 (BIS 2007:24)." Positions in the OTC derivatives market increased to $516 trillion at the end of June 2007, 135% higher than the level recorded in 2004. The total outstanding notional amount is US$708 trillion (as of June 2011). Of this total notional amount, 67% are interest rate contracts, 8% are credit default swaps (CDS), 9% are foreign exchange contracts, 2% are commodity contracts, 1% are equity contracts, and 12% are other. Because OTC derivatives are not traded on an exchange, there is no central counter-party. Therefore, they are subject to counterparty risk, like an ordinary contract, since each counter-party relies on the other to perform. Exchange-traded derivatives Exchange-traded derivatives (ETD) are those derivatives instruments that are traded via specialized derivatives exchanges or other exchanges. A derivatives exchange is a market where individuals trade standardized contracts that have been defined by the exchange. A derivatives exchange acts as an intermediary to all related transactions, and takes initial margin from both sides of the trade to act as a guarantee. The world's largest derivatives exchanges (by number of transactions) are the Korea Exchange (which lists KOSPI Index Futures & Options), Eurex (which lists a wide range of European products such as interest rate & index products), and CME Group (made up of the 2007 merger of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade and the 2008 acquisition of the New York Mercantile Exchange). According to BIS, the combined turnover in the world's derivatives exchanges totaled US$344 trillion during Q4 2005. By December 2007 the Bank for International Settlements reported that "derivatives traded on exchanges surged 27% to a record $681 trillion." Inverse ETFs and leveraged ETFs Inverse exchange-traded funds (IETFs) and leveraged exchange-traded funds (LETFs) are two special types of exchange traded funds (ETFs) that are available to common traders and investors on major exchanges like the NYSE and Nasdaq. To maintain these products' net asset value, these funds' administrators must employ more sophisticated financial engineering methods than what's usually required for maintenance of traditional ETFs. These instruments must also be regularly rebalanced and re-indexed each day. Common derivative contract Some of the common variants of derivative contracts are as follows: Forwards: tailored contract between two parties, where payment takes place at a specific time in the future at today's pre-determined price. Futures: contracts to buy or sell an asset on a future date at a price specified today. A futures contract differs from a forward contract in that the futures contract is a standardized contract written by a clearing house that operates an exchange where the contract can be bought and sold; the forward contract is a non-standardized contract written by the parties themselves. Options: contracts that give the owner the right, but not the obligation, to buy (in the case of a call option) or sell (in the case of a put option) an asset. The price at which the sale takes place is known as the strike price, and is specified at the time the parties enter into the option. The option contract also specifies a maturity date. In the case of a European option, the owner has the right to require the sale to take place on (but not before) the maturity date; in the case of an American option, the owner can require the sale to take place at any time up to the maturity date. If the owner of the contract exercises this right, the counter-party has the obligation to carry out the transaction. Options are of two types: call option and put option. The buyer of a call option has a right to buy a certain quantity of the underlying asset, at a specified price on or before a given date in the future, but he has no obligation to carry out this right. Similarly, the buyer of a put option has the right to sell a certain quantity of an underlying asset, at a specified price on or before a given date in the future, but he has no obligation to carry out this right. Binary options: contracts that provide the owner with an all-or-nothing profit profile. Warrants: apart from the commonly used short-dated options which have a maximum maturity period of one year, there exist certain long-dated options as well, known as warrants. These are generally traded over the counter. Swaps: contracts to exchange cash (flows) on or before a specified future date based on the underlying value of currencies exchange rates, bonds/interest rates, commodities exchange, stocks or other assets. Another term which is commonly associated with swap is swaption, a term for what is basically an option on the forward swap. Similar to call and put options, swaptions are of two kinds: receiver and payer. In the case of a receiver swaption there is an option wherein one can receive fixed and pay floating; in the case of a payer swaption one has the option to pay fixed and receive floating. Swaps can basically be categorized into two types: Interest rate swap: These basically necessitate swapping only interest associated cash flows in the same currency, between two parties. Currency swap: In this kind of swapping, the cash flow between the two parties includes both principal and interest. Also, the money which is being swapped is in different currency for both parties. Some common examples of these derivatives are the following: Collateralized debt obligation A collateralized debt obligation (CDO) is a type of structured asset-backed security (ABS). An "asset-backed security" is used as an umbrella term for a type of security backed by a pool of assets—including collateralized debt obligations and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) (Example: "The capital market in which asset-backed securities are issued and traded is composed of three main categories: ABS, MBS and CDOs".)—and sometimes for a particular type of that security—one backed by consumer loans (example: "As a rule of thumb, securitization issues backed by mortgages are called MBS, and securitization issues backed by debt obligations are called CDO, [and] Securitization issues backed by consumer-backed products—car loans, consumer loans and credit cards, among others—are called ABS.) Originally developed for the corporate debt markets, over time CDOs evolved to encompass the mortgage and mortgage-backed security (MBS) markets. Like other private-label securities backed by assets, a CDO can be thought of as a promise to pay investors in a prescribed sequence, based on the cash flow the CDO collects from the pool of bonds or other assets it owns. The CDO is "sliced" into "tranches", which "catch" the cash flow of interest and principal payments in sequence based on seniority. If some loans default and the cash collected by the CDO is insufficient to pay all of its investors, those in the lowest, most "junior" tranches suffer losses first. The last to lose payment from default are the safest, most senior tranches. Consequently, coupon payments (and interest rates) vary by tranche with the safest/most senior tranches paying the lowest and the lowest tranches paying the highest rates to compensate for higher default risk. As an example, a CDO might issue the following tranches in order of safeness: Senior AAA (sometimes known as "super senior"); Junior AAA; AA; A; BBB; Residual. Separate special-purpose entities—rather than the parent investment bank—issue the CDOs and pay interest to investors. As CDOs developed, some sponsors repackaged tranches into yet another iteration called "CDO-Squared" or the "CDOs of CDOs". In the early 2000s, CDOs were generally diversified, but by 2006–2007—when the CDO market grew to hundreds of billions of dollars—this changed. CDO collateral became dominated not by loans, but by lower level (BBB or A) tranches recycled from other asset-backed securities, whose assets were usually non-prime mortgages. These CDOs have been called "the engine that powered the mortgage supply chain" for nonprime mortgages, and are credited with giving lenders greater incentive to make non-prime loans leading up to the 2007-9 subprime mortgage crisis. Credit default swap A credit default swap (CDS) is a financial swap agreement that the seller of the CDS will compensate the buyer (the creditor of the reference loan) in the event of a loan default (by the debtor) or other credit event. The buyer of the CDS makes a series of payments (the CDS "fee" or "spread") to the seller and, in exchange, receives a payoff if the loan defaults. It was invented by Blythe Masters from JP Morgan in 1994. In the event of default the buyer of the CDS receives compensation (usually the face value of the loan), and the seller of the CDS takes possession of the defaulted loan. However, anyone with sufficient collateral to trade with a bank or hedge fund can purchase a CDS, even buyers who do not hold the loan instrument and who have no direct insurable interest in the loan (these are called "naked" CDSs). If there are more CDS contracts outstanding than bonds in existence, a protocol exists to hold a credit event auction; the payment received is usually substantially less than the face value of the loan. Credit default swaps have existed since the early 1990s, and increased in use after 2003. By the end of 2007, the outstanding CDS amount was $62.2 trillion, falling to $26.3 trillion by mid-year 2010 but reportedly $25.5 trillion in early 2012. CDSs are not traded on an exchange and there is no required reporting of transactions to a government agency. During the 2007–2010 financial crisis the lack of transparency in this large market became a concern to regulators as it could pose a systemic risk. In March 2010, the [DTCC] Trade Information Warehouse (see Sources of Market Data) announced it would give regulators greater access to its credit default swaps database. CDS data can be used by financial professionals, regulators, and the media to monitor how the market views credit risk of any entity on which a CDS is available, which can be compared to that provided by credit rating agencies. U.S. courts may soon be following suit. Most CDSs are documented using standard forms drafted by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), although there are many variants. In addition to the basic, single-name swaps, there are basket default swaps (BDSs), index CDSs, funded CDSs (also called credit-linked notes), as well as loan-only credit default swaps (LCDS). In addition to corporations and governments, the reference entity can include a special-purpose vehicle issuing asset-backed securities. Some claim that derivatives such as CDS are potentially dangerous in that they combine priority in bankruptcy with a lack of transparency. A CDS can be unsecured (without collateral) and be at higher risk for a default. Forwards In finance, a forward contract or simply a forward is a non-standardized contract between two parties to buy or to sell an asset at a specified future time at an amount agreed upon today, making it a type of derivative instrument. This is in contrast to a spot contract, which is an agreement to buy or sell an asset on its spot date, which may vary depending on the instrument, for example most of the FX contracts have Spot Date two business days from today. The party agreeing to buy the underlying asset in the future assumes a long position, and the party agreeing to sell the asset in the future assumes a short position. The price agreed upon is called the delivery price, which is equal to the forward price at the time the contract is entered into. The price of the underlying instrument, in whatever form, is paid before control of the instrument changes. This is one of the many forms of buy/sell orders where the time and date of trade is not the same as the value date where the securities themselves are exchanged. The forward price of such a contract is commonly contrasted with the spot price, which is the price at which the asset changes hands on the spot date. The difference between the spot and the forward price is the forward premium or forward discount, generally considered in the form of a profit, or loss, by the purchasing party. Forwards, like other derivative securities, can be used to hedge risk (typically currency or exchange rate risk), as a means of speculation, or to allow a party to take advantage of a quality of the underlying instrument which is time-sensitive. A closely related contract is a futures contract; they differ in certain respects. Forward contracts are very similar to futures contracts, except they are not exchange-traded, or defined on standardized assets. Forwards also typically have no interim partial settlements or "true-ups" in margin requirements like futures—such that the parties do not exchange additional property securing the party at gain and the entire unrealized gain or loss builds up while the contract is open. However, being traded over the counter (OTC), forward contracts specification can be customized and may include mark-to-market and daily margin calls. Hence, a forward contract arrangement might call for the loss party to pledge collateral or additional collateral to better secure the party at gain. In other words, the terms of the forward contract will determine the collateral calls based upon certain "trigger" events relevant to a particular counterparty such as among other things, credit ratings, value of assets under management or redemptions over a specific time frame (e.g., quarterly, annually). Futures In finance, a 'futures contract' (more colloquially, futures) is a standardized contract between two parties to buy or sell a specified asset of standardized quantity and quality for a price agreed upon today (the futures price) with delivery and payment occurring at a specified future date, the delivery date, making it a derivative product (i.e. a financial product that is derived from an underlying asset). The contracts are negotiated at a futures exchange, which acts as an intermediary between buyer and seller. The party agreeing to buy the underlying asset in the future, the "buyer" of the contract, is said to be "long", and the party agreeing to sell the asset in the future, the "seller" of the contract, is said to be "short". While the futures contract specifies a trade taking place in the future, the purpose of the futures exchange is to act as intermediary and mitigate the risk of default by either party in the intervening period. For this reason, the futures exchange requires both parties to put up an initial amount of cash (performance bond), the margin. Margins, sometimes set as a percentage of the value of the futures contract, need to be proportionally maintained at all times during the life of the contract to underpin this mitigation because the price of the contract will vary in keeping with supply and demand and will change daily and thus one party or the other will theoretically be making or losing money. To mitigate risk and the possibility of default by either party, the product is marked to market on a daily basis whereby the difference between the prior agreed-upon price and the actual daily futures price is settled on a daily basis. This is sometimes known as the variation margin where the futures exchange will draw money out of the losing party's margin account and put it into the other party's thus ensuring that the correct daily loss or profit is reflected in the respective account. If the margin account goes below a certain value set by the Exchange, then a margin call is made and the account owner must replenish the margin account. This process is known as "marking to market". Thus on the delivery date, the amount exchanged is not the specified price on the contract but the spot value (i.e., the original value agreed upon, since any gain or loss has already been previously settled by marking to market). Upon marketing the strike price is often reached and creates much income for the "caller". A closely related contract is a forward contract. A forward is like a futures in that it specifies the exchange of goods for a specified price at a specified future date. However, a forward is not traded on an exchange and thus does not have the interim partial payments due to marking to market. Nor is the contract standardized, as on the exchange. Unlike an option, both parties of a futures contract must fulfill the contract on the delivery date. The seller delivers the underlying asset to the buyer, or, if it is a cash-settled futures contract, then cash is transferred from the futures trader who sustained a loss to the one who made a profit. To exit the commitment prior to the settlement date, the holder of a futures position can close out its contract obligations by taking the opposite position on another futures contract on the same asset and settlement date. The difference in futures prices is then a profit or loss.. Mortgage-backed securities A mortgage-backed security (MBS) is an asset-backed security that is secured by a mortgage, or more commonly a collection ("pool") of sometimes hundreds of mortgages. The mortgages are sold to a group of individuals (a government agency or investment bank) that "securitizes", or packages, the loans together into a security that can be sold to investors. The mortgages of an MBS may be residential or commercial, depending on whether it is an Agency MBS or a Non-Agency MBS; in the United States they may be issued by structures set up by government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, or they can be "private-label", issued by structures set up by investment banks. The structure of the MBS may be known as "pass-through", where the interest and principal payments from the borrower or homebuyer pass through it to the MBS holder, or it may be more complex, made up of a pool of other MBSs. Other types of MBS include collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs, often structured as real estate mortgage investment conduits) and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). The shares of subprime MBSs issued by various structures, such as CMOs, are not identical but rather issued as tranches (French for "slices"), each with a different level of priority in the debt repayment stream, giving them different levels of risk and reward. Tranches—especially the lower-priority, higher-interest tranches—of an MBS are/were often further repackaged and resold as collaterized debt obligations. These subprime MBSs issued by investment banks were a major issue in the subprime mortgage crisis of 2006–2008 . The total face value of an MBS decreases over time, because like mortgages, and unlike bonds, and most other fixed-income securities, the principal in an MBS is not paid back as a single payment to the bond holder at maturity but rather is paid along with the interest in each periodic payment (monthly, quarterly, etc.). This decrease in face value is measured by the MBS's "factor", the percentage of the original "face" that remains to be repaid. Options In finance, an option is a contract which gives the buyer (the owner) the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an underlying asset or instrument at a specified strike price on or before a specified date. The seller has the corresponding obligation to fulfill the transaction—that is to sell or buy—if the buyer (owner) "exercises" the option. The buyer pays a premium to the seller for this right. An option that conveys to the owner the right to buy something at a certain price is a "call option"; an option that conveys the right of the owner to sell something at a certain price is a "put option". Both are commonly traded, but for clarity, the call option is more frequently discussed. Options valuation is a topic of ongoing research in academic and practical finance. In basic terms, the value of an option is commonly decomposed into two parts: The first part is the "intrinsic value", defined as the difference between the market value of the underlying and the strike price of the given option. The second part is the "time value", which depends on a set of other factors which, through a multivariable, non-linear interrelationship, reflect the discounted expected value of that difference at expiration. Although options valuation has been studied since the 19th century, the contemporary approach is based on the Black–Scholes model, which was first published in 1973. Options contracts have been known for many centuries. However, both trading activity and academic interest increased when, as from 1973, options were issued with standardized terms and traded through a guaranteed clearing house at the Chicago Board Options Exchange. Today, many options are created in a standardized form and traded through clearing houses on regulated options exchanges, while other over-the-counter options are written as bilateral, customized contracts between a single buyer and seller, one or both of which may be a dealer or market-maker. Options are part of a larger class of financial instruments known as derivative products or simply derivatives. Swaps A swap is a derivative in which two counterparties exchange cash flows of one party's financial instrument for those of the other party's financial instrument. The benefits in question depend on the type of financial instruments involved. For example, in the case of a swap involving two bonds, the benefits in question can be the periodic interest (coupon) payments associated with such bonds. Specifically, two counterparties agree to the exchange one stream of cash flows against another stream. These streams are called the swap's "legs". The swap agreement defines the dates when the cash flows are to be paid and the way they are accrued and calculated. Usually at the time when the contract is initiated, at least one of these series of cash flows is determined by an uncertain variable such as a floating interest rate, foreign exchange rate, equity price, or commodity price. The cash flows are calculated over a notional principal amount. Contrary to a future, a forward or an option, the notional amount is usually not exchanged between counterparties. Consequently, swaps can be in cash or collateral. Swaps can be used to hedge certain risks such as interest rate risk, or to speculate on changes in the expected direction of underlying prices. Swaps were first introduced to the public in 1981 when IBM and the World Bank entered into a swap agreement. Today, swaps are among the most heavily traded financial contracts in the world: the total amount of interest rates and currency swaps outstanding is more than $348 trillion in 2010, according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). The five generic types of swaps, in order of their quantitative importance, are: interest rate swaps, currency swaps, credit swaps, commodity swaps and equity swaps (there are many other types). Economic function of the derivative market Some of the salient economic functions of the derivative market include: Prices in a structured derivative market not only replicate the discernment of the market participants about the future but also lead the prices of underlying to the professed future level. On the expiration of the derivative contract, the prices of derivatives congregate with the prices of the underlying. Therefore, derivatives are essential tools to determine both current and future prices. The derivatives market reallocates risk from the people who prefer risk aversion to the people who have an appetite for risk. The intrinsic nature of derivatives market associates them to the underlying spot market. Due to derivatives there is a considerable increase in trade volumes of the underlying spot market. The dominant factor behind such an escalation is increased participation by additional players who would not have otherwise participated due to absence of any procedure to transfer risk. As supervision, reconnaissance of the activities of various participants becomes tremendously difficult in assorted markets; the establishment of an organized form of market becomes all the more imperative. Therefore, in the presence of an organized derivatives market, speculation can be controlled, resulting in a more meticulous environment. Third parties can use publicly available derivative prices as educated predictions of uncertain future outcomes, for example, the likelihood that a corporation will default on its debts. In a nutshell, there is a substantial increase in savings and investment in the long run due to augmented activities by derivative market participant. Valuation Market and arbitrage-free prices Two common measures of value are: Market price, i.e. the price at which traders are willing to buy or sell the contract Arbitrage-free price, meaning that no risk-free profits can be made by trading in these contracts (see rational pricing) Determining the market price For exchange-traded derivatives, market price is usually transparent (often published in real time by the exchange, based on all the current bids and offers placed on that particular contract at any one time). Complications can arise with OTC or floor-traded contracts though, as trading is handled manually, making it difficult to automatically broadcast prices. In particular with OTC contracts, there is no central exchange to collate and disseminate prices. Determining the arbitrage-free price The arbitrage-free price for a derivatives contract can be complex, and there are many different variables to consider. Arbitrage-free pricing is a central topic of financial mathematics. For futures/forwards the arbitrage free price is relatively straightforward, involving the price of the underlying together with the cost of carry (income received less interest costs), although there can be complexities. However, for options and more complex derivatives, pricing involves developing a complex pricing model: understanding the stochastic process of the price of the underlying asset is often crucial. A key equation for the theoretical valuation of options is the Black–Scholes formula, which is based on the assumption that the cash flows from a European stock option can be replicated by a continuous buying and selling strategy using only the stock. A simplified version of this valuation technique is the binomial options model. OTC represents the biggest challenge in using models to price derivatives. Since these contracts are not publicly traded, no market price is available to validate the theoretical valuation. Most of the model's results are input-dependent (meaning the final price depends heavily on how we derive the pricing inputs). Therefore, it is common that OTC derivatives are priced by Independent Agents that both counterparties involved in the deal designate upfront (when signing the contract). Risks Derivatives are often subject to the following criticisms: Hidden tail risk According to Raghuram Rajan, a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), "... it may well be that the managers of these firms [investment funds] have figured out the correlations between the various instruments they hold and believe they are hedged. Yet as Chan and others (2005) point out, the lessons of summer 1998 following the default on Russian government debt is that correlations that are zero or negative in normal times can turn overnight to one – a phenomenon they term "phase lock-in". A hedged position "can become unhedged at the worst times, inflicting substantial losses on those who mistakenly believe they are protected". See the FRTB framework, which seeks to address this to some extent. Leverage The use of derivatives can result in large losses because of the use of leverage, or borrowing. Derivatives allow investors to earn large returns from small movements in the underlying asset's price. However, investors could lose large amounts if the price of the underlying moves against them significantly. There have been several instances of massive losses in derivative markets, such as the following: American International Group (AIG) lost more than US$18 billion through a subsidiary over the preceding three quarters on credit default swaps (CDSs). The United States Federal Reserve Bank announced the creation of a secured credit facility of up to US$85 billion, to prevent the company's collapse by enabling AIG to meet its obligations to deliver additional collateral to its credit default swap trading partners. The loss of US$7.2 Billion by Société Générale in January 2008 through mis-use of futures contracts. The loss of US$6.4 billion in the failed fund Amaranth Advisors, which was long natural gas in September 2006 when the price plummeted. The loss of US$4.6 billion in the failed fund Long-Term Capital Management in 1998. The loss of US$1.3 billion equivalent in oil derivatives in 1993 and 1994 by Metallgesellschaft AG. The loss of US$1.2 billion equivalent in equity derivatives in 1995 by Barings Bank. UBS AG, Switzerland's biggest bank, suffered a $2 billion loss through unauthorized trading discovered in September 2011. Derivatives typically have a large notional value. As such, there is the danger that their use could result in losses for which the investor would be unable to compensate. The possibility that this could lead to a chain reaction ensuing in an economic crisis was pointed out by famed investor Warren Buffett in Berkshire Hathaway's 2002 annual report. Buffett called them 'financial weapons of mass destruction.' A potential problem with derivatives is that they comprise an increasingly larger notional amount of assets which may lead to distortions in the underlying capital and equities markets themselves. Investors begin to look at the derivatives markets to make a decision to buy or sell securities and so what was originally meant to be a market to transfer risk now becomes a leading indicator.(See Berkshire Hathaway Annual Report for 2002) Counter party risk Some derivatives (especially swaps) expose investors to counterparty risk, or risk arising from the other party in a financial transaction. Different types of derivatives have different levels of counter party risk. For example, standardized stock options by law require the party at risk to have a certain amount deposited with the exchange, showing that they can pay for any losses; banks that help businesses swap variable for fixed rates on loans may do credit checks on both parties. However, in private agreements between two companies, for example, there may not be benchmarks for performing due diligence and risk analysis. Financial reform and government regulation Under US law and the laws of most other developed countries, derivatives have special legal exemptions that make them a particularly attractive legal form to extend credit. The strong creditor protections afforded to derivatives counterparties, in combination with their complexity and lack of transparency however, can cause capital markets to underprice credit risk. This can contribute to credit booms, and increase systemic risks. Indeed, the use of derivatives to conceal credit risk from third parties while protecting derivative counterparties contributed to the financial crisis of 2008 in the United States. In the context of a 2010 examination of the ICE Trust, an industry self-regulatory body, Gary Gensler, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission which regulates most derivatives, was quoted saying that the derivatives marketplace as it functions now "adds up to higher costs to all Americans". More oversight of the banks in this market is needed, he also said. Additionally, the report said, "[t]he Department of Justice is looking into derivatives, too. The department's antitrust unit is actively investigating 'the possibility of anticompetitive practices in the credit derivatives clearing, trading and information services industries', according to a department spokeswoman." For legislators and committees responsible for financial reform related to derivatives in the United States and elsewhere, distinguishing between hedging and speculative derivatives activities has been a nontrivial challenge. The distinction is critical because regulation should help to isolate and curtail speculation with derivatives, especially for "systemically significant" institutions whose default could be large enough to threaten the entire financial system. At the same time, the legislation should allow for responsible parties to hedge risk without unduly tying up working capital as collateral that firms may better employ elsewhere in their operations and investment. In this regard, it is important to distinguish between financial (e.g. banks) and non-financial end-users of derivatives (e.g. real estate development companies) because these firms' derivatives usage is inherently different. More importantly, the reasonable collateral that secures these different counterparties can be very different. The distinction between these firms is not always straight forward (e.g. hedge funds or even some private equity firms do not neatly fit either category). Finally, even financial users must be differentiated, as 'large' banks may classified as "systemically significant" whose derivatives activities must be more tightly monitored and restricted than those of smaller, local and regional banks. Over-the-counter dealing will be less common as the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act comes into effect. The law mandated the clearing of certain swaps at registered exchanges and imposed various restrictions on derivatives. To implement Dodd-Frank, the CFTC developed new rules in at least 30 areas. The Commission determines which swaps are subject to mandatory clearing and whether a derivatives exchange is eligible to clear a certain type of swap contract. Nonetheless, the above and other challenges of the rule-making process have delayed full enactment of aspects of the legislation relating to derivatives. The challenges are further complicated by the necessity to orchestrate globalized financial reform among the nations that comprise the world's major financial markets, a primary responsibility of the Financial Stability Board whose progress is ongoing. In the U.S., by February 2012 the combined effort of the SEC and CFTC had produced over 70 proposed and final derivatives rules. However, both of them had delayed adoption of a number of derivatives regulations because of the burden of other rulemaking, litigation and opposition to the rules, and many core definitions (such as the terms "swap", "security-based swap", "swap dealer", "security-based swap dealer", "major swap participant" and "major security-based swap participant") had still not been adopted. SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro opined: "At the end of the day, it probably does not make sense to harmonize everything [between the SEC and CFTC rules] because some of these products are quite different and certainly the market structures are quite different." On February 11, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released two final rules toward establishing a reporting and public disclosure framework for security-based swap transaction data. The two rules are not completely harmonized with the requirements with CFTC requirements. In November 2012, the SEC and regulators from Australia, Brazil, the European Union, Hong Kong, Japan, Ontario, Quebec, Singapore, and Switzerland met to discuss reforming the OTC derivatives market, as had been agreed by leaders at the 2009 G-20 Pittsburgh summit in September 2009. In December 2012, they released a joint statement to the effect that they recognized that the market is a global one and "firmly support the adoption and enforcement of robust and consistent standards in and across jurisdictions", with the goals of mitigating risk, improving transparency, protecting against market abuse, preventing regulatory gaps, reducing the potential for arbitrage opportunities, and fostering a level playing field for market participants. They also agreed on the need to reduce regulatory uncertainty and provide market participants with sufficient clarity on laws and regulations by avoiding, to the extent possible, the application of conflicting rules to the same entities and transactions, and minimizing the application of inconsistent and duplicative rules. At the same time, they noted that "complete harmonization – perfect alignment of rules across jurisdictions" would be difficult, because of jurisdictions' differences in law, policy, markets, implementation timing, and legislative and regulatory processes. On December 20, 2013 the CFTC provided information on its swaps regulation "comparability" determinations. The release addressed the CFTC's cross-border compliance exceptions. Specifically it addressed which entity level and in some cases transaction-level requirements in six jurisdictions (Australia, Canada, the European Union, Hong Kong, Japan, and Switzerland) it found comparable to its own rules, thus permitting non-US swap dealers, major swap participants, and the foreign branches of US Swap Dealers and major swap participants in these jurisdictions to comply with local rules in lieu of Commission rules. Reporting Mandatory reporting regulations are being finalized in a number of countries, such as Dodd Frank Act in the US, the European Market Infrastructure Regulations (EMIR) in Europe, as well as regulations in Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Canada, and other countries. The OTC Derivatives Regulators Forum (ODRF), a group of over 40 worldwide regulators, provided trade repositories with a set of guidelines regarding data access to regulators, and the Financial Stability Board and CPSS IOSCO also made recommendations in with regard to reporting. DTCC, through its "Global Trade Repository" (GTR) service, manages global trade repositories for interest rates, and commodities, foreign exchange, credit, and equity derivatives. It makes global trade reports to the CFTC in the U.S., and plans to do the same for ESMA in Europe and for regulators in Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore. It covers cleared and uncleared OTC derivatives products, whether or not a trade is electronically processed or bespoke. Glossary Bilateral netting: A legally enforceable arrangement between a bank and a counter-party that creates a single legal obligation covering all included individual contracts. This means that a bank's obligation, in the event of the default or insolvency of one of the parties, would be the net sum of all positive and negative fair values of contracts included in the bilateral netting arrangement. Counterparty: The legal and financial term for the other party in a financial transaction. Credit derivative: A contract that transfers credit risk from a protection buyer to a credit protection seller. Credit derivative products can take many forms, such as credit default swaps, credit linked notes and total return swaps. Derivative: A financial contract whose value is derived from the performance of assets, interest rates, currency exchange rates, or indexes. Derivative transactions include a wide assortment of financial contracts including structured debt obligations and deposits, swaps, futures, options, caps, floors, collars, forwards and various combinations thereof. Exchange-traded derivative contracts: Standardized derivative contracts (e.g., futures contracts and options) that are transacted on an organized futures exchange. Gross negative fair value: The sum of the fair values of contracts where the bank owes money to its counter-parties, without taking into account netting. This represents the maximum losses the bank's counter-parties would incur if the bank defaults and there is no netting of contracts, and no bank collateral was held by the counter-parties. Gross positive fair value: The sum total of the fair values of contracts where the bank is owed money by its counter-parties, without taking into account netting. This represents the maximum losses a bank could incur if all its counter-parties default and there is no netting of contracts, and the bank holds no counter-party collateral. High-risk mortgage securities: Securities where the price or expected average life is highly sensitive to interest rate changes, as determined by the U.S. Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council policy statement on high-risk mortgage securities. Notional amount: The nominal or face amount that is used to calculate payments made on swaps and other risk management products. This amount generally does not change hands and is thus referred to as notional. Over-the-counter (OTC) derivative contracts: Privately negotiated derivative contracts that are transacted off organized futures exchanges. Structured notes: Non-mortgage-backed debt securities, whose cash flow characteristics depend on one or more indices and / or have embedded forwards or options. Total risk-based capital: The sum of tier 1 plus tier 2 capital. Tier 1 capital consists of common shareholders equity, perpetual preferred shareholders equity with noncumulative dividends, retained earnings, and minority interests in the equity accounts of consolidated subsidiaries. Tier 2 capital consists of subordinated debt, intermediate-term preferred stock, cumulative and long-term preferred stock, and a portion of a bank's allowance for loan and lease losses. See also Credit derivative Derivatives law Equity derivative Exotic derivative Financial engineering Foreign exchange derivative Freight derivative Inflation derivative Interest rate derivative Property derivatives Weather derivative References Further reading External links Understanding Derivatives: Markets and Infrastructure (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago) "Derivatives simple guide", BBC News Investment-foundations: Derivatives, CFA Institute "European Union proposals on derivatives regulation – 2008 onwards" " Derivatives Regulatory Roulette", PwC Financial Services Regulatory Practice (December 2013) Securities (finance) Financial law Wagering

An encyclopedia (American English), encyclopædia (archaic spelling), or encyclopaedia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either from all branches or from a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are often arranged alphabetically by article name and sometimes by thematic categories. Encyclopedia entries are longer and more detailed than those in most dictionaries. Generally speaking, encyclopedia articles focus on factual information concerning the subject named in the article's title; this is unlike dictionary entries, which focus on linguistic information about words, such as their etymology, meaning, pronunciation, use, and grammatical forms. Encyclopedias have existed for around 2,000 years and have evolved considerably during that time as regards language (written in a major international or a vernacular language), size (few or many volumes), intent (presentation of a global or a limited range of knowledge), cultural perspective (authoritative, ideological, didactic, utilitarian), authorship (qualifications, style), readership (education level, background, interests, capabilities), and the technologies available for their production and distribution (hand-written manuscripts, small or large print runs, Internet). As a valued source of reliable information compiled by experts, printed versions found a prominent place in libraries, schools and other educational institutions. The appearance of digital and open-source versions in the 21st century, such as Wikipedia, has vastly expanded the accessibility, authorship, readership, and variety of encyclopedia entries. Etymology The word encyclopedia (encyclo|pedia) comes from the Koine Greek , transliterated , meaning 'general education' from (), meaning 'circular, recurrent, required regularly, general' and (), meaning 'education, rearing of a child'; together, the phrase literally translates as 'complete instruction' or 'complete knowledge'. However, the two separate words were reduced to a single word due to a scribal error by copyists of a Latin manuscript edition of Quintillian in 1470. The copyists took this phrase to be a single Greek word, enkyklopaedia, with the same meaning, and this spurious Greek word became the New Latin word encyclopaedia, which in turn came into English. Because of this compounded word, fifteenth-century readers and since have often, and incorrectly, thought that the Roman authors Quintillian and Pliny described an ancient genre. Characteristics The modern encyclopedia was developed from the dictionary in the 18th century. Historically, both encyclopedias and dictionaries have been researched and written by well-educated, well-informed content experts, but they are significantly different in structure. A dictionary is a linguistic work which primarily focuses on alphabetical listing of words and their definitions. Synonymous words and those related by the subject matter are to be found scattered around the dictionary, giving no obvious place for in-depth treatment. Thus, a dictionary typically provides limited information, analysis or background for the word defined. While it may offer a definition, it may leave the reader lacking in understanding the meaning, significance or limitations of a term, and how the term relates to a broader field of knowledge. To address those needs, an encyclopedia article is typically not limited to simple definitions, and is not limited to defining an individual word, but provides a more extensive meaning for a subject or discipline. In addition to defining and listing synonymous terms for the topic, the article is able to treat the topic's more extensive meaning in more depth and convey the most relevant accumulated knowledge on that subject. An encyclopedia article also often includes many maps and illustrations, as well as bibliography and statistics. An encyclopedia is, theoretically, not written in order to convince, although one of its goals is indeed to convince its reader of its own veracity. Four major elements Four major elements define an encyclopedia: its subject matter, its scope, its method of organization, and its method of production: Encyclopedias can be general, containing articles on topics in every field (the English-language Encyclopædia Britannica and German Brockhaus are well-known examples). General encyclopedias may contain guides on how to do a variety of things, as well as embedded dictionaries and gazetteers. There are also encyclopedias that cover a wide variety of topics from a particular cultural, ethnic, or national perspective, such as the Great Soviet Encyclopedia or Encyclopaedia Judaica. Works of encyclopedic scope aim to convey the important accumulated knowledge for their subject domain, such as an encyclopedia of medicine, philosophy or law. Works vary in the breadth of material and the depth of discussion, depending on the target audience. Some systematic method of organization is essential to making an encyclopedia usable for reference. There have historically been two main methods of organizing printed encyclopedias: the alphabetical method (consisting of a number of separate articles, organized in alphabetical order) and organization by hierarchical categories. The former method is today the more common, especially for general works. The fluidity of electronic media, however, allows new possibilities for multiple methods of organization of the same content. Further, electronic media offer new capabilities for search, indexing and cross reference. The epigraph from Horace on the title page of the 18th century Encyclopédie suggests the importance of the structure of an encyclopedia: "What grace may be added to commonplace matters by the power of order and connection." As modern multimedia and the information age have evolved, new methods have emerged for the collection, verification, summation, and presentation of information of all kinds. Projects such as Everything2, Encarta, h2g2, and Wikipedia are examples of new forms of the encyclopedia as information retrieval becomes simpler. The method of production for an encyclopedia historically has been supported in both for-profit and non-profit contexts. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia mentioned above was entirely state sponsored, while the Britannica was supported as a for-profit institution. By comparison, Wikipedia is supported by volunteers contributing in a non-profit environment under the organization of the Wikimedia Foundation. Encyclopedic dictionaries Some works entitled "dictionaries" are actually similar to encyclopedias, especially those concerned with a particular field (such as the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, and Black's Law Dictionary). The Macquarie Dictionary, Australia's national dictionary, became an encyclopedic dictionary after its first edition in recognition of the use of proper nouns in common communication, and the words derived from such proper nouns. Differences between encyclopedias and dictionaries There are some broad differences between encyclopedias and dictionaries. Most noticeably, encyclopedia articles are longer, fuller and more thorough than entries in most general-purpose dictionaries. There are differences in content as well. Generally speaking, dictionaries provide linguistic information about words themselves, while encyclopedias focus more on the thing for which those words stand. Thus, while dictionary entries are inextricably fixed to the word described, encyclopedia articles can be given a different entry name. As such, dictionary entries are not fully translatable into other languages, but encyclopedia articles can be. In practice, however, the distinction is not concrete, as there is no clear-cut difference between factual, "encyclopedic" information and linguistic information such as appears in dictionaries. Thus encyclopedias may contain material that is also found in dictionaries, and vice versa. In particular, dictionary entries often contain factual information about the thing named by the word. Largest encyclopedias As of the early 2020s, the largest encyclopedias are the Chinese Baike.com (18 million articles) and Baidu Baike (16 million), followed by English Wikipedia (6 million), German (+2 million) and French Wikipedia (+2 million), all of which are wholly online. More than a dozen other Wikipedias have 1 million articles or more, of variable quality and length. Measuring an encyclopedia's size by its articles is an ambiguous method since the online Chinese encyclopedias cited above allow multiple articles on the same topic, while Wikipedia's accept only one single common article per topic but allow automated creation of nearly empty articles. History Encyclopedias have progressed from the beginning of history in written form, through medieval and modern times in print, and most recently, displayed on computer and distributed via computer networks, including the Internet. Written encyclopedias The earliest encyclopedic work to have survived to modern times is the Naturalis Historia of Pliny the Elder, a Roman statesman living in the 1st century AD. He compiled a work of 37 chapters covering natural history, architecture, medicine, geography, geology, and all aspects of the world around him. This work became very popular in Antiquity, was one of the first classical manuscripts to be printed in 1470, and has remained popular ever since as a source of information on the Roman world, and especially Roman art, Roman technology and Roman engineering. The Spanish scholar Isidore of Seville was the first Christian writer to try to compile a summa of universal knowledge, the Etymologiae (c. 600–625), also known by classicists as the Origines (abbreviated Orig.). This encyclopedia—the first such Christian epitome—formed a huge compilation of 448 chapters in 20 volumes based on hundreds of classical sources, including Natural Historia. Of Etymologiae in its time it was said quaecunque fere sciri debentur, "practically everything that it is necessary to know". Among the areas covered were: grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, geometry, music, astronomy, medicine, law, the Catholic Church and heretical sects, pagan philosophers, languages, cities, animals and birds, the physical world, geography, public buildings, roads, metals, rocks, agriculture, ships, clothes, food, and tools. Another Christian encyclopedia was the Institutiones divinarum et saecularium litterarum of Cassiodorus (543-560) dedicated to the Christian Divinity and to the seven liberal arts. The encyclopedia of Suda, a massive 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia, had 30 000 entries, many drawing from ancient sources that have since been lost, and often derived from medieval Christian compilers. The text was arranged alphabetically with some slight deviations from common vowel order and place in the Greek alphabet. From India, the Siribhoovalaya (Kannada: ಸಿರಿಭೂವಲಯ), dated between 800 A.D to 15th century, is a work of kannada literature written by Kumudendu Muni, a Jain monk. It is unique because rather than employing alphabets, it is composed entirely in Kannada numerals. Many philosophies which existed in the Jain classics are eloquently and skillfully interpreted in the work. The enormous encyclopedic work in China of the Four Great Books of Song, compiled by the 11th century during the early Song dynasty (960–1279), was a massive literary undertaking for the time. The last encyclopedia of the four, the Prime Tortoise of the Record Bureau, amounted to 9.4 million Chinese characters in 1000 written volumes. There were many great encyclopedists throughout Chinese history, including the scientist and statesman Shen Kuo (1031–1095) with his Dream Pool Essays of 1088, the statesman, inventor, and agronomist Wang Zhen (active 1290–1333) with his Nong Shu of 1313, and the written Tiangong Kaiwu of Song Yingxing (1587–1666), the latter of whom was termed the "Diderot of China" by British historian Joseph Needham. Printed encyclopedias Before the advent of the printing press, encyclopedic works were all hand copied and thus rarely available, beyond wealthy patrons or monastic men of learning: they were expensive, and usually written for those extending knowledge rather than those using it. During the Renaissance, the creation of printing allowed a wider diffusion of encyclopedias and every scholar could have his or her own copy. The by Giorgio Valla was posthumously printed in 1501 by Aldo Manuzio in Venice. This work followed the traditional scheme of liberal arts. However, Valla added the translation of ancient Greek works on mathematics (firstly by Archimedes), newly discovered and translated. The Margarita Philosophica by Gregor Reisch, printed in 1503, was a complete encyclopedia explaining the seven liberal arts. Financial, commercial, legal, and intellectual factors changed the size of encyclopedias. Middle classes had more time to read and encyclopedias helped them to learn more. Publishers wanted to increase their output so some countries like Germany started selling books missing alphabetical sections, to publish faster. Also, publishers could not afford all the resources by themselves, so multiple publishers would come together with their resources to create better encyclopedias. Later, rivalry grew, causing copyright to occur due to weak underdeveloped laws. John Harris is often credited with introducing the now-familiar alphabetic format in 1704 with his English Lexicon Technicum: Or, A Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences: Explaining not only the Terms of Art, but the Arts Themselves – to give its full title. Organized alphabetically, its content does indeed contain explanation not merely of the terms used in the arts and sciences, but of the arts and sciences themselves. Sir Isaac Newton contributed his only published work on chemistry to the second volume of 1710. The Encyclopædia Britannica, had a modest beginning in Scotland: the first edition, issued between 1768 and 1771, had just three hastily completed volumes – A–B, C–L, and M–Z – with a total of 2,391 pages. By 1797, when the third edition was completed, it had been expanded to 18 volumes addressing a full range of topics, with articles contributed by a range of authorities on their subjects. The German-language Conversations-Lexikon was published at Leipzig from 1796 to 1808, in 6 volumes. Paralleling other 18th century encyclopedias, its scope was expanded beyond that of earlier publications, in an effort at comprehensiveness. It was, however, intended not for scholarly use but to provide results of research and discovery in a simple and popular form without extensive detail. This format, a contrast to the Encyclopædia Britannica, was widely imitated by later 19th century encyclopedias in Britain, the United States, France, Spain, Italy and other countries. Of the influential late-18th century and early-19th century encyclopedias, the Conversations-Lexikon is perhaps most similar in form to today's encyclopedias. The Encyclopædia Britannica appeared in various editions throughout the nineteenth century, and the growth of popular education and the Mechanics' Institutes, spearheaded by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge led to the production of the Penny Cyclopaedia, as its title suggests issued in weekly numbers at a penny each like a newspaper. In the early 20th century, the Encyclopædia Britannica reached its eleventh edition, and inexpensive encyclopedias such as Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia and Everyman's Encyclopaedia were common. In the United States, the 1950s and 1960s saw the introduction of several large popular encyclopedias, often sold on installment plans. The best known of these were World Book and Funk and Wagnalls. As many as 90% were sold door to door. Jack Lynch says in his book You Could Look It Up that encyclopedia salespeople were so common that they became the butt of jokes. He describes their sales pitch saying, "They were selling not books but a lifestyle, a future, a promise of social mobility." A 1961 World Book ad said, "You are holding your family's future in your hands right now," while showing a feminine hand holding an order form. Digital encyclopedias By the late 20th century, encyclopedias were being published on CD-ROMs for use with personal computers. Microsoft's Encarta, launched in 1993, was a landmark example as it had no printed equivalent. Articles were supplemented with video and audio files as well as numerous high-quality images. After sixteen years, Microsoft discontinued the Encarta line of products in 2009. Digital encyclopedias enable "Encyclopedia Services" (e.g. Wikimedia Enterprise) to facilitate programatic access to the content. Free encyclopedias The concept of a free encyclopedia began with the Interpedia proposal on Usenet in 1993, which outlined an Internet-based online encyclopedia to which anyone could submit content and that would be freely accessible. Early projects in this vein included Everything2 and Open Site. In 1999, Richard Stallman proposed the GNUPedia, an online encyclopedia which, similar to the GNU operating system, would be a "generic" resource. The concept was very similar to Interpedia, but more in line with Stallman's GNU philosophy. It was not until Nupedia and later Wikipedia that a stable free encyclopedia project was able to be established on the Internet. The English Wikipedia, which was started in 2001, became the world's largest encyclopedia in 2004 at the 300,000 article stage. By late 2005, Wikipedia had produced over two million articles in more than 80 languages with content licensed under the copyleft GNU Free Documentation License. As of August 2009, Wikipedia had over 3 million articles in English and well over 10 million combined in over 250 languages. Wikipedia currently has articles in English. Since 2003, other free encyclopedias like the Chinese-language Baidu Baike and Hudong, as well as English language encyclopedias such as Citizendium and Knol have appeared, the latter of which has been discontinued. Online encyclopedias In January 1995, Project Gutenberg started to publish the ASCII text of the Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition (1911), but disagreement about the method halted the work after the first volume. For trademark reasons this has been published as the Gutenberg Encyclopedia. Project Gutenberg later restarted work on digitising and proofreading this encyclopedia. Project Gutenberg has published volumes in alphabetic order the most recent publication is Volume 17 Slice 8: Matter–Mecklenburg published on 7 April 2013. The latest Britannica was digitized by its publishers, and sold first as a CD-ROM, and later as an online service. In 2001, ASCII text of all 28 volumes was published on Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition by source; a copyright claim was added to the materials included. The website no longer exists. Other digitization projects have made progress in other titles. One example is Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897) digitized by the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. A successful digitization of an encyclopedia was the Bartleby Project's online adaptation of the Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, in early 2000 and is updated periodically. Other websites provide online encyclopedias, some of which are also available on Wikisource, but which may be more complete than those on Wikisource, or maybe different editions (see List of online encyclopedias). Another related branch of activity is the creation of new, free content on a volunteer basis. In 1991, the participants of the Usenet newsgroup started a project to produce a real version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a fictional encyclopedia used in the works of Douglas Adams. It became known as Project Galactic Guide. Although it originally aimed to contain only real, factual articles, the policy was changed to allow and encourage semi-real and unreal articles as well. Project Galactic Guide contains over 1700 articles, but no new articles have been added since 2000; this is probably partly due to the founding of h2g2, a more official project along similar lines. The 1993 Interpedia proposal was planned as an encyclopedia on the Internet to which everyone could contribute materials. The project never left the planning stage and was overtaken by a key branch of old printed encyclopedias. Another early online encyclopedia was called the Global Encyclopedia. In November 1995 a review of it was presented by James Rettig (Assistant Dean of University Libraries for Reference and Information Services) College of William & Mary at the 15th Annual Charleston Conference on library acquisitions and related issues. He said of the Global Encyclopedia: He then gives several examples of article entries such as Iowa City: Wikipedia is a free content, multilingual online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteer contributors through a model of open collaboration. It is the largest and most-read reference work in history. Wikipedia originally developed from another encyclopedia project called Nupedia. CD-ROM encyclopedias A CD-ROM encyclopedia is an encyclopedia delivered as reference software on a CD-ROM disc for use on a personal computer. This was the usual way computer users accessed encyclopedic knowledge from the 1980s and 1990s. Later DVD discs replaced CD-ROMs and from mid-2000s internet encyclopedias became dominant and replaced disc-based software encyclopedias. Some examples of CD-ROM encyclopedia are Encarta, Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, and Britannica. CD-ROM encyclopedias were usually a macOS or Microsoft Windows (3.0, 3.1 or 95/98) application on a CD-ROM disc. The user would execute the encyclopedia's software program to see a menu that allowed them to start browsing the encyclopedia's articles, and most encyclopedias also supported a way to search the contents of the encyclopedia. The article text was usually hyperlinked and also included photographs, audio clips (for example in articles about historical speeches or musical instruments), and video clips. In the CD-ROM age the video clips had usually a low resolution, often 160x120 or 320x240 pixels. Such encyclopedias which made use of photos, audio and video were also called multimedia encyclopedias. However, because of the online encyclopedia, CD-ROM encyclopedias have been declared obsolete. See also Bibliography of encyclopedias Biographical dictionary Encyclopedic knowledge Encyclopedism Fictitious entry History of science and technology Lexicography Library science Lists of encyclopedias Thesaurus Speculum literature Notes References C. Codoner, S. Louis, M. Paulmier-Foucart, D. Hüe, M. Salvat, A. Llinares, L'Encyclopédisme. Actes du Colloque de Caen, A. Becq (dir.), Paris, 1991. External links Encyclopaedia and Hypertext Internet Accuracy Project – Biographical errors in encyclopedias and almanacs Encyclopedia – Diderot's article on the Encyclopedia from the original Encyclopédie. De expetendis et fugiendis rebus – First Renaissance encyclopedia Errors and inconsistencies in several printed reference books and encyclopedias Digital encyclopedias put the world at your fingertips CNET article Encyclopedias online University of Wisconsin Stout listing by category Chambers' Cyclopaedia, 1728, with the 1753 supplement Encyclopædia Americana, 1851, Francis Lieber ed. (Boston: Mussey & Co.) at the University of Michigan Making of America site Encyclopædia Britannica, articles and illustrations from 9th ed., 1875–89, and 10th ed., 1902–03. Works about history

Endocrinology (from endocrine + -ology) is a branch of biology and medicine dealing with the endocrine system, its diseases, and its specific secretions known as hormones. It is also concerned with the integration of developmental events proliferation, growth, and differentiation, and the psychological or behavioral activities of metabolism, growth and development, tissue function, sleep, digestion, respiration, excretion, mood, stress, lactation, movement, reproduction, and sensory perception caused by hormones. Specializations include behavioral endocrinology and comparative endocrinology. The endocrine system consists of several glands, all in different parts of the body, that secrete hormones directly into the blood rather than into a duct system. Therefore, endocrine glands are regarded as ductless glands. Hormones have many different functions and modes of action; one hormone may have several effects on different target organs, and, conversely, one target organ may be affected by more than one hormone. The endocrine system Endocrinology is the study of the endocrine system in the human body. This is a system of glands which secrete hormones. Hormones are chemicals that affect the actions of different organ systems in the body. Examples include thyroid hormone, growth hormone, and insulin. The endocrine system involves a number of feedback mechanisms, so that often one hormone (such as thyroid stimulating hormone) will control the action or release of another secondary hormone (such as thyroid hormone). If there is too much of the secondary hormone, it may provide negative feedback to the primary hormone, maintaining homeostasis. In the original 1902 definition by Bayliss and Starling (see below), they specified that, to be classified as a hormone, a chemical must be produced by an organ, be released (in small amounts) into the blood, and be transported by the blood to a distant organ to exert its specific function. This definition holds for most "classical" hormones, but there are also paracrine mechanisms (chemical communication between cells within a tissue or organ), autocrine signals (a chemical that acts on the same cell), and intracrine signals (a chemical that acts within the same cell). A neuroendocrine signal is a "classical" hormone that is released into the blood by a neurosecretory neuron (see article on neuroendocrinology). Hormones Griffin and Ojeda identify three different classes of hormones based on their chemical composition: Amines Amines, such as norepinephrine, epinephrine, and dopamine (catecholamines), are derived from single amino acids, in this case tyrosine. Thyroid hormones such as 3,5,3’-triiodothyronine (T3) and 3,5,3’,5’-tetraiodothyronine (thyroxine, T4) make up a subset of this class because they derive from the combination of two iodinated tyrosine amino acid residues. Peptide and protein Peptide hormones and protein hormones consist of three (in the case of thyrotropin-releasing hormone) to more than 200 (in the case of follicle-stimulating hormone) amino acid residues and can have a molecular mass as large as 31,000 grams per mole. All hormones secreted by the pituitary gland are peptide hormones, as are leptin from adipocytes, ghrelin from the stomach, and insulin from the pancreas. Steroid Steroid hormones are converted from their parent compound, cholesterol. Mammalian steroid hormones can be grouped into five groups by the receptors to which they bind: glucocorticoids, mineralocorticoids, androgens, estrogens, and progestogens. Some forms of vitamin D, such as calcitriol, are steroid-like and bind to homologous receptors, but lack the characteristic fused ring structure of true steroids. As a profession Although every organ system secretes and responds to hormones (including the brain, lungs, heart, intestine, skin, and the kidneys), the clinical specialty of endocrinology focuses primarily on the endocrine organs, meaning the organs whose primary function is hormone secretion. These organs include the pituitary, thyroid, adrenals, ovaries, testes, and pancreas. An endocrinologist is a physician who specializes in treating disorders of the endocrine system, such as diabetes, hyperthyroidism, and many others (see list of diseases). Work The medical specialty of endocrinology involves the diagnostic evaluation of a wide variety of symptoms and variations and the long-term management of disorders of deficiency or excess of one or more hormones. The diagnosis and treatment of endocrine diseases are guided by laboratory tests to a greater extent than for most specialties. Many diseases are investigated through excitation/stimulation or inhibition/suppression testing. This might involve injection with a stimulating agent to test the function of an endocrine organ. Blood is then sampled to assess the changes of the relevant hormones or metabolites. An endocrinologist needs extensive knowledge of clinical chemistry and biochemistry to understand the uses and limitations of the investigations. A second important aspect of the practice of endocrinology is distinguishing human variation from disease. Atypical patterns of physical development and abnormal test results must be assessed as indicative of disease or not. Diagnostic imaging of endocrine organs may reveal incidental findings called incidentalomas, which may or may not represent disease. Endocrinology involves caring for the person as well as the disease. Most endocrine disorders are chronic diseases that need lifelong care. Some of the most common endocrine diseases include diabetes mellitus, hypothyroidism and the metabolic syndrome. Care of diabetes, obesity and other chronic diseases necessitates understanding the patient at the personal and social level as well as the molecular, and the physician–patient relationship can be an important therapeutic process. Apart from treating patients, many endocrinologists are involved in clinical science and medical research, teaching, and hospital management. Training Endocrinologists are specialists of internal medicine or pediatrics. Reproductive endocrinologists deal primarily with problems of fertility and menstrual function—often training first in obstetrics. Most qualify as an internist, pediatrician, or gynecologist for a few years before specializing, depending on the local training system. In the U.S. and Canada, training for board certification in internal medicine, pediatrics, or gynecology after medical school is called residency. Further formal training to subspecialize in adult, pediatric, or reproductive endocrinology is called a fellowship. Typical training for a North American endocrinologist involves 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, 3 years of residency, and 2 years of fellowship. In the US, adult endocrinologists are board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) or the American Osteopathic Board of Internal Medicine (AOBIM) in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism. Diseases and medicine Diseases See main article at Endocrine diseases Endocrinology also involves the study of the diseases of the endocrine system. These diseases may relate to too little or too much secretion of a hormone, too little or too much action of a hormone, or problems with receiving the hormone. Societies and organisations Because endocrinology encompasses so many conditions and diseases, there are many organizations that provide education to patients and the public. The Hormone Foundation is the public education affiliate of The Endocrine Society and provides information on all endocrine-related conditions. Other educational organizations that focus on one or more endocrine-related conditions include the American Diabetes Association, Human Growth Foundation, American Menopause Foundation, Inc., and Thyroid Foundation of America. In North America the principal professional organizations of endocrinologists include The Endocrine Society, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, the American Diabetes Association, the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society, and the American Thyroid Association. In Europe, the European Society of Endocrinology (ESE) and the European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE) are the main organisations representing professionals in the fields of adult and paediatric endocrinology, respectively. In the United Kingdom, the Society for Endocrinology and the British Society for Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes are the main professional organisations. The European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology is the largest international professional association dedicated solely to paediatric endocrinology. There are numerous similar associations around the world. History The earliest study of endocrinology began in China. The Chinese were isolating sex and pituitary hormones from human urine and using them for medicinal purposes by 200 BC. They used many complex methods, such as sublimation of steroid hormones. Another method specified by Chinese texts—the earliest dating to 1110—specified the use of saponin (from the beans of Gleditsia sinensis) to extract hormones, but gypsum (containing calcium sulfate) was also known to have been used. Although most of the relevant tissues and endocrine glands had been identified by early anatomists, a more humoral approach to understanding biological function and disease was favoured by the ancient Greek and Roman thinkers such as Aristotle, Hippocrates, Lucretius, Celsus, and Galen, according to Freeman et al., and these theories held sway until the advent of germ theory, physiology, and organ basis of pathology in the 19th century. In 1849, Arnold Berthold noted that castrated cockerels did not develop combs and wattles or exhibit overtly male behaviour. He found that replacement of testes back into the abdominal cavity of the same bird or another castrated bird resulted in normal behavioural and morphological development, and he concluded (erroneously) that the testes secreted a substance that "conditioned" the blood that, in turn, acted on the body of the cockerel. In fact, one of two other things could have been true: that the testes modified or activated a constituent of the blood or that the testes removed an inhibitory factor from the blood. It was not proven that the testes released a substance that engenders male characteristics until it was shown that the extract of testes could replace their function in castrated animals. Pure, crystalline testosterone was isolated in 1935. Graves' disease was named after Irish doctor Robert James Graves, who described a case of goiter with exophthalmos in 1835. The German Karl Adolph von Basedow also independently reported the same constellation of symptoms in 1840, while earlier reports of the disease were also published by the Italians Giuseppe Flajani and Antonio Giuseppe Testa, in 1802 and 1810 respectively, and by the English physician Caleb Hillier Parry (a friend of Edward Jenner) in the late 18th century. Thomas Addison was first to describe Addison's disease in 1849. In 1902 William Bayliss and Ernest Starling performed an experiment in which they observed that acid instilled into the duodenum caused the pancreas to begin secretion, even after they had removed all nervous connections between the two. The same response could be produced by injecting extract of jejunum mucosa into the jugular vein, showing that some factor in the mucosa was responsible. They named this substance "secretin" and coined the term hormone for chemicals that act in this way. Joseph von Mering and Oskar Minkowski made the observation in 1889 that removing the pancreas surgically led to an increase in blood sugar, followed by a coma and eventual death—symptoms of diabetes mellitus. In 1922, Banting and Best realized that homogenizing the pancreas and injecting the derived extract reversed this condition. Neurohormones were first identified by Otto Loewi in 1921. He incubated a frog's heart (innervated with its vagus nerve attached) in a saline bath, and left in the solution for some time. The solution was then used to bathe a non-innervated second heart. If the vagus nerve on the first heart was stimulated, negative inotropic (beat amplitude) and chronotropic (beat rate) activity were seen in both hearts. This did not occur in either heart if the vagus nerve was not stimulated. The vagus nerve was adding something to the saline solution. The effect could be blocked using atropine, a known inhibitor to heart vagal nerve stimulation. Clearly, something was being secreted by the vagus nerve and affecting the heart. The "vagusstuff" (as Loewi called it) causing the myotropic (muscle enhancing) effects was later identified to be acetylcholine and norepinephrine. Loewi won the Nobel Prize for his discovery. Recent work in endocrinology focuses on the molecular mechanisms responsible for triggering the effects of hormones. The first example of such work being done was in 1962 by Earl Sutherland. Sutherland investigated whether hormones enter cells to evoke action, or stayed outside of cells. He studied norepinephrine, which acts on the liver to convert glycogen into glucose via the activation of the phosphorylase enzyme. He homogenized the liver into a membrane fraction and soluble fraction (phosphorylase is soluble), added norepinephrine to the membrane fraction, extracted its soluble products, and added them to the first soluble fraction. Phosphorylase activated, indicating that norepinephrine's target receptor was on the cell membrane, not located intracellularly. He later identified the compound as cyclic AMP (cAMP) and with his discovery created the concept of second-messenger-mediated pathways. He, like Loewi, won the Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking work in endocrinology. See also Comparative endocrinology Endocrine disease Hormone Hormone replacement therapy Neuroendocrinology Pediatric endocrinology Reproductive endocrinology and infertility Wildlife endocrinology References Endocrine system Hormones

The Egyptian Armed Forces () are the state military organisation responsible for the defense of the Arab Republic of Egypt. They consist of the Egyptian Army, Egyptian Navy, Egyptian Air Force and Egyptian Air Defense Forces. The President of the Republic serves as Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. The Minister of Defense and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, the senior uniformed officer, is Colonel General Mohamed Zaki (since June 2018), and the Chief of Staff is Lieutenant General Osama Askar (since October 2021). Senior members of the military can convene the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, such as during the course of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, when President Mubarak resigned and transferred power to this body on February 11, 2011. The armament of the Egyptian armed forces varies between eastern and western sources through weapons deliveries by several countries, led by the United States, Russia, France, China, Italy, Ukraine and Britain. Many of the equipment is manufactured locally at Egyptian factories. The Egyptian armed forces celebrate their anniversary on October 6 each year to commemorate the Crossing of the Suez during the October War of 1973. The modern Egyptian armed forces have been involved in numerous crises and wars since independence, from the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Egyptian Revolution of 1952, Suez Crisis, North Yemen Civil War, Six-Day War, Nigerian Civil War, War of Attrition, Yom Kippur War, Egyptian bread riots, 1986 Egyptian conscripts riot, Egyptian-Libyan War, Gulf War, War on Terror, Egyptian Crisis, Second Libyan Civil War, War on ISIL and the Sinai insurgency. History In the early 1950s, politics rather than military competence was the main criterion for promotion. The Egyptian commander, Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer, was a purely political appointee who owed his position to his close friendship with Nasser. He would prove himself grossly incompetent as a general during the Suez Crisis. Rigid lines between officers and men in the Egyptian Army led to a mutual "mistrust and contempt" between officers and the men who served under them. Tsouras writes that the Israelis "seized and held the ..initiative throughout the campaign and quickly destroyed the Egyptian defenses." In a few instances, such as at the Mitla Pass and Abu Agelia, Egyptian defenses were well-organised and stubbornly held, but this did not make enough difference overall. Nasser ordered a retreat from the Sinai which allowed the Israelis to wreak havoc and drive on the Canal; on 5 November, British and French parachute landings began in the Canal Zone but by 7 November, U.S. pressure had forced an end to the fighting. The Egyptian Armed Forces suffered a catastrophic defeat in their intervention in the North Yemen Civil War in what was dubbed as "Egypt's Vietnam" which contributed to their withering defeat in the Six-day war against Israel. At the peak of deployments, there were 70,000 Egyptian soldiers in Yemen. At the end of the war, Yemen remained a republic but at the cost of more than 10,000 Egyptian soldiers. As The New Republic explained in 1963: "In this terrain, the slow-moving Nile peasant has proved a poor match for the barefoot, elusive tribesmen armed only with rifle and jambiya -- the vast, curved, razor-sharp dagger which every male Yemeni wears in his belt." Before the June 1967 War, the army divided its personnel into four regional commands (Suez, Sinai, Nile Delta, and Nile Valley up to the Sudan). The remainder of Egypt's territory, over 75%, was the sole responsibility of the Frontier Corps. In May 1967, President Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran to passage of Israeli ships. Israel considered the closure of the straits grounds for war and prepared their armed forces to attack. On June 3, three battalions of Egyptian commandos were flown to Amman to take part in operations from Jordan. But U.S. historian Trevor N. Dupuy, writing in 1978, argues from King Hussein of Jordan's memoirs that Nasser did not intend to start an immediate war, but instead was happy with his rhetorical and political accomplishments of the past weeks. Nevertheless, Israel felt it needed to take action. The Egyptian army, comprising two armored and five infantry divisions, were deployed in the Sinai. In the weeks before the Six-Day War began, Egypt made several significant changes to its military organisation; Field Marshal Amer created a new command interposed between the general staff and the Eastern Military District commander, Lieutenant General Salah ad-Din Muhsin. This new Sinai Front Command was placed under General Abdel Mohsin Murtagi, who had returned from Yemen in May 1967. Six of the seven divisions in the Sinai (with the exception of the 20th Infantry 'Palestinian' Division) had their commanders and chiefs of staff replaced. What fragmentary information is available suggests to authors such as Pollack that Amer was trying to improve the competence of the force, replacing political appointees with veterans of the Yemen war. After the war began on 5 June 1967, Israel attacked Egypt, destroyed its air force on the ground, and occupied the Sinai Peninsula. The forward deployed Egyptian forces were shattered in three places by the attacking Israelis. Field Marshal Amer, overwhelmed by events, and ignoring previous plans, ordered a retreat by the Egyptian Army to the Suez Canal. This developed into a rout as the Israelis harried the retreating troops from the ground and from the air. In July 1972, President Anwar Sadat expelled Soviet Armed Forces advisors from Egypt. The Soviet advisors had significant access and influence previously. When the Yom Kippur War began in October 1973, the Egyptians were initially successful in crossing the Suez Canal and establishing a bridgehead on the eastern bank. In the costly and brutal Battle of the Chinese Farm, the Israeli Defence Force shouldered aside portions of the Second Army on the eastern bank, then crossed the canal and rapidly advanced, destroying surface-to-air missile sites and then cutting off the Third Army. However, according to the Israeli general David Elazar, the Egyptian 2nd army completely stopped him in Ismailia, and pushed his forces away from Ismailia city. Even though the third army was encircled, it resisted harshly, and managed to advance in occupying a bigger land than he did before in the east. Peace was only imposed after the United States and Soviet Union stepped in. When Sadat and the Israelis made peace in the Camp David Accords of September 1978, part of the quid pro quo for the Egyptians accepting peace was that the U.S. would provide substantial military assistance to Egypt. Today the U.S. provides annual military assistance often quoted at some nominal $1.3 billion to the Egyptian armed forces ($ billion in ). This level is second only to Israel. Scholars such as Kenneth Pollack, DeAtkine, and Robert Springborg have identified a number of reasons why Arab (and Egyptian) armies performed so poorly against Israel from 1948 to the 1970s and afterwards; In battle against Israel from 1948, junior officers consistently demonstrated an unwillingness to manoeuvre, innovate, improvise, take initiative, or act independently. Ground forces units suffered from constant manipulation of information and an inattention to intelligence gathering and objective analysis. Units from the two divisions dispatched to Saudi Arabia in 1990–91, accompanied by U.S. personnel during the 1991 Gulf War, consistently reported fierce battles even though they actually encountered little or no resistance. This occurred whether or not they were accompanied by U.S. military personnel or journalists. Later researchers such as Springborg have confirmed that the tendencies identified in the 1980s and 1990s persist in the Armed Forces in the twenty-first century. Egypt is a participant in NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue forum. Twenty-first century In the second decade of the 21st century, the Armed Forces enjoy considerable power and independence within the Egyptian state. They are also influential in business, engaging in road and housing construction, consumer goods, resort management, and own vast tracts of real estate. A significant amount of military information is not made publicly available, including budget information, the names of the general officers and the military's size (which is considered a state secret). According to journalist Joshua Hammer, "as much as 40% of the Egyptian economy" is controlled by the Egyptian armed forces, and other authoritative works such as Springborg reinforce this trend. On 31 January 2011, during the Egyptian revolution of 2011, Israeli media reported that the 9th, 2nd, and 7th Divisions of the Army had been ordered into Cairo to help restore order. On 3 July 2013, the Egyptian Armed Forces launched a coup d'état against the elected government of Mohamed Morsi following mass protests demanding his resignation. On 8 July 2013, clashes between the Republican Guard and pro-Morsi supporters left 61 protestors killed. On 14 August 2013, the Egyptian Army along with the police carried out the Rabaa massacre, killing 2,600 people. The total casualty count made 14 August the deadliest day in Egypt since the Egyptian revolution of 2011 which had toppled former President Hosni Mubarak. Several world leaders denounced the violence during the sit-in dispersals. On March 25, 2020, it was reported that two army generals, Shafea Dawoud and Khaled Shaltout, had died from the COVID-19 pandemic in Egypt, and at least 550 officers and soldiers had been infected with the virus. In March 2021, Human Rights Watch accused the EAF of violating international human rights law and committing war crimes by demolishing more than 12,300 residential and commercial buildings and 6,000 hectares of farmland since 2013 in North Sinai. Structure The Supreme Commander-in-Chief is the President of the Republic, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, a former Army officer (as have been most presidents of Egypt). All branches, forces, armies, regions, bodies, organs and departments of the Armed Forces are under the command of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, who is at the same time the Minister of Defense. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCA) is composed of 23 members, chaired by the Commander-in-Chief and Minister of Defense, and is represented by the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces. Commanders of military areas (central, northern, western, southern), heads of bodies (operations, armament, logistics, engineering, training, finance, military justice, Armed Forces Management and Administration), directors of many departments (officers and Military Intelligence and Reconnaissance), and assistant secretary of defense for constitutional and legal affairs. The Secretary of the Board is the Secretary General of the Ministry of Defense. Army Conscripts for the Egyptian Army and other service branches without a university degree serve three years as enlisted soldiers. Conscripts with a General Secondary School Degree serve two years as enlisted personnel. Conscripts with a university degree serve one year as enlisted personnel or three years as a reserve officer. Officers for the army are trained at the Egyptian Military Academy. The IISS estimated in 2020 that the Army numbered 90-120,000, with 190-220,000 conscripts, a total of 310,000. Air Force The Egyptian Air Force (EAF) is the aviation branch of the Egyptian Armed Forces. Currently, the backbone of the EAF is the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon. The Mirage 2000 is the other modern interceptor used by the EAF. The Egyptian Air Force has 216 F-16s (plus 20 on order). It has about 579 combat aircraft and 149 armed helicopters as it continues to fly extensively upgraded MiG-21s, F-7 Skybolts, F-4 Phantoms, Dassault Mirage Vs, and the C-130 Hercules among other planes. Egypt currently operates 24 Dassault Rafale, a French twin-engine fighter aircraft as of 2019. Air Defense Forces The Egyptian Air Defense Forces or ADF (Quwwat El Diffaa El Gawwi in Arabic) is Egypt's military command responsible for air defense. Egypt patterned its Air Defense Force (ADF) after the Soviet Air Defence Force, which integrated all its air defense capabilities – antiaircraft guns, rocket and missile units, interceptor planes, and radar and warning installations. It appears to comprise five subordinate divisions, 110 surface-to-air missile battalions, and 12 anti-aircraft artillery brigades. Personnel quality may be 'several notches below' that of the Air Force personnel. The IISS estimated in 2020 that personnel numbered 80,000 active and 70,000 reserve. Its commander is Lieutenant General Abd El Aziz Seif-Eldeen. Navy The Egyptian Navy existed thousands of years ago, specifically during the Early Dynastic period in 2800 BC. During the early modern era, in 1805, Muhammad Ali of Egypt became the Wali of the country forming his own autonomous rule over Egypt. To build the empire he always wished, he needed a strong military and so he managed to prepare that military starting with the army then the Navy. During his reign, the Navy already existed but it was only used for troop transportation. Its first engagement was during the Wahhabi War where it was used to transport troops from Egypt to Yanbu in Hejaz. Later in 1815, Muhammad Ali built Alexandria Shipyard to build warships not just transport ships. The Navy then participated in the Greek War of Independence where in 1827 it had over 100 warships and hundreds of transport ships. After the Second World War, some fleet units were stationed in the Red Sea, but the bulk of the force remained in the Mediterranean. Navy headquarters and the main operational and training base are located at Ras el Tin near Alexandria. The Navy also controls the Egyptian Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is responsible for the onshore protection of public installations near the coast and the patrol of coastal waters to prevent smuggling. The IISS Military Balance 2017 listed the Coast Guard with 2,000 personnel, 14 fast patrol boats (PBF) and 65 patrol boats (including 15 Swiftships, 21 Timsah, three Type-89 and nine Peterson-class. Other agencies The Armed Forces Medical Service Department provides many military health services. The Armed Forces College of Medicine in Heliopolis, Cairo, provides medical training. As of February 2020, the AFCM commandant was Maj. Gen. Dr. Amr Hegab. Egypt also maintains 397,000 paramilitary troops. The Central Security Forces comes under the control of the Ministry of Interior. As of 2017, the Egyptian Border Guard Corps falls under the control of the Ministry of Interior as well. Circa 2020, according to the IISS Military Balance 2020, they comprised an estimated 12,000, in 18 border regiments, with light weapons only (IISS 2020, p. 375). However, that listing of numbers has remained the same at least since the 2017 edition (p375). Military equipment and industry The inventory of the Egyptian armed forces includes equipment from the United States, France, Brazil, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the People's Republic of China. This wide range of sources can cause serviceability difficulties. Equipment from the Soviet Union is being progressively replaced by more modern U.S., French, and British equipment, a significant portion of which is built under license in Egypt, such as the M1A1 Abrams tank. Egypt is one of the few countries in the Middle East, and the only Arab state, with a reconnaissance satellite and has launched another one, EgyptSat 1 in 2007. The Arab Organization for Industrialization supervises nine military factories which produce civilian goods as well as military products. Initially, the owners of AOI were the governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, before the latter governments gave their shares back to Egypt in 1993, valued at $1.8 billion. AOI is now entirely owned by the government of Egypt and has about 19,000 employees out of which 1250 are engineers. AOI fully owns 10 factories and shares in 2 joint ventures, plus the Arab Institute for Advanced Technology Military schools There is an undergraduate military school for each branch of the Egyptian Armed Forces, and they include: Commanders and Staff College Reserve Officer College supervised by General Gamal Elsabrouty Nasser Higher Military Academy Egyptian Military Academy Egyptian Air Defence Academy Egyptian Military Technical College Lieutenant-Colonel Elhamy A. Elsebaey, supervising the Egyptian GIS counter strike school Armed Forces Technical Institute Armed Forces Institute for NCOs Armed Forces Institute for Nursery Thunderbolt School Airborne School (Egypt) See also Flags of the Egyptian Armed Forces References Further reading Hazem Kandil, 'Soldiers, Spies, and Statesmen: Egypt's Road to Revolt,' Verso, 2012 Kenneth M. Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness 1948-91, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London, 2002, and Pollack's book reviewed in International Security, Vol. 28, No.2. Norvell deAtkine, 'Why Arabs Lose Wars,' Middle East Quarterly, 6(4). CMI Publications, "The Egyptian military in politics and the economy: Recent history and current transition status". www.cmi.no. Retrieved 2016-01-21. Maj Gen Mohammed Fawzy, The Three-Years War (in Arabic) H.Frisch, Guns and butter in the Egyptian Army, p. 6. Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Summer 2001). Ebtisam Hussein; Claudia De Martino, March 1, 2019 Dr Mohammed al-Jawadi, In Between the Catastrophe: Memoirs of Egyptian Military Commanders from 1967 to 1972 (in Arabic) Hazem Kandil, Soldiers, spies, and statesmen: Egypt's road to revolt. Verso Books, 2012. Maj Gen Abed al-Menahim Khalil, Egyptian Wars in Modern History (in Arabic) Andrew McGregor, A military history of modern Egypt: from the Ottoman Conquest to the Ramadan War, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006 "The Egyptian Armed Forces and the Remaking of an Economic Empire". Carnegie Middle East Center. Retrieved 2016-01-21. Lt Gen Saad el-Shazly, The Crossing of the Suez Witty, David M. "A regular Army in counterinsurgency operations: Egypt in North Yemen, 1962-1967." The Journal of Military History 65, no. 2 (2001). Ferris, Jesse, Egypt, the Cold War, and the Civil War in Yemen, 1962–1966, Princeton University. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2008. 3332407. External links Egyptian Armed Forces CIA World Factbook FAS GlobalSecurity Department of State, Academics see the military in decline, but retaining strong influence, 23 September 2009 (US Embassy Cables, The Guardian, 2011) Egypt’s Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, The New York Times, February 10, 2011 Egypt's military leadership, Aljazeera English, February 11, 2011 he:צבא מצרים

Between 57.3 and 59.5 latitude and 21.5 and 28.1 longitude, Estonia lies on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea on the level northwestern part of the rising East European Platform. It borders the Gulf of Finland, between Latvia and Russia. Average elevation reaches . The climate is maritime, wet, with moderate winters and cool summers. Oil shale and limestone deposits, along with forests which cover 47% of the land, play key economic roles in this generally resource-poor country. Estonia boasts over 1,500 lakes, numerous bogs, and 3,794 kilometers of coastline marked by numerous bays, straits, and inlets. Tallinn's Muuga port offers one of Europe's finest warm-water harbor facilities. Estonia's strategic location has precipitated many wars that were fought on its territory between other rival powers at its expense. In 1944, under Soviet occupation, the Jaanilinn and Petseri regions were annexed to Russian SFSR territory. The legal status of these territories has not been fully settled. Geographic features Estonia is a flat country covering . Estonia has a long, shallow coastline () along the Baltic Sea, with 1,520 islands dotting the shore. The two largest islands are Saaremaa (literally, island land), at , and Hiiumaa, at . The two islands are favorite Estonian vacation spots. The country's highest point, Suur Munamägi (Egg Mountain), is in the hilly southeast and reaches above sea level. Estonia is covered by about of forest. Arable land amounts to about . Meadows cover about , and pastureland covers about . There are more than 1,400 natural and artificial lakes in Estonia. The largest of them, Lake Peipus (), forms much of the border between Estonia and Russia. Located in central Estonia, Võrtsjärv is the second-largest lake (). The Narva and Emajõgi are among the most important of the country's many rivers. A small, recent cluster of meteorite craters, the largest of which is called Kaali are found near Saaremaa, Estonia. The impact may have been witnessed by the Iron Age inhabitants of the area. Estonia has a temperate climate, with four seasons of near-equal length. Average temperatures range from on the Baltic islands to inland in July, the warmest month, and from on the Baltic islands to inland in February, the coldest month. Precipitation averages per year and is heaviest in late summer. Estonia's land border with Latvia runs ; the Russian border runs . From 1920 to 1945, Estonia's border with Russia, set by the 1920 Tartu Peace Treaty, extended beyond the Narva River in the northeast and beyond the town of Petseri in the southeast. This territory, amounting to some , was incorporated into Russia by Joseph Stalin at the end of World War II. Wildlife There live 65 different species of mammals in the Estonian forests. There are an estimated 700 brown bears, over 150 wolves, 400 lynxes, 14,000–16,000 beavers, 3,400 wild boars, 10,000–11,000 moose and 120,000–130,000 deer. There are also red deer and other wild animals. Environmental issues One of the most burdensome legacies of the Soviet era is widespread environmental pollution. The worst offender in this regard was the Soviet army. Across military installations covering more than of Estonian territory, the army dumped hundreds of thousands of tons of jet fuel into the ground, improperly disposed of toxic chemicals, and discarded outdated explosives and weapons in coastal and inland waters. In the 1990s, during the army's withdrawal from Estonia, extensive damage was done to discarded buildings and equipment. In October 1993, the Estonian Ministry of Environment issued a preliminary report summing up part of the degradation it had surveyed thus far. The report described the worst damage as having been done to Estonia's topsoil and underground water supply by the systematic dumping of jet fuel at six Soviet army air bases. At the air base near Tapa, site of the worst damage, officials estimated that of land were covered by a layer of fuel; of underground water were said to be contaminated. The water in the surrounding area was undrinkable, and was sometimes set fire by locals to provide heat during the winter. With Danish help, Estonian crews began cleaning up the site, although they estimated the likely cost to be as much as 4 million EEK. The Ministry of Environment assigned a monetary cost of more than 10 billion EEK to the damage to the country's topsoil and water supply. However, the ministry was able to allocate only 5 million EEK in 1993 for cleanup operations. In a 1992 government report to the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development, Estonia detailed other major environmental concerns. For instance, for several consecutive years Estonia had led the world in the production of sulfur dioxide per capita. Nearly 75% of Estonia's air pollution was reported to come from two oil shale-based thermal power stations operating near Narva. The mining of oil shale in northeastern Estonia has also left large mounds of limestone tailings dotting the region. Near the town of Sillamäe, site of a former uranium enrichment plant, about 1,200 tons of uranium and about 750 tons of thorium had been dumped into a reservoir on the shore of the Gulf of Finland. This was said to have caused severe health problems among area residents. In the coastal town of Paldiski, the removal of waste left by Soviet army nuclear reactors was also a major concern. The combined cost of environmental cleanup at both towns was put at more than EEK3.5 billion. Natural hazards: flooding occurs frequently in the spring in certain areas Environment – current issues: air polluted with sulfur dioxide from oil-shale burning power plants in northeast; however, the amounts of pollutants emitted to the air have fallen dramatically and the pollution load of wastewater at purification plants has decreased substantially due to improved technology and environmental monitoring; Estonia has more than 1,400 natural and manmade lakes, the smaller of which in agricultural areas need to be monitored; coastal seawater is polluted in certain locations. Environment – international agreements: party to: Air Pollution, Air Pollution-Heavy Metals, Air Pollution-Nitrogen Oxides, Air Pollution-Persistent Organic Pollutants, Air Pollution-Sulphur 85, Air Pollution-Volatile Organic Compounds, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Climate Change-Paris Agreement, Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping-London Protocol, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 2006, Wetlands, Whaling Area and boundaries Area: total: land: water: note: includes 1,520 islands in the Baltic Sea Land boundaries: total: border countries: Latvia , Russia Coastline: Maritime claims: territorial sea: exclusive economic zone: limits as agreed to by Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Sweden, and Russia Elevation extremes: lowest point: Baltic Sea 0 m highest point: Suur Munamägi Geographical (landscape) areas Northern Estonia (mainly same as Põhja-Eesti maastikuvaldkond (:et), also Tallinn belongs there) Southern Estonia Western Estonia Eastern Estonia Sometimes is used term "Northeastern Estonia" (mainly same as Ida-Viru County) and "Central Estonia" Resources and land use Natural resources: oil shale (kukersite), peat, rare earth elements, phosphorite, clay, limestone, sand, dolomite, arable land, sea mud Land use (2018 est.): agricultural land: 22.2% (14% arable land, 0.1% permanent crops, 7.2% permanent pasture) forest: 52.1% other: 25.7% Irrigated land: Total renewable water resources: (2017 est.) See also Extreme points of Estonia Climate of Estonia References

An electrical telegraph was a point-to-point text messaging system, used from the 1840s until the late 20th century when it was slowly replaced by other telecommunication systems. At the sending station switches connected a source of current to the telegraph wires. At the receiving station the current activated electromagnets which moved indicators, providing either a visual or audible indication of the text. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most widely used of a number of early messaging systems called telegraphs, that were devised to communicate text messages more rapidly than by physical transportation. Prior to the electric telegraph, semaphore systems were used, including beacons, smoke signals, flag semaphore, and optical telegraphs for visual signals to communicate over distances of land. Electrical telegraphy can be considered to be the first example of electrical engineering, and was used by the emerging railway companies to develop train control systems that minimised the chances of trains colliding with each other. This was built around the signalling block system with signal boxes along the line communicating with their neighbouring boxes by telegraphic sounding of single-stroke bells and three-position needle telegraph instruments. Text telegraphy consisted of two or more geographically separated stations (often called telegraph offices) connected by wires, usually supported overhead on utility poles (originally called telegraph poles). There were many different electrical telegraph systems invented, but the ones that became widespread fit into two broad categories. The first category consists of needle telegraphs in which a needle pointer is made to move electromagnetically with an electric current from a battery or dynamo passing down the telegraph line. Early systems used multiple needles requiring multiple wires. The first commercial system, and the most widely used needle telegraph, was the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph, invented in 1837. Early equipment sets used five needles to point to the letter being transmitted, but the cost of installing wires was more economically significant than the cost of training operators so a single-needle system with a code that had to be learned became the norm. The second category consists of armature systems in which the current activates a telegraph sounder which makes a click. The archetype of this category was the Morse system, invented by Samuel Morse in 1838, using a single wire. At the sending station, an operator would tap on a switch called a telegraph key, spelling out text messages in Morse code. Originally, the armature was intended to make marks on paper tape, but operators learned to interpret the clicks and it was more efficient to write down the message directly. In 1865, the Morse system became the standard for international communication with a modified code developed for German railways. However, some countries continued to use established national systems internally for some time afterwards. In the 1840s, the electrical telegraph superseded optical telegraph systems (except in France), becoming the standard way to send urgent messages. By the latter half of the century, most developed nations had created commercial telegraph networks with local telegraph offices in most cities and towns, allowing the public to send messages called telegrams addressed to any person in the country, for a fee. Beginning in 1854, submarine telegraph cables allowed for the first rapid communication between continents. Electrical telegraph networks permitted people and commerce to transmit messages across both continents and oceans almost instantly, with widespread social and economic impacts. In the early 20th century the telegraph was slowly replaced by teletype networks. History Early work From early studies of electricity, electrical phenomena were known to travel with great speed, and many experimenters worked on the application of electricity to communications at a distance. All the known effects of electricity—such as sparks, electrostatic attraction, chemical changes, electric shocks, and later electromagnetism—were applied to the problems of detecting controlled transmissions of electricity at various distances. In 1753, an anonymous writer in the Scots Magazine suggested an electrostatic telegraph. Using one wire for each letter of the alphabet, a message could be transmitted by connecting the wire terminals in turn to an electrostatic machine, and observing the deflection of pith balls at the far end. The writer has never been positively identified, but the letter was signed C.M. and posted from Renfrew leading to a Charles Marshall of Renfrew being suggested. Telegraphs employing electrostatic attraction were the basis of early experiments in electrical telegraphy in Europe, but were abandoned as being impractical and were never developed into a useful communication system. In 1774, Georges-Louis Le Sage realised an early electric telegraph. The telegraph had a separate wire for each of the 26 letters of the alphabet and its range was only between two rooms of his home. In 1800, Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile, providing a continuous current of electricity for experimentation. This became a source of a low-voltage current that could be used to produce more distinct effects, and which was far less limited than the momentary discharge of an electrostatic machine, which with Leyden jars were the only previously known man-made sources of electricity. Another very early experiment in electrical telegraphy was an "electrochemical telegraph" created by the German physician, anatomist and inventor Samuel Thomas von Sömmering in 1809, based on an earlier, less robust design of 1804 by Spanish polymath and scientist Francisco Salva Campillo. Both their designs employed multiple wires (up to 35) to represent almost all Latin letters and numerals. Thus, messages could be conveyed electrically up to a few kilometers (in von Sömmering's design), with each of the telegraph receiver's wires immersed in a separate glass tube of acid. An electric current was sequentially applied by the sender through the various wires representing each letter of a message; at the recipient's end, the currents electrolysed the acid in the tubes in sequence, releasing streams of hydrogen bubbles next to each associated letter or numeral. The telegraph receiver's operator would watch the bubbles and could then record the transmitted message. This is in contrast to later telegraphs that used a single wire (with ground return). Hans Christian Ørsted discovered in 1820 that an electric current produces a magnetic field that will deflect a compass needle. In the same year Johann Schweigger invented the galvanometer, with a coil of wire around a compass, that could be used as a sensitive indicator for an electric current. Also that year, André-Marie Ampère suggested that telegraphy could be achieved by placing small magnets under the ends of a set of wires, one pair of wires for each letter of the alphabet. He was apparently unaware of Schweigger's invention at the time, which would have made his system much more sensitive. In 1825, Peter Barlow tried Ampère's idea but only got it to work over and declared it impractical. In 1830 William Ritchie improved on Ampère's design by placing the magnetic needles inside a coil of wire connected to each pair of conductors. He successfully demonstrated it, showing the feasibility of the electromagnetic telegraph, but only within a lecture hall. In 1825, William Sturgeon invented the electromagnet, with a single winding of uninsulated wire on a piece of varnished iron, which increased the magnetic force produced by electric current. Joseph Henry improved it in 1828 by placing several windings of insulated wire around the bar, creating a much more powerful electromagnet which could operate a telegraph through the high resistance of long telegraph wires. During his tenure at The Albany Academy from 1826 to 1832, Henry first demonstrated the theory of the 'magnetic telegraph' by ringing a bell through of wire strung around the room in 1831. In 1835, Joseph Henry and Edward Davy independently invented the mercury dipping electrical relay, in which a magnetic needle is dipped into a pot of mercury when an electric current passes through the surrounding coil. In 1837, Davy invented the much more practical metallic make-and-break relay which became the relay of choice in telegraph systems and a key component for periodically renewing weak signals. Davy demonstrated his telegraph system in Regent's Park in 1837 and was granted a patent on 4 July 1838. Davy also invented a printing telegraph which used the electric current from the telegraph signal to mark a ribbon of calico infused with potassium iodide and calcium hypochlorite. First working systems The first working telegraph was built by the English inventor Francis Ronalds in 1816 and used static electricity. At the family home on Hammersmith Mall, he set up a complete subterranean system in a long trench as well as an long overhead telegraph. The lines were connected at both ends to revolving dials marked with the letters of the alphabet and electrical impulses sent along the wire were used to transmit messages. Offering his invention to the Admiralty in July 1816, it was rejected as "wholly unnecessary". His account of the scheme and the possibilities of rapid global communication in Descriptions of an Electrical Telegraph and of some other Electrical Apparatus was the first published work on electric telegraphy and even described the risk of signal retardation due to induction. Elements of Ronalds' design were utilised in the subsequent commercialisation of the telegraph over 20 years later. The Schilling telegraph, invented by Baron Schilling von Canstatt in 1832, was an early needle telegraph. It had a transmitting device that consisted of a keyboard with 16 black-and-white keys. These served for switching the electric current. The receiving instrument consisted of six galvanometers with magnetic needles, suspended from silk threads. The two stations of Schilling's telegraph were connected by eight wires; six were connected with the galvanometers, one served for the return current and one for a signal bell. When at the starting station the operator pressed a key, the corresponding pointer was deflected at the receiving station. Different positions of black and white flags on different disks gave combinations which corresponded to the letters or numbers. Pavel Schilling subsequently improved its apparatus by reducing the number of connecting wires from eight to two. On 21 October 1832, Schilling managed a short-distance transmission of signals between two telegraphs in different rooms of his apartment. In 1836, the British government attempted to buy the design but Schilling instead accepted overtures from Nicholas I of Russia. Schilling's telegraph was tested on a experimental underground and underwater cable, laid around the building of the main Admiralty in Saint Petersburg and was approved for a telegraph between the imperial palace at Peterhof and the naval base at Kronstadt. However, the project was cancelled following Schilling's death in 1837. Schilling was also one of the first to put into practice the idea of the binary system of signal transmission. His work was taken over and developed by Moritz von Jacobi who invented telegraph equipment that was used by Tsar Alexander III to connect the Imperial palace at Tsarskoye Selo and Kronstadt Naval Base. In 1833, Carl Friedrich Gauss, together with the physics professor Wilhelm Weber in Göttingen installed a wire above the town's roofs. Gauss combined the Poggendorff-Schweigger multiplicator with his magnetometer to build a more sensitive device, the galvanometer. To change the direction of the electric current, he constructed a commutator of his own. As a result, he was able to make the distant needle move in the direction set by the commutator on the other end of the line. At first, Gauss and Weber used the telegraph to coordinate time, but soon they developed other signals and finally, their own alphabet. The alphabet was encoded in a binary code that was transmitted by positive or negative voltage pulses which were generated by means of moving an induction coil up and down over a permanent magnet and connecting the coil with the transmission wires by means of the commutator. The page of Gauss' laboratory notebook containing both his code and the first message transmitted, as well as a replica of the telegraph made in the 1850s under the instructions of Weber are kept in the faculty of physics at the University of Göttingen, in Germany. Gauss was convinced that this communication would be a help to his kingdom's towns. Later in the same year, instead of a Voltaic pile, Gauss used an induction pulse, enabling him to transmit seven letters a minute instead of two. The inventors and university did not have the funds to develop the telegraph on their own, but they received funding from Alexander von Humboldt. Carl August Steinheil in Munich was able to build a telegraph network within the city in 1835–1836. He installed a telegraph line along the first German railroad in 1835. Steinheil built a telegraph along the Nuremberg - Fürth railway line in 1838, the first earth-return telegraph put into service. By 1837, William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone had co-developed a telegraph system which used a number of needles on a board that could be moved to point to letters of the alphabet. Any number of needles could be used, depending on the number of characters it was required to code. In May 1837 they patented their system. The patent recommended five needles, which coded twenty of the alphabet's 26 letters. Samuel Morse independently developed and patented a recording electric telegraph in 1837. Morse's assistant Alfred Vail developed an instrument that was called the register for recording the received messages. It embossed dots and dashes on a moving paper tape by a stylus which was operated by an electromagnet. Morse and Vail developed the Morse code signalling alphabet. The first telegram in the United States was sent by Morse on 11 January 1838, across of wire at Speedwell Ironworks near Morristown, New Jersey, although it was only later, in 1844, that he sent the message "WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT" over the from the Capitol in Washington to the old Mt. Clare Depot in Baltimore. Commercial telegraphy Cooke and Wheatstone system The first commercial electrical telegraph was the Cooke and Wheatstone system. A demonstration four-needle system was installed on the Euston to Camden Town section of Robert Stephenson's London and Birmingham Railway in 1837 for signalling rope-hauling of locomotives. It was rejected in favour of pneumatic whistles. Cooke and Wheatstone had their first commercial success with a system installed on the Great Western Railway over the from Paddington station to West Drayton in 1838. This was a five-needle, six-wire system. This system suffered from failing insulation on the underground cables. When the line was extended to Slough in 1843, the telegraph was converted to a one-needle, two-wire system with uninsulated wires on poles. The one-needle telegraph proved highly successful on British railways, and 15,000 sets were still in use at the end of the nineteenth century. Some remained in service in the 1930s. The Electric Telegraph Company, the world's first public telegraphy company was formed in 1845 by financier John Lewis Ricardo and Cooke. Wheatstone ABC telegraph Wheatstone developed a practical alphabetical system in 1840 called the A.B.C. System, used mostly on private wires. This consisted of a "communicator" at the sending end and an "indicator" at the receiving end. The communicator consisted of a circular dial with a pointer and the 26 letters of the alphabet (and four punctuation marks) around its circumference. Against each letter was a key that could be pressed. A transmission would begin with the pointers on the dials at both ends set to the start position. The transmitting operator would then press down the key corresponding to the letter to be transmitted. In the base of the communicator was a magneto actuated by a handle on the front. This would be turned to apply an alternating voltage to the line. Each half cycle of the current would move the pointers at both ends on by one position. When the pointer reached the position of the depressed key, it would stop and the magneto would be disconnected from the line. The communicator's pointer was geared to the magneto mechanism. The indicator's pointer was moved by a polarised electromagnet whose armature was coupled to it through an escapement. Thus the alternating line voltage moved the indicator's pointer on to the position of the depressed key on the communicator. Pressing another key would then release the pointer and the previous key, and re-connect the magneto to the line. These machines were very robust and simple to operate, and they stayed in use in Britain until well into the 20th century. Morse system In 1851, a conference in Vienna of countries in the German-Austrian Telegraph Union (which included many central European countries) adopted the Morse telegraph as the system for international communications. The international Morse code adopted was considerably modified from the original American Morse code, and was based on a code used on Hamburg railways (Gerke, 1848). A common code was a necessary step to allow direct telegraph connection between countries. With different codes, additional operators were required to translate and retransmit the message. In 1865, a conference in Paris adopted Gerke's code as the International Morse code and was henceforth the international standard. The US, however, continued to use American Morse code internally for some time, hence international messages required retransmission in both directions. In the United States, the Morse/Vail telegraph was quickly deployed in the two decades following the first demonstration in 1844. The overland telegraph connected the west coast of the continent to the east coast by 24 October 1861, bringing an end to the Pony Express. Foy–Breguet system France was slow to adopt the electrical telegraph, because of the extensive optical telegraph system built during the Napoleonic era. There was also serious concern that an electrical telegraph could be quickly put out of action by enemy saboteurs, something that was much more difficult to do with optical telegraphs which had no exposed hardware between stations. The Foy-Breguet telegraph was eventually adopted. This was a two-needle system using two signal wires but displayed in a uniquely different way to other needle telegraphs. The needles made symbols similar to the Chappe optical system symbols, making it more familiar to the telegraph operators. The optical system was decommissioned starting in 1846, but not completely until 1855. In that year the Foy-Breguet system was replaced with the Morse system. Expansion As well as the rapid expansion of the use of the telegraphs along the railways, they soon spread into the field of mass communication with the instruments being installed in post offices. The era of mass personal communication had begun. Telegraph networks were expensive to build, but financing was readily available, especially from London bankers. By 1852, National systems were in operation in major countries: The New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company, for example, was created in 1852 in Rochester, New York and eventually became the Western Union Telegraph Company. Although many countries had telegraph networks, there was no worldwide interconnection. Message by post was still the primary means of communication to countries outside Europe. Telegraphic improvements A continuing goal in telegraphy was to reduce the cost per message by reducing hand-work, or increasing the sending rate. There were many experiments with moving pointers, and various electrical encodings. However, most systems were too complicated and unreliable. A successful expedient to reduce the cost per message was the development of telegraphese. The first system that did not require skilled technicians to operate was Charles Wheatstone's ABC system in 1840 in which the letters of the alphabet were arranged around a clock-face, and the signal caused a needle to indicate the letter. This early system required the receiver to be present in real time to record the message and it reached speeds of up to 15 words a minute. In 1846, Alexander Bain patented a chemical telegraph in Edinburgh. The signal current moved an iron pen across a moving paper tape soaked in a mixture of ammonium nitrate and potassium ferrocyanide, decomposing the chemical and producing readable blue marks in Morse code. The speed of the printing telegraph was 16 and a half words per minute, but messages still required translation into English by live copyists. Chemical telegraphy came to an end in the US in 1851, when the Morse group defeated the Bain patent in the US District Court. For a brief period, starting with the New York–Boston line in 1848, some telegraph networks began to employ sound operators, who were trained to understand Morse code aurally. Gradually, the use of sound operators eliminated the need for telegraph receivers to include register and tape. Instead, the receiving instrument was developed into a "sounder", an electromagnet that was energized by a current and attracted a small iron lever. When the sounding key was opened or closed, the sounder lever struck an anvil. The Morse operator distinguished a dot and a dash by the short or long interval between the two clicks. The message was then written out in long-hand. Royal Earl House developed and patented a letter-printing telegraph system in 1846 which employed an alphabetic keyboard for the transmitter and automatically printed the letters on paper at the receiver, and followed this up with a steam-powered version in 1852. Advocates of printing telegraphy said it would eliminate Morse operators' errors. The House machine was used on four main American telegraph lines by 1852. The speed of the House machine was announced as 2600 words an hour. David Edward Hughes invented the printing telegraph in 1855; it used a keyboard of 26 keys for the alphabet and a spinning type wheel that determined the letter being transmitted by the length of time that had elapsed since the previous transmission. The system allowed for automatic recording on the receiving end. The system was very stable and accurate and became accepted around the world. The next improvement was the Baudot code of 1874. French engineer Émile Baudot patented a printing telegraph in which the signals were translated automatically into typographic characters. Each character was assigned a five-bit code, mechanically interpreted from the state of five on/off switches. Operators had to maintain a steady rhythm, and the usual speed of operation was 30 words per minute. By this point, reception had been automated, but the speed and accuracy of the transmission were still limited to the skill of the human operator. The first practical automated system was patented by Charles Wheatstone. The message (in Morse code) was typed onto a piece of perforated tape using a keyboard-like device called the 'Stick Punch'. The transmitter automatically ran the tape through and transmitted the message at the then exceptionally high speed of 70 words per minute. Teleprinters An early successful teleprinter was invented by Frederick G. Creed. In Glasgow he created his first keyboard perforator, which used compressed air to punch the holes. He also created a reperforator (receiving perforator) and a printer. The reperforator punched incoming Morse signals onto paper tape and the printer decoded this tape to produce alphanumeric characters on plain paper. This was the origin of the Creed High Speed Automatic Printing System, which could run at an unprecedented 200 words per minute. His system was adopted by the Daily Mail for daily transmission of the newspaper contents. With the invention of the teletypewriter, telegraphic encoding became fully automated. Early teletypewriters used the ITA-1 Baudot code, a five-bit code. This yielded only thirty-two codes, so it was over-defined into two "shifts", "letters" and "figures". An explicit, unshared shift code prefaced each set of letters and figures. In 1901, Baudot's code was modified by Donald Murray. In the 1930s, teleprinters were produced by Teletype in the US, Creed in Britain and Siemens in Germany. By 1935, message routing was the last great barrier to full automation. Large telegraphy providers began to develop systems that used telephone-like rotary dialling to connect teletypewriters. These resulting systems were called "Telex" (TELegraph EXchange). Telex machines first performed rotary-telephone-style pulse dialling for circuit switching, and then sent data by ITA2. This "type A" Telex routing functionally automated message routing. The first wide-coverage Telex network was implemented in Germany during the 1930s as a network used to communicate within the government. At the rate of 45.45 (±0.5%) baud – considered speedy at the time – up to 25 telex channels could share a single long-distance telephone channel by using voice frequency telegraphy multiplexing, making telex the least expensive method of reliable long-distance communication. Automatic teleprinter exchange service was introduced into Canada by CPR Telegraphs and CN Telegraph in July 1957 and in 1958, Western Union started to build a Telex network in the United States. The harmonic telegraph The most expensive aspect of a telegraph system was the installation – the laying of the wire, which was often very long. The costs would be better covered by finding a way to send more than one message at a time through the single wire, thus increasing revenue per wire. Early devices included the duplex and the quadruplex which allowed, respectively, one or two telegraph transmissions in each direction. However, an even greater number of channels was desired on the busiest lines. In the latter half of the 1800s, several inventors worked towards creating a method for doing just that, including Charles Bourseul, Thomas Edison, Elisha Gray, and Alexander Graham Bell. One approach was to have resonators of several different frequencies act as carriers of a modulated on-off signal. This was the harmonic telegraph, a form of frequency-division multiplexing. These various frequencies, referred to as harmonics, could then be combined into one complex signal and sent down the single wire. On the receiving end, the frequencies would be separated with a matching set of resonators. With a set of frequencies being carried down a single wire, it was realized that the human voice itself could be transmitted electrically through the wire. This effort led to the invention of the telephone. (While the work toward packing multiple telegraph signals onto one wire led to telephony, later advances would pack multiple voice signals onto one wire by increasing the bandwidth by modulating frequencies much higher than human hearing. Eventually, the bandwidth was widened much further by using laser light signals sent through fiber optic cables. Fiber optic transmission can carry 25,000 telephone signals simultaneously down a single fiber.) Oceanic telegraph cables Soon after the first successful telegraph systems were operational, the possibility of transmitting messages across the sea by way of submarine communications cables was first proposed. One of the primary technical challenges was to sufficiently insulate the submarine cable to prevent the electric current from leaking out into the water. In 1842, a Scottish surgeon William Montgomerie introduced gutta-percha, the adhesive juice of the Palaquium gutta tree, to Europe. Michael Faraday and Wheatstone soon discovered the merits of gutta-percha as an insulator, and in 1845, the latter suggested that it should be employed to cover the wire which was proposed to be laid from Dover to Calais. Gutta-percha was used as insulation on a wire laid across the Rhine between Deutz and Cologne. In 1849, C. V. Walker, electrician to the South Eastern Railway, submerged a wire coated with gutta-percha off the coast from Folkestone, which was tested successfully. John Watkins Brett, an engineer from Bristol, sought and obtained permission from Louis-Philippe in 1847 to establish telegraphic communication between France and England. The first undersea cable was laid in 1850, connecting the two countries and was followed by connections to Ireland and the Low Countries. The Atlantic Telegraph Company was formed in London in 1856 to undertake to construct a commercial telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean. It was successfully completed on 18 July 1866 by the ship SS Great Eastern, captained by Sir James Anderson, after many mishaps along the away. John Pender, one of the men on the Great Eastern, later founded several telecommunications companies primarily laying cables between Britain and Southeast Asia. Earlier transatlantic submarine cables installations were attempted in 1857, 1858 and 1865. The 1857 cable only operated intermittently for a few days or weeks before it failed. The study of underwater telegraph cables accelerated interest in mathematical analysis of very long transmission lines. The telegraph lines from Britain to India were connected in 1870. (Those several companies combined to form the Eastern Telegraph Company in 1872.) The HMS Challenger expedition in 1873–1876 mapped the ocean floor for future underwater telegraph cables. Australia was first linked to the rest of the world in October 1872 by a submarine telegraph cable at Darwin. This brought news reports from the rest of the world. The telegraph across the Pacific was completed in 1902, finally encircling the world. From the 1850s until well into the 20th century, British submarine cable systems dominated the world system. This was set out as a formal strategic goal, which became known as the All Red Line. In 1896, there were thirty cable laying ships in the world and twenty-four of them were owned by British companies. In 1892, British companies owned and operated two-thirds of the world's cables and by 1923, their share was still 42.7 percent. Cable and Wireless Company Cable & Wireless was a British telecommunications company that traced its origins back to the 1860s, with Sir John Pender as the founder, although the name was only adopted in 1934. It was formed from successive mergers including: The Falmouth, Malta, Gibraltar Telegraph Company The British Indian Submarine Telegraph Company The Marseilles, Algiers and Malta Telegraph Company The Eastern Telegraph Company The Eastern Extension Australasia and China Telegraph Company The Eastern and Associated Telegraph Companies Telegraphy and longitude Main article § Section: . The telegraph was very important for sending time signals to determine longitude, providing greater accuracy than previously available. Longitude was measured by comparing local time (for example local noon occurs when the sun is at its highest above the horizon) with absolute time (a time that is the same for an observer anywhere on earth). If the local times of two places differ by one hour, the difference in longitude between them is 15° (360°/24h). Before telegraphy, absolute time could be obtained from astronomical events, such as eclipses, occultations or lunar distances, or by transporting an accurate clock (a chronometer) from one location to the other. The idea of using the telegraph to transmit a time signal for longitude determination was suggested by François Arago to Samuel Morse in 1837, and the first test of this idea was made by Capt. Wilkes of the U.S. Navy in 1844, over Morse's line between Washington and Baltimore. The method was soon in practical use for longitude determination, in particular by the U.S. Coast Survey, and over longer and longer distances as the telegraph network spread across North America and the world, and as technical developments improved accuracy and productivity The "telegraphic longitude net" soon became worldwide. Transatlantic links between Europe and North America were established in 1866 and 1870. The US Navy extended observations into the West Indies and Central and South America with an additional transatlantic link from South America to Lisbon between 1874 and 1890. British, Russian and US observations created a chain from Europe through Suez, Aden, Madras, Singapore, China and Japan, to Vladivostok, thence to Saint Petersburg and back to Western Europe. Australia was linked to Singapore via Java in 1871 and the web circled the globe in 1902 with the connection of Australia and New Zealand to Canada via the All Red Line. The double determination of longitudes from east to west and from west to east agreed within one second of arc ( second of time – less than 30 metres). Telegraphy in war The ability to send telegrams brought obvious advantages to those conducting war. Secret messages were encoded, so interception alone would not be sufficient for the opposing side to gain an advantage. There were also geographical constraints on intercepting the telegraph cables that improved security, however once radio telegraphy was developed interception became far more widespread. Crimean War The Crimean War was one of the first conflicts to use telegraphs and was one of the first to be documented extensively. In 1854, the government in London created a military Telegraph Detachment for the Army commanded by an officer of the Royal Engineers. It was to comprise twenty-five men from the Royal Corps of Sappers & Miners trained by the Electric Telegraph Company to construct and work the first field electric telegraph. Journalistic recording of the war was provided by William Howard Russell (writing for The Times newspaper) with photographs by Roger Fenton. News from war correspondents kept the public of the nations involved in the war informed of the day-to-day events in a way that had not been possible in any previous war. After the French extended the telegraph to the coast of the Black Sea in late 1854, the news reached London in two days. When the British laid an underwater cable to the Crimean peninsula in April 1855, news reached London in a few hours. The daily news reports energised public opinion, which brought down the government and led to Lord Palmerston becoming prime minister. American Civil War During the American Civil War the telegraph proved its value as a tactical, operational, and strategic communication medium and an important contributor to Union victory. By contrast the Confederacy failed to make effective use of the South's much smaller telegraph network. Prior to the War the telegraph systems were primarily used in the commercial sector. Government buildings were not inter-connected with telegraph lines, but relied on runners to carry messages back and forth. Before the war the Government saw no need to connect lines within city limits, however, they did see the use in connections between cities. Washington D.C. being the hub of government, it had the most connections, but there were only a few lines running north and south out of the city. It wasn't until the Civil War that the government saw the true potential of the telegraph system. Soon after the shelling of Fort Sumter, the South cut telegraph lines running into D.C., which put the city in a state of panic because they feared an immediate Southern invasion. Within 6 months of the start of the war, the U.S. Military Telegraph Corps (USMT) had laid approximately of line. By war's end they had laid approximately of line, 8,000 for military and 5,000 for commercial use, and had handled approximately 6.5 million messages. The telegraph was not only important for communication within the armed forces, but also in the civilian sector, helping political leaders to maintain control over their districts. Even before the war, the American Telegraph Company censored suspect messages informally to block aid to the secession movement. During the war, Secretary of War Simon Cameron, and later Edwin Stanton, wanted control over the telegraph lines to maintain the flow of information. Early in the war, one of Stanton's first acts as Secretary of War was to move telegraph lines from ending at McClellan's headquarters to terminating at the War Department. Stanton himself said "[telegraphy] is my right arm". Telegraphy assisted Northern victories, including the Battle of Antietam (1862), the Battle of Chickamauga (1863), and Sherman's March to the Sea (1864). The telegraph system still had its flaws. The USMT, while the main source of telegraphers and cable, was still a civilian agency. Most operators were first hired by the telegraph companies and then contracted out to the War Department. This created tension between Generals and their operators. One source of irritation was that USMT operators did not have to follow military authority. Usually they performed without hesitation, but they were not required to, so Albert Myer created a U.S. Army Signal Corps in February 1863. As the new head of the Signal Corps, Myer tried to get all telegraph and flag signaling under his command, and therefore subject to military discipline. After creating the Signal Corps, Myer pushed to further develop new telegraph systems. While the USMT relied primarily on civilian lines and operators, the Signal Corp's new field telegraph could be deployed and dismantled faster than USMT's system. First World War During World War I, Britain's telegraph communications were almost completely uninterrupted, while it was able to quickly cut Germany's cables worldwide. The British government censored telegraph cable companies in an effort to root out espionage and restrict financial transactions with Central Powers nations. British access to transatlantic cables and its codebreaking expertise led to the Zimmermann Telegram incident that contributed to the US joining the war. Despite British acquisition of German colonies and expansion into the Middle East, debt from the war led to Britain's control over telegraph cables to weaken while US control grew. Second World War World War II revived the 'cable war' of 1914–1918. In 1939, German-owned cables across the Atlantic were cut once again, and, in 1940, Italian cables to South America and Spain were cut in retaliation for Italian action against two of the five British cables linking Gibraltar and Malta. Electra House, Cable & Wireless's head office and central cable station, was damaged by German bombing in 1941. Resistance movements in occupied Europe sabotaged communications facilities such as telegraph lines, forcing the Germans to use wireless telegraphy, which could then be intercepted by Britain. The Germans developed a highly complex teleprinter attachment (German: Schlüssel-Zusatz, "cipher attachment") that was used for enciphering telegrams, using the Lorenz cipher, between German High Command (OKW) and the army groups in the field. These contained situation reports, battle plans, and discussions of strategy and tactics. Britain intercepted these signals, diagnosed how the encrypting machine worked, and decrypted a large amount of teleprinter traffic. End of the telegraph era In America, the end of the telegraph era can be associated with the fall of the Western Union Telegraph Company. Western Union was the leading telegraph provider for America and was seen as the best competition for the National Bell Telephone Company. Western Union and Bell were both invested in telegraphy and telephone technology. Western Union's decision to allow Bell to gain the advantage in telephone technology was the result of Western Union's upper management's failure to foresee the surpassing of the telephone over the, at the time, dominant telegraph system. Western Union soon lost the legal battle for the rights to their telephone copyrights. This led to Western Union agreeing to a lesser position in the telephone competition, which in turn led to the lessening of the telegraph. While the telegraph was not the focus of the legal battles that occurred around 1878, the companies that were affected by the effects of the battle were the main powers of telegraphy at the time. Western Union thought that the agreement of 1878 would solidify telegraphy as the long-range communication of choice. However, due to the underestimates of telegraph's future and poor contracts, Western Union found itself declining. AT&T acquired working control of Western Union in 1909 but relinquished it in 1914 under threat of antitrust action. AT&T bought Western Union's electronic mail and Telex businesses in 1990. Although commercial "telegraph" services are still available in many countries, transmission is usually done via a computer network rather than a dedicated wired connection. See also 92 Code Aurora (astronomy) American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) Bell Canada Geomagnetically induced current Great Northern Telegraph Company Harrison Gray Dyar, who supposedly erected the first telegraph line and dispatched the first telegram Neutral direct-current telegraph system Western Electric Company References Bibliography Bowers, Brian, Sir Charles Wheatstone: 1802–1875, IET, 2001 . Holzmann, Gerard J.; Pehrson, Björn, The Early History of Data Networks, Wiley, 1995 . Attributed to . Mercer, David, The Telephone: The Life Story of a Technology, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006 . Further reading Cooke, W.F., The Electric Telegraph, Was it invented by Prof. Wheatstone?, London 1856. Gauß, C. F., Works, Göttingen 1863–1933. Howe, Daniel Walker, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848, Oxford University Press, 2007 . Peterson, M.J. Roots of Interconnection: Communications, Transportation and Phases of the Industrial Revolution, International Dimensions of Ethics Education in Science and Engineering Background Reading, Version 1; February 2008. Steinheil, C.A., Ueber Telegraphie, München 1838. Yates, JoAnne. The Telegraph's Effect on Nineteenth Century Markets and Firms, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, pp. 149–163. External links Morse Telegraph Club, Inc. (The Morse Telegraph Club is an international non-profit organization dedicated to the perpetuation of the knowledge and traditions of telegraphy.) https://web.archive.org/web/20050829153213/http://collections.ic.gc.ca/canso/index.htm Shilling's telegraph, an exhibit of the A.S. Popov Central Museum of Communications History of electromagnetic telegraph The first electric telegraphs The Dawn of Telegraphy Pavel Shilling and his telegraph- article in PCWeek, Russian edition. Distant Writing – The History of the Telegraph Companies in Britain between 1838 and 1868 NASA – Carrington Super Flare NASA 6 May 2008 How Cables Unite The World – a 1902 article about telegraph networks and technology from the magazine The World's Work Indiana telegraph and telephone collection, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Indiana State Library Wonders of electricity and the elements, being a popular account of modern electrical and magnetic discoveries, magnetism and electric machines, the electric telegraph and the electric light, and the metal bases, salt, and acids from Science History Institute Digital Collections The electro magnetic telegraph: with an historical account of its rise, progress, and present condition from Science History Institute Digital Collections Telegraphy Russian inventions 19th-century inventions Telegraph sl:Telegraf fi:Lennätin zh:电报

The (Latin for "British Encyclopaedia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia which is now published exclusively as an online encyclopaedia. It was formerly published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., and other publishers (for previous editions). It was written by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 contributors. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, which spans 32 volumes and 32,640 pages, was the last printed edition. Printed for 244 years, the Britannica was the longest running in-print encyclopaedia in the English language. It was first published between 1768 and 1771 in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, as three volumes. The encyclopaedia grew in size: the second edition was 10 volumes, and by its fourth edition (1801–1810) it had expanded to 20 volumes. Its rising stature as a scholarly work helped recruit eminent contributors, and the 9th (1875–1889) and 11th editions (1911) are landmark encyclopaedias for scholarship and literary style. Starting with the 11th edition and following its acquisition by an American firm, the Britannica shortened and simplified articles to broaden its appeal to the North American market. In 1933, the Britannica became the first encyclopaedia to adopt "continuous revision", in which the encyclopaedia is continually reprinted, with every article updated on a schedule. In March 2012, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced it would no longer publish printed editions, and would focus instead on the online version. The 15th edition has a three-part structure: a 12-volume of short articles (generally fewer than 750 words), a 17-volume of long articles (two to 310 pages), and a single volume to give a hierarchical outline of knowledge. The was meant for quick fact-checking and as a guide to the ; readers are advised to study the outline to understand a subject's context and to find more detailed articles. Over 70 years, the size of the Britannica has remained steady, with about 40 million words on half a million topics. Though published in the United States since 1901, the Britannica has for the most part maintained British English spelling. Present status Print version Since 1985, the Britannica had four parts: the , the , the , and a two-volume index. The Britannica articles are found in the and , which encompass 12 and 17 volumes, respectively, each volume having roughly one thousand pages. The 2007 has 699 in-depth articles, ranging in length from 2 to 310 pages and having references and named contributors. In contrast, the 2007 has roughly 65,000 articles, the vast majority (about 97%) of which contain fewer than 750 words, no references, and no named contributors. The articles are intended for quick fact-checking and to help in finding more thorough information in the . The articles are meant both as authoritative, well-written articles on their subjects and as storehouses of information not covered elsewhere. The longest article (310 pages) is on the United States, and resulted from the merger of the articles on the individual states. A 2013 "Global Edition" of Britannica contained approximately forty thousand articles. Information can be found in the Britannica by following the cross-references in the and ; however, these are sparse, averaging one cross-reference per page. Hence, readers are recommended to consult instead the alphabetical index or the , which organizes the Britannica contents by topic. The core of the is its "Outline of Knowledge", which aims to provide a logical framework for all human knowledge. Accordingly, the Outline is consulted by the Britannica editors to decide which articles should be included in the and . The Outline is also intended to be a study guide, to put subjects in their proper perspective, and to suggest a series of Britannica articles for the student wishing to learn a topic in depth. However, libraries have found that it is scarcely used, and reviewers have recommended that it be dropped from the encyclopaedia. The also has color transparencies of human anatomy and several appendices listing the staff members, advisors, and contributors to all three parts of the Britannica. Taken together, the and comprise roughly 40 million words and 24,000 images. The two-volume index has 2,350 pages, listing the 228,274 topics covered in the Britannica, together with 474,675 subentries under those topics. The Britannica generally prefers British spelling over American; for example, it uses colour (not color), centre (not center), and encyclopaedia (not encyclopedia). However, there are exceptions to this rule, such as defense rather than defence. Common alternative spellings are provided with cross-references such as "Color: see Colour." Since 1936, the articles of the Britannica have been revised on a regular schedule, with at least 10% of them considered for revision each year. According to one Britannica website, 46% of its articles were revised over the past three years; however, according to another Britannica website, only 35% of the articles were revised. The alphabetization of articles in the and follows strict rules. Diacritical marks and non-English letters are ignored, while numerical entries such as "1812, War of" are alphabetized as if the number had been written out ("Eighteen-twelve, War of"). Articles with identical names are ordered first by persons, then by places, then by things. Rulers with identical names are organized first alphabetically by country and then by chronology; thus, Charles III of France precedes Charles I of England, listed in Britannica as the ruler of Great Britain and Ireland. (That is, they are alphabetized as if their titles were "Charles, France, 3" and "Charles, Great Britain and Ireland, 1".) Similarly, places that share names are organized alphabetically by country, then by ever-smaller political divisions. In March 2012, the company announced that the 2010 edition would be the last printed version. This was announced as a move by the company to adapt to the times and focus on its future using digital distribution. The peak year for the printed encyclopaedia was 1990 when 120,000 sets were sold, but it dropped to 40,000 in 1996. 12,000 sets of the 2010 edition were printed, of which 8,000 had been sold . By late April 2012, the remaining copies of the 2010 edition had sold out at Britannica's online store. , a replica of Britannica's 1768 first edition is sold on the online store. Related printed material Britannica Junior was first published in 1934 as 12 volumes. It was expanded to 15 volumes in 1947, and renamed Britannica Junior Encyclopædia in 1963. It was taken off the market after the 1984 printing. A British Children's Britannica edited by John Armitage was issued in London in 1960. Its contents were determined largely by the eleven-plus standardized tests given in Britain. Britannica introduced the Children's Britannica to the US market in 1988, aimed at ages seven to 14. In 1961, a 16 volume Young Children's Encyclopaedia was issued for children just learning to read. My First Britannica is aimed at children ages six to 12, and the Britannica Discovery Library is for children aged three to six (issued 1974 to 1991). There have been, and are, several abridged Britannica encyclopaedias. The single-volume Britannica Concise Encyclopædia has 28,000 short articles condensing the larger 32-volume Britannica; there are authorized translations in languages such as Chinese and Vietnamese. Compton's by Britannica, first published in 2007, incorporating the former Compton's Encyclopedia, is aimed at 10- to 17-year-olds and consists of 26 volumes and 11,000 pages. Since 1938, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. has published annually a Book of the Year covering the past year's events. A given edition of the Book of the Year is named in terms of the year of its publication, though the edition actually covers the events of the previous year. The company also publishes several specialized reference works, such as Shakespeare: The Essential Guide to the Life and Works of the Bard (Wiley, 2006). Optical disc, online, and mobile versions The Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite 2012 DVD contains over 100,000 articles. This includes regular Britannica articles, as well as others drawn from the Britannica Student Encyclopædia, and the Britannica Elementary Encyclopædia. The package includes a range of supplementary content including maps, videos, sound clips, animations and web links. It also offers study tools and dictionary and thesaurus entries from Merriam-Webster. Britannica Online is a website with more than 120,000 articles and is updated regularly. It has daily features, updates and links to news reports from The New York Times and the BBC. , roughly 60% of Encyclopædia Britannica's revenue came from online operations, of which around 15% came from subscriptions to the consumer version of the websites. , subscriptions were available on a yearly, monthly or weekly basis. Special subscription plans are offered to schools, colleges and libraries; such institutional subscribers constitute an important part of Britannica's business. Beginning in early 2007, the Britannica made articles freely available if they are hyperlinked from an external site. Non-subscribers are served pop-ups and advertising. On 20 February 2007, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced that it was working with mobile phone search company AskMeNow to launch a mobile encyclopaedia. Users will be able to send a question via text message, and AskMeNow will search Britannica 28,000-article concise encyclopaedia to return an answer to the query. Daily topical features sent directly to users' mobile phones are also planned. On 3 June 2008, an initiative to facilitate collaboration between online expert and amateur scholarly contributors for Britannica's online content (in the spirit of a wiki), with editorial oversight from Britannica staff, was announced. Approved contributions would be credited, though contributing automatically grants Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. perpetual, irrevocable license to those contributions. On 22 January 2009, Britannica's president, Jorge Cauz, announced that the company would be accepting edits and additions to the online Britannica website from the public. The published edition of the encyclopaedia will not be affected by the changes. Individuals wishing to edit the Britannica website will have to register under their real name and address prior to editing or submitting their content. All edits submitted will be reviewed and checked and will have to be approved by the encyclopaedia's professional staff. Contributions from non-academic users will sit in a separate section from the expert-generated Britannica content, as will content submitted by non-Britannica scholars. Articles written by users, if vetted and approved, will also only be available in a special section of the website, separate from the professional articles. Official Britannica material would carry a "Britannica Checked" stamp, to distinguish it from the user-generated content. On 14 September 2010, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced a partnership with mobile phone development company Concentric Sky to launch a series of iPhone products aimed at the K-12 market. On 20 July 2011, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced that Concentric Sky had ported the Britannica Kids product line to Intel's Intel Atom-based Netbooks and on 26 October 2011 that it had launched its encyclopedia as an iPad app. In 2010, Britannica released Britannica ImageQuest, a database of images. In March 2012, it was announced that the company would cease printing the encyclopaedia set, and that it would focus more on its online version. On 7 June 2018, Britannica released a Google Chrome extension, Britannica Insights, which shows snippets of information from Britannica Online in a sidebar for Google Search results. The Britannica sidebar does not replace Google's sidebar and is instead placed above Google's sidebar. Britannica Insights was also available as a Firefox extension but this was taken down due to a code review issue. Personnel and management Contributors The print version of the Britannica has 4,411 contributors, many eminent in their fields, such as Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman, astronomer Carl Sagan, and surgeon Michael DeBakey. Roughly a quarter of the contributors are deceased, some as long ago as 1947 (Alfred North Whitehead), while another quarter are retired or emeritus. Most (approximately 98%) contribute to only a single article; however, 64 contributed to three articles, 23 contributed to four articles, 10 contributed to five articles, and 8 contributed to more than five articles. An exceptionally prolific contributor is Christine Sutton of the University of Oxford, who contributed 24 articles on particle physics. While Britannica authors have included writers such as Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, and Leon Trotsky, as well as notable independent encyclopaedists such as Isaac Asimov, some have been criticized for lack of expertise. In 1911 the historian George L. Burr wrote: Staff in the fifteenth edition of Britannica, Dale Hoiberg, a sinologist, was listed as Britannica's Senior Vice President and editor-in-chief. Among his predecessors as editors-in-chief were Hugh Chisholm (1902–1924), James Louis Garvin (1926–1932), Franklin Henry Hooper (1932–1938), Walter Yust (1938–1960), Harry Ashmore (1960–1963), Warren E. Preece (1964–1968, 1969–1975), Sir William Haley (1968–1969), Philip W. Goetz (1979–1991), and Robert McHenry (1992–1997). Anita Wolff was listed as the Deputy Editor and Theodore Pappas as Executive Editor. Prior Executive Editors include John V. Dodge (1950–1964) and Philip W. Goetz. Paul T. Armstrong remains the longest working employee of Encyclopædia Britannica. He began his career there in 1934, eventually earning the positions of treasurer, vice president, and chief financial officer in his 58 years with the company, before retiring in 1992. The 2007 editorial staff of the Britannica included five Senior Editors and nine Associate Editors, supervised by Dale Hoiberg and four others. The editorial staff helped to write the articles of the and some sections of the . Editorial advisors The Britannica has an editorial board of advisors, which includes 12 distinguished scholars: non-fiction author Nicholas Carr, religion scholar Wendy Doniger, political economist Benjamin M. Friedman, Council on Foreign Relations President Emeritus Leslie H. Gelb, computer scientist David Gelernter, Physics Nobel laureate Murray Gell-Mann, Carnegie Corporation of New York President Vartan Gregorian, philosopher Thomas Nagel, cognitive scientist Donald Norman, musicologist Don Michael Randel, Stewart Sutherland, Baron Sutherland of Houndwood, President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch. The Propædia and its Outline of Knowledge were produced by dozens of editorial advisors under the direction of Mortimer J. Adler. Roughly half of these advisors have since died, including some of the Outline's chief architects – Rene Dubos (d. 1982), Loren Eiseley (d. 1977), Harold D. Lasswell (d. 1978), Mark Van Doren (d. 1972), Peter Ritchie Calder (d. 1982) and Mortimer J. Adler (d. 2001). The also lists just under 4,000 advisors who were consulted for the unsigned articles. Corporate structure In January 1996, the Britannica was purchased from the Benton Foundation by billionaire Swiss financier Jacqui Safra, who serves as its current chair of the board. In 1997, Don Yannias, a long-time associate and investment advisor of Safra, became CEO of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. In 1999, a new company, Britannica.com Inc., was created to develop digital versions of the Britannica; Yannias assumed the role of CEO in the new company, while his former position at the parent company remained vacant for two years. Yannias' tenure at Britannica.com Inc. was marked by missteps, considerable lay-offs, and financial losses. In 2001, Yannias was replaced by Ilan Yeshua, who reunited the leadership of the two companies. Yannias later returned to investment management, but remains on the Britannica Board of Directors. In 2003, former management consultant Jorge Aguilar-Cauz was appointed President of Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Cauz is the senior executive and reports directly to the Britannica's Board of Directors. Cauz has been pursuing alliances with other companies and extending the Britannica brand to new educational and reference products, continuing the strategy pioneered by former CEO Elkan Harrison Powell in the mid-1930s. Under Safra's ownership, the company has experienced financial difficulties and has responded by reducing the price of its products and implementing drastic cost cuts. According to a 2003 report in the New York Post, the Britannica management has eliminated employee 401(k) accounts and encouraged the use of free images. These changes have had negative impacts, as freelance contributors have waited up to six months for checks and the Britannica staff have gone years without pay rises. In the fall of 2017, Karthik Krishnan was appointed global chief executive officer of the Encyclopædia Britannica Group. Krishnan brought a varied perspective to the role based on several high-level positions in digital media, including RELX (formerly known as Reed Elsevier, and one of the constituents of the FTSE 100 Index) and Rodale, in which he was responsible for "driving business and cultural transformation and accelerating growth". Taking the reins of the company as it was preparing to mark its 250th anniversary and define the next phase of its digital strategy for consumers and K-12 schools, Krishnan launched a series of new initiatives in his first year. First was Britannica Insights, a free, downloadable software extension to the Google Chrome browser that served up edited, fact-checked Britannica information with queries on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Its purpose, the company said, was to "provide trusted, verified information" in conjunction with search results that were thought to be increasingly unreliable in the era of misinformation and "fake news." The product was quickly followed by Britannica School Insights, which provided similar content for subscribers to Britannica's online classroom solutions, and a partnership with YouTube in which verified Britannica content appeared on the site as an antidote to user-generated video content that could be false or misleading.   Krishnan, himself an educator at New York University's Stern School of Business, believes in the "transformative power of education" and set steering the company toward solidifying its place among leaders in educational technology and supplemental curriculum. Krishnan aimed at providing more useful and relevant solutions to customer needs, extending and renewing Britannica's historical emphasis on "Utility", which had been the watchword of its first edition in 1768. Krishnan also is active in civic affairs, with organizations such as the Urban Enterprise Initiative and Urban Upbound, whose board he serves on. Competition As the Britannica is a general encyclopaedia, it does not seek to compete with specialized encyclopaedias such as the Encyclopaedia of Mathematics or the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, which can devote much more space to their chosen topics. In its first years, the Britannica main competitor was the general encyclopaedia of Ephraim Chambers and, soon thereafter, Rees's Cyclopædia and Coleridge's Encyclopædia Metropolitana. In the 20th century, successful competitors included Collier's Encyclopedia, the Encyclopedia Americana, and the World Book Encyclopedia. Nevertheless, from the 9th edition onwards, the Britannica was widely considered to have the greatest authority of any general English-language encyclopaedia, especially because of its broad coverage and eminent authors. The print version of the Britannica was significantly more expensive than its competitors. Since the early 1990s, the Britannica has faced new challenges from digital information sources. The Internet, facilitated by the development of search engines, has grown into a common source of information for many people, and provides easy access to reliable original sources and expert opinions, thanks in part to initiatives such as Google Books, MIT's release of its educational materials and the open PubMed Central library of the National Library of Medicine. In general, the Internet tends to provide more current coverage than print media, due to the ease with which material on the Internet can be updated. In rapidly changing fields such as science, technology, politics, culture and modern history, the Britannica has struggled to stay up to date, a problem first analysed systematically by its former editor Walter Yust. Eventually, the Britannica turned to focus more on its online edition. Print encyclopaedias The has been compared with other print encyclopaedias, both qualitatively and quantitatively. A well-known comparison is that of Kenneth Kister, who gave a qualitative and quantitative comparison of the Britannica with two comparable encyclopaedias, Collier's Encyclopedia and the Encyclopedia Americana. For the quantitative analysis, ten articles were selected at random—circumcision, Charles Drew, Galileo, Philip Glass, heart disease, IQ, panda bear, sexual harassment, Shroud of Turin and Uzbekistan—and letter grades of A–D or F were awarded in four categories: coverage, accuracy, clarity, and recency. In all four categories and for all three encyclopaedias, the four average grades fell between B− and B+, chiefly because none of the encyclopaedias had an article on sexual harassment in 1994. In the accuracy category, the Britannica received one "D" and seven "A"s, Encyclopedia Americana received eight "A"s, and Collier's received one "D" and seven "A"s; thus, Britannica received an average score of 92% for accuracy to Americanas 95% and Collier's 92%. In the timeliness category, Britannica averaged an 86% to Americana'''s 90% and Collier's 85%. In 2013, the President of Encyclopædia Britannica announced that after 244 years, the encyclopedia would cease print production and all future editions would be entirely digital. Digital encyclopaedias on optical media The most notable competitor of the Britannica among CD/DVD-ROM digital encyclopaedias was Encarta, now discontinued, a modern, multimedia encyclopaedia that incorporated three print encyclopaedias: Funk & Wagnalls, Collier's and the New Merit Scholar's Encyclopedia. Encarta was the top-selling multimedia encyclopaedia, based on total US retail sales from January 2000 to February 2006. Both occupied the same price range, with the 2007 Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate CD or DVD costing US$40–50 and the Microsoft Encarta Premium 2007 DVD costing US$45. The Britannica contains 100,000 articles and Merriam-Webster's Dictionary and Thesaurus (US only), and offers Primary and Secondary School editions. Encarta contained 66,000 articles, a user-friendly Visual Browser, interactive maps, math, language and homework tools, a US and UK dictionary, and a youth edition. Like Encarta, the Britannica has been criticized for being biased towards United States audiences; the United Kingdom-related articles are updated less often, maps of the United States are more detailed than those of other countries, and it lacks a UK dictionary. Like the Britannica, Encarta was available online by subscription, although some content could be accessed free. Internet encyclopaedias The dominant internet encyclopaedia and main alternative to Britannica is Wikipedia. The key differences between the two lie in accessibility; the model of participation they bring to an encyclopedic project; their respective style sheets and editorial policies; relative ages; the number of subjects treated; the number of languages in which articles are written and made available; and their underlying economic models: unlike Britannica, Wikipedia is a not-for-profit and is not connected with traditional profit- and contract-based publishing distribution networks. The 699 printed articles are generally written by identified contributors, and the roughly 65,000 printed articles are the work of the editorial staff and identified outside consultants. Thus, a Britannica article either has known authorship or a set of possible authors (the editorial staff). With the exception of the editorial staff, most of the Britannica contributors are experts in their field—some are Nobel laureates. By contrast, the articles of Wikipedia are written by people of unknown degrees of expertise: most do not claim any particular expertise, and of those who do, many are anonymous and have no verifiable credentials. It is for this lack of institutional vetting, or certification, that former Britannica editor-in-chief Robert McHenry notes his belief that Wikipedia cannot hope to rival the Britannica in accuracy. In 2005, the journal Nature chose articles from both websites in a wide range of science topics and sent them to what it called "relevant" field experts for peer review. The experts then compared the competing articles—one from each site on a given topic—side by side, but were not told which article came from which site. Nature got back 42 usable reviews. In the end, the journal found just eight serious errors, such as general misunderstandings of vital concepts: four from each site. It also discovered many factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 in Wikipedia and 123 in Britannica, an average of 3.86 mistakes per article for Wikipedia and 2.92 for Britannica. Although Britannica was revealed as the more accurate encyclopedia, with fewer errors, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. in its detailed 20-page rebuttal called Nature's study flawed and misleading and called for a "prompt" retraction. It noted that two of the articles in the study were taken from a Britannica yearbook and not the encyclopaedia, and another two were from Compton's Encyclopedia (called the Britannica Student Encyclopedia on the company's website). The rebuttal went on to mention that some of the articles presented to reviewers were combinations of several articles, and that other articles were merely excerpts but were penalized for factual omissions. The company also noted that several of what Nature called errors were minor spelling variations, and that others were matters of interpretation. Nature defended its story and declined to retract, stating that, as it was comparing Wikipedia with the web version of Britannica, it used whatever relevant material was available on Britannicas website. Interviewed in February 2009, the managing director of Britannica UK said: In a January 2016 press release, Britannica called Wikipedia "an impressive achievement." Critical and popular assessments Reputation Since the 3rd edition, the Britannica has enjoyed a popular and critical reputation for general excellence. The 3rd and the 9th editions were pirated for sale in the United States, beginning with Dobson's Encyclopaedia. On the release of the 14th edition, Time magazine dubbed the Britannica the "Patriarch of the Library". In a related advertisement, naturalist William Beebe was quoted as saying that the Britannica was "beyond comparison because there is no competitor." References to the Britannica can be found throughout English literature, most notably in one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's favourite Sherlock Holmes stories, "The Red-Headed League". The tale was highlighted by the Lord Mayor of London, Gilbert Inglefield, at the bicentennial of the Britannica. The Britannica has a reputation for summarising knowledge. To further their education, some people have devoted themselves to reading the entire Britannica, taking anywhere from three to 22 years to do so. When Fat'h Ali became the Shah of Persia in 1797, he was given a set of the Britannica's 3rd edition, which he read completely; after this feat, he extended his royal title to include "Most Formidable Lord and Master of the ". Writer George Bernard Shaw claimed to have read the complete 9th edition—except for the science articles—and Richard Evelyn Byrd took the Britannica as reading material for his five-month stay at the South Pole in 1934, while Philip Beaver read it during a sailing expedition. More recently, A.J. Jacobs, an editor at Esquire magazine, read the entire 2002 version of the 15th edition, describing his experiences in the well-received 2004 book, The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World. Only two people are known to have read two independent editions: the author C. S. Forester and Amos Urban Shirk, an American businessman who read the 11th and 14th editions, devoting roughly three hours per night for four and a half years to read the 11th. Elon Musk read the Britannica twice. Several editors-in-chief of the Britannica are likely to have read their editions completely, such as William Smellie (1st edition), William Robertson Smith (9th edition), and Walter Yust (14th edition). Awards The CD/DVD-ROM version of the Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, received the 2004 Distinguished Achievement Award from the Association of Educational Publishers. On 15 July 2009, was awarded a spot as one of "Top Ten Superbrands in the UK" by a panel of more than 2,000 independent reviewers, as reported by the BBC. Coverage of topics Topics are chosen in part by reference to the "Outline of Knowledge". The bulk of the Britannica is devoted to geography (26% of the ), biography (14%), biology and medicine (11%), literature (7%), physics and astronomy (6%), religion (5%), art (4%), Western philosophy (4%), and law (3%). A complementary study of the found that geography accounted for 25% of articles, science 18%, social sciences 17%, biography 17%, and all other humanities 25%. Writing in 1992, one reviewer judged that the "range, depth, and catholicity of coverage [of the Britannica] are unsurpassed by any other general Encyclopaedia." The Britannica does not cover topics in equivalent detail; for example, the whole of Buddhism and most other religions is covered in a single article, whereas 14 articles are devoted to Christianity, comprising nearly half of all religion articles. However, the Britannica has been lauded as the least biased of general Encyclopaedias marketed to Western readers and praised for its biographies of important women of all eras. Criticism of editorial decisions On rare occasions, the Britannica has been criticized for its editorial choices. Given its roughly constant size, the encyclopaedia has needed to reduce or eliminate some topics to accommodate others, resulting in controversial decisions. The initial 15th edition (1974–1985) was faulted for having reduced or eliminated coverage of children's literature, military decorations, and the French poet Joachim du Bellay; editorial mistakes were also alleged, such as inconsistent sorting of Japanese biographies. Its elimination of the index was condemned, as was the apparently arbitrary division of articles into the and . Summing up, one critic called the initial 15th edition a "qualified failure...[that] cares more for juggling its format than for preserving." More recently, reviewers from the American Library Association were surprised to find that most educational articles had been eliminated from the 1992 , along with the article on psychology. Some very few Britannica-appointed contributors are mistaken. A notorious instance from the Britannica's early years is the rejection of Newtonian gravity by George Gleig, the chief editor of the 3rd edition (1788–1797), who wrote that gravity was caused by the classical element of fire. The Britannica has also staunchly defended a scientific approach to cultural topics, as it did with William Robertson Smith's articles on religion in the 9th edition, particularly his article stating that the Bible was not historically accurate (1875). Other criticisms The Britannica has received criticism, especially as editions become outdated. It is expensive to produce a completely new edition of the Britannica, and its editors delay for as long as fiscally sensible (usually about 25 years). For example, despite continuous revision, the 14th edition became outdated after 35 years (1929–1964). When American physicist Harvey Einbinder detailed its failings in his 1964 book, The Myth of the Britannica, the encyclopaedia was provoked to produce the 15th edition, which required 10 years of work. It is still difficult to keep the Britannica current; one recent critic writes, "it is not difficult to find articles that are out-of-date or in need of revision", noting that the longer articles are more likely to be outdated than the shorter articles. Information in the is sometimes inconsistent with the corresponding article(s), mainly because of the failure to update one or the other. The bibliographies of the articles have been criticized for being more out-of-date than the articles themselves. In 2005, 12-year-old schoolboy Lucian George found several inaccuracies in the Britannica‘s entries on Poland and wildlife in Eastern Europe. In 2010, an inaccurate entry about the Irish Civil War was discussed in the Irish press following a decision of the Department of Education and Science to pay for online access.Sheehy, Clodagh (4 February 2010). "Are they taking the Mick? It's the encyclopedia that thinks the Civil War was between the north and south" . Evening Herald (Dublin). Writing about the 3rd edition (1788–1797), Britannicas chief editor George Gleig observed that "perfection seems to be incompatible with the nature of works constructed on such a plan, and embracing such a variety of subjects." In March 2006, the Britannica wrote, "we in no way mean to imply that Britannica is error-free; we have never made such a claim" (although in 1962 Britannica's sales department famously said of the 14th edition "It is truth. It is unquestionable fact.") The sentiment is expressed by its original editor, William Smellie: However, Jorge Cauz (president of Encyclopædia Britannica Inc.) asserted in 2012 that "Britannica [...] will always be factually correct." History Past owners have included, in chronological order, the Edinburgh, Scotland printers Colin Macfarquhar and Andrew Bell, Scottish bookseller Archibald Constable, Scottish publisher A & C Black, Horace Everett Hooper, Sears Roebuck and William Benton. The present owner of Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. is Jacqui Safra, a Brazilian billionaire and actor. Recent advances in information technology and the rise of electronic encyclopaedias such as Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, Encarta and Wikipedia have reduced the demand for print encyclopaedias. To remain competitive, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. has stressed the reputation of the Britannica, reduced its price and production costs, and developed electronic versions on CD-ROM, DVD, and the World Wide Web. Since the early 1930s, the company has promoted spin-off reference works. Editions The Britannica has been issued in 15 editions, with multi-volume supplements to the 3rd and 4th editions (see the Table below). The 5th and 6th editions were reprints of the 4th, the 10th edition was only a supplement to the 9th, just as the 12th and 13th editions were supplements to the 11th. The 15th underwent massive reorganization in 1985, but the updated, current version is still known as the 15th. The 14th and 15th editions were edited every year throughout their runs, so that later printings of each were entirely different from early ones. Throughout history, the Britannica has had two aims: to be an excellent reference book, and to provide educational material. In 1974, the 15th edition adopted a third goal: to systematize all human knowledge. The history of the Britannica can be divided into five eras, punctuated by changes in management, or reorganization of the dictionary. 1768–1826 In the first era (1st–6th editions, 1768–1826), the Britannica was managed and published by its founders, Colin Macfarquhar and Andrew Bell, by Archibald Constable, and by others. The Britannica was first published between December 1768 and 1771 in Edinburgh as the Encyclopædia Britannica, or, A Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, compiled upon a New Plan. In part, it was conceived in reaction to the French Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert (published 1751–72), which had been inspired by Chambers's Cyclopaedia (first edition 1728). It went on sale 10 December. The Britannica of this period was primarily a Scottish enterprise, and it is one of the most enduring legacies of the Scottish Enlightenment. In this era, the Britannica moved from being a three-volume set (1st edition) compiled by one young editor—William Smellie—to a 20-volume set written by numerous authorities. Several other encyclopaedias competed throughout this period, among them editions of Abraham Rees's Cyclopædia and Coleridge's Encyclopædia Metropolitana and David Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopædia. 1827–1901 During the second era (7th–9th editions, 1827–1901), the Britannica was managed by the Edinburgh publishing firm A & C Black. Although some contributors were again recruited through friendships of the chief editors, notably Macvey Napier, others were attracted by the Britannica's reputation. The contributors often came from other countries and included the world's most respected authorities in their fields. A general index of all articles was included for the first time in the 7th edition, a practice maintained until 1974. Production of the 9th edition was overseen by Thomas Spencer Baynes, the first English-born editor-in-chief. Dubbed the "Scholar's Edition", the 9th edition is the most scholarly of all Britannicas. After 1880, Baynes was assisted by William Robertson Smith. No biographies of living persons were included. James Clerk Maxwell and Thomas Huxley were special advisors on science. However, by the close of the 19th century, the 9th edition was outdated, and the Britannica faced financial difficulties. 1901–1973 In the third era (10th–14th editions, 1901–1973), the Britannica was managed by American businessmen who introduced direct marketing and door-to-door sales. The American owners gradually simplified articles, making them less scholarly for a mass market. The 10th edition was an eleven-volume supplement (including one each of maps and an index) to the 9th, numbered as volumes 25–35, but the 11th edition was a completely new work, and is still praised for excellence; its owner, Horace Hooper, lavished enormous effort on its perfection. When Hooper fell into financial difficulties, the Britannica was managed by Sears Roebuck for 18 years (1920–1923, 1928–1943). In 1932, the vice-president of Sears, Elkan Harrison Powell, assumed presidency of the Britannica; in 1936, he began the policy of continuous revision. This was a departure from earlier practice, in which the articles were not changed until a new edition was produced, at roughly 25-year intervals, some articles unchanged from earlier editions. Powell developed new educational products that built upon the Britannicas reputation. In 1943, Sears donated the to the University of Chicago. William Benton, then a vice president of the university, provided the working capital for its operation. The stock was divided between Benton and the university, with the university holding an option on the stock. Benton became chairman of the board and managed the Britannica until his death in 1973. Benton set up the Benton Foundation, which managed the Britannica until 1996, and whose sole beneficiary was the University of Chicago. In 1968, near the end of this era, the Britannica celebrated its bicentennial. 1974–1994 In the fourth era (1974–94), the Britannica introduced its 15th edition, which was reorganized into three parts: the , the , and the . Under Mortimer J. Adler (member of the Board of Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica since its inception in 1949, and its chair from 1974; director of editorial planning for the 15th edition of Britannica from 1965), the Britannica sought not only to be a good reference work and educational tool, but to systematize all human knowledge. The absence of a separate index and the grouping of articles into parallel encyclopaedias (the and ) provoked a "firestorm of criticism" of the initial 15th edition. In response, the 15th edition was completely reorganized and indexed for a re-release in 1985. This second version of the 15th edition continued to be published and revised until the 2010 print version. The official title of the 15th edition is the New Encyclopædia Britannica, although it has also been promoted as Britannica 3. On 9 March 1976 the US Federal Trade Commission entered an opinion and order enjoining Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. from using: a) deceptive advertising practices in recruiting sales agents and obtaining sales leads, and b) deceptive sales practices in the door-to-door presentations of its sales agents. 1994–present In the fifth era (1994–present), digital versions have been developed and released on optical media and online. In 1996, the Britannica was bought by Jacqui Safra at well below its estimated value, owing to the company's financial difficulties. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. split in 1999. One part retained the company name and developed the print version, and the other, Britannica.com Inc., developed digital versions. Since 2001, the two companies have shared a CEO, Ilan Yeshua, who has continued Powell's strategy of introducing new products with the Britannica name. In March 2012, Britannica's president, Jorge Cauz, announced that it would not produce any new print editions of the encyclopaedia, with the 2010 15th edition being the last. The company will focus only on the online edition and other educational tools.Britannicas final print edition was in 2010, a 32-volume set. Britannica Global Edition was also printed in 2010, containing 30 volumes and 18,251 pages, with 8,500 photographs, maps, flags, and illustrations in smaller "compact" volumes, as well as over 40,000 articles written by scholars from across the world, including Nobel Prize winners. Unlike the 15th edition, it did not contain and sections, but ran A through Z as all editions up through the 14th had. The following is Britannicas description of the work: In 2020, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. released the Britannica All New Children's Encyclopedia: What We Know and What We Don't, an encyclopedia aimed primarily at younger readers, covering major topics. The encyclopedia was widely praised for bringing back the print format. It was Britannica's first encyclopedia for children since 1984. Dedications The Britannica was dedicated to the reigning British monarch from 1788 to 1901 and then, upon its sale to an American partnership, to the British monarch and the President of the United States. Thus, the 11th edition is "dedicated by Permission to His Majesty George the Fifth, King of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Emperor of India, and to William Howard Taft, President of the United States of America." The order of the dedications has changed with the relative power of the United States and Britain, and with relative sales; the 1954 version of the 14th edition is "Dedicated by Permission to the Heads of the Two English-Speaking Peoples, Dwight David Eisenhower, President of the United States of America, and Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Second." Consistent with this tradition, the 2007 version of the current 15th edition was "dedicated by permission to the current President of the United States of America, George W. Bush, and Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II", while the 2010 version of the current 15th edition is "dedicated by permission to Barack Obama, President of the United States of America, and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II." Edition summary See also Encyclopædia Britannica Films Great Books of the Western World List of encyclopedias by branch of knowledge List of encyclopedias by date List of online encyclopedias Notes References Further reading Boyles, Denis. (2016) Everything Explained That Is Explainable: On the Creation of the Encyclopædia Britannicas Celebrated Eleventh Edition, 1910–1911 (2016) online review Greenstein, Shane, and Michelle Devereux (2006). "The Crisis at Encyclopædia Britannica" case history, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Lee, Timothy. Techdirt Interviews Britannica President Jorge Cauz'', Techdirt.com, 2 June 2008 External links Encyclopaedia Britannica at the National Library of Scotland, first ten editions (and supplements) in PDF format. Encyclopaedia Britannica at the Online Books Page, currently including the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th and 11th editions in multiple formats. 3rd edition, (1797, first volume, use search facility for others) at Bavarian State Library MDZ-Reader | Band | Encyclopaedia Britannica; or, a dictionary of arts, sciences, and miscellaneous literature | Encyclopaedia Britannica; or, a dictionary of arts, sciences, and miscellaneous literature 7th edition (1842), fulltext via Hathi Trust 8th edition (1860, index volume, use search facility for others) at Bavarian State Library MDZ-Reader | Band | The Encyclopaedia Britannica, or Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature | The Encyclopaedia Britannica, or Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature Scribner's 9th Edition (1878) archive.org 9th and 10th (1902) editions 1902Encyclopedia.com 1768 books 1768 establishments in Scotland American encyclopedias English-language encyclopedias History of Edinburgh Publications established in 1768 Scottish Enlightenment Scottish encyclopedias American online encyclopedias British online encyclopedias

The European Parliament (EP) is one of three legislative branches of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts European legislation, commonly on the proposal of the European Commission. The Parliament is composed of 705 members (MEPs). It represents the second-largest democratic electorate in the world (after the Parliament of India) and the largest trans-national democratic electorate in the world (375 million eligible voters in 2009). Since 1979, the Parliament has been directly elected every five years by the citizens of the European Union through universal suffrage. Voter turnout in parliamentary elections decreased each time after 1979 until 2019, when voter turnout increased by eight percentage points, and went above 50% for the first time since 1994. The voting age is 18 in all member states except for Malta and Austria, where it is 16, and Greece, where it is 17. Although the European Parliament has legislative power, as does the Council, it does not formally possess the right of initiative as most national parliaments of the member states do, right of initiative being a prerogative of the European Commission. The Parliament is the "first institution" of the European Union (mentioned first in its treaties and having ceremonial precedence over the other EU institutions), and shares equal legislative and budgetary powers with the Council (except on a few issues where the special legislative procedures apply). It likewise has equal control over the EU budget. Ultimately, the European Commission, which serves as the executive branch of the EU, is accountable to Parliament. In particular, Parliament can decide whether or not to approve the European Council's nominee for President of the Commission, and is further tasked with approving (or rejecting) the appointment of the Commission as a whole. It can subsequently force the current Commission to resign by adopting a motion of censure. The president of the European Parliament is the body's speaker, and presides over the multi-party chamber. The five largest groups being the European People's Party Group (EPP), the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), Renew Europe (previously ALDE), the Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens–EFA) and Identity and Democracy (ID). The last EU-wide election was held in 2019. The Parliament is headquartered in Strasbourg, France, and has its administrative offices in Luxembourg City. Plenary sessions take place in Strasbourg as well as in Brussels, Belgium, while the Parliament's committee meetings are held primarily in Brussels. History The Parliament, like the other institutions, was not designed in its current form when it first met on 10 September 1952. One of the oldest common institutions, it began as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). It was a consultative assembly of 78 appointed parliamentarians drawn from the national parliaments of member states, having no legislative powers. The change since its foundation was highlighted by Professor David Farrell of the University of Manchester: "For much of its life, the European Parliament could have been justly labelled a 'multi-lingual talking shop'." Its development since its foundation shows how the European Union's structures have evolved without a clear 'master plan'. Tom Reid of The Washington Post, has said of the union that "nobody would have deliberately designed a government as complex and as redundant as the EU". Even the Parliament's two seats, which have switched several times, are a result of various agreements or lack of agreements. Although most MEPs would prefer to be based just in Brussels, at John Major's 1992 Edinburgh summit, France engineered a treaty amendment to maintain Parliament's plenary seat permanently at Strasbourg. Consultative assembly The body was not mentioned in the original Schuman Declaration. It was assumed or hoped that difficulties with the British would be resolved to allow the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to perform the task. A separate Assembly was introduced during negotiations on the Treaty as an institution which would counterbalance and monitor the executive while providing democratic legitimacy. The wording of the ECSC Treaty demonstrated the leaders' desire for more than a normal consultative assembly by using the term "representatives of the people" and allowed for direct election. Its early importance was highlighted when the Assembly was given the task of drawing up the draft treaty to establish a European Political Community. By this document, the Ad Hoc Assembly was established on 13 September 1952 with extra members, but after the failure of the negotiated and proposed European Defence Community (French parliament veto) the project was dropped. Despite this, the European Economic Community and Euratom were established in 1958 by the Treaties of Rome. The Common Assembly was shared by all three communities (which had separate executives) and it renamed itself the European Parliamentary Assembly. The first meeting was held on 19 March 1958 having been set up in Luxembourg City, it elected Schuman as its president and on 13 May it rearranged itself to sit according to political ideology rather than nationality. This is seen as the birth of the modern European Parliament, with Parliament's 50 years celebrations being held in March 2008 rather than 2002. The three communities merged their remaining organs as the European Communities in 1967, and the body's name was changed to the current "European Parliament" in 1962. In 1970 the Parliament was granted power over areas of the Communities' budget, which were expanded to the whole budget in 1975. Under the Rome Treaties, the Parliament should have become elected. However, the Council was required to agree a uniform voting system beforehand, which it failed to do. The Parliament threatened to take the Council to the European Court of Justice; this led to a compromise whereby the Council would agree to elections, but the issue of voting systems would be put off until a later date. Elected Parliament In 1979, its members were directly elected for the first time. This sets it apart from similar institutions such as those of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe or Pan-African Parliament which are appointed. After that first election, the parliament held its first session on 17 July 1979, electing Simone Veil MEP as its president. Veil was also the first female president of the Parliament since it was formed as the Common Assembly. As an elected body, the Parliament began to draft proposals addressing the functioning of the EU. For example, in 1984, inspired by its previous work on the Political Community, it drafted the "draft Treaty establishing the European Union" (also known as the 'Spinelli Plan' after its rapporteur Altiero Spinelli MEP). Although it was not adopted, many ideas were later implemented by other treaties. Furthermore, the Parliament began holding votes on proposed Commission Presidents from the 1980s, before it was given any formal right to veto. Since it became an elected body, the membership of the European Parliament has simply expanded whenever new nations have joined (the membership was also adjusted upwards in 1994 after German reunification). Following this, the Treaty of Nice imposed a cap on the number of members to be elected: 732. Like the other institutions, the Parliament's seat was not yet fixed. The provisional arrangements placed Parliament in Strasbourg, while the Commission and Council had their seats in Brussels. In 1985 the Parliament, wishing to be closer to these institutions, built a second chamber in Brussels and moved some of its work there despite protests from some states. A final agreement was eventually reached by the European Council in 1992. It stated the Parliament would retain its formal seat in Strasbourg, where twelve sessions a year would be held, but with all other parliamentary activity in Brussels. This two-seat arrangement was contested by the Parliament, but was later enshrined in the Treaty of Amsterdam. To this day the institution's locations are a source of contention. The Parliament gained more powers from successive treaties, namely through the extension of the ordinary legislative procedure (then called the codecision procedure), and in 1999, the Parliament forced the resignation of the Santer Commission. The Parliament had refused to approve the Community budget over allegations of fraud and mis-management in the Commission. The two main parties took on a government-opposition dynamic for the first time during the crisis which ended in the Commission resigning en masse, the first of any forced resignation, in the face of an impending censure from the Parliament. Parliament pressure on the Commission In 2004, following the largest trans-national election in history, despite the European Council choosing a President from the largest political group (the EPP), the Parliament again exerted pressure on the Commission. During the Parliament's hearings of the proposed Commissioners MEPs raised doubts about some nominees with the Civil Liberties committee rejecting Rocco Buttiglione from the post of Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security over his views on homosexuality. That was the first time the Parliament had ever voted against an incoming Commissioner and despite Barroso's insistence upon Buttiglione the Parliament forced Buttiglione to be withdrawn. A number of other Commissioners also had to be withdrawn or reassigned before Parliament allowed the Barroso Commission to take office. Along with the extension of the ordinary legislative procedure, the Parliament's democratic mandate has given it greater control over legislation against the other institutions. In voting on the Bolkestein directive in 2006, the Parliament voted by a large majority for over 400 amendments that changed the fundamental principle of the law. The Financial Times described it in the following terms: In 2007, for the first time, Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini included Parliament in talks on the second Schengen Information System even though MEPs only needed to be consulted on parts of the package. After that experiment, Frattini indicated he would like to include Parliament in all justice and criminal matters, informally pre-empting the new powers they were due to gain in 2009 as part of the Treaty of Lisbon. Between 2007 and 2009, a special working group on parliamentary reform implemented a series of changes to modernise the institution such as more speaking time for rapporteurs, increase committee co-operation and other efficiency reforms. Recent history The Lisbon Treaty came into force on 1 December 2009, granting Parliament powers over the entire EU budget, making Parliament's legislative powers equal to the Council's in nearly all areas and linking the appointment of the Commission President to Parliament's own elections. Barroso gained the support of the European Council for a second term and secured majority support from the Parliament in September 2009. Parliament voted 382 votes in favour and 219 votes against (117 abstentions) with support of the European People's Party, European Conservatives and Reformists and the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. The liberals gave support after Barroso gave them a number of concessions; the liberals previously joined the socialists' call for a delayed vote (the EPP had wanted to approve Barroso in July of that year). Once Barroso put forward the candidates for his next Commission, another opportunity to gain concessions arose. Bulgarian nominee Rumiana Jeleva was forced to step down by Parliament due to concerns over her experience and financial interests. She only had the support of the EPP which began to retaliate on left wing candidates before Jeleva gave in and was replaced (setting back the final vote further). Before the final vote, Parliament demanded a number of concessions as part of a future working agreement under the new Lisbon Treaty. The deal includes that Parliament's President will attend high level Commission meetings. Parliament will have a seat in the EU's Commission-led international negotiations and have a right to information on agreements. However, Parliament secured only an observer seat. Parliament also did not secure a say over the appointment of delegation heads and special representatives for foreign policy. Although they will appear before parliament after they have been appointed by the High Representative. One major internal power was that Parliament wanted a pledge from the Commission that it would put forward legislation when parliament requests. Barroso considered this an infringement on the Commission's powers but did agree to respond within three months. Most requests are already responded to positively. During the setting up of the European External Action Service (EEAS), Parliament used its control over the EU budget to influence the shape of the EEAS. MEPs had aimed at getting greater oversight over the EEAS by linking it to the Commission and having political deputies to the High Representative. MEPs didn't manage to get everything they demanded. However, they got broader financial control over the new body. In December 2017, Politico denounced the lack of racial diversity among Members of the European Parliament. The subsequent news coverage contributed to create the Brussels So White movement. In January 2019, Conservative MEPs supported proposals to boost opportunities for women and tackle sexual harassment in the European Parliament. Powers and functions The Parliament and Council have been compared to the two chambers of a bicameral legislature. However, there are some differences from national legislatures; for example, neither the Parliament nor the Council have the power of legislative initiative (except for the fact that the Council has the power in some intergovernmental matters). In Community matters, this is a power uniquely reserved for the European Commission (the executive). Therefore, while Parliament can amend and reject legislation, to make a proposal for legislation, it needs the Commission to draft a bill before anything can become law. The value of such a power has been questioned by noting that in the national legislatures of the member states 85% of initiatives introduced without executive support fail to become law. Yet it has been argued by former Parliament president Hans-Gert Pöttering that as the Parliament does have the right to ask the Commission to draft such legislation, and as the Commission is following Parliament's proposals more and more Parliament does have a de facto right of legislative initiative. The Parliament also has a great deal of indirect influence, through non-binding resolutions and committee hearings, as a "pan-European soapbox" with the ear of thousands of Brussels-based journalists. There is also an indirect effect on foreign policy; the Parliament must approve all development grants, including those overseas. For example, the support for post-war Iraq reconstruction, or incentives for the cessation of Iranian nuclear development, must be supported by the Parliament. Parliamentary support was also required for the transatlantic passenger data-sharing deal with the United States. Finally, Parliament holds a non-binding vote on new EU treaties but cannot veto it. However, when Parliament threatened to vote down the Nice Treaty, the Belgian and Italian Parliaments said they would veto the treaty on the European Parliament's behalf. Legislative procedure With each new treaty, the powers of the Parliament, in terms of its role in the Union's legislative procedures, have expanded. The procedure which has slowly become dominant is the "ordinary legislative procedure" (previously named "codecision procedure"), which provides an equal footing between Parliament and Council. In particular, under the procedure, the Commission presents a proposal to Parliament and the Council which can only become law if both agree on a text, which they do (or not) through successive readings up to a maximum of three. In its first reading, Parliament may send amendments to the Council which can either adopt the text with those amendments or send back a "common position". That position may either be approved by Parliament, or it may reject the text by an absolute majority, causing it to fail, or it may adopt further amendments, also by an absolute majority. If the Council does not approve these, then a "Conciliation Committee" is formed. The Committee is composed of the Council members plus an equal number of MEPs who seek to agree a compromise. Once a position is agreed, it has to be approved by Parliament, by a simple majority. This is also aided by Parliament's mandate as the only directly democratic institution, which has given it leeway to have greater control over legislation than other institutions, for example over its changes to the Bolkestein directive in 2006. The few other areas that operate the special legislative procedures are justice and home affairs, budget and taxation, and certain aspects of other policy areas, such as the fiscal aspects of environmental policy. In these areas, the Council or Parliament decide law alone. The procedure also depends upon which type of institutional act is being used. The strongest act is a regulation, an act or law which is directly applicable in its entirety. Then there are directives which bind member states to certain goals which they must achieve. They do this through their own laws and hence have room to manoeuvre in deciding upon them. A decision is an instrument which is focused at a particular person or group and is directly applicable. Institutions may also issue recommendations and opinions which are merely non-binding, declarations. There is a further document which does not follow normal procedures, this is a "written declaration" which is similar to an early day motion used in the Westminster system. It is a document proposed by up to five MEPs on a matter within the EU's activities used to launch a debate on that subject. Having been posted outside the entrance to the hemicycle, members can sign the declaration and if a majority do so it is forwarded to the President and announced to the plenary before being forwarded to the other institutions and formally noted in the minutes. Budget The legislative branch officially holds the Union's budgetary authority with powers gained through the Budgetary Treaties of the 1970s and the Lisbon Treaty. The EU budget is subject to a form of the ordinary legislative procedure with a single reading giving Parliament power over the entire budget (before 2009, its influence was limited to certain areas) on an equal footing to the Council. If there is a disagreement between them, it is taken to a conciliation committee as it is for legislative proposals. If the joint conciliation text is not approved, the Parliament may adopt the budget definitively. The Parliament is also responsible for discharging the implementation of previous budgets based on the annual report of the European Court of Auditors. It has refused to approve the budget only twice, in 1984 and in 1998. On the latter occasion it led to the resignation of the Santer Commission; highlighting how the budgetary power gives Parliament a great deal of power over the Commission. Parliament also makes extensive use of its budgetary, and other powers, elsewhere; for example in the setting up of the European External Action Service, Parliament has a de facto veto over its design as it has to approve the budgetary and staff changes. Control of the executive The President of the European Commission is proposed by the European Council on the basis of the European elections to Parliament. That proposal has to be approved by the Parliament (by a simple majority) who "elect" the President according to the treaties. Following the approval of the Commission President, the members of the Commission are proposed by the President in accord with the member states. Each Commissioner comes before a relevant parliamentary committee hearing covering the proposed portfolio. They are then, as a body, approved or rejected by the Parliament. In practice, the Parliament has never voted against a President or his Commission, but it did seem likely when the Barroso Commission was put forward. The resulting pressure forced the proposal to be withdrawn and changed to be more acceptable to parliament. That pressure was seen as an important sign by some of the evolving nature of the Parliament and its ability to make the Commission accountable, rather than being a rubber stamp for candidates. Furthermore, in voting on the Commission, MEPs also voted along party lines, rather than national lines, despite frequent pressure from national governments on their MEPs. This cohesion and willingness to use the Parliament's power ensured greater attention from national leaders, other institutions and the public who previously gave the lowest ever turnout for the Parliament's elections. The Parliament also has the power to censure the Commission if they have a two-thirds majority which will force the resignation of the entire Commission from office. As with approval, this power has never been used but it was threatened to the Santer Commission, who subsequently resigned of their own accord. There are a few other controls, such as: the requirement of Commission to submit reports to the Parliament and answer questions from MEPs; the requirement of the President-in-office of the Council to present its programme at the start of their presidency; the obligation on the President of the European Council to report to Parliament after each of its meetings; the right of MEPs to make requests for legislation and policy to the Commission; and the right to question members of those institutions (e.g. "Commission Question Time" every Tuesday). At present, MEPs may ask a question on any topic whatsoever, but in July 2008 MEPs voted to limit questions to those within the EU's mandate and ban offensive or personal questions. Supervisory powers The Parliament also has other powers of general supervision, mainly granted by the Maastricht Treaty. The Parliament has the power to set up a Committee of Inquiry, for example over mad cow disease or CIA detention flights the former led to the creation of the European veterinary agency. The Parliament can call other institutions to answer questions and if necessary to take them to court if they break EU law or treaties. Furthermore, it has powers over the appointment of the members of the Court of Auditors and the president and executive board of the European Central Bank. The ECB president is also obliged to present an annual report to the parliament. The European Ombudsman is elected by the Parliament, who deals with public complaints against all institutions. Petitions can also be brought forward by any EU citizen on a matter within the EU's sphere of activities. The Committee on Petitions hears cases, some 1500 each year, sometimes presented by the citizen themselves at the Parliament. While the Parliament attempts to resolve the issue as a mediator they do resort to legal proceedings if it is necessary to resolve the citizens dispute. Members The parliamentarians are known in English as Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). They are elected every five years by universal adult suffrage and sit according to political allegiance; about one third are women. Before the first direct elections, in 1979, they were appointed by their national parliaments. The Parliament has been criticized for underrepresentation of minority groups. In 2017, an estimated 17 MEPs were nonwhite, and of these, three were black, a disproportionately low number. According to activist organization European Network Against Racism, while an estimated 10% of Europe is composed of racial and ethnic minorities, only 5% of MEPs were members of such groups following the 2019 European Parliament election. Under the Lisbon Treaty, seats are allocated to each state according to population and the maximum number of members is set at 751 (however, as the President cannot vote while in the chair there will only be 750 voting members at any one time). Since 1 February 2020, 705 MEPs (including the president of the Parliament) sit in the European Parliament, the reduction in size due to the United Kingdom leaving the EU. Representation is currently limited to a maximum of 96 seats and a minimum of 6 seats per state and the seats are distributed according to "degressive proportionality", i.e., the larger the state, the more citizens are represented per MEP. As a result, Maltese and Luxembourgish voters have roughly 10x more influence per voter than citizens of the six largest countries. , Germany (80.9 million inhabitants) has 96 seats (previously 99 seats), i.e. one seat for 843,000 inhabitants. Malta (0.4 million inhabitants) has 6 seats, i.e. one seat for 70,000 inhabitants. The new system implemented under the Lisbon Treaty, including revising the seating well before elections, was intended to avoid political horse trading when the allocations have to be revised to reflect demographic changes. Pursuant to this apportionment, the constituencies are formed. In four EU member states (Belgium, Ireland, Italy and Poland), the national territory is divided into a number of constituencies. In the remaining member states, the whole country forms a single constituency. All member states hold elections to the European Parliament using various forms of proportional representation. Transitional arrangements Due to the delay in ratifying the Lisbon Treaty, the seventh parliament was elected under the lower Nice Treaty cap. A small scale treaty amendment was ratified on 29 November 2011. This amendment brought in transitional provisions to allow the 18 additional MEPs created under the Lisbon Treaty to be elected or appointed before the 2014 election. Under the Lisbon Treaty reforms, Germany was the only state to lose members from 99 to 96. However, these seats were not removed until the 2014 election. Salaries and expenses Before 2009, members received the same salary as members of their national parliament. However, from 2009 a new members statute came into force, after years of attempts, which gave all members an equal monthly pay, of €8,484.05 each in 2016, subject to a European Union tax and which can also be taxed nationally. MEPs are entitled to a pension, paid by Parliament, from the age of 63. Members are also entitled to allowances for office costs and subsistence, and travelling expenses, based on actual cost. Besides their pay, members are granted a number of privileges and immunities. To ensure their free movement to and from the Parliament, they are accorded by their own states the facilities accorded to senior officials travelling abroad and, by other state governments, the status of visiting foreign representatives. When in their own state, they have all the immunities accorded to national parliamentarians, and, in other states, they have immunity from detention and legal proceedings. However, immunity cannot be claimed when a member is found committing a criminal offence and the Parliament also has the right to strip a member of their immunity. Political groups MEPs in Parliament are organised into eight different parliamentary groups, including thirty non-attached members known as non-inscrits. The two largest groups are the European People's Party (EPP) and the Socialists & Democrats (S&D). These two groups have dominated the Parliament for much of its life, continuously holding between 50 and 70 percent of the seats between them. No single group has ever held a majority in Parliament. As a result of being broad alliances of national parties, European group parties are very decentralised and hence have more in common with parties in federal states like Germany or the United States than unitary states like the majority of the EU states. Nevertheless, the European groups were actually more cohesive than their US counterparts between 2004 and 2009. Groups are often based on a single European political party such as the European People's Party. However, they can, like the liberal group, include more than one European party as well as national parties and independents. For a group to be recognised, it needs 23 MEPs from seven different countries. Groups receive funding from the parliament. Grand coalition Given that the Parliament does not form the government in the traditional sense of a Parliamentary system, its politics have developed along more consensual lines rather than majority rule of competing parties and coalitions. Indeed, for much of its life it has been dominated by a grand coalition of the European People's Party and the Party of European Socialists. The two major parties tend to co-operate to find a compromise between their two groups leading to proposals endorsed by huge majorities. However, this does not always produce agreement, and each may instead try to build other alliances, the EPP normally with other centre-right or right wing Groups and the PES with centre-left or left wing groups. Sometimes, the Liberal Group is then in the pivotal position. There are also occasions where very sharp party political divisions have emerged, for example over the resignation of the Santer Commission. When the initial allegations against the Commission emerged, they were directed primarily against Édith Cresson and Manuel Marín, both socialist members. When the parliament was considering refusing to discharge the Community budget, President Jacques Santer stated that a no vote would be tantamount to a vote of no confidence. The Socialist group supported the Commission and saw the issue as an attempt by the EPP to discredit their party ahead of the 1999 elections. Socialist leader, Pauline Green MEP, attempted a vote of confidence and the EPP put forward counter motions. During this period the two parties took on similar roles to a government-opposition dynamic, with the Socialists supporting the executive and EPP renouncing its previous coalition support and voting it down. Politicisation such as this has been increasing, in 2007 Simon Hix of the London School of Economics noted that: During the fifth term, 1999 to 2004, there was a break in the grand coalition resulting in a centre-right coalition between the Liberal and People's parties. This was reflected in the Presidency of the Parliament with the terms being shared between the EPP and the ELDR, rather than the EPP and Socialists. In the following term the liberal group grew to hold 88 seats, the largest number of seats held by any third party in Parliament. Elections Elections have taken place, directly in every member state, every five years since 1979. there have been nine elections. When a nation joins mid-term, a by-election will be held to elect their representatives. This has happened six times, most recently when Croatia joined in 2013. Elections take place across four days according to local custom and, apart from having to be proportional, the electoral system is chosen by the member state. This includes allocation of sub-national constituencies; while most members have a national list, some, like the UK and Poland, divide their allocation between regions. Seats are allocated to member states according to their population, since 2014 with no state having more than 96, but no fewer than 6, to maintain proportionality. The most recent Union-wide elections to the European Parliament were the European elections of 2019, held from 23 to 26 May 2019. They were the largest simultaneous transnational elections ever held anywhere in the world. The first session of the ninth parliament started 2 July 2019. European political parties have the exclusive right to campaign during the European elections (as opposed to their corresponding EP groups). There have been a number of proposals designed to attract greater public attention to the elections. One such innovation in the 2014 elections was that the pan-European political parties fielded "candidates" for president of the Commission, the so-called Spitzenkandidaten (German, "leading candidates" or "top candidates"). However, European Union governance is based on a mixture of intergovernmental and supranational features: the President of the European Commission is nominated by the European Council, representing the governments of the member states, and there is no obligation for them to nominate the successful "candidate". The Lisbon Treaty merely states that they should take account of the results of the elections when choosing whom to nominate. The so-called Spitzenkandidaten were Jean-Claude Juncker for the European People's Party, Martin Schulz for the Party of European Socialists, Guy Verhofstadt for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party, Ska Keller and José Bové jointly for the European Green Party and Alexis Tsipras for the Party of the European Left. Turnout dropped consistently every year since the first election, and from 1999 until 2019 was below 50%. In 2007 both Bulgaria and Romania elected their MEPs in by-elections, having joined at the beginning of 2007. The Bulgarian and Romanian elections saw two of the lowest turnouts for European elections, just 28.6% and 28.3% respectively. This trend was interrupted in the 2019 election, when turnout increased by 8% EU-wide, rising to 50.6%, the highest since 1994. In England, Scotland and Wales, EP elections were originally held for a constituency MEP on a first-past-the-post basis. In 1999 the system was changed to a form of proportional representation where a large group of candidates stand for a post within a very large regional constituency. One can vote for a party, but not a candidate (unless that party has a single candidate). Proceedings Each year the activities of the Parliament cycle between committee weeks where reports are discussed in committees and interparliamentary delegations meet, political group weeks for members to discuss work within their political groups and session weeks where members spend 3½ days in Strasbourg for part-sessions. In addition six 2-day part-sessions are organised in Brussels throughout the year. Four weeks are allocated as constituency week to allow members to do exclusively constituency work. Finally there are no meetings planned during the summer weeks. The Parliament has the power to meet without being convened by another authority. Its meetings are partly controlled by the treaties but are otherwise up to Parliament according to its own "Rules of Procedure" (the regulations governing the parliament). During sessions, members may speak after being called on by the President. Members of the Council or Commission may also attend and speak in debates. Partly due to the need for interpretation, and the politics of consensus in the chamber, debates tend to be calmer and more polite than, say, the Westminster system. Voting is conducted primarily by a show of hands, that may be checked on request by electronic voting. Votes of MEPs are not recorded in either case, however; that only occurs when there is a roll-call ballot. This is required for the final votes on legislation and also whenever a political group or 30 MEPs request it. The number of roll-call votes has increased with time. Votes can also be a completely secret ballot (for example, when the president is elected). All recorded votes, along with minutes and legislation, are recorded in the Official Journal of the European Union and can be accessed online. Votes usually do not follow a debate, but rather they are grouped with other due votes on specific occasions, usually at noon on Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays. This is because the length of the vote is unpredictable and if it continues for longer than allocated it can disrupt other debates and meetings later in the day. Members are arranged in a hemicycle according to their political groups (in the Common Assembly, prior to 1958, members sat alphabetically) who are ordered mainly by left to right, but some smaller groups are placed towards the outer ring of the Parliament. All desks are equipped with microphones, headphones for translation and electronic voting equipment. The leaders of the groups sit on the front benches at the centre, and in the very centre is a podium for guest speakers. The remaining half of the circular chamber is primarily composed of the raised area where the President and staff sit. Further benches are provided between the sides of this area and the MEPs, these are taken up by the Council on the far left and the Commission on the far right. Both the Brussels and Strasbourg hemicycle roughly follow this layout with only minor differences. The hemicycle design is a compromise between the different Parliamentary systems. The British-based system has the different groups directly facing each other while the French-based system is a semicircle (and the traditional German system had all members in rows facing a rostrum for speeches). Although the design is mainly based on a semicircle, the opposite ends of the spectrum do still face each other. With access to the chamber limited, entrance is controlled by ushers who aid MEPs in the chamber (for example in delivering documents). The ushers can also occasionally act as a form of police in enforcing the President, for example in ejecting an MEP who is disrupting the session (although this is rare). The first head of protocol in the Parliament was French, so many of the duties in the Parliament are based on the French model first developed following the French Revolution. The 180 ushers are highly visible in the Parliament, dressed in black tails and wearing a silver chain, and are recruited in the same manner as the European civil service. The President is allocated a personal usher. President and organisation The President is essentially the speaker of the Parliament and presides over the plenary when it is in session. The President's signature is required for all acts adopted by co-decision, including the EU budget. The President is also responsible for representing the Parliament externally, including in legal matters, and for the application of the rules of procedure. The President is elected for two-and-a-half-year terms, meaning two elections per parliamentary term. The current President of the European Parliament is Roberta Metsola, who was elected in January 2022. In most countries, the protocol of the head of state comes before all others; however, in the EU the Parliament is listed as the first institution, and hence the protocol of its president comes before any other European, or national, protocol. The gifts given to numerous visiting dignitaries depend upon the President. President Josep Borrell MEP of Spain gave his counterparts a crystal cup created by an artist from Barcelona who had engraved upon it parts of the Charter of Fundamental Rights among other things. A number of notable figures have been President of the Parliament and its predecessors. The first President was Paul-Henri Spaak MEP, one of the founding fathers of the Union. Other founding fathers include Alcide de Gasperi MEP and Robert Schuman MEP. The two female Presidents were Simone Veil MEP in 1979 (first President of the elected Parliament) and Nicole Fontaine MEP in 1999, both Frenchwomen. The previous president, Jerzy Buzek was the first East-Central European to lead an EU institution, a former Prime Minister of Poland who rose out of the Solidarity movement in Poland that helped overthrow communism in the Eastern Bloc. During the election of a President, the previous President (or, if unable to, one of the previous Vice-Presidents) presides over the chamber. Prior to 2009, the oldest member fulfilled this role but the rule was changed to prevent far-right French MEP Jean-Marie Le Pen taking the chair. Below the President, there are 14 Vice-Presidents who chair debates when the President is not in the chamber. There are a number of other bodies and posts responsible for the running of parliament besides these speakers. The two main bodies are the Bureau, which is responsible for budgetary and administration issues, and the Conference of Presidents which is a governing body composed of the presidents of each of the parliament's political groups. Looking after the financial and administrative interests of members are five Quaestors. , the European Parliament budget was EUR 1.756 billion. A 2008 report on the Parliament's finances highlighted certain overspending and miss-payments. Despite some MEPs calling for the report to be published, Parliamentary authorities had refused until an MEP broke confidentiality and leaked it. Committees and delegations The Parliament has 20 Standing Committees consisting of 25 to 73 MEPs each (reflecting the political make-up of the whole Parliament) including a chair, a bureau and secretariat. They meet twice a month in public to draw up, amend to adopt legislative proposals and reports to be presented to the plenary. The rapporteurs for a committee are supposed to present the view of the committee, although notably this has not always been the case. In the events leading to the resignation of the Santer Commission, the rapporteur went against the Budgetary Control Committee's narrow vote to discharge the budget, and urged the Parliament to reject it. Committees can also set up sub-committees (e.g. the Subcommittee on Human Rights) and temporary committees to deal with a specific topic (e.g. on extraordinary rendition). The chairs of the Committees co-ordinate their work through the "Conference of Committee Chairmen". When co-decision was introduced it increased the Parliament's powers in a number of areas, but most notably those covered by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. Previously this committee was considered by MEPs as a "Cinderella committee"; however, as it gained a new importance, it became more professional and rigorous, attracting increasing attention to its work. The nature of the committees differ from their national counterparts as, although smaller in comparison to those of the United States Congress, the European Parliament's committees are unusually large by European standards with between eight and twelve dedicated members of staff and three to four support staff. Considerable administration, archives and research resources are also at the disposal of the whole Parliament when needed. Delegations of the Parliament are formed in a similar manner and are responsible for relations with Parliaments outside the EU. There are 34 delegations made up of around 15 MEPs, chairpersons of the delegations also cooperate in a conference like the committee chairs do. They include "Interparliamentary delegations" (maintain relations with Parliament outside the EU), "joint parliamentary committees" (maintaining relations with parliaments of states which are candidates or associates of the EU), the delegation to the ACP EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly and the delegation to the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly. MEPs also participate in other international activities such as the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly, the Transatlantic Legislators' Dialogue and through election observation in third countries. Intergroups The Intergroups in the European Parliament are informal fora which gather MEPs from various political groups around any topic. They do not express the view of the European Parliament. They serve a double purpose: to address a topic which is transversal to several committees and in a less formal manner. Their daily secretariat can be run either through the office of MEPs or through interest groups, be them corporate lobbies or NGOs. The favored access to MEPs which the organization running the secretariat enjoys can be one explanation to the multiplication of Intergroups in the 1990s. They are now strictly regulated and financial support, direct or otherwise (via Secretariat staff, for example) must be officially specified in a declaration of financial interests. Also Intergroups are established or renewed at the beginning of each legislature through a specific process. Indeed, the proposal for the constitution or renewal of an Intergroup must be supported by at least 3 political groups whose support is limited to a specific number of proposals in proportion to their size (for example, for the legislature 2014-2019, the EPP or S&D political groups could support 22 proposals whereas the Greens/EFA or the EFDD political groups only 7). Translation and interpretation Speakers in the European Parliament are entitled to speak in any of the 24 official languages of the European Union, ranging from French and German to Maltese and Irish. Simultaneous interpreting is offered in all plenary sessions, and all final texts of legislation are translated. With twenty-four languages, the European Parliament is the most multilingual parliament in the world and the biggest employer of interpreters in the world (employing 350 full-time and 400 free-lancers when there is higher demand). Citizens may also address the Parliament in Basque, Catalan/Valencian and Galician. Usually a language is translated from a foreign tongue into a translator's native tongue. Due to the large number of languages, some being minor ones, since 1995 interpreting is sometimes done the opposite way, out of an interpreter's native tongue (the "retour" system). In addition, a speech in a minor language may be interpreted through a third language for lack of interpreters ("relay" interpreting) for example, when interpreting out of Estonian into Maltese. Due to the complexity of the issues, interpretation is not word for word. Instead, interpreters have to convey the political meaning of a speech, regardless of their own views. This requires detailed understanding of the politics and terms of the Parliament, involving a great deal of preparation beforehand (e.g. reading the documents in question). Difficulty can often arise when MEPs use profanities, jokes and word play or speak too fast. While some see speaking their native language as an important part of their identity, and can speak more fluently in debates, interpretation and its cost has been criticised by some. A 2006 report by Alexander Stubb MEP highlighted that by only using English, French and German costs could be reduced from €118,000 per day (for 21 languages then Romanian, Bulgarian and Croatian having not yet been included) to €8,900 per day. There has also been a small-scale campaign to make French the reference language for all legal texts, on the basis of an argument that it is more clear and precise for legal purposes. Because the proceedings are translated into all of the official EU languages, they have been used to make a multilingual corpus known as Europarl. It is widely used to train statistical machine translation systems. Annual costs According to the European Parliament website, the annual parliament budget for 2016 was €1.838 billion. The main cost categories were: 34% staff, interpretation and translation costs 24% information policy, IT, telecommunications 23% MEPs' salaries, expenses, travel, offices and staff 13% buildings 6% political group activities According to a European Parliament study prepared in 2013, the Strasbourg seat costs an extra €103 million over maintaining a single location and according to the Court of Auditors an additional €5 million is related to travel expenses caused by having two seats. As a comparison, the German lower house of parliament (Bundestag) is estimated to cost €517 million in total for 2018, for a parliament with 709 members. The British House of Commons reported total annual costs in 2016-2017 of £249 million (€279 million). It had 650 seats. According to The Economist, the European Parliament costs more than the British, French and German parliaments combined. A quarter of the costs is estimated to be related to translation and interpretation costs (c. €460 million) and the double seats are estimated to add an additional €180 million a year. For a like-for-like comparison, these two cost blocks can be excluded. On 2 July 2018, MEPs rejected proposals to tighten the rules around the General Expenditure Allowance (GEA), which "is a controversial €4,416 per month payment that MEPs are given to cover office and other expenses, but they are not required to provide any evidence of how the money is spent". Seat The Parliament is based in three different cities with numerous buildings. A protocol attached to the Treaty of Amsterdam requires that 12 plenary sessions be held in Strasbourg (none in August but two in September), which is the Parliament's official seat, while extra part sessions as well as committee meetings are held in Brussels. Luxembourg City hosts the Secretariat of the European Parliament. The European Parliament is one of at least two assemblies in the world with more than one meeting place (another being the parliament of the Isle of Man, Tynwald) and one of the few that does not have the power to decide its own location. The Strasbourg seat is seen as a symbol of reconciliation between France and Germany, the Strasbourg region having been fought over by the two countries in the past. However, the cost and inconvenience of having two seats is questioned. While Strasbourg is the official seat, and sits alongside the Council of Europe, Brussels is home to nearly all other major EU institutions, with the majority of Parliament's work being carried out there. Critics have described the two-seat arrangement as a "travelling circus", and there is a strong movement to establish Brussels as the sole seat. This is because the other political institutions (the Commission, Council and European Council) are located there, and hence Brussels is treated as the 'capital' of the EU. This movement has received strong backing from numerous figures, including Margot Wallström, Commission First-Vice President from 2004 to 2010, who stated that "something that was once a very positive symbol of the EU reuniting France and Germany has now become a negative symbol of wasting money, bureaucracy and the insanity of the Brussels institutions". The Green Party has also noted the environmental cost in a study led by Jean Lambert MEP and Caroline Lucas MEP; in addition to the extra 200 million euro spent on the extra seat, there are over 20,268 tonnes of additional carbon dioxide, undermining any environmental stance of the institution and the Union. The campaign is further backed by a million-strong online petition started by Cecilia Malmström MEP. In August 2014, an assessment by the European Court of Auditors calculated that relocating the Strasbourg seat of the European Parliament to Brussels would save €113.8 million per year. In 2006, there were allegations of irregularities in the charges made by the city of Strasbourg on buildings the Parliament rented, thus further harming the case for the Strasbourg seat. Most MEPs prefer Brussels as a single base. A poll of MEPs found 89% of the respondents wanting a single seat, and 81% preferring Brussels. Another survey found 68% support. In July 2011, an absolute majority of MEPs voted in favour of a single seat. In early 2011, the Parliament voted to scrap one of the Strasbourg sessions by holding two within a single week. The mayor of Strasbourg officially reacted by stating "we will counter-attack by upturning the adversary's strength to our own profit, as a judoka would do". However, as Parliament's seat is now fixed by the treaties, it can only be changed by the Council acting unanimously, meaning that France could veto any move. The former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has stated that the Strasbourg seat is "non-negotiable", and that France has no intention of surrendering the only EU Institution on French soil. Given France's declared intention to veto any relocation to Brussels, some MEPs have advocated civil disobedience by refusing to take part in the monthly exodus to Strasbourg. Channels of dialogue, information, and communication with European civil society Over the last few years, European institutions have committed to promoting transparency, openness, and the availability of information about their work. In particular, transparency is regarded as pivotal to the action of European institutions and a general principle of EU law, to be applied to the activities of EU institutions in order to strengthen the Union's democratic foundation. The general principles of openness and transparency are reaffirmed in the articles 8 A, point 3 and 10.3 of the Treaty of Lisbon and the Maastricht Treaty respectively, stating that "every citizen shall have the right to participate in the democratic life of the Union. Decisions shall be taken as openly and as closely as possible to the citizen". Furthermore, both treaties acknowledge the value of dialogue between citizens, representative associations, civil society, and European institutions. Dialogue with religious and non-confessional organisations Article 17 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) lays the juridical foundation for an open, transparent dialogue between European institutions and churches, religious associations, and non-confessional and philosophical organisations. In July 2014, in the beginning of the 8th term, then President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz tasked Antonio Tajani, then Vice-President, with implementing the dialogue with the religious and confessional organisations included in article 17. In this framework, the European Parliament hosts high-level conferences on inter-religious dialogue, also with focus on current issues and in relation with parliamentary works. European Parliament Mediator for International Parental Child Abduction The chair of European Parliament Mediator for International Parental Child Abduction was established in 1987 by initiative of British MEP Charles Henry Plumb, with the goal of helping minor children of international couples victim of parental abduction. The Mediator finds negotiated solutions in the higher interest of the minor when said minor is abducted by a parent following separation of the couple, regardless whether married or unmarried. Since its institution, the chair has been held by Mairead McGuinness (since 2014), Roberta Angelilli (2009–2014), Evelyne Gebhardt (2004–2009), Mary Banotti (1995–2004), and Marie-Claude Vayssade (1987–1994). The Mediator's main task is to assist parents in finding a solution in the minor's best interest through mediation, i.e. a form of controversy resolution alternative to lawsuit. The Mediator is activated by request of a citizen and, after evaluating the request, starts a mediation process aimed at reaching an agreement. Once subscribed by both parties and the Mediator, the agreement is official. The nature of the agreement is that of a private contract between parties. In defining the agreement, the European Parliament offers the parties the juridical support necessary to reach a sound, lawful agreement based on legality and equity. The agreement can be ratified by the competent national courts and can also lay the foundation for consensual separation or divorce. European Parliamentary Research Service The European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) is the European Parliament's in-house research department and think tank. It provides Members of the European Parliament and, where appropriate, parliamentary committees with independent, objective and authoritative analysis of, and research on, policy issues relating to the European Union, in order to assist them in their parliamentary work. It is also designed to increase Members' and EP committees' capacity to scrutinise and oversee the European Commission and other EU executive bodies. EPRS aims to provide a comprehensive range of products and services, backed by specialist internal expertise and knowledge sources in all policy fields, so empowering Members and committees through knowledge and contributing to the Parliament's effectiveness and influence as an institution. In undertaking this work, the EPRS supports and promotes parliamentary outreach to the wider public, including dialogue with relevant stakeholders in the EU's system of multi-level governance. All publications by EPRS are publicly available on the EP Think Tank platform. Eurobarometer of the European Parliament The European Parliament periodically commissions opinion polls and studies on public opinion trends in Member States to survey perceptions and expectations of citizens about its work and the overall activities of the European Union. Topics include citizens' perception of the European Parliament's role, their knowledge of the institution, their sense of belonging in the European Union, opinions on European elections and European integration, identity, citizenship, political values, but also on current issues such as climate change, current economy and politics, etc.. Eurobarometer analyses seek to provide an overall picture of national situations, regional specificities, socio-demographic cleavages, and historical trends. Prizes Sakharov Prize With the Sakharov Prize, created in 1988, the European Parliament supports human rights by awarding individuals that contribute to promoting human rights worldwide, thus raising awareness on human rights violations. Priorities include: protection of human rights and fundamental liberties, with particular focus on freedom of expression; protection of minority rights; compliance with international law; and development of democracy and authentic rule of law. European Charlemagne Youth Prize The European Charlemagne Youth Prize seeks to encourage youth participation in the European integration process. It is awarded by the European Parliament and the Foundation of the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen to youth projects aimed at nurturing common European identity and European citizenship. European Citizens' Prize The European Citizens' Prize is awarded by the European Parliament to activities and actions carried out by citizens and associations to promote integration between the citizens of EU member states and transnational cooperation projects in the EU. LUX Prize Since 2007, the LUX Prize is awarded by the European Parliament to films dealing with current topics of public European interest that encourage reflection on Europe and its future. Over time, the Lux Prize has become a prestigious cinema award which supports European film and production also outside the EU. Daphne Caruana Galizia Journalism Prize From 2021, the Daphne Caruana Galizia Journalism prize shall be awarded by the European Parliament to outstanding journalism that reflect EU values. The prize consists in an award of 20,000 euros and the very first winner will be revealed in October 2021. This award is named after the late Maltese journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia who was assassinated in Malta on 16 October 2017. In 2021 the prize was awarded to the Pegasus Project. See also Parlamentarium Parliamentwatch State of the Union address (European Union) Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament Notes References Further reading The same three co-authors have written every edition since the first in 1990. (draft version on-line) Lodge, Juliet, ed. The 2009 Elections to the European Parliament (Palgrave Macmillan; 2011) 327 pages Sabbati, Giulio (2015). European Parliament: Facts and Figures. European Parliament – European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS). Dick Toornstra; Christian Meseth (2012). Inside the European Parliament: A guide to its parliamentary and administrative structures. European Parliament – Office for Promotion of Parliamentary Democracy (OPPD). External links 1952 establishments in France Organisations based in Brussels Organizations based in Strasbourg Organizations established in 1952 E

In mathematics, the Euler–Maclaurin formula is a formula for the difference between an integral and a closely related sum. It can be used to approximate integrals by finite sums, or conversely to evaluate finite sums and infinite series using integrals and the machinery of calculus. For example, many asymptotic expansions are derived from the formula, and Faulhaber's formula for the sum of powers is an immediate consequence. The formula was discovered independently by Leonhard Euler and Colin Maclaurin around 1735. Euler needed it to compute slowly converging infinite series while Maclaurin used it to calculate integrals. It was later generalized to Darboux's formula. The formula If and are natural numbers and is a real or complex valued continuous function for real numbers in the interval , then the integral can be approximated by the sum (or vice versa) (see rectangle method). The Euler–Maclaurin formula provides expressions for the difference between the sum and the integral in terms of the higher derivatives evaluated at the endpoints of the interval, that is to say and . Explicitly, for a positive integer and a function that is times continuously differentiable on the interval , we have where is the th Bernoulli number (with ) and is an error term which depends on , , , and and is usually small for suitable values of . The formula is often written with the subscript taking only even values, since the odd Bernoulli numbers are zero except for . In this case we have or alternatively The remainder term The remainder term arises because the integral is usually not exactly equal to the sum. The formula may be derived by applying repeated integration by parts to successive intervals for . The boundary terms in these integrations lead to the main terms of the formula, and the leftover integrals form the remainder term. The remainder term has an exact expression in terms of the periodized Bernoulli functions . The Bernoulli polynomials may be defined recursively by and, for , The periodized Bernoulli functions are defined as where denotes the largest integer less than or equal to , so that always lies in the interval . With this notation, the remainder term equals When , it can be shown that where denotes the Riemann zeta function; one approach to prove this inequality is to obtain the Fourier series for the polynomials . The bound is achieved for even when is zero. The term may be omitted for odd but the proof in this case is more complex (see Lehmer). Using this inequality, the size of the remainder term can be estimated as Low-order cases The Bernoulli numbers from to are . Therefore the low-order cases of the Euler–Maclaurin formula are: Applications The Basel problem The Basel problem is to determine the sum Euler computed this sum to 20 decimal places with only a few terms of the Euler–Maclaurin formula in 1735. This probably convinced him that the sum equals , which he proved in the same year. Sums involving a polynomial If is a polynomial and is big enough, then the remainder term vanishes. For instance, if , we can choose to obtain, after simplification, Approximation of integrals The formula provides a means of approximating a finite integral. Let be the endpoints of the interval of integration. Fix , the number of points to use in the approximation, and denote the corresponding step size by . Set , so that and . Then: This may be viewed as an extension of the trapezoid rule by the inclusion of correction terms. Note that this asymptotic expansion is usually not convergent; there is some , depending upon and , such that the terms past order increase rapidly. Thus, the remainder term generally demands close attention. The Euler–Maclaurin formula is also used for detailed error analysis in numerical quadrature. It explains the superior performance of the trapezoidal rule on smooth periodic functions and is used in certain extrapolation methods. Clenshaw–Curtis quadrature is essentially a change of variables to cast an arbitrary integral in terms of integrals of periodic functions where the Euler–Maclaurin approach is very accurate (in that particular case the Euler–Maclaurin formula takes the form of a discrete cosine transform). This technique is known as a periodizing transformation. Asymptotic expansion of sums In the context of computing asymptotic expansions of sums and series, usually the most useful form of the Euler–Maclaurin formula is where and are integers. Often the expansion remains valid even after taking the limits or or both. In many cases the integral on the right-hand side can be evaluated in closed form in terms of elementary functions even though the sum on the left-hand side cannot. Then all the terms in the asymptotic series can be expressed in terms of elementary functions. For example, Here the left-hand side is equal to , namely the first-order polygamma function defined by the gamma function is equal to when is a positive integer. This results in an asymptotic expansion for . That expansion, in turn, serves as the starting point for one of the derivations of precise error estimates for Stirling's approximation of the factorial function. Examples If is an integer greater than 1 we have: Collecting the constants into a value of the Riemann zeta function, we can write an asymptotic expansion: For equal to 2 this simplifies to or When , the corresponding technique gives an asymptotic expansion for the harmonic numbers: where is the Euler–Mascheroni constant. Proofs Derivation by mathematical induction We outline the argument given in Apostol. The Bernoulli polynomials and the periodic Bernoulli functions for were introduced above. The first several Bernoulli polynomials are The values are the Bernoulli numbers . Notice that for we have and for , The functions agree with the Bernoulli polynomials on the interval and are periodic with period 1. Furthermore, except when , they are also continuous. Thus, Let be an integer, and consider the integral where Integrating by parts, we get Using , , and summing the above from to , we get Adding to both sides and rearranging, we have This is the case of the summation formula. To continue the induction, we apply integration by parts to the error term: where The result of integrating by parts is Summing from to and substituting this for the lower order error term results in the case of the formula, This process can be iterated. In this way we get a proof of the Euler–Maclaurin summation formula which can be formalized by mathematical induction, in which the induction step relies on integration by parts and on identities for periodic Bernoulli functions. See also Cesàro summation Euler summation Gauss–Kronrod quadrature formula Darboux's formula Euler–Boole summation References Further reading External links Approximation theory Asymptotic analysis Hilbert space Numerical integration (quadrature) Articles containing proofs Theorems in analysis Summability methods Leonhard Euler

In computer science, the Earley parser is an algorithm for parsing strings that belong to a given context-free language, though (depending on the variant) it may suffer problems with certain nullable grammars. The algorithm, named after its inventor, Jay Earley, is a chart parser that uses dynamic programming; it is mainly used for parsing in computational linguistics. It was first introduced in his dissertation in 1968 (and later appeared in an abbreviated, more legible, form in a journal). Earley parsers are appealing because they can parse all context-free languages, unlike LR parsers and LL parsers, which are more typically used in compilers but which can only handle restricted classes of languages. The Earley parser executes in cubic time in the general case , where n is the length of the parsed string, quadratic time for unambiguous grammars , and linear time for all deterministic context-free grammars. It performs particularly well when the rules are written left-recursively. Earley recogniser The following algorithm describes the Earley recogniser. The recogniser can be easily modified to create a parse tree as it recognises, and in that way can be turned into a parser. The algorithm In the following descriptions, α, β, and γ represent any string of terminals/nonterminals (including the empty string), X and Y represent single nonterminals, and a represents a terminal symbol. Earley's algorithm is a top-down dynamic programming algorithm. In the following, we use Earley's dot notation: given a production X → αβ, the notation X → α • β represents a condition in which α has already been parsed and β is expected. Input position 0 is the position prior to input. Input position n is the position after accepting the nth token. (Informally, input positions can be thought of as locations at token boundaries.) For every input position, the parser generates a state set. Each state is a tuple (X → α • β, i), consisting of the production currently being matched (X → α β) the current position in that production (represented by the dot) the position i in the input at which the matching of this production began: the origin position (Earley's original algorithm included a look-ahead in the state; later research showed this to have little practical effect on the parsing efficiency, and it has subsequently been dropped from most implementations.) The state set at input position k is called S(k). The parser is seeded with S(0) consisting of only the top-level rule. The parser then repeatedly executes three operations: prediction, scanning, and completion. Prediction: For every state in S(k) of the form (X → α • Y β, j) (where j is the origin position as above), add (Y → • γ, k) to S(k) for every production in the grammar with Y on the left-hand side (Y → γ). Scanning: If a is the next symbol in the input stream, for every state in S(k) of the form (X → α • a β, j), add (X → α a • β, j) to S(k+1). Completion: For every state in S(k) of the form (Y → γ •, j), find all states in S(j) of the form (X → α • Y β, i) and add (X → α Y • β, i) to S(k). Duplicate states are not added to the state set, only new ones. These three operations are repeated until no new states can be added to the set. The set is generally implemented as a queue of states to process, with the operation to be performed depending on what kind of state it is. The algorithm accepts if (X → γ •, 0) ends up in S(n), where (X → γ) is the top level-rule and n the input length, otherwise it rejects. Pseudocode Adapted from Speech and Language Processing by Daniel Jurafsky and James H. Martin, DECLARE ARRAY S; function INIT(words) S ← CREATE_ARRAY(LENGTH(words) + 1) for k ← from 0 to LENGTH(words) do S[k] ← EMPTY_ORDERED_SET function EARLEY_PARSE(words, grammar) INIT(words) ADD_TO_SET((γ → •S, 0), S[0]) for k ← from 0 to LENGTH(words) do for each state in S[k] do // S[k] can expand during this loop if not FINISHED(state) then if NEXT_ELEMENT_OF(state) is a nonterminal then PREDICTOR(state, k, grammar) // non_terminal else do SCANNER(state, k, words) // terminal else do COMPLETER(state, k) end end return chart procedure PREDICTOR((A → α•Bβ, j), k, grammar) for each (B → γ) in GRAMMAR_RULES_FOR(B, grammar) do ADD_TO_SET((B → •γ, k), S[k]) end procedure SCANNER((A → α•aβ, j), k, words) if a ⊂ PARTS_OF_SPEECH(words[k]) then ADD_TO_SET((A → αa•β, j), S[k+1]) end procedure COMPLETER((B → γ•, x), k) for each (A → α•Bβ, j) in S[x] do ADD_TO_SET((A → αB•β, j), S[k]) end Example Consider the following simple grammar for arithmetic expressions: <P> ::= <S> # the start rule <S> ::= <S> "+" <M> | <M> <M> ::= <M> "*" <T> | <T> <T> ::= "1" | "2" | "3" | "4" With the input: 2 + 3 * 4 This is the sequence of state sets: The state (P → S •, 0) represents a completed parse. This state also appears in S(3) and S(1), which are complete sentences. Constructing the parse forest Earley's dissertation briefly describes an algorithm for constructing parse trees by adding a set of pointers from each non-terminal in an Earley item back to the items that caused it to be recognized. But Tomita noticed that this does not take into account the relations between symbols, so if we consider the grammar S → SS | b and the string bbb, it only notes that each S can match one or two b's, and thus produces spurious derivations for bb and bbbb as well as the two correct derivations for bbb. Another method is to build the parse forest as you go, augmenting each Earley item with a pointer to a shared packed parse forest (SPPF) node labelled with a triple (s, i, j) where s is a symbol or an LR(0) item (production rule with dot), and i and j give the section of the input string derived by this node. A node's contents are either a pair of child pointers giving a single derivation, or a list of "packed" nodes each containing a pair of pointers and representing one derivation. SPPF nodes are unique (there is only one with a given label), but may contain more than one derivation for ambiguous parses. So even if an operation does not add an Earley item (because it already exists), it may still add a derivation to the item's parse forest. Predicted items have a null SPPF pointer. The scanner creates an SPPF node representing the non-terminal it is scanning. Then when the scanner or completer advance an item, they add a derivation whose children are the node from the item whose dot was advanced, and the one for the new symbol that was advanced over (the non-terminal or completed item). SPPF nodes are never labeled with a completed LR(0) item: instead they are labelled with the symbol that is produced so that all derivations are combined under one node regardless of which alternative production they come from. Optimizations Philippe McLean and R. Nigel Horspool in their paper "A Faster Earley Parser" combine Earley parsing with LR parsing and achieve an improvement in an order of magnitude. See also CYK algorithm Context-free grammar Parsing algorithms Citations Other reference materials Implementations C, C++ 'Yet Another Earley Parser (YAEP)' – C/C++ libraries 'C Earley Parser' – an Earley parser C Haskell 'Earley' – an Earley parser DSL in Haskell Java – a Java implementation of the Earley algorithm PEN – a Java library that implements the Earley algorithm Pep – a Java library that implements the Earley algorithm and provides charts and parse trees as parsing artifacts digitalheir/java-probabilistic-earley-parser - a Java library that implements the probabilistic Earley algorithm, which is useful to determine the most likely parse tree from an ambiguous sentence C# coonsta/earley - An Earley parser in C# patrickhuber/pliant - An Earley parser that integrates the improvements adopted by Marpa and demonstrates Elizabeth Scott's tree building algorithm. ellisonch/CFGLib - Probabilistic Context Free Grammar (PCFG) Library for C# (Earley + SPPF, CYK) JavaScript Nearley – an Earley parser that's starting to integrate the improvements that Marpa adopted A Pint-sized Earley Parser – a toy parser (with annotated pseudocode) to demonstrate Elizabeth Scott's technique for building the shared packed parse forest lagodiuk/earley-parser-js – a tiny JavaScript implementation of Earley parser (including generation of the parsing-forest) digitalheir/probabilistic-earley-parser-javascript - JavaScript implementation of the probabilistic Earley parser OCaml Simple Earley - An implementation of a simple Earley-like parsing algorithm, with documentation. Perl Marpa::R2 – a Perl module. Marpa is an Earley's algorithm that includes the improvements made by Joop Leo, and by Aycock and Horspool. Parse::Earley – a Perl module implementing Jay Earley's original algorithm Python Lark – an object-oriented, procedural implementation of an Earley parser, that outputs a SPPF. NLTK – a Python toolkit with an Earley parser Spark – an object-oriented little language framework for Python implementing an Earley parser spark_parser – updated and packaged version of the Spark parser above, which runs in both Python 3 and Python 2 earley3.py – a stand-alone implementation of the algorithm in less than 150 lines of code, including generation of the parsing-forest and samples tjr_python_earley_parser - a minimal Earley parser in Python Earley Parsing - A well explained and complete Earley parser tutorial in Python with epsilon handling and Leo optimization for right-recursion. Common Lisp CL-Earley-parser – a Common Lisp library implementing an Earley parser Scheme, Racket Charty-Racket – a Scheme-Racket implementation of an Earley parser Wolfram properEarleyParser - A basic minimal implementation of an Earley parser in Wolfram programming language with some essential test cases. Resources The Accent compiler-compiler Parsing algorithms Dynamic programming

Eli Whitney Jr. (December 8, 1765January 8, 1825) was an American inventor, widely known for inventing the cotton gin, one of the key inventions of the Industrial Revolution that shaped the economy of the Antebellum South. Although Whitney himself believed that his invention would reduce the need for enslaved labor and help hasten the end of southern slavery, Whitney's invention made upland short cotton into a profitable crop, which strengthened the economic foundation of slavery in the United States and prolonged the institution. Despite the social and economic impact of his invention, Whitney lost many profits in legal battles over patent infringement for the cotton gin. Thereafter, he turned his attention into securing contracts with the government in the manufacture of muskets for the newly formed United States Army. He continued making arms and inventing until his death in 1825. Early life and education Whitney was born in Westborough, Massachusetts, on December 8, 1765, the eldest child of Eli Whitney Sr., a prosperous farmer, and his wife Elizabeth Fay, also of Westborough. The younger Eli was famous during his lifetime and after his death by the name "Eli Whitney", though he was technically Eli Whitney Jr. His son, born in 1820, also named Eli, was known during his lifetime and afterward by the name "Eli Whitney, Jr." Whitney's mother, Elizabeth Fay, died in 1777, when he was 11. At age 14 he operated a profitable nail manufacturing operation in his father's workshop during the Revolutionary War. Because his stepmother opposed his wish to attend college, Whitney worked as a farm laborer and school teacher to save money. He prepared for Yale at Leicester Academy (now Becker College) and under the tutelage of Rev. Elizur Goodrich of Durham, Connecticut, he entered in the fall of 1789 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1792. Whitney expected to study law but, finding himself short of funds, accepted an offer to go to South Carolina as a private tutor. Instead of reaching his destination, he was convinced to visit Georgia. In the closing years of the 18th century, Georgia was a magnet for New Englanders seeking their fortunes (its Revolutionary-era governor had been Lyman Hall, a migrant from Connecticut). When he initially sailed for South Carolina, among his shipmates were the widow (Catherine Littlefield Greene) and family of the Revolutionary hero Gen. Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island. Mrs. Greene invited Whitney to visit her Georgia plantation, Mulberry Grove. Her plantation manager and husband-to-be was Phineas Miller, another Connecticut migrant and Yale graduate (class of 1785), who would become Whitney's business partner. Career Whitney is most famous for two innovations which came to have significant impacts on the United States in the mid-19th century: the cotton gin (1793) and his advocacy of interchangeable parts. In the South, the cotton gin revolutionized the way cotton was harvested and reinvigorated slavery. Conversely, in the North the adoption of interchangeable parts revolutionized the manufacturing industry, contributing greatly to the U.S. victory in the Civil War. Cotton gin The cotton gin is a mechanical device that removes the seeds from cotton, a process that had previously been extremely labor-intensive. The word gin is short for engine. While staying at Mulberry Grove, Whitney constructed several ingenious household devices which led Mrs Greene to introduce him to some businessmen who were discussing the desirability of a machine to separate the short staple upland cotton from its seeds, work that was then done by hand at the rate of a pound of lint a day. In a few weeks Whitney produced a model. The cotton gin was a wooden drum stuck with hooks that pulled the cotton fibers through a mesh. The cotton seeds would not fit through the mesh and fell outside. Whitney occasionally told a story wherein he was pondering an improved method of seeding the cotton when he was inspired by observing a cat attempting to pull a chicken through a fence, and able to only pull through some of the feathers. A single cotton gin could generate up to of cleaned cotton daily. This contributed to the economic development of the Southern United States, a prime cotton growing area; some historians believe that this invention allowed for the African slavery system in the Southern United States to become more sustainable at a critical point in its development. Whitney applied for the patent for his cotton gin on October 28, 1793, and received the patent (later numbered as X72) on March 14, 1794, but it was not validated until 1807. Whitney and his partner, Miller, did not intend to sell the gins. Rather, like the proprietors of grist and sawmills, they expected to charge farmers for cleaning their cotton – two-fifths of the value, paid in cotton. Resentment at this scheme, the mechanical simplicity of the device and the primitive state of patent law, made infringement inevitable. Whitney and Miller could not build enough gins to meet demand, so gins from other makers found ready sale. Ultimately, patent infringement lawsuits consumed the profits (one patent, later annulled, was granted in 1796 to Hogden Holmes for a gin which substituted circular saws for the spikes) and their cotton gin company went out of business in 1797. One oft-overlooked point is that there were drawbacks to Whitney's first design. There is significant evidence that the design flaws were solved by his sponsor, Mrs. Greene, but Whitney gave her no public credit or recognition. After validation of the patent, the legislature of South Carolina voted $50,000 for the rights for that state, while North Carolina levied a license tax for five years, from which about $30,000 was realized. There is a claim that Tennessee paid, perhaps, $10,000. While the cotton gin did not earn Whitney the fortune he had hoped for, it did give him fame. It has been argued by some historians that Whitney's cotton gin was an important if unintended cause of the American Civil War. After Whitney's invention, the plantation slavery industry was rejuvenated, eventually culminating in the Civil War. The cotton gin transformed Southern agriculture and the national economy. Southern cotton found ready markets in Europe and in the burgeoning textile mills of New England. Cotton exports from the U.S. boomed after the cotton gin's appearance – from less than in 1793 to by 1810. Cotton was a staple that could be stored for long periods and shipped long distances, unlike most agricultural products. It became the U.S.'s chief export, representing over half the value of U.S. exports from 1820 to 1860. Whitney believed that his cotton gin would reduce the need for enslaved labor and would help hasten the end of southern slavery. Paradoxically, the cotton gin, a labor-saving device, helped preserve and prolong slavery in the United States for another 70 years. Before the 1790s, slave labor was primarily employed in growing rice, tobacco, and indigo, none of which were especially profitable anymore. Neither was cotton, due to the difficulty of seed removal. But with the invention of the gin, growing cotton with slave labor became highly profitable – the chief source of wealth in the American South, and the basis of frontier settlement from Georgia to Texas. "King Cotton" became a dominant economic force, and slavery was sustained as a key institution of Southern society. Interchangeable parts Eli Whitney has often been incorrectly credited with inventing the idea of interchangeable parts, which he championed for years as a maker of muskets; however, the idea predated Whitney, and Whitney's role in it was one of promotion and popularizing, not invention. Successful implementation of the idea eluded Whitney until near the end of his life, occurring first in others' armories. Attempts at interchangeability of parts can be traced back as far as the Punic Wars through both archaeological remains of boats now in Museo Archeologico Baglio Anselmi and contemporary written accounts. In modern times the idea developed over decades among many people. An early leader was Jean-Baptiste Vaquette de Gribeauval, an 18th-century French artillerist who created a fair amount of standardization of artillery pieces, although not true interchangeability of parts. He inspired others, including Honoré Blanc and Louis de Tousard, to work further on the idea, and on shoulder weapons as well as artillery. In the 19th century these efforts produced the "armory system," or American system of manufacturing. Certain other New Englanders, including Captain John H. Hall and Simeon North, arrived at successful interchangeability before Whitney's armory did. The Whitney armory finally succeeded not long after his death in 1825. The motives behind Whitney's acceptance of a contract to manufacture muskets in 1798 were mostly monetary. By the late 1790s, Whitney was on the verge of bankruptcy and the cotton gin litigation had left him deeply in debt. His New Haven cotton gin factory had burned to the ground, and litigation sapped his remaining resources. The French Revolution had ignited new conflicts between Great Britain, France, and the United States. The new American government, realizing the need to prepare for war, began to rearm. The War Department issued contracts for the manufacture of 10,000 muskets. Whitney, who had never made a gun in his life, obtained a contract in January 1798 to deliver 10,000 to 15,000 muskets in 1800. He had not mentioned interchangeable parts at that time. Ten months later, the Treasury Secretary, Oliver Wolcott, Jr., sent him a "foreign pamphlet on arms manufacturing techniques," possibly one of Honoré Blanc's reports, after which Whitney first began to talk about interchangeability. In May 1798, Congress voted for legislation that would use eight hundred thousand dollars in order to pay for small arms and cannons in case war with France erupted. It offered a 5,000 dollar incentive with an additional 5,000 dollars once that money was exhausted for the person that was able to accurately produce arms for the government. Because the cotton gin had not brought Whitney the rewards he believed it promised, he accepted the offer. Although the contract was for one year, Whitney did not deliver the arms until 1809, using multiple excuses for the delay. Recently, historians have found that during 1801–1806, Whitney took the money and headed into South Carolina in order to profit from the cotton gin. Although Whitney's demonstration of 1801 appeared to show the feasibility of creating interchangeable parts, Merritt Roe Smith concludes that it was "staged" and "duped government authorities" into believing that he had been successful. The charade gained him time and resources toward achieving that goal. When the government complained that Whitney's price per musket compared unfavorably with those produced in government armories, he was able to calculate an actual price per musket by including fixed costs such as insurance and machinery, which the government had not accounted for. He thus made early contributions to both the concepts of cost accounting, and economic efficiency in manufacturing. Milling machine Machine tool historian Joseph W. Roe credited Whitney with inventing the first milling machine circa 1818. Subsequent work by other historians (Woodbury; Smith; Muir; Battison [cited by Baida]) suggests that Whitney was among a group of contemporaries all developing milling machines at about the same time (1814 to 1818), and that the others were more important to the innovation than Whitney was. (The machine that excited Roe may not have been built until 1825, after Whitney's death.) Therefore, no one person can properly be described as the inventor of the milling machine. Later life and legacy Despite his humble origins, Whitney was keenly aware of the value of social and political connections. In building his arms business, he took full advantage of the access that his status as a Yale alumnus gave him to other well-placed graduates, such as Oliver Wolcott, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury (class of 1778), and James Hillhouse, a New Haven developer and political leader. His 1817 marriage to Henrietta Edwards, granddaughter of the famed evangelist Jonathan Edwards, daughter of Pierpont Edwards, head of the Democratic Party in Connecticut, and first cousin of Yale's president, Timothy Dwight, the state's leading Federalist, further tied him to Connecticut's ruling elite. In a business dependent on government contracts, such connections were essential to success. Whitney died of prostate cancer on January 8, 1825, in New Haven, Connecticut, just a month after his 59th birthday. He left a widow and his four children behind. One of his offspring, Eli Whitney III (known as Eli Whitney Jr.), was instrumental in building New Haven, Connecticut's waterworks. During the course of his illness, he reportedly invented and constructed several devices to mechanically ease his pain. The Eli Whitney Students Program, Yale University's admissions program for non-traditional students, is named in honor of Whitney, who not only began his studies there when he was 23, but also went on to graduate Phi Beta Kappa in just three years. See also Whitney family Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences Eli Whitney Museum References Further reading Battison, Edwin. (1960). "Eli Whitney and the Milling Machine." Smithsonian Journal of History I. Cooper, Carolyn, & Lindsay, Merrill K. (1980). Eli Whitney and the Whitney Armory. Whitneyville, CT: Eli Whitney Museum. Dexter, Franklin B. (1911). "Eli Whitney." Yale Biographies and Annals, 1792–1805. New York, NY: Henry Holt & Company. Hall, Karyl Lee Kibler, & Cooper, Carolyn. (1984). Windows on the Works: Industry on the Eli Whitney Site, 1798–1979. Hamden, CT: Eli Whitney Museum Lakwete, Angela. (2004). Inventing the Cotton Gin: Machine and Myth in Antebellum America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Smith, Merritt Roe. 1973. "John H. Hall, Simeon North, and the Milling Machine: The Nature of Innovation among Antebellum Arms Makers." Technology & Culture 14. Woodbury, Robert S. (1960). "The Legend of Eli Whitney and Interchangeable Parts." Technology & Culture 1. McL. Green, Constance – Edited by Oscar Handlin. (1956). Eli Whitney & The Birth of American Technology. Library of American Biography series. External links The Eli Whitney Museum Eli Whitney Biography on at Whitney Research Group Inventor of the Week: Eli Whitney (MIT) Entry in New Georgia Encyclopedia Photograph of house in which the Cotton Gin was invented, Wilkes County, Georgia, ca. 1910 Letter from Eli Whitney to his Father regarding his invention of the cotton gin, September 11, 1793 Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Eli Whitney, Jr. regarding his cotton gin patent, November 16, 1793 Obituary for Eli Whitney, in Niles Weekly Register, January 25, 1825 Eli Whitney papers (MS 554). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. 1765 births 1825 deaths American business theorists Engineers from Massachusetts 18th-century American inventors Burials at Grove Street Cemetery American people of English descent Deaths from cancer in Connecticut Deaths from prostate cancer Firearm designers Textile workers Machine tool builders People from New Haven, Connecticut People of the Industrial Revolution People from Westborough, Massachusetts Whitney family Leicester Academy alumni Yale College alumni Hall of Fame for Great Americans inductees Cotton gin

The Extended Industry Standard Architecture (in practice almost always shortened to EISA and frequently pronounced "eee-suh") is a bus standard for IBM PC compatible computers. It was announced in September 1988 by a consortium of PC clone vendors (the Gang of Nine) as an alternative to IBM's proprietary Micro Channel architecture (MCA) in its PS/2 series. In comparison with the AT bus, which the Gang of Nine retroactively renamed to the ISA bus to avoid infringing IBM's trademark on its PC/AT computer, EISA is extended to 32 bits and allows more than one CPU to share the bus. The bus mastering support is also enhanced to provide access to 4 GB of memory. Unlike MCA, EISA can accept older XT and ISA boards — the lines and slots for EISA are a superset of ISA. EISA was much favoured by manufacturers due to the proprietary nature of MCA, and even IBM produced some machines supporting it. It was somewhat expensive to implement (though not as much as MCA), so it never became particularly popular in desktop PCs. However, it was reasonably successful in the server market, as it was better suited to bandwidth-intensive tasks (such as disk access and networking). Most EISA cards produced were either SCSI or network cards. EISA was also available on some non-IBM-compatible machines such as the AlphaServer, HP 9000-D, SGI Indigo2 and MIPS Magnum. By the time there was a strong market need for a bus of these speeds and capabilities for desktop computers, the VESA Local Bus and later PCI filled this niche, and EISA vanished into obscurity. History The original IBM PC included five 8-bit slots, running at the system clock speed of 4.77 MHz. The PC/AT, introduced in 1984, had three 8-bit slots and five 16-bit slots, all running at the system clock speed of 6 MHz in the earlier models and 8 MHz in the last version of the computer. The 16-bit slots were a superset of the 8-bit configuration, so most 8-bit cards were able to plug into a 16-bit slot (some cards used a "skirt" design that physically interfered with the extended portion of the slot) and continue to run in 8-bit mode. One of the key reasons for the success of the IBM PC (and the PC clones that followed it) was the active ecosystem of third-party expansion cards available for the machines. IBM was restricted from patenting the bus and widely published the bus specifications. As the PC-clone industry continued to build momentum in the mid- to late-1980s, several problems with the bus began to be apparent. First, because the "AT slot" (as it was known at the time) was not managed by any central standards group, there was nothing to prevent a manufacturer from "pushing" the standard. One of the most common issues was that as PC clones became more common, PC manufacturers began increasing the processor speed to maintain a competitive advantage. Unfortunately, because the ISA bus was originally locked to the processor clock, this meant that some 286 machines had ISA buses that ran at 10, 12, or even 16 MHz. In fact, the first system to clock the ISA bus at 8 MHz was the turbo 8088 clones that clocked the processors at 8 MHz. This caused many issues with incompatibility, where a true IBM-compatible third-party card (designed for an 8 MHz or 4.77 MHz bus) might not work in a higher-speed system (or even worse, would work unreliably). Most PC makers eventually decoupled the slot clock from the system clock, but there was still no standards body to "police" the industry. As companies like Dell modified the AT bus design, the architecture was so well entrenched that no single clone manufacturer had the leverage to create a standardized alternative, and there was no compelling reason for them to cooperate on a new standard. Because of this, when the first 386-based system (the Compaq Deskpro 386) hit the market in 1986, it still supported 16-bit slots. Other 386 PCs followed suit, and the AT (later ISA) bus remained a part of most systems even into the late 1990s. Meanwhile, IBM began to worry that it was losing control of the industry it had created. In 1987, IBM released the PS/2 line of computers, which included the MCA bus. MCA included numerous enhancements over the 16-bit AT bus, including bus mastering, burst mode, software-configurable resources, and 32-bit capabilities. However, in an effort to reassert its dominant role, IBM patented the bus and placed stringent licensing and royalty policies on its use. A few manufacturers did produce licensed MCA machines (most notably, NCR), but overall the industry balked at IBM's restrictions. Steve Gibson proposed that clone makers adopt NuBus. Instead, a group (the "Gang of Nine"), led by Compaq, created a new bus, which was named the Extended (or Enhanced) Industry Standard Architecture, or "EISA" (and the 16-bit bus became known as Industry Standard Architecture, or "ISA"). This provided virtually all of the technical advantages of MCA, while remaining compatible with existing 8-bit and 16-bit cards, and (most enticing to system and card makers) minimal licensing cost. The EISA bus slot is a two-level staggered pin system, with the upper part of the slot corresponding to the standard ISA bus pin layout. The additional features of the EISA bus are implemented on the lower part of the slot connector, using thin traces inserted into the insulating gap of the upper / ISA card card edge connector. Additionally, the lower part of the bus has five keying notches, so an ISA card with unusually long traces cannot accidentally extend down into the lower part of the slot. Intel introduced their first EISA chipset (and also their first chipset in the modern sense of the word) as the 82350 in September 1989. Intel introduced a lower-cost variant as the 82350DT, announced in April 1991; it began shipping in June of that year. The first EISA computer announced was the HP Vectra 486 in October 1989. The first EISA computers to hit the market were the Compaq Deskpro 486 and the SystemPro. The SystemPro, being one of the first PC-style systems designed as a network server, was built from the ground up to take full advantage of the EISA bus. It included such features as multiprocessing, hardware RAID, and bus-mastering network cards. One of the benefits to come out of the EISA standard was a final codification of the standard to which ISA slots and cards should be held (in particular, clock speed was fixed at an industry standard of 8.33 MHz). Thus, even systems that didn't use the EISA bus gained the advantage of having the ISA standardized, which contributed to its longevity. The "Gang of Nine" The Gang of Nine was the informal name given to the consortium of personal computer manufacturing companies that together created the EISA bus. Rival members generally acknowledged Compaq's leadership, with one stating in 1989 that within the Gang of Nine "when you have 10 people sit down before a table to write a letter to the president, someone has to write the letter. Compaq is sitting down at the typewriter". The members were: AST Research, Inc. Compaq Computer Corporation Seiko Epson Corporation Hewlett-Packard Company NEC Corporation Olivetti Tandy Corporation WYSE Zenith Data Systems Technical data Although the MCA bus had a slight performance advantage over EISA (bus speed of 10 MHz, compared to 8.33 MHz), EISA contained almost all of the technological benefits that MCA boasted, including bus mastering, burst mode, software-configurable resources, and 32-bit data/address buses. These brought EISA nearly to par with MCA from a performance standpoint, and EISA easily defeated MCA in industry support. EISA replaced the tedious jumper configuration common with ISA cards with software-based configuration. Every EISA system shipped with an EISA configuration utility; this was usually a slightly customized version of the standard utilities written by the EISA chipset makers. The user would boot into this utility, either from floppy disk or on a dedicated hard-drive partition. The utility software would detect all EISA cards in the system and could configure any hardware resources (interrupts, memory ports, etc.) on any EISA card (each EISA card would include a disk with information that described the available options on the card) or on the EISA system motherboard. The user could also enter information about ISA cards in the system, allowing the utility to automatically reconfigure EISA cards to avoid resource conflicts. Similarly, Windows 95, with its Plug-and-Play capability, was not able to change the configuration of EISA cards, but it could detect the cards, read their configuration, and reconfigure Plug-and-Play hardware to avoid resource conflicts. Windows 95 would also automatically attempt to install appropriate drivers for detected EISA cards. Industry acceptance EISA's success was far from guaranteed. Many manufacturers, including those in the "Gang of Nine", researched the possibility of using MCA. For example, Compaq actually produced prototype DeskPro systems using the bus. However, these were never put into production, and when it was clear that MCA had lost, Compaq allowed its MCA license to expire (the license actually cost relatively little; the primary costs associated with MCA, and at which the industry revolted, were royalties to be paid per system shipped). On the other hand, when it became clear to IBM that Micro Channel was dying, IBM licensed EISA for use in a few server systems. See also Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) Micro Channel architecture (MCA) NuBus VESA Local Bus (VLB) Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) PCI-X PCI Express (PCIe) List of device bandwidths Amiga Zorro II PC/104 CompactPCI MiniPCI PC card Low Pin Count (LPC) Universal Serial Bus References External links The Intel EISA chipset explained EISA bus technical summary Intel EISA Controllers Intel 82350 EISA chip family Computer buses IBM PC compatibles Motherboard expansion slot

JavaScript (), often abbreviated JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Over 97% of websites use JavaScript on the client side for web page behavior, often incorporating third-party libraries. All major web browsers have a dedicated JavaScript engine to execute the code on users' devices. JavaScript is a high-level, often just-in-time compiled language that conforms to the ECMAScript standard. It has dynamic typing, prototype-based object-orientation, and first-class functions. It is multi-paradigm, supporting event-driven, functional, and imperative programming styles. It has application programming interfaces (APIs) for working with text, dates, regular expressions, standard data structures, and the Document Object Model (DOM). The ECMAScript standard does not include any input/output (I/O), such as networking, storage, or graphics facilities. In practice, the web browser or other runtime system provides JavaScript APIs for I/O. JavaScript engines were originally used only in web browsers, but are now core components of some servers and a variety of applications. The most popular runtime system for this usage is Node.js. Although Java and JavaScript are similar in name, syntax, and respective standard libraries, the two languages are distinct and differ greatly in design. History Creation at Netscape The first web browser with a graphical user interface, Mosaic, was released in 1993. Accessible to non-technical people, it played a prominent role in the rapid growth of the nascent World Wide Web. The lead developers of Mosaic then founded the Netscape corporation, which released a more polished browser, Netscape Navigator, in 1994. This quickly became the most-used. During these formative years of the Web, web pages could only be static, lacking the capability for dynamic behavior after the page was loaded in the browser. There was a desire in the burgeoning web development scene to remove this limitation, so in 1995, Netscape decided to add a scripting language to Navigator. They pursued two routes to achieve this: collaborating with Sun Microsystems to embed the Java programming language, while also hiring Brendan Eich to embed the Scheme language. Netscape management soon decided that the best option was for Eich to devise a new language, with syntax similar to Java and less like Scheme or other extant scripting languages. Although the new language and its interpreter implementation were called LiveScript when first shipped as part of a Navigator beta in September 1995, the name was changed to JavaScript for the official release in December. The choice of the JavaScript name has caused confusion, implying that it is directly related to Java. At the time, the dot-com boom had begun and Java was the hot new language, so Eich considered the JavaScript name a marketing ploy by Netscape. Adoption by Microsoft Microsoft debuted Internet Explorer in 1995, leading to a browser war with Netscape. On the JavaScript front, Microsoft reverse-engineered the Navigator interpreter to create its own, called JScript. JScript was first released in 1996, alongside initial support for CSS and extensions to HTML. Each of these implementations was noticeably different from their counterparts in Navigator. These differences made it difficult for developers to make their websites work well in both browsers, leading to widespread use of "best viewed in Netscape" and "best viewed in Internet Explorer" logos for several years. The rise of JScript In November 1996, Netscape submitted JavaScript to Ecma International, as the starting point for a standard specification that all browser vendors could conform to. This led to the official release of the first ECMAScript language specification in June 1997. The standards process continued for a few years, with the release of ECMAScript 2 in June 1998 and ECMAScript 3 in December 1999. Work on ECMAScript 4 began in 2000. Meanwhile, Microsoft gained an increasingly dominant position in the browser market. By the early 2000s, Internet Explorer's market share reached 95%. This meant that JScript became the de facto standard for client-side scripting on the Web. Microsoft initially participated in the standards process and implemented some proposals in its JScript language, but eventually it stopped collaborating on Ecma work. Thus ECMAScript 4 was mothballed. Growth and standardization During the period of Internet Explorer dominance in the early 2000s, client-side scripting was stagnant. This started to change in 2004, when the successor of Netscape, Mozilla, released the Firefox browser. Firefox was well received by many, taking significant market share from Internet Explorer. In 2005, Mozilla joined ECMA International, and work started on the ECMAScript for XML (E4X) standard. This led to Mozilla working jointly with Macromedia (later acquired by Adobe Systems), who were implementing E4X in their ActionScript 3 language, which was based on an ECMAScript 4 draft. The goal became standardizing ActionScript 3 as the new ECMAScript 4. To this end, Adobe Systems released the Tamarin implementation as an open source project. However, Tamarin and ActionScript 3 were too different from established client-side scripting, and without cooperation from Microsoft, ECMAScript 4 never reached fruition. Meanwhile, very important developments were occurring in open-source communities not affiliated with ECMA work. In 2005, Jesse James Garrett released a white paper in which he coined the term Ajax and described a set of technologies, of which JavaScript was the backbone, to create web applications where data can be loaded in the background, avoiding the need for full page reloads. This sparked a renaissance period of JavaScript, spearheaded by open-source libraries and the communities that formed around them. Many new libraries were created, including jQuery, Prototype, Dojo Toolkit, and MooTools. Google debuted its Chrome browser in 2008, with the V8 JavaScript engine that was faster than its competition. The key innovation was just-in-time compilation (JIT), so other browser vendors needed to overhaul their engines for JIT. In July 2008, these disparate parties came together for a conference in Oslo. This led to the eventual agreement in early 2009 to combine all relevant work and drive the language forward. The result was the ECMAScript 5 standard, released in December 2009. Reaching maturity Ambitious work on the language continued for several years, culminating in an extensive collection of additions and refinements being formalized with the publication of ECMAScript 6 in 2015. The creation of Node.js in 2009 by Ryan Dahl sparked a significant increase in the usage of JavaScript outside of web browsers. Node combines the V8 engine, an event loop, and I/O APIs, thereby providing a stand-alone JavaScript runtime system. As of 2018, Node had been used by millions of developers, and npm had the most modules of any package manager in the world. The ECMAScript draft specification is currently maintained openly on GitHub, and editions are produced via regular annual snapshots. Potential revisions to the language are vetted through a comprehensive proposal process. Now, instead of edition numbers, developers check the status of upcoming features individually. The current JavaScript ecosystem has many libraries and frameworks, established programming practices, and substantial usage of JavaScript outside of web browsers. Plus, with the rise of single-page applications and other JavaScript-heavy websites, several transpilers have been created to aid the development process. Trademark "JavaScript" is a trademark of Oracle Corporation in the United States. Website client-side usage JavaScript is the dominant client-side scripting language of the Web, with 97% of websites using it for this purpose. Scripts are embedded in or included from HTML documents and interact with the DOM. All major web browsers have a built-in JavaScript engine that executes the code on the user's device. Examples of scripted behavior Loading new web page content without reloading the page, via Ajax or a WebSocket. For example, users of social media can send and receive messages without leaving the current page. Web page animations, such as fading objects in and out, resizing, and moving them. Playing browser games. Controlling the playback of streaming media. Generating pop-up ads. Validating input values of a web form before the data is sent to a web server. Logging data about the user's behavior then sending it to a server. The website owner can use this data for analytics, ad tracking, and personalization. Redirecting a user to another page. Libraries and frameworks Over 80% of websites use a third-party JavaScript library or web framework for their client-side scripting. jQuery is by far the most popular library, used by over 75% of websites. Facebook created the React library for its website and later released it as open source; other sites, including Twitter, now use it. Likewise, the Angular framework created by Google for its websites, including YouTube and Gmail, is now an open source project used by others. In contrast, the term "Vanilla JS" has been coined for websites not using any libraries or frameworks, instead relying entirely on standard JavaScript functionality. Other usage The use of JavaScript has expanded beyond its web browser roots. JavaScript engines are now embedded in a variety of other software systems, both for server-side website deployments and non-browser applications. Initial attempts at promoting server-side JavaScript usage were Netscape Enterprise Server and Microsoft's Internet Information Services, but they were small niches. Server-side usage eventually started to grow in the late 2000s, with the creation of Node.js and other approaches. Electron, Cordova, React Native, and other application frameworks have been used to create many applications with behavior implemented in JavaScript. Other non-browser applications include Adobe Acrobat support for scripting PDF documents and GNOME Shell extensions written in JavaScript. JavaScript has recently begun to appear in some embedded systems, usually by leveraging Node.js. Features The following features are common to all conforming ECMAScript implementations unless explicitly specified otherwise. Imperative and structured JavaScript supports much of the structured programming syntax from C (e.g., if statements, while loops, switch statements, do while loops, etc.). One partial exception is scoping: originally JavaScript only had function scoping with var; then block scoping was added in ECMAScript 2015 with the keywords let and const. Like C, JavaScript makes a distinction between expressions and statements. One syntactic difference from C is automatic semicolon insertion, which allow semicolons (which terminate statements) to be omitted. Weakly typed JavaScript is weakly typed, which means certain types are implicitly cast depending on the operation used. The binary + operator casts both operands to a string unless both operands are numbers. This is because the addition operator doubles as a concatenation operator The binary - operator always casts both operands to a number Both unary operators (+, -) always cast the operand to a number Values are cast to strings like the following: Strings are left as-is Numbers are converted to their string representation Arrays have their elements cast to strings after which they are joined by commas (,) Other objects are converted to the string [object Object] where Object is the name of the constructor of the object Values are cast to numbers by casting to strings and then casting the strings to numbers. These processes can be modified by defining toString and valueOf functions on the prototype for string and number casting respectively. JavaScript has received criticism for the way it implements these conversions as the complexity of the rules can be mistaken for inconsistency. For example, when adding a number to a string, the number will be cast to a string before performing concatenation, but when subtracting a number from a string, the string is cast to a number before performing subtraction. Often also mentioned is {} + [] resulting in 0 (number). This is misleading: the {} is interpreted as an empty code block instead of an empty object, and the empty array is cast to a number by the remaining unary + operator. If you wrap the expression in parentheses ({} + []) the curly brackets are interpreted as an empty object and the result of the expression is "[object Object]" as expected. Dynamic TypingJavaScript is dynamically typed like most other scripting languages. A type is associated with a value rather than an expression. For example, a variable initially bound to a number may be reassigned to a string. JavaScript supports various ways to test the type of objects, including duck typing. Run-time evaluation JavaScript includes an eval function that can execute statements provided as strings at run-time. Object-orientation (prototype-based) Prototypal inheritance in JavaScript is described by Douglas Crockford as: In JavaScript, an object is an associative array, augmented with a prototype (see below); each key provides the name for an object property, and there are two syntactical ways to specify such a name: dot notation (obj.x = 10) and bracket notation (obj['x'] = 10). A property may be added, rebound, or deleted at run-time. Most properties of an object (and any property that belongs to an object's prototype inheritance chain) can be enumerated using a for...in loop. Prototypes JavaScript uses prototypes where many other object-oriented languages use classes for inheritance. It is possible to simulate many class-based features with prototypes in JavaScript. Functions as object constructors Functions double as object constructors, along with their typical role. Prefixing a function call with new will create an instance of a prototype, inheriting properties and methods from the constructor (including properties from the Object prototype). ECMAScript 5 offers the Object.create method, allowing explicit creation of an instance without automatically inheriting from the Object prototype (older environments can assign the prototype to null). The constructor's prototype property determines the object used for the new object's internal prototype. New methods can be added by modifying the prototype of the function used as a constructor. JavaScript's built-in constructors, such as Array or Object, also have prototypes that can be modified. While it is possible to modify the Object prototype, it is generally considered bad practice because most objects in JavaScript will inherit methods and properties from the Object prototype, and they may not expect the prototype to be modified. Functions as methods Unlike many object-oriented languages, there is no distinction between a function definition and a method definition. Rather, the distinction occurs during function calling; when a function is called as a method of an object, the function's local this keyword is bound to that object for that invocation. Functional A function is first-class; a function is considered to be an object. As such, a function may have properties and methods, such as .call() and .bind(). A nested function is a function defined within another function. It is created each time the outer function is invoked. In addition, each nested function forms a lexical closure: the lexical scope of the outer function (including any constant, local variable, or argument value) becomes part of the internal state of each inner function object, even after execution of the outer function concludes. JavaScript also supports anonymous functions. Delegative JavaScript supports implicit and explicit delegation. Functions as roles (Traits and Mixins) JavaScript natively supports various function-based implementations of Role patterns like Traits and Mixins. Such a function defines additional behavior by at least one method bound to the this keyword within its function body. A Role then has to be delegated explicitly via call or apply to objects that need to feature additional behavior that is not shared via the prototype chain. Object composition and inheritance Whereas explicit function-based delegation does cover composition in JavaScript, implicit delegation already happens every time the prototype chain is walked in order to, e.g., find a method that might be related to but is not directly owned by an object. Once the method is found it gets called within this object's context. Thus inheritance in JavaScript is covered by a delegation automatism that is bound to the prototype property of constructor functions. Miscellaneous JS is a zero-index language. Run-time environmentJavaScript typically relies on a run-time environment (e.g., a web browser) to provide objects and methods by which scripts can interact with the environment (e.g., a web page DOM). These environments are single-threaded. JavaScript also relies on the run-time environment to provide the ability to include/import scripts (e.g., HTML <script> elements). This is not a language feature per se, but it is common in most JavaScript implementations. JavaScript processes messages from a queue one at a time. JavaScript calls a function associated with each new message, creating a call stack frame with the function's arguments and local variables. The call stack shrinks and grows based on the function's needs. When the call stack is empty upon function completion, JavaScript proceeds to the next message in the queue. This is called the event loop, described as "run to completion" because each message is fully processed before the next message is considered. However, the language's concurrency model describes the event loop as non-blocking: program input/output is performed using events and callback functions. This means, for instance, that JavaScript can process a mouse click while waiting for a database query to return information. Variadic functions An indefinite number of parameters can be passed to a function. The function can access them through formal parameters and also through the local arguments object. Variadic functions can also be created by using the bind method. Array and object literals Like many scripting languages, arrays and objects (associative arrays in other languages) can each be created with a succinct shortcut syntax. In fact, these literals form the basis of the JSON data format. Regular expressions JavaScript also supports regular expressions in a manner similar to Perl, which provide a concise and powerful syntax for text manipulation that is more sophisticated than the built-in string functions. Promises and Async/await JavaScript supports promises and Async/await for handling asynchronous operations. A built-in Promise object provides functionality for handling promises and associating handlers with an asynchronous action's eventual result. Recently, combinator methods were introduced in the JavaScript specification, which allows developers to combine multiple JavaScript promises and do operations based on different scenarios. The methods introduced are: Promise.race, Promise.all, Promise.allSettled and Promise.any. Async/await allows an asynchronous, non-blocking function to be structured in a way similar to an ordinary synchronous function. Asynchronous, non-blocking code can be written, with minimal overhead, structured similar to traditional synchronous, blocking code. Vendor-specific extensions Historically, some JavaScript engines supported these non-standard features: conditional catch clauses (like Java) array comprehensions and generator expressions (like Python) concise function expressions (function(args) expr; this experimental syntax predated arrow functions) ECMAScript for XML (E4X), an extension that adds native XML support to ECMAScript (unsupported in Firefox since version 21) Syntax Simple examples Variables in JavaScript can be defined using either the var, let or const keywords. // Declares a function-scoped variable named `x`, and implicitly assigns the // special value `undefined` to it. Variables without value are automatically // set to undefined. var x; // Variables can be manually set to `undefined` like so var x2 = undefined; // Declares a block-scoped variable named `y`, and implicitly sets it to // `undefined`. The `let` keyword was introduced in ECMAScript 2015. let y; // Declares a block-scoped, un-reassignable variable named `z`, and sets it to // a string literal. The `const` keyword was also introduced in ECMAScript 2015, // and must be explicitly assigned to. // The keyword `const` means constant, hence the variable cannot be reassigned // as the value is `constant`. const z = "this value cannot be reassigned!"; // Declares a variable named `myNumber`, and assigns a number literal (the value // `2`) to it. let myNumber = 2; // Reassigns `myNumber`, setting it to a string literal (the value `"foo"`). // JavaScript is a dynamically-typed language, so this is legal. myNumber = "foo"; Note the comments in the example above, all of which were preceded with two forward slashes. There is no built-in Input/output functionality in JavaScript; the run-time environment provides that. The ECMAScript specification in edition 5.1 mentions: indeed, there are no provisions in this specification for input of external data or output of computed results. However, most runtime environments have a console object that can be used to print output. Here is a minimalist Hello World program in JavaScript: console.log("Hello World!"); A simple recursive function: function factorial(n) { if (n === 0) return 1; // 0! = 1 return n * factorial(n - 1); } factorial(3); // returns 6 An anonymous function (or lambda): function counter() { let count = 0; return function() { return ++count; }; } let x = counter(); x(); // returns 1 x(); // returns 2 x(); // returns 3 This example shows that, in JavaScript, function closures capture their non-local variables by reference. Arrow functions were first introduced in 6th Edition - ECMAScript 2015. They shorten the syntax for writing functions in JavaScript. Arrow functions are anonymous, so a variable is needed to refer to them in order to invoke them after their creation. Example of arrow function: // Arrow functions let us omit the `function` keyword. // Here `long_example` points to an anonymous function value. const long_example = (input1, input2) => { console.log("Hello, World!"); const output = input1 + input2; return output; }; // If there are no braces, the arrow function simply returns the expression // So here it's (input1 + input2) const short_example = (input1, input2) => input1 + input2; long_example(2, 3); // Prints "Hello, World!" and returns 5 short_example(2, 5); // Returns 7 // If an arrow function only has one parameter, the parentheses can be removed. const no_parentheses = input => input + 2; no_parentheses(3); // Returns 5 In JavaScript, objects are created in the same way as functions; this is known as a function object. Object example: function Ball(r) { this.radius = r; // the "r" argument is local to the ball object this.area = Math.PI * (r ** 2); // parentheses don't do anything but clarify // objects can contain functions ("method") this.show = function() { drawCircle(this.radius); // references another function (that draws a circle) }; } let myBall = new Ball(5); // creates a new instance of the ball object with radius 5 myBall.radius++; // object properties can usually be modified from the outside myBall.show(); // using the inherited "show" function Variadic function demonstration (arguments is a special variable): function sum() { let x = 0; for (let i = 0; i < arguments.length; ++i) x += arguments[i]; return x; } sum(1, 2); // returns 3 sum(1, 2, 3); // returns 6 Immediately-invoked function expressions are often used to create closures. Closures allow gathering properties and methods in a namespace and making some of them private: let counter = (function() { let i = 0; // private property return { // public methods get: function() { alert(i); }, set: function(value) { i = value; }, increment: function() { alert(++i); } }; })(); // module counter.get(); // shows 0 counter.set(6); counter.increment(); // shows 7 counter.increment(); // shows 8 Exporting and Importing modules in JavaScript Export example: /* mymodule.js */ // This function remains private, as it is not exported let sum = (a, b) => { return a + b; } // Export variables export let name = 'Alice'; export let age = 23; // Export named functions export function add(num1, num2) { return num1 + num2; } // Export class export class Multiplication { constructor(num1, num2) { this.num1 = num1; this.num2 = num2; } add() { return sum(this.num1, this.num2); } } Import example: // Import one property import { add } from './mymodule.js'; console.log(add(1, 2)); // 3 // Import multiple properties import { name, age } from './mymodule.js'; console.log(name, age); //> "Alice", 23 // Import all properties from a module import * from './module.js' console.log(name, age); //> "Alice", 23 console.log(add(1,2)); //> 3 More advanced example This sample code displays various JavaScript features. /* Finds the lowest common multiple (LCM) of two numbers */ function LCMCalculator(x, y) { // constructor function const checkInt = function(x) { // inner function if (x % 1 !== 0) throw new TypeError(x + "is not an integer"); // var a = mouseX return x; }; this.a = checkInt(x) // semicolons ^^^^ are optional, a newline is enough this.b = checkInt(y); } // The prototype of object instances created by a constructor is // that constructor's "prototype" property. LCMCalculator.prototype = { // object literal constructor: LCMCalculator, // when reassigning a prototype, set the constructor property appropriately gcd: function() { // method that calculates the greatest common divisor // Euclidean algorithm: let a = Math.abs(this.a), b = Math.abs(this.b), t; if (a < b) { // swap variables // t = b; b = a; a = t; [a, b] = [b, a]; // swap using destructuring assignment (ES6) } while (b !== 0) { t = b; b = a % b; a = t; } // Only need to calculate GCD once, so "redefine" this method. // (Actually not redefinition—it's defined on the instance itself, // so that this.gcd refers to this "redefinition" instead of LCMCalculator.prototype.gcd. // Note that this leads to a wrong result if the LCMCalculator object members "a" and/or "b" are altered afterwards.) // Also, 'gcd' === "gcd", this['gcd'] === this.gcd this['gcd'] = function() { return a; }; return a; }, // Object property names can be specified by strings delimited by double (") or single (') quotes. "lcm": function() { // Variable names do not collide with object properties, e.g., |lcm| is not |this.lcm|. // not using |this.a*this.b| to avoid FP precision issues let lcm = this.a / this.gcd() * this.b; // Only need to calculate lcm once, so "redefine" this method. this.lcm = function() { return lcm; }; return lcm; }, // Methods can also be declared using es6 syntax toString() { // Using both es6 template literals and the (+) operator to concatenate values return `LCMCalculator: a = ${this.a}, b = ` + this.b; } }; // Define generic output function; this implementation only works for Web browsers function output(x) { document.body.appendChild(document.createTextNode(x)); document.body.appendChild(document.createElement('br')); } // Note: Array's map() and forEach() are defined in JavaScript 1.6. // They are used here to demonstrate JavaScript's inherent functional nature. [ [25, 55], [21, 56], [22, 58], [28, 56] ].map(function(pair) { // array literal + mapping function return new LCMCalculator(pair[0], pair[1]); }).sort((a, b) => a.lcm() - b.lcm()) // sort with this comparative function; => is a shorthand form of a function, called "arrow function" .forEach(printResult); function printResult(obj) { output(obj + ", gcd = " + obj.gcd() + ", lcm = " + obj.lcm()); } The following output should be displayed in the browser window. LCMCalculator: a = 28, b = 56, gcd = 28, lcm = 56 LCMCalculator: a = 21, b = 56, gcd = 7, lcm = 168 LCMCalculator: a = 25, b = 55, gcd = 5, lcm = 275 LCMCalculator: a = 22, b = 58, gcd = 2, lcm = 638 Security JavaScript and the DOM provide the potential for malicious authors to deliver scripts to run on a client computer via the Web. Browser authors minimize this risk using two restrictions. First, scripts run in a sandbox in which they can only perform Web-related actions, not general-purpose programming tasks like creating files. Second, scripts are constrained by the same-origin policy: scripts from one Web site do not have access to information such as usernames, passwords, or cookies sent to another site. Most JavaScript-related security bugs are breaches of either the same origin policy or the sandbox. There are subsets of general JavaScript—ADsafe, Secure ECMAScript (SES)—that provide greater levels of security, especially on code created by third parties (such as advertisements). Closure Toolkit is another project for safe embedding and isolation of third-party JavaScript and HTML. Content Security Policy is the main intended method of ensuring that only trusted code is executed on a Web page. Cross-site vulnerabilities A common JavaScript-related security problem is cross-site scripting (XSS), a violation of the same-origin policy. XSS vulnerabilities occur when an attacker can cause a target Web site, such as an online banking website, to include a malicious script in the webpage presented to a victim. The script in this example can then access the banking application with the privileges of the victim, potentially disclosing secret information or transferring money without the victim's authorization. A solution to XSS vulnerabilities is to use HTML escaping whenever displaying untrusted data. Some browsers include partial protection against reflected XSS attacks, in which the attacker provides a URL including malicious script. However, even users of those browsers are vulnerable to other XSS attacks, such as those where the malicious code is stored in a database. Only correct design of Web applications on the server-side can fully prevent XSS. XSS vulnerabilities can also occur because of implementation mistakes by browser authors. Another cross-site vulnerability is cross-site request forgery (CSRF). In CSRF, code on an attacker's site tricks the victim's browser into taking actions the user did not intend at a target site (like transferring money at a bank). When target sites rely solely on cookies for request authentication, requests originating from code on the attacker's site can carry the same valid login credentials of the initiating user. In general, the solution to CSRF is to require an authentication value in a hidden form field, and not only in the cookies, to authenticate any request that might have lasting effects. Checking the HTTP Referrer header can also help. "JavaScript hijacking" is a type of CSRF attack in which a <script> tag on an attacker's site exploits a page on the victim's site that returns private information such as JSON or JavaScript. Possible solutions include: requiring an authentication token in the POST and GET parameters for any response that returns private information. Misplaced trust in the client Developers of client-server applications must recognize that untrusted clients may be under the control of attackers. The application author cannot assume that their JavaScript code will run as intended (or at all) because any secret embedded in the code could be extracted by a determined adversary. Some implications are: Web site authors cannot perfectly conceal how their JavaScript operates because the raw source code must be sent to the client. The code can be obfuscated, but obfuscation can be reverse-engineered. JavaScript form validation only provides convenience for users, not security. If a site verifies that the user agreed to its terms of service, or filters invalid characters out of fields that should only contain numbers, it must do so on the server, not only the client. Scripts can be selectively disabled, so JavaScript cannot be relied on to prevent operations such as right-clicking on an image to save it. It is considered very bad practice to embed sensitive information such as passwords in JavaScript because it can be extracted by an attacker. Misplaced trust in developers Package management systems such as npm and Bower are popular with JavaScript developers. Such systems allow a developer to easily manage their program's dependencies upon other developers' program libraries. Developers trust that the maintainers of the libraries will keep them secure and up to date, but that is not always the case. A vulnerability has emerged because of this blind trust. Relied-upon libraries can have new releases that cause bugs or vulnerabilities to appear in all programs that rely upon the libraries. Inversely, a library can go unpatched with known vulnerabilities out in the wild. In a study done looking over a sample of 133k websites, researchers found 37% of the websites included a library with at least one known vulnerability. "The median lag between the oldest library version used on each website and the newest available version of that library is 1,177 days in ALEXA, and development of some libraries still in active use ceased years ago." Another possibility is that the maintainer of a library may remove the library entirely. This occurred in March 2016 when Azer Koçulu removed his repository from npm. This caused tens of thousands of programs and websites depending upon his libraries to break. Browser and plugin coding errors JavaScript provides an interface to a wide range of browser capabilities, some of which may have flaws such as buffer overflows. These flaws can allow attackers to write scripts that would run any code they wish on the user's system. This code is not by any means limited to another JavaScript application. For example, a buffer overrun exploit can allow an attacker to gain access to the operating system's API with superuser privileges. These flaws have affected major browsers including Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari. Plugins, such as video players, Adobe Flash, and the wide range of ActiveX controls enabled by default in Microsoft Internet Explorer, may also have flaws exploitable via JavaScript (such flaws have been exploited in the past). In Windows Vista, Microsoft has attempted to contain the risks of bugs such as buffer overflows by running the Internet Explorer process with limited privileges. Google Chrome similarly confines its page renderers to their own "sandbox". Sandbox implementation errors Web browsers are capable of running JavaScript outside the sandbox, with the privileges necessary to, for example, create or delete files. Such privileges are not intended to be granted to code from the Web. Incorrectly granting privileges to JavaScript from the Web has played a role in vulnerabilities in both Internet Explorer and Firefox. In Windows XP Service Pack 2, Microsoft demoted JScript's privileges in Internet Explorer. Microsoft Windows allows JavaScript source files on a computer's hard drive to be launched as general-purpose, non-sandboxed programs (see: Windows Script Host). This makes JavaScript (like VBScript) a theoretically viable vector for a Trojan horse, although JavaScript Trojan horses are uncommon in practice. Hardware vulnerabilities In 2015, a JavaScript-based proof-of-concept implementation of a rowhammer attack was described in a paper by security researchers. In 2017, a JavaScript-based attack via browser was demonstrated that could bypass ASLR. It's called "ASLR⊕Cache" or AnC. In 2018, the paper that announced the Spectre attacks against Speculative Execution in Intel and other processors included a JavaScript implementation. Development tools Important tools have evolved with the language. Every major web browser has built-in web development tools, including a JavaScript debugger. Static program analysis tools, such as ESLint and JSLint, scan JavaScript code for conformance to a set of standards and guidelines. Some browsers have built-in profilers. Stand-alone profiling libraries have also been created, such as benchmark.js and jsbench. Many text editors have syntax highlighting support for JavaScript code. Related technologies Java A common misconception is that JavaScript is the same as Java. Both indeed have a C-like syntax (the C language being their most immediate common ancestor language). They are also typically sandboxed (when used inside a browser), and JavaScript was designed with Java's syntax and standard library in mind. In particular, all Java keywords were reserved in original JavaScript, JavaScript's standard library follows Java's naming conventions, and JavaScript's and objects are based on classes from Java 1.0. Java and JavaScript both first appeared in 1995, but Java was developed by James Gosling of Sun Microsystems and JavaScript by Brendan Eich of Netscape Communications. The differences between the two languages are more prominent than their similarities. Java has static typing, while JavaScript's typing is dynamic. Java is loaded from compiled bytecode, while JavaScript is loaded as human-readable source code. Java's objects are class-based, while JavaScript's are prototype-based. Finally, Java did not support functional programming until Java 8, while JavaScript has done so from the beginning, being influenced by Scheme. JSON JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a general-purpose data interchange format that is defined as a subset of JavaScript's object literal syntax. WebAssembly Since 2017, web browsers have supported WebAssembly, a binary format that enables a JavaScript engine to execute performance-critical portions of web page scripts close to native speed. WebAssembly code runs in the same sandbox as regular JavaScript code. asm.js is a subset of JavaScript that served as the forerunner of WebAssembly. Transpilers JavaScript is the dominant client-side language of the Web, and many websites are script-heavy. Thus transpilers have been created to convert code written in other languages, which can aid the development process. References Further reading Flanagan, David. JavaScript: The Definitive Guide. 7th edition. Sebastopol, California: O'Reilly, 2020. Haverbeke, Marijn. Eloquent JavaScript. 3rd edition. No Starch Press, 2018. 472 pages. .(download) Zakas, Nicholas. Principles of Object-Oriented JavaScript, 1st edition. No Starch Press, 2014. 120 pages. . External links American inventions Articles with example JavaScript code Cross-platform software Dynamically typed programming languages Functional languages Object-based programming languages High-level programming languages Programming languages created in 1995 Programming languages with an ISO standard Prototype-based programming languages Scripting languages Web programming

Ezekiel (; Yəḥezqēʾl ; in the Septuagint written in ) is the central protagonist of the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible. In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Ezekiel is acknowledged as a Hebrew prophet. In Judaism and Christianity, he is also viewed as the 6th-century BCE author of the Book of Ezekiel, which reveals prophecies regarding the destruction of Jerusalem, and the restoration to the land of Israel. The name Ezekiel means "God is strong" or "God strengthens". In the Bible The author of the Book of Ezekiel presents himself as Ezekiel, the son of Buzi, born into a priestly (kohen) lineage. Apart from identifying himself, the author gives a date for the first divine encounter which he presents: "in the thirtieth year". Ezekiel describes his calling to be a prophet by going into great detail about his encounter with God and four "living creatures" with four wheels that stayed beside the creatures. For the next five years he incessantly prophesied and acted out the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, which was met with some opposition. However, Ezekiel and his contemporaries like Jeremiah, another prophet who was living in Jerusalem at that time, witnessed the fulfilment of their prophecies with the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Living in Babylon According to the Bible, Ezekiel and his wife lived during the Babylonian captivity on the banks of the Chebar River, in Tel Abib, with other exiles from Judah. There is no mention of him having any offspring. Chronology Ezekiel's "thirtieth year" is given as the fifth year of the exile of Judah's king Jehoiachin by the Babylonians, counting the years after the exile in 598 BCE, that is from 597 to 593 BCE. The last recorded prophecy of Ezekiel dates to April 571 BCE, sixteen years after the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. On the basis of dates given in the Book of Ezekiel, his span of prophecies can be calculated to have occurred over the course of about 22 years, starting in 593 BCE. The Aramaic Targum on Ezekiel 1:1 and the 2nd-century rabbinic work Seder Olam Rabba (chapter 26) both say that Ezekiel's vision came "in the thirtieth year after Josiah was presented with a Book of the Law discovered in the Temple", the latter taking place about the time of Josiah's reforms in 622 BCE, shortly after the call of Jeremiah to prophetic ministry around 626 BCE. If the "thirtieth year" of Ezekiel 1:1 instead refers to Ezekiel's age, then he was born around 622 BCE and was fifty years old when he had his final vision. Extrabiblical traditions Jewish tradition According to Jewish tradition, Ezekiel did not write his own book, the Book of Ezekiel, but rather his prophecies were collected and written by the Men of the Great Assembly. Ezekiel, like Jeremiah, is said by Talmud and Midrash to have been a descendant of Joshua by his marriage with the proselyte and former prostitute Rahab. Some statements found in rabbinic literature posit that Ezekiel was the son of Jeremiah, who was (also) called "Buzi" because he was despised by the Jews. Ezekiel was said to be already active as a prophet while in the Land of Israel, and he retained this gift when he was exiled with Jehoiachin and the nobles of the country to Babylon. Josephus claims that Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia's armies exiled three thousand Jews from Judah, after deposing King Jehoiakim in 598 BCE. Rava states in the Babylonian Talmud that although Ezekiel describes the appearance of the throne of God (merkabah), this is not because he had seen more than the prophet Isaiah, but rather because the latter was more accustomed to such visions; for the relation of the two prophets is that of a courtier to a peasant, the latter of whom would always describe a royal court more floridly than the former, to whom such things would be familiar. Ezekiel, like all the other prophets, has beheld only a blurred reflection of the divine majesty, just as a poor mirror reflects objects only imperfectly. According to the midrash Canticles Rabbah, it was Ezekiel whom the three pious men, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (also called Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the Bible) asked for advice as to whether they should resist Nebuchadnezzar's command and choose death by fire rather than worship his idol. At first God revealed to the prophet that they could not hope for a miraculous rescue; whereupon the prophet was greatly grieved, since these three men constituted the "remnant of Judah". But after they had left the house of the prophet, fully determined to sacrifice their lives to God, Ezekiel received this revelation: "Thou dost believe indeed that I will abandon them. That shall not happen; but do thou let them carry out their intention according to their pious dictates, and tell them nothing". Christian tradition Ezekiel is commemorated as a saint in the liturgical calendar of the Eastern Orthodox Church—and those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite—on July 21 (for those churches which use the traditional Julian Calendar, July 21 falls on August 5 of the modern Gregorian Calendar). Ezekiel is commemorated on August 28 on the Calendar of Saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church, and on April 10 in the Roman Martyrology. Certain Lutheran churches also celebrate his commemoration on July 21. Saint Bonaventure interpreted Ezekiel's statement about the "closed gate" as a prophecy of the Incarnation: the "gate" signifying the Virgin Mary and the "prince" referring to Jesus. This is one of the readings at Vespers on Great Feasts of the Theotokos in the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Churches. This imagery is also found in the traditional Catholic Christmas hymn "Gaudete" and in a saying by Bonaventure, quoted by Alphonsus Maria de' Liguori: "No one can enter Heaven unless by Mary, as though through a door." The imagery provides the basis for the concept that God gave Mary to humanity as the "Gate of Heaven" (thence the dedication of churches and convents to the Porta Coeli), an idea also laid out in the Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen) prayer. John B. Taylor credits the subject with imparting the Biblical understanding of the nature of God. Islamic tradition Ezekiel (; "Hazqiyal") is recognized as a prophet in Islamic tradition. Although not mentioned by name in the Quran, Muslim scholars, both classical and modern have included Ezekiel in lists of the prophets of Islam. The Quran mentions a prophet called Dhū al-Kifl (). Although Dhu al-Kifl's identity is disputed, he is often identified with Ezekiel. Carsten Niebuhr, in his Reisebeschreibung nach Arabian, says he visited Al Kifl in Iraq, midway between Najaf and Hilla and said Kifl was the Arabic form of Ezekiel. He further explained in his book that Ezekiel's Tomb was present in Al Kifl and that the Jews came to it on pilgrimage. The name "Dhu al-Kifl" means "Possessor of the Double" or "Possesor of the Fold" ( dhū "possessor of, owner of" and al-kifl "double, folded"). Some Islamic scholars have likened Ezekiel's mission to the description of Dhu al-Kifl. When the exile, monarchy, and state were annihilated, a political and national life was no longer possible. In the absence of a worldly foundation it became necessary to build a spiritual one and Ezekiel performed this mission by observing the signs of the time and deducing his doctrines from them. In conformity with the two parts of his book, his personality and his preaching are alike twofold. Regardless of the identification of Dhu al-Kifl with Ezekiel, Muslims have viewed Ezekiel as a prophet. Ezekiel appears in all Muslim collections of Stories of the Prophets. Muslim exegesis further lists Ezekiel's father as Buzi (Budhi) and Ezekiel is given the title ibn al-‘ajūz, denoting "son of the old (man)", as his parents are supposed to have been very old when he was born. A tradition, which resembles that of Hannah and Samuel in the Hebrew Bible, states that Ezekiel's mother prayed to God in old age for the birth of an offspring and was given Ezekiel as a gift from God. Bibliography Ibn Kutayba, K. al-Ma'arif ed. S. Ukasha, 51 Tabari, History of the Prophets and Kings, 2, 53–54 Tabari, Tafsir, V, 266 (old ed. ii, 365) Masudi, Murudj, i, 103ff. K. al-Badwa l-tarikh, iii, 4/5 and 98/100, Ezechiel Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Holy Qur'an: Translation and Commentary, Note. 2473 (cf. index: Ezekiel) Emil Heller Henning III, "Ezekiel's Temple: A Scriptural Framework Illustrating the Covenant of Grace", 2012. Purported tombs Al Kifl The tomb of Ezekiel is a structure located in modern-day south Iraq near Kefil, believed to be the final resting place of Ezekiel. It has been a place of pilgrimage to both Muslims and Jews alike. After the Jewish exodus from Iraq, Jewish activity in the tomb ceased, although a disused synagogue remains in place. Ergani A tomb in the Ergani district of Diyarbakır Province, Turkey is also believed to be the resting place of prophet Ezekiel. It is located 5 km from the city centre on a hill, revered and visited by the local Muslims, called Makam Dağı. See also Apocryphon of Ezekiel Pseudo-Ezekiel List of names referring to El Notes References Further reading Kugler, Gili, The Cruel Theology of Ezekiel 20 External links Prophet Ezekiel Orthodox icon and synaxarion 6th-century BC writers Angelic visionaries Christian saints from the Old Testament People whose existence is disputed Prophets in Christianity Prophets of the Hebrew Bible Tribe of Levi

In integral calculus, an elliptic integral is one of a number of related functions defined as the value of certain integrals. Originally, they arose in connection with the problem of finding the arc length of an ellipse and were first studied by Giulio Fagnano and Leonhard Euler (). Modern mathematics defines an "elliptic integral" as any function which can be expressed in the form where is a rational function of its two arguments, is a polynomial of degree 3 or 4 with no repeated roots, and is a constant. In general, integrals in this form cannot be expressed in terms of elementary functions. Exceptions to this general rule are when has repeated roots, or when contains no odd powers of . However, with the appropriate reduction formula, every elliptic integral can be brought into a form that involves integrals over rational functions and the three Legendre canonical forms (i.e. the elliptic integrals of the first, second and third kind). Besides the Legendre form given below, the elliptic integrals may also be expressed in Carlson symmetric form. Additional insight into the theory of the elliptic integral may be gained through the study of the Schwarz–Christoffel mapping. Historically, elliptic functions were discovered as inverse functions of elliptic integrals. Argument notation Incomplete elliptic integrals are functions of two arguments; complete elliptic integrals are functions of a single argument. These arguments are expressed in a variety of different but equivalent ways (they give the same elliptic integral). Most texts adhere to a canonical naming scheme, using the following naming conventions. For expressing one argument: , the modular angle , the elliptic modulus or eccentricity , the parameter Each of the above three quantities is completely determined by any of the others (given that they are non-negative). Thus, they can be used interchangeably. The other argument can likewise be expressed as , the amplitude, or as or , where and is one of the Jacobian elliptic functions. Specifying the value of any one of these quantities determines the others. Note that also depends on . Some additional relationships involving include The latter is sometimes called the delta amplitude and written as . Sometimes the literature also refers to the complementary parameter, the complementary modulus, or the complementary modular angle. These are further defined in the article on quarter periods. In this notation, the use of a vertical bar as delimiter indicates that the argument following it is the "parameter" (as defined above), while the backslash indicates that it is the modular angle. The use of a semicolon implies that the argument preceding it is the sine of the amplitude: This potentially confusing use of different argument delimiters is traditional in elliptic integrals and much of the notation is compatible with that used in the reference book by Abramowitz and Stegun and that used in the integral tables by Gradshteyn and Ryzhik. There are still other conventions for the notation of elliptic integrals employed in the literature. The notation with interchanged arguments, , is often encountered; and similarly for the integral of the second kind. Abramowitz and Stegun substitute the integral of the first kind, , for the argument in their definition of the integrals of the second and third kinds, unless this argument is followed by a vertical bar: i.e. for . Moreover, their complete integrals employ the parameter as argument in place of the modulus , i.e. rather than . And the integral of the third kind defined by Gradshteyn and Ryzhik, , puts the amplitude first and not the "characteristic" . Thus one must be careful with the notation when using these functions, because various reputable references and software packages use different conventions in the definitions of the elliptic functions. For example, Wolfram's Mathematica software and Wolfram Alpha define the complete elliptic integral of the first kind in terms of the parameter , instead of the elliptic modulus . Incomplete elliptic integral of the first kind The incomplete elliptic integral of the first kind is defined as This is the trigonometric form of the integral; substituting and , one obtains the Legendre normal form: Equivalently, in terms of the amplitude and modular angle one has: With one has: demonstrating that this Jacobian elliptic function is a simple inverse of the incomplete elliptic integral of the first kind. The incomplete elliptic integral of the first kind has following addition theorem: The elliptic modulus can be transformed that way: Incomplete elliptic integral of the second kind The incomplete elliptic integral of the second kind in trigonometric form is Substituting and , one obtains the Legendre normal form: Equivalently, in terms of the amplitude and modular angle: Relations with the Jacobi elliptic functions include The meridian arc length from the equator to latitude is written in terms of : where is the semi-major axis, and is the eccentricity. The incomplete elliptic integral of the second kind has following addition theorem: The elliptic modulus can be transformed that way: Incomplete elliptic integral of the third kind The incomplete elliptic integral of the third kind is or The number is called the characteristic and can take on any value, independently of the other arguments. Note though that the value is infinite, for any . A relation with the Jacobian elliptic functions is The meridian arc length from the equator to latitude is also related to a special case of : Complete elliptic integral of the first kind Elliptic Integrals are said to be 'complete' when the amplitude and therefore . The complete elliptic integral of the first kind may thus be defined as or more compactly in terms of the incomplete integral of the first kind as It can be expressed as a power series where is the Legendre polynomials, which is equivalent to where denotes the double factorial. In terms of the Gauss hypergeometric function, the complete elliptic integral of the first kind can be expressed as The complete elliptic integral of the first kind is sometimes called the quarter period. It can be computed very efficiently in terms of the arithmetic–geometric mean: See for details. Therefore the modulus can be transformed that way: This expression is valid for all and 0 ≤ k ≤ 1: Relation to the gamma function If and (where is the modular lambda function), then is expressible in closed form in terms of the gamma function. For example, and give, respectively, More generally, the condition that be in an imaginary quadratic field is sufficient. For instance, if , then and Relation to Jacobi theta function The relation to Jacobi's theta function is given by where the nome is Asymptotic expressions This approximation has a relative precision better than for . Keeping only the first two terms is correct to 0.01 precision for . Differential equation The differential equation for the elliptic integral of the first kind is A second solution to this equation is . This solution satisfies the relation Continued fraction A continued fraction expansion is: where the nome is . Complete elliptic integral of the second kind The complete elliptic integral of the second kind is defined as or more compactly in terms of the incomplete integral of the second kind as For an ellipse with semi-major axis and semi-minor axis and eccentricity , the complete elliptic integral of the second kind is equal to one quarter of the circumference of the ellipse measured in units of the semi-major axis . In other words: The complete elliptic integral of the second kind can be expressed as a power series which is equivalent to In terms of the Gauss hypergeometric function, the complete elliptic integral of the second kind can be expressed as The modulus can be transformed that way: Computation Like the integral of the first kind, the complete elliptic integral of the second kind can be computed very efficiently using the arithmetic–geometric mean . Define sequences and , where , and the recurrence relations , hold. Furthermore, define . By definition, Also, . Then In practice, the arithmetic-geometric mean would simply be computed up to some limit. This formula converges quadratically for all . To speed up computation further, the relation can be used. Furthermore, if and (where is the modular lambda function), then is expressible in closed form in terms of and hence can be computed without the need for the term. For example, and give, respectively, Derivative and differential equation A second solution to this equation is . Complete elliptic integral of the third kind The complete elliptic integral of the third kind can be defined as Note that sometimes the elliptic integral of the third kind is defined with an inverse sign for the characteristic , Just like the complete elliptic integrals of the first and second kind, the complete elliptic integral of the third kind can be computed very efficiently using the arithmetic-geometric mean . Partial derivatives Functional relations Legendre's relation: See also Elliptic curve Schwarz–Christoffel mapping Carlson symmetric form Jacobi's elliptic functions Weierstrass's elliptic functions Jacobi theta function Ramanujan theta function Arithmetic–geometric mean Pendulum period Meridian arc References Notes Other External links Eric W. Weisstein, "Elliptic Integral" (Mathworld) Matlab code for elliptic integrals evaluation by elliptic project Rational Approximations for Complete Elliptic Integrals (Exstrom Laboratories) A Brief History of Elliptic Integral Addition Theorems Elliptic functions Special hypergeometric functions

An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters, although diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used, as are electronic documents such as recordings and radio, blogs, and e-mails. The word epistolary is derived from Latin from the Greek word ἐπιστολή epistolē, meaning a letter (see epistle). In German, this type of novel is known as a Briefroman. The epistolary form can add greater realism to a story, because it mimics the workings of real life. It is thus able to demonstrate differing points of view without recourse to the device of an omniscient narrator. An important strategic device in the epistolary novel for creating the impression of authenticity of the letters is the fictional editor. Early works There are two theories on the genesis of the epistolary novel. The first claims that the genre is originated from novels with inserted letters, in which the portion containing the third-person narrative in between the letters was gradually reduced. The other theory claims that the epistolary novel arose from miscellanies of letters and poetry: some of the letters were tied together into a (mostly amorous) plot. Both claims have some validity. The first truly epistolary novel, the Spanish "Prison of Love" (Cárcel de amor) (c. 1485) by Diego de San Pedro, belongs to a tradition of novels in which a large number of inserted letters already dominated the narrative. Other well-known examples of early epistolary novels are closely related to the tradition of letter-books and miscellanies of letters. Within the successive editions of Edmé Boursault's Letters of Respect, Gratitude and Love (Lettres de respect, d'obligation et d'amour) (1669), a group of letters written to a girl named Babet were expanded and became more and more distinct from the other letters, until it formed a small epistolary novel entitled Letters to Babet (Lettres à Babet). The immensely famous Letters of a Portuguese Nun (Lettres portugaises) (1669) generally attributed to Gabriel-Joseph de La Vergne, comte de Guilleragues, though a small minority still regard Marianna Alcoforado as the author, is claimed to be intended to be part of a miscellany of Guilleragues prose and poetry. The founder of the epistolary novel in English is said by many to be James Howell (1594–1666) with "Familiar Letters" (1645–50), who writes of prison, foreign adventure, and the love of women. Perhaps first work to fully utilize the potential of an epistolary novel was Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister. This work was published anonymously in three volumes (1684, 1685, and 1687), and has been attributed to Aphra Behn though its authorship remains disputed in the 21st Century. The novel shows the genre's results of changing perspectives: individual points were presented by the individual characters, and the central voice of the author and moral evaluation disappeared (at least in the first volume; further volumes introduced a narrator). The author furthermore explored a realm of intrigue with complex scenarios such as letters that fall into the wrong hands, faked letters, or letters withheld by protagonists. The epistolary novel as a genre became popular in the 18th century in the works of such authors as Samuel Richardson, with his immensely successful novels Pamela (1740) and Clarissa (1749). John Cleland's early erotic novel Fanny Hill (1748) is written as a series of letters from the titular character to an unnamed recipient. In France, there was Lettres persanes (1721) by Montesquieu, followed by Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse (1761) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Choderlos de Laclos' Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782), which used the epistolary form to great dramatic effect, because the sequence of events was not always related directly or explicitly. In Germany, there was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werther) (1774) and Friedrich Hölderlin's Hyperion. The first Canadian novel, The History of Emily Montague (1769) by Frances Brooke, and twenty years later the first American novel, The Power of Sympathy (1789) by William Hill Brown, were both written in epistolary form. Starting in the 18th century, the epistolary form was subject to much ridicule, resulting in a number of savage burlesques. The most notable example of these was Henry Fielding's Shamela (1741), written as a parody of Pamela. In it, the female narrator can be found wielding a pen and scribbling her diary entries under the most dramatic and unlikely of circumstances. Oliver Goldsmith used the form to satirical effect in The Citizen of the World, subtitled "Letters from a Chinese Philosopher Residing in London to his Friends in the East" (1760–61). So did the diarist Fanny Burney in a successful comic first novel, Evelina (1788). The epistolary novel slowly became less popular after 18th century. Although Jane Austen tried her hand at the epistolary in juvenile writings and her novella Lady Susan (1794), she abandoned this structure for her later work. It is thought that her lost novel First Impressions, which was redrafted to become Pride and Prejudice, may have been epistolary: Pride and Prejudice contains an unusual number of letters quoted in full and some play a critical role in the plot. The epistolary form nonetheless saw continued use, surviving in exceptions or in fragments in nineteenth-century novels. In Honoré de Balzac's novel Letters of Two Brides, two women who became friends during their education at a convent correspond over a 17-year period, exchanging letters describing their lives. Mary Shelley employs the epistolary form in her novel Frankenstein (1818). Shelley uses the letters as one of a variety of framing devices, as the story is presented through the letters of a sea captain and scientific explorer attempting to reach the north pole who encounters Victor Frankenstein and records the dying man's narrative and confessions. Published in 1848, Anne Brontë's novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is framed as a retrospective letter from one of the main heroes to his friend and brother-in-law with the diary of the eponymous tenant inside it. In the late 19th century, Bram Stoker released one of the most widely recognized and successful novels in the epistolary form to date, Dracula. Printed in 1897, the novel is compiled entirely of letters, diary entries, newspaper clippings, telegrams, doctor's notes, ship's logs, and the like. Types Epistolary novels can be categorized based on the number of people whose letters are included. This gives three types of epistolary novels: monophonic (giving the letters of only one character, like Letters of a Portuguese Nun and The Sorrows of Young Werther), dialogic (giving the letters of two characters, like Mme Marie Jeanne Riccoboni's Letters of Fanni Butler (1757), and polyphonic (with three or more letter-writing characters, such as in Bram Stoker's Dracula). A crucial element in polyphonic epistolary novels like Clarissa and Dangerous Liaisons is the dramatic device of 'discrepant awareness': the simultaneous but separate correspondences of the heroines and the villains creating dramatic tension. Notable works The epistolary novel form has continued to be used after the eighteenth century. Eighteenth century Les Liaisons dangereuses is a 1782 French novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, about the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, two narcissistic rivals (and ex-lovers) who use seduction as a weapon to socially control and exploit others, all the while enjoying their cruel games and boasting about their talent for manipulation (also seen as depicting the corruption and depravity of the French nobility shortly before the French Revolution). The book is composed entirely of letters written by the various characters to each other. Marquis de Sade's Aline and Valcour (1795). Nineteenth century Fyodor Dostoevsky used the epistolary format for his first novel, Poor Folk (1846), as a series of letters between two friends, struggling to cope with their impoverished circumstances and life in pre-revolution Russia. The Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie Collins uses a collection of various documents to construct a detective novel in English. In the second piece, a character explains that he is writing his portion because another had observed to him that the events surrounding the disappearance of the eponymous diamond might reflect poorly on the family, if misunderstood, and therefore he was collecting the true story. This is an unusual element, as most epistolary novels present the documents without questions about how they were gathered. He also used the form previously in The Woman in White (1859). Spanish foreign minister Juan Valera's Pepita Jiménez (1874) is written in three sections, the first and third being a series of letters, the middle part narrated by an unknown observer. Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) uses not only letters and diaries, but also dictation cylinders and newspaper accounts. Twentieth century Dorothy L. Sayers and Robert Eustace's The Documents in the Case (1930). Haki Stërmilli's novel If I Were a Boy (1936) is written in the form of diary entries documenting the life of the protagonist. Kathrine Taylor's Address Unknown (1938) is an anti-Nazi novel in which the final letter is returned marked "Address Unknown", indicating the disappearance of the German character. Virginia Woolf used the epistolary form for her feminist essay Three Guineas (1938). C. S. Lewis used the epistolary form for The Screwtape Letters (1942), and considered writing a companion novel from an angel's point of view – though he never did so. It is less generally realized that his Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer (1964) is a similar exercise, exploring theological questions through correspondence addressed to a fictional recipient, "Malcolm", though this work may be considered a "novel" only loosely in that developments in Malcolm's personal life gradually come to light and impact the discussion. Thornton Wilder's fifth novel Ides of March (1948) consists of letters and documents illuminating the last days of the Roman Republic. Theodore Sturgeon's short novel Some of Your Blood (1961) consists of letters and case-notes relating to the psychiatric treatment of a non-supernatural vampire. Saul Bellow's novel Herzog (1964) is largely written in letter format. These are both real and imagined letters, written by the protagonist Moses Herzog to family members, friends, and celebrities. Up the Down Staircase is a novel written by Bel Kaufman, published in 1965, which spent 64 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list. In 1967 it was released as a movie starring Patrick Bedford, Sandy Dennis and Eileen Heckart. Shūsaku Endō's novel Silence (1966) is an example of the epistolary form, half of which consists of letters from Rodrigues, the other half either in the third person or in letters from other persons. Daniel Keyes's short story and novel Flowers for Algernon (1959, 1966) takes the form of a series of lab progress reports written by the main character as his treatment progresses, with his writing style changing correspondingly. The Anderson Tapes (1969, 1970) by Lawrence Sanders is a novel primarily consisting of transcripts of tape recordings. 84, Charing Cross Road (1970, 1990) by Helene Hanff is the correspondence between Helene Hanff, a freelance writer living in New York City, and a used-book dealer working in London at Marks & Co. Stephen King's novel Carrie (1974) is written in an epistolary structure through newspaper clippings, magazine articles, letters, and book excerpts. Stephen King also used the epistolary style in his short story "Jerusalem's Lot", a prequel to his novel 'Salem's Lot that was first published in the collection Night Shift. In John Barth's epistolary work Letters (1979), the author interacts with characters from his other novels. Alice Walker employed the epistolary form in The Color Purple (1982). The 1985 film adaptation echoes the form by incorporating into the script some of the novel's letters, which the actors deliver as monologues. Octavia Butler's speculative fiction novels Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998) are predominantly written as journal entries by the main character and protagonist, Lauren Olamina. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ (1982) by Sue Townsend is a comic novel in the form of a diary set in 1980s Britain. Beverly Cleary’s Dear Mr. Henshaw is a juvenile novel that was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1984. John Updike's S. (1988) is an epistolary novel consisting of the heroine's letters and transcribed audio recordings. Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer's Sorcery and Cecelia (1988) is an epistolary fantasy novel in a Regency setting from the first-person perspectives of cousins Kate and Cecelia, who recount their adventures in magic and polite society. Unusually for modern fiction, it is written using the style of the letter game. Avi's young-adult novel Nothing but the Truth (1991) uses only documents, letters, and scripts. Bridget Jones's Diary (1996) by Helen Fielding is written in the form of a personal diary. Last Days of Summer (1998) by Steve Kluger is written in a series of letters, telegrams, therapy transcripts, newspaper clippings, and baseball box scores. The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999) was written by Stephen Chbosky in the form of letters from an anonymous character to a secret role model of sorts. Twenty-first century The Whalestoe Letters (2000) by Mark Z. Danielewski is an epistolary novella and a companion piece to his debut novel House of Leaves. It is written with letters from the protagonist's mother who lives in a mental institution. Richard B. Wright's Clara Callan (2001) uses letters and journal entries to weave the story of a middle-aged woman in the 1930s. The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot is a series of ten novels written in the form of diary entries. Cabot also used the epistolary form in The Boy Next Door (2002), a romantic comedy novel consisting entirely of e-mails sent among the characters. Several of Gene Wolfe's novels are written in the forms of diaries, letters, or memoirs. Mark Dunn's Ella Minnow Pea (2001) is a progressively lipogrammatic epistolary novel – the letters become increasingly more difficult to read as the lipogrammatic constraints are brought in, and this requires the reader to attempt to interpret what is being written. La silla del águila ("The Eagle's Throne") by Carlos Fuentes (2003) is a political satire written as a series of letters between persons in high levels of the Mexican government in 2020. The epistolary format is treated by the author as a consequence of necessity: the United States impedes all telecommunications in Mexico as a retaliatory measure, leaving letters and smoke signals as the only possible methods of communication, particularly ironic given one character's observation that "Mexican politicians put nothing in writing." We Need to Talk About Kevin (2003) is a monologic epistolary novel written as a series of letters from Eva, Kevin's mother, to her husband Franklin. The 2004 novel Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell tells a story in several time periods in a nested format, with some sections told in epistolary style, including an interview, journal entries and a series of letters. Griffin and Sabine by artist Nick Bantock is a love story written as a series of hand-painted postcards and letters. Where Rainbows End (alternately titled "Rosie Dunne" or "Love, Rosie" in the United States) (2004), by Cecelia Ahern, is written in the form of letters, e-mails, instant messages, newspaper articles, etc. Uncommon Valour (2005) by John Stevens, the story of two naval officers in 1779, is primarily written in the form of diary and log extracts. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (2006), by Max Brooks, is a series of interviews from various survivors of a zombie apocalypse. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2007) by Paul Torday, is a series of letters, e-mails, interview transcripts, newspaper articles and other non-narrative media. Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2007), by Jeff Kinney, is a series of fiction books written in the form a diary, including hand-written notes and cartoon drawings. The White Tiger (2008) by Aravind Adiga, winner of the 40th Man Booker Prize in 2008, is a novel in the form of letters written by an Indian villager to the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2008), by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, is written as a series of letters and telegraphs sent and received by the protagonist. A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010) by Jennifer Egan has parts which are epistolary in nature. One chapter is written as a report of a celebrity interview, and another as a PowerPoint presentation. Super Sad True Love Story (2010) by Gary Shteyngart. Why We Broke Up (2011) by Daniel Handler, illustrated by Maira Kalman. The Martian, by Andy Weir, is written as a collection of video journal entries for each Martian day (sol) by the protagonist on Mars, and sometimes by main characters on Earth and on the space station Hermes. The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass Aged 37 is one of a series of books written by Adrian Plass, this one consisting entirely of diary entries. Another consists of transcripts of tapes, yet another consists of letters. Illuminae, by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufmann, is told exclusively through a series of classified documents, censored emails, interviews, and others. Dear Committee Members (2014) by Julie Schumacher is a novel composed entirely through letters of recommendation. On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous (2019) by Ocean Vuong, written in the form of a letter from a Vietnamese American son to his illiterate mother. See also Epistolography Epistolary poem Letter collection List of fictional diaries List of contemporary epistolary novels Found footage (film technique) Footnotes External links BBC Radio 4's 15 March 2007 edition of In Our Times, "Epistolary Literature". Hosted by Melvyn Bragg. Literary genres Narratology

In poetry, enjambment ( or ; from the French enjamber) is incomplete syntax at the end of a line; the meaning 'runs over' or 'steps over' from one poetic line to the next. Lines without enjambment are end-stopped. The origin of the word is credited to the French word enjamber, which means 'to straddle or encroach'. In reading, the delay of meaning creates a tension that is released when the word or phrase that completes the syntax is encountered (called the rejet); the tension arises from the "mixed message" produced both by the pause of the line-end, and the suggestion to continue provided by the incomplete meaning. In spite of the apparent lack of support for the other people who are not yet to be in the contradiction between rhyme, which heightens closure, and enjambment, which delays it, the technique is compatible with rhymed verse. Even in couplets, the closed or heroic couplet was a late development; older is the open couplet, where rhyme and enjambed lines co-exist. Enjambment has a long history in poetry. Homer used the technique, and it is the norm for alliterative verse where rhyme is unknown. In the 32nd Psalm of the Hebrew Bible enjambment is unusually conspicuous. It was used extensively in England by Elizabethan poets for dramatic and narrative verses, before giving way to closed couplets. The example of John Milton in Paradise Lost laid the foundation for its subsequent use by the English Romantic poets; in its preface he identified it as one of the chief features of his verse: "sense variously drawn out from one verse into another". Examples The start of The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, with only lines 4 and 7 end-stopped: These lines from Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale (c. 1611) are heavily enjambed: Meaning flows as the lines progress, and the reader's eye is forced to go on to the next sentence. It can also make the reader feel uncomfortable or the poem feel like "flow-of-thought" with a sensation of urgency or disorder. In contrast, the following lines from Romeo and Juliet (c. 1595) are completely end-stopped: Each line is formally correspondent with a unit of thought—in this case, a clause of a sentence. End-stopping is more frequent in early Shakespeare: as his style developed, the proportion of enjambment in his plays increased. Scholars such as Goswin König and A. C. Bradley have estimated approximate dates of undated works of Shakespeare by studying the frequency of enjambment. Endymion by John Keats, lines 2–4: The song "One Night In Bankok", from the musical Chess, written by Tim Rice and Björn Ulvaeus, includes examples such as : Closely related to enjambment is the technique of "broken rhyme" or "split rhyme" which involves the splitting of an individual word, typically to allow a rhyme with one or more syllables of the split word. In English verse, broken rhyme is used almost exclusively in light verse, such as to form a word that rhymes with "orange", as in this example by Willard Espy, in his poem "The Unrhymable Word: Orange": The clapping game "Miss Susie" uses the break "... Hell / -o operator" to allude to the taboo word "Hell", then replaces it with the innocuous "Hello". See also Blank verse Caesura Concrete poetry Free verse Line break (poetry) Notes References Further reading John Hollander, Vision and Resonance, Oxford U. Press, 1975 (especially chapter 5). Free online explanation with examples Poetic devices Poetic rhythm

was the legendary first emperor of Japan according to the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki. His ascension is traditionally dated as 660 BC. In Japanese mythology, he was a descendant of the sun goddess Amaterasu, through her grandson Ninigi, as well as a descendant of the storm god Susanoo. He launched a military expedition from Hyuga near the Seto Inland Sea, captured Yamato, and established this as his center of power. In modern Japan, Jimmu's legendary accession is marked as National Foundation Day on February 11. In the 1930s and 1940s in Japan it was dangerous to question the existence of Jimmu. Historians have stressed that there is no evidence for the existence of Jimmu with most scholars agreeing that the traditional narrative of Japan’s founding is mythical and Jimmu is a legendary figure. However, stories of him may reflect actual events. Name and Title Jimmu is recorded as Japan's first ruler in two early chronicles, Nihon Shoki (721) and Kojiki (712). Nihon Shoki gives the dates of his reign as 660–585 BC. In the reign of Emperor Kanmu (737–806), the eighth-century scholar Ōmi no Mifune designated rulers before Emperor Ōjin as , a Japanese pendant to the Chinese imperial title Tiān-dì (天帝), and gave several of them including Jimmu their canonical names. Prior to this time, these rulers had been known as Sumera no mikoto/Ōkimi. This practice had begun under Empress Suiko, and took root after the Taika Reforms with the ascendancy of the Nakatomi clan. According to the legendary account in the Nihon Shoki, Emperor Jimmu was born on February 13, 711 BC (the first day of the first month of the Chinese calendar), and died, again according to legend, on April 9, 585 BC (the eleventh day of the third month). Both the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki give Jimmu's name as or . Iware indicates a toponym whose precise purport is unclear. Among his other names were: , and . The Imperial House of Japan traditionally based its claim to the throne on its putative descent from the sun-goddess Amaterasu via Jimmu's great-grandfather Ninigi. Consorts and children Consort: , Hosuseri's (Ninigi-no-Mikoto's son) daughter First son: Princess Misaki (神武天皇) Empress: , Kotoshironushi's daughter Second son: Third son: , later Emperor Suizei Legendary narrative In Japanese mythology, the Age of the Gods is the period before Jimmu's accession. The story of Jimmu seems to rework legends associated with the Ōtomo clan (大伴氏), and its function was to establish that clan's links to the ruling family, just as those of Suijin arguably reflect Mononobe tales and the legends in Ōjin's chronicles seem to derive from Soga clan traditions. Jimmu figures as a direct descendant of the sun goddess, Amaterasu via the side of his father, Ugayafukiaezu. Amaterasu had a son called Ame no Oshihomimi no Mikoto and through him a grandson named Ninigi-no-Mikoto. She sent her grandson to the Japanese islands where he eventually married Konohana-Sakuya-hime. Among their three sons was Hikohohodemi no Mikoto, also called Yamasachi-hiko, who married Toyotama-hime. She was the daughter of Ryūjin, the Japanese sea god. They had a single son called Hikonagisa Takeugaya Fukiaezu no Mikoto. The boy was abandoned by his parents at birth and consequently raised by Tamayori-hime, his mother's younger sister. They eventually married and had four sons. The last of these, Kamu-yamato Iware-biko no mikoto, became Emperor Jimmu. Migration According to the chronicles Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, Jimmu's brothers were born in Takachiho, the southern part of Kyūshū in modern-day Miyazaki Prefecture. They moved eastward to find a location more appropriate for administering the entire country. Jimmu's older brother, Itsuse no Mikoto, originally led the migration, and led the clan eastward through the Seto Inland Sea with the assistance of local chieftain Sao Netsuhiko. As they reached Naniwa (modern-day Osaka), they encountered another local chieftain, Nagasunehiko ("the long-legged man"), and Itsuse was killed in the ensuing battle. Jimmu realized that they had been defeated because they battled eastward against the sun, so he decided to land on the east side of Kii Peninsula and to battle westward. They reached Kumano, and, with the guidance of a three-legged crow, Yatagarasu ("eight-span crow"), they moved to Yamato. There, they once again battled Nagasunehiko and were victorious. The record in the Nihon Shoki of Emperor Jimmu states that his armed forces defeated a group of before his enthronement. The Emishi were an ethnic group who lived in Honshu, particularly the Tōhoku region. In Yamato, , who also claimed descent from the Takamagahara gods, was protected by Nagasunehiko. However, when Nigihayahi met Jimmu, he accepted Jimmu's legitimacy. At this point, Jimmu is said to have ascended to the throne of Japan. Upon scaling a Nara mountain to survey the Seto Inland Sea he now controlled, Jimmu remarked that it was shaped like the "heart" rings made by mating dragonflies, archaically akitsu 秋津. A mosquito then tried to steal Jimmu's royal blood but since Jimmu was a god incarnate Emperor, , a dragonfly killed the mosquito. Japan thus received its classical name the Dragonfly Islands, . According to the Kojiki, Jimmu died when he was 126 years old. The Emperor's posthumous name literally means "divine might" or "god-warrior". It is generally thought that Jimmu's name and character evolved into their present shape just before the time in which legends about the origins of the Yamato dynasty were chronicled in the Kojiki. There are accounts written earlier than either Kojiki and Nihon Shoki that present an alternative version of the story. According to these accounts, Jimmu's dynasty was supplanted by that of Ōjin, whose dynasty was supplanted by that of Keitai. The Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki then combined these three legendary dynasties into one long and continuous genealogy. The traditional site of Jimmu's grave is near Mount Unebi in Kashihara, Nara Prefecture. Modern veneration Veneration of Jimmu was a central component of the imperial cult that formed following the Meiji Restoration. In 1873, a holiday called Kigensetsu was established on February 11. The holiday commemorated the anniversary of Jimmu's ascension to the throne 2,532 years earlier. After World War II, the holiday was criticized as too closely associated with the "emperor system." It was suspended from 1948 to 1966, but later reinstated as National Foundation Day. Between 1873 and 1945 an imperial envoy sent offerings every year to the supposed site of Jimmu's tomb. In 1890 Kashihara Shrine was established nearby, on the spot where Jimmu was said to have ascended to the throne. Before and during World War II, expansionist propaganda made frequent use of the phrase hakkō ichiu, a term coined by Tanaka Chigaku based on a passage in the Nihon Shoki discussing Emperor Jimmu. Some media incorrectly attributed the phrase to Emperor Jimmu. For the 1940 Kigensetsu celebration, marking the supposed 2,600th anniversary of Jimmu's enthronement, the Peace Tower was constructed in Miyazaki. The same year numerous stone monuments relating to key events in Jimmu's life were erected around Japan. The sites at which these monuments were erected are known as Emperor Jimmu Sacred Historical Sites. Historicity There is no compelling evidence Jimmu existed, except the mention in the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki. The dates of Jimmu reigning from 660 BC to 585 BC are improbable, most modern scholars agree that the traditional founding of Japan in 660 BC is a myth and that Jimmu along with the first nine emperors are legendary. The founding of Japan in the year 660 BC was probably created by the writers of Nihon Shoki to put the date on a kanototori year. However events during the mid to late Yayoi period may reflect stories of Jimmu. According to historian Peter Wetzler, Jimmu’s conquest of Osaka and Nara may reflect an actual event. However the dates and much of the details are fictitious. Historian Kenneth G. Henshall stated that Jimmu’s conquest may also reflect a time when the Yayoi people from continental Asia immigrated in masses starting from Kyushu and moving eastward during the Yayoi period. The Japanese historian Ino Okifu identifies Emperor Jimmu with the Chinese alchemist and explorer Xu Fu (255 BC - 195 BC), a hypothesis supported by certain traditions in Japan and regarded as possible by some modern scholars. The Yayoi period (300 BCE–300 CE), during which significant changes in Japanese metallurgy and pottery occurred, started around the time of his supposed arrival. However, the legend of Xu Fu's voyage also has numerous inconsistencies with the linguistic and anthropological history of Japan. Family tree A genealogical tree based on the Kojiki * = not in the Nihon Shoki See also Modern system of ranked Shinto shrines Japanese imperial year National Foundation Day Jōmon period Yayoi period Emishi people Notes 1.So named after the incident in which a landed on the tip of the upright bow during the final rout of Nagasunehiko's army. References Bibliography Aston, William George. (1896). Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697, Volume 1. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner. Brown, Delmer M. and Ichirō Ishida, eds. (1979). Gukanshō: The Future and the Past. Berkeley: University of California Press. ; Brownlee, John S. (1997). Japanese Historians and the National Myths, 1600–1945: The Age of the Gods. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Chamberlain, Basil Hall. (1920). The Kojiki. Read before the Asiatic Society of Japan on April 12 10 May, and June 21, 1882; reprinted, May 1919. Earhart, David C. (2007). Certain Victory: Images of World War II in the Japanese Media. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe. Kitagawa, Joseph Mitsuo. (1987). On Understanding Japanese Religion. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ; ; Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005). Japan encyclopedia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ; Ponsonby-Fane, Richard Arthur Brabazon. (1959). The Imperial House of Japan. Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society. Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). Nihon Ōdai Ichiran; ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon. Paris: Royal Asiatic Society, Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. Varley, H. Paul. (1980). Jinnō Shōtōki: A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns. New York: Columbia University Press. ; External links A more detailed profile of Jimmu (archived April 2011) A detailed summary of Jimmu's descent legend (archived July 2014) 710s BC births 585 BC deaths Legendary Emperors of Japan Longevity myths People of Jōmon-period Japan Founding monarchs 7th-century BC Japanese monarchs 6th-century BC Japanese monarchs Legendary progenitors Legendary rulers

Edo (), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo. Edo, formerly a jōkamachi (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the de facto capital of Japan from 1603 as the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate. Edo grew to become one of the largest cities in the world under the Tokugawa. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868 the Meiji government renamed Edo as Tokyo (, "Eastern Capital") and relocated the Emperor from the historic capital of Kyoto to the city. The era of Tokugawa rule in Japan from 1603 to 1868 is known eponymously as the Edo period. History Before Tokugawa Before the 10th century, there is no mention of Edo in historical records, but for a few settlements in the area. Edo first appears in the Azuma Kagami chronicles, that name for the area being probably used since the second half of the Heian period. Its development started in late 11th century with a branch of the called the , coming from the banks of the then-Iruma River, present day upstream of Arakawa river. A descendant of the head of the Chichibu clan settled in the area and took the name , likely based on the name used for the place, and founded the Edo clan. Shigetsugu built a fortified residence, probably around the tip of the Musashino terrace, which would become the Edo castle. Shigetsugu's son, , took the Taira's side against Minamoto no Yoritomo in 1180 but eventually surrendered to Minamoto and became a gokenin for the Kamakura shogunate. At the fall of the shogunate in the 14th century, the Edo clan took the side of the Southern court, and its influence declined during the Muromachi period. In 1456, a vassal of the Ōgigayatsu branch of the Uesugi clan, started to build a castle on the former fortified residence of the Edo clan and took the name Ōta Dōkan. Dōkan lived in this castle until his assassination in 1486. Under Dōkan, with good water connections to Kamakura, Odawara and other parts of Kanto and the country, Edo expanded in a jokamachi, with the castle bordering a cove opening into Edo Bay (current Hibiya Park) and the town developing along the Hirakawa River that was flowing into the cove, as well as the stretch of land on the eastern side of the cove (roughly where current Tokyo Station is) called . Some priests and scholars fleeing Kyoto after the Ōnin War came to Edo during that period. After the death of Dōkan, the castle became one of strongholds of the Uesugi clan, which fell to the Later Hōjō clan at the battle of Takanawahara in 1524, during the expansion of their rule over the Kantō area. When the Hōjō clan was finally defeated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in 1590, the Kanto area was given to rule to Toyotomi's senior officer Tokugawa Ieyasu, who took his residence in Edo. Tokugawa era Tokugawa Ieyasu emerged as the paramount warlord of the Sengoku period following his victory at the Battle of Sekigahara in October 1600. He formally founded the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603 and established his headquarters at Edo Castle. Edo became the center of political power and de facto capital of Japan, although the historic capital of Kyoto remained the de jure capital as the seat of the emperor. Edo transformed from a fishing village in Musashi Province in 1457 into the largest metropolis in the world with an estimated population of 1,000,000 by 1721.Edo was repeatedly and regularly devastated by fires, the Great fire of Meireki in 1657 being the most disastrous, with an estimated 100,000 victims and a vast portion of the city completely burnt. At the time, the population of Edo was around 300,000, and the impact of the fire was tremendous. The fire destroyed the central keep of Edo Castle, which was never rebuilt, and it influenced the urban planning afterwards to make the city more resilient with many empty areas to break spreading fires and wider streets. Reconstruction efforts expanded the city east of the Sumida River, and some daimyō residences were relocated to give more space to the city, especially in the direct vicinity of the shogun's residence, giving birth to a large green space beside the castle, present-day Fukiage gardens of the Imperial Palace. During the Edo period, there were about 100 major fires mostly begun by accident and often quickly escalating and spreading through neighborhoods of wooden nagaya which were heated with charcoal fires. In 1868, the Tokugawa shogunate was overthrown in the Meiji Restoration by supporters of Emperor Meiji and his Imperial Court in Kyoto, ending Edo's status as the de facto capital of Japan. However, the new Meiji government soon renamed Edo to Tōkyō (東京, "Eastern Capital") and the city became the formal capital of Japan when the emperor moved his residence to the city. Urbanism Very quickly after its inception, the shogunate undertook major works in Edo that drastically changed the topography of the area, notably under the nationwide program of major civil works involving the now pacified daimyō workforce. The Hibiya cove facing the castle was soon filled after the arrival of Ieyasu, the Hirakawa river was diverted, and several protective moats and logistical canals were dug (including the Kanda river), to limit the risks of flooding. Landfill works on the bay began, with several areas reclaimed during the duration of the shogunate (notably the Tsukiji area). East of the city and of the Sumida River, a massive network of canals was dug. Fresh water was a major issue, as direct wells would provide brackish water because of the location of the city over an estuary. The few fresh water ponds of the city were put to use, and a network of canals and underground wooden pipes bringing freshwater from the western side of the city and the Tama River was built. Some of this infrastructure was used until the 20th century. General layout of the city The city was laid out as a castle town around Edo Castle, which was positioned at the tip of the Musashino terrace. The area in the immediate proximity of the castle consisted of samurai and daimyō residences, whose families lived in Edo as part of the sankin-kōtai system; the daimyō made journeys in alternating years to Edo and used the residences for their entourages. The location of each residence was carefully attributed depending on their position as tozama, shinpan or fudai. It was this extensive organization of the city for the samurai class which defined the character of Edo, particularly in contrast to the two major cities of Kyoto and Osaka, neither of which were ruled by a daimyō or had a significant samurai population. Kyoto's character was defined by the Imperial Court, the court nobles, its Buddhist temples and its history; Osaka was the country's commercial center, dominated by the chōnin or the merchant class. On the contrary, the samurai and daimyō residences occupied up to 70% of the area of Edo. On the east and northeast sides of the castle lived the including the chōnin in a much more densely populated area than the samurai class area, organized in a series of gated communities called machi (町, "town" or "village"). This area, Shitamachi (下町, "lower town" or "lower towns"), was the center of urban and merchant culture. Shomin also lived along the main roads leading in and out of the city. The Sumida River, then called the Great River (大川, Ōkawa), ran on the eastern side of the city. The shogunate's official rice-storage warehouses and other official buildings were located here. The marked the center of the city's commercial center and the starting point of the gokaidō (thus making it the de facto "center of the country"). Fishermen, craftsmen and other producers and retailers operated here. Shippers managed ships known as tarubune to and from Osaka and other cities, bringing goods into the city or transferring them from sea routes to river barges or land routes. The northeastern corner of the city was considered dangerous in the traditional onmyōdō cosmology and was protected from evil by a number of temples including Sensō-ji and Kan'ei-ji, one of the two tutelary Bodaiji temples of the Tokugawa. A path and a canal, a short distance north of Sensō-ji, extended west from the Sumida riverbank leading along the northern edge of the city to the Yoshiwara pleasure district. Previously located near Ningyōchō, the district was rebuilt in this more remote location after the great fire of Meireki. Danzaemon, the hereditary position head of eta, or outcasts, who performed "unclean" works in the city resided nearby. Temples and shrines occupied roughly 15% of the surface of the city, equivalent to the living areas of the townspeople, with however an average of 1/10th of its population. Temples and shrines were spread out over the city. Besides the large concentration in the northeast side to protect the city, the second Bodaiji of the Tokugawa, Zōjō-ji occupied a large area south of the castle. Housing Military caste The samurai and daimyōs residences varied dramatically in size depending on their status. Some daimyōs could have several residences in Edo. The , was the main residence while the lord was in Edo and was used for official duties. It was not necessarily the largest of his residences, but the most convenient to commute to the castle. The , a bit further from the castle, could house the heir of the lord, his servants from his fief when he was in Edo for the sankin-kotai, or be a hiding residence if needed. The , if there was any, was on the outskirts of town, more of a pleasure retreat with gardens. The lower residence could also be used as a retreat for the lord if a fire had devastated the city. Some of the powerful daimyōs residences occupied vast grounds of several dozens of hectares. Shonin In a strict sense of the word, chōnin were only the townspeople who owned their residence, which was actually a minority. The shonin population mainly lived in semi-collective housings called , multi-rooms wooden dwellings, organized in enclosed , with communal facilities, such as wells connected to the city's fresh water distribution system, garbage collection area and communal bathrooms. A typical machi was of rectangular shape and could have a population of several hundreds. The machi had curfew for the night with closing and guarded gates called opening on the in the machi. Two floor buildings and larger shops, reserved to the higher-ranking members of the society, were facing the main street. A machi would typically follow a grid pattern and smaller streets, , were opening on the main street, also with (sometimes) two-floor buildings, shop on the first floor, living quarter on the second floor, for the more well-off residents. Very narrow streets accessible through small gates called , would enter deeper inside the machi, where single floor nagayas, the were located. Rentals and smaller rooms for lower ranked shonin were located in those back housings. Edo was nicknamed the , depicting the large number and diversity of those communities, but the actual number was closer to 1,700 by the 18th century. Government and administration Edo's municipal government was under the responsibility of the rōjū, the senior officials which oversaw the entire bakufu – the government of the Tokugawa shogunate. The administrative definition of Edo was called . The Kanjō-bugyō (finance commissioners) were responsible for the financial matters of the shogunate, whereas the Jisha-Bugyō handled matters related to shrines and temples. The were samurai (at the very beginning of the shogunate daimyōs, later hatamoto) officials appointed to keep the order in the city, with the word designating both the heading magistrate, the magistrature and its organization. They were in charge of Edo's day-to-day administration, combining the role of police, judge and fire brigade. There were two offices, the South Machi-Bugyō and the North Machi-Bugyō, which had the same geographical jurisdiction in spite of their name but rotated roles on a monthly basis. Despite their extensive responsibilities, the teams of the Machi-Bugyō were rather small, with 2 offices of 125 people each. The Machi-Bugyō did not have jurisdiction over the samurai residential areas, which remained under the shogunate direct rule. The geographical jurisdiction of the Machi-Bugyō did not exactly coincide with the Gofunai, creating some complexity on the handling on the matters of the city. The Machi-bugyō oversaw the numerous Machi where shonin lived through representatives called . Each Machi had a Machi leader called , who reported to a who himself was in charge of several Machis. See also Edo society Fires in Edo 1703 Genroku earthquake Edokko (native of Edo) History of Tokyo Iki (a Japanese aesthetic ideal) Asakusa Notes References Forbes, Andrew; Henley, David (2014). 100 Famous Views of Edo. Chiang Mai: Cognoscenti Books. ASIN: B00HR3RHUY Gordon, Andrew. (2003). A Modern History of Japan from Tokugawa Times to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press. / (cloth); /. Ponsonby-Fane, Richard. (1956). Kyoto: the Old Capital, 794–1869. Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society. Sansom, George. (1963). A History of Japan: 1615–1867. Stanford: Stanford University Press. /. Akira Naito (Author), Kazuo Hozumi. Edo, the City that Became Tokyo: An Illustrated History. Kodansha International, Tokyo (2003). Alternate spelling from 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article. External links A Trip to Old Edo Fukagawa Edo Museum Map of Bushū Toshima District, Edo from 1682 Edo period History of Tokyo Populated places established in the 1450s 1457 establishments in Asia 1450s establishments in Japan 1868 disestablishments in Japan

Enid Mary Blyton (11 August 1897 – 28 November 1968) was an English children's writer, whose books have been worldwide bestsellers since the 1930s, selling more than 600 million copies. Her books are still enormously popular and have been translated into 90 languages. As of June 2018, Blyton held 4th place for the most translated author. She wrote on a wide range of topics, including education, natural history, fantasy, mystery, and biblical narratives, and is best remembered today for her Noddy, Famous Five, Secret Seven, The Five Find Outers, and Malory Towers books. Her first book, Child Whispers, a 24-page collection of poems, was published in 1922. Following the commercial success of her early novels, such as Adventures of the Wishing-Chair (1937) and The Enchanted Wood (1939), Blyton went on to build a literary empire, sometimes producing 50 books a year, in addition to her prolific magazine and newspaper contributions. Her writing was unplanned and sprang largely from her unconscious mind: she typed her stories as events unfolded before her. The sheer volume of her work and the speed with which she produced it led to rumors that Blyton employed an army of ghost writers, a charge she vigorously denied. Blyton's work became increasingly controversial among literary critics, teachers, and parents beginning in the 1950s, due to the alleged unchallenging nature of her writing and her themes, particularly in the Noddy series. Some libraries and schools banned her works, which the BBC refused to include in broadcasts from the 1930s until the 1950s because of their perceived lack of literary merit. Her books have been criticized as elitist, sexist, racist, xenophobic, and at odds with the more progressive environment that was emerging in post-World War II Britain, but they have continued to be bestsellers since her death in 1968. She felt she had a responsibility to provide her readers with a strong moral framework, so she encouraged them to support worthy causes. In particular, through the clubs she set up or supported, she encouraged and organized them to raise funds for animal and pediatric charities. The story of Blyton's life was dramatized in a BBC television film, entitled Enid, featuring Helena Bonham Carter in the title role and first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Four in 2009. There have also been several adaptations of her books for stage, screen, and television. Early life and education Enid Blyton was born on 11 August 1897 in East Dulwich, South London, United Kingdom, the eldest of three children, to Thomas Carey Blyton (1870–1920), a cutlery salesman (recorded in the 1911 census with the occupation of "Mantle Manufacturer dealer [in] women's suits, skirts, etc.") and his wife Theresa Mary (née Harrison; 1874–1950). Enid's younger brothers, Hanly (1899–1983) and Carey (1902–1976), were born after the family had moved to a semi-detached house in Beckenham, then a village in Kent. A few months after her birth, Enid almost died from whooping cough, but was nursed back to health by her father, whom she adored. Thomas Blyton ignited Enid's interest in nature; in her autobiography she wrote that he "loved flowers and birds and wild animals, and knew more about them than anyone I had ever met". He also passed on his interest in gardening, art, music, literature, and theatre, and the pair often went on nature walks, much to the disapproval of Enid's mother, who showed little interest in her daughter's pursuits. Enid was devastated when he left the family shortly after her 13th birthday to live with another woman. Enid and her mother did not have a good relationship, and she did not attend either of her parents' funerals. From 1907 to 1915, Blyton attended St Christopher's School in Beckenham, where she enjoyed physical activities and became school tennis champion and lacrosse captain. She was not keen on all the academic subjects, but excelled in writing and, in 1911, entered Arthur Mee's children's poetry competition. Mee offered to print her verses, encouraging her to produce more. Blyton's mother considered her efforts at writing to be a "waste of time and money", but she was encouraged to persevere by Mabel Attenborough, the aunt of school friend Mary Potter. Blyton's father taught her to play the piano, which she mastered well enough for him to believe she might follow in his sister's footsteps and become a professional musician. Blyton considered enrolling at the Guildhall School of Music, but decided she was better suited to becoming a writer. After finishing school, in 1915, as head girl, she moved out of the family home to live with her friend Mary Attenborough, before going to stay with George and Emily Hunt at Seckford Hall, near Woodbridge, in Suffolk. Seckford Hall, with its allegedly haunted room and secret passageway, provided inspiration for her later writing. At Woodbridge Congregational Church, Blyton met Ida Hunt, who taught at Ipswich High School and suggested she train there as a teacher. Blyton was introduced to the children at the nursery school and, recognizing her natural affinity with them, enrolled in a National Froebel Union teacher training course at the school in September 1916. By this time, she had nearly terminated all contact with her family. Blyton's manuscripts were rejected by publishers on many occasions, which only made her more determined to succeed, saying, "it is partly the struggle that helps you so much, that gives you determination, character, self-reliance –all things that help in any profession or trade, and most certainly in writing." In March 1916, her first poems were published in Nash's Magazine. She completed her teacher training course in December 1918 and, the following month, obtained a teaching appointment at Bickley Park School, a small, independent establishment for boys in Bickley, Kent. Two months later, Blyton received a teaching certificate with distinctions in zoology and principles of education; first class in botany, geography, practice and history of education, child hygiene, and classroom teaching; and second class in literature and elementary mathematics. In 1920, she moved to Southernhay, in Hook Road Surbiton, as nursery governess to the four sons of architect Horace Thompson and his wife Gertrude, with whom Blyton spent four happy years. With the shortage of area schools, neighboring children soon joined her charges, and a small school developed at the house. Early writing career In 1920, Blyton moved to Chessington and began writing in her spare time. The following year, she won the Saturday Westminster Review writing competition with her essay "On the Popular Fallacy that to the Pure All Things are Pure". Publications such as The Londoner, Home Weekly and The Bystander began to show an interest in her short stories and poems. Blyton's first book, Child Whispers, a 24-page collection of poems, was published in 1922. Its illustrator, Enid's schoolfriend Phyllis Chase collaborated on several of her early works. Also in that year, Blyton began writing in annuals for Cassell and George Newnes, and her first piece of writing, "Peronel and his Pot of Glue", was accepted for publication in Teachers' World. Further boosting her success, in 1923, her poems appeared alongside those of Rudyard Kipling, Walter de la Mare, and G. K. Chesterton in a special issue of Teachers' World. Blyton's educational texts were influential in the 1920s and '30s, with her most sizable being the three-volume The Teacher's Treasury (1926), the six-volume Modern Teaching (1928), the ten-volume Pictorial Knowledge (1930), and the four-volume Modern Teaching in the Infant School (1932). In July 1923, Blyton published Real Fairies, a collection of thirty-three poems written especially for the book with the exception of "Pretending", which had appeared earlier in Punch magazine. The following year, she published The Enid Blyton Book of Fairies, illustrated by Horace J. Knowles, and in 1926 the Book of Brownies. Several books of plays appeared in 1927, including A Book of Little Plays and The Play's the Thing with the illustrator Alfred Bestall. In the 1930s, Blyton developed an interest in writing stories related to various myths, including those of ancient Greece and Rome; The Knights of the Round Table, Tales of Ancient Greece and Tales of Robin Hood were published in 1930. In Tales of Ancient Greece Blyton retold 16 well-known ancient Greek myths, but used the Latin rather than the Greek names of deities and invented conversations between characters. The Adventures of Odysseus, Tales of the Ancient Greeks and Persians and Tales of the Romans followed in 1934. Commercial success New series: 1934–1948 The first of twenty-eight books in Blyton's Old Thatch series, The Talking Teapot and Other Tales, was published in 1934, the same year as Brer Rabbit Retold; (note that Brer Rabbit originally featured in Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris), her first serial story and first full-length book, Adventures of the Wishing-Chair, followed in 1937. The Enchanted Wood, the first book in the Faraway Tree series, published in 1939, is about a magic tree inspired by the Norse mythology that had fascinated Blyton as a child. According to Blyton's daughter Gillian the inspiration for the magic tree came from "thinking up a story one day and suddenly she was walking in the enchanted wood and found the tree. In her imagination she climbed up through the branches and met Moon-Face, Silky, the Saucepan Man and the rest of the characters. She had all she needed." As in the Wishing-Chair series, these fantasy books typically involve children being transported into a magical world in which they meet fairies, goblins, elves, pixies and other mythological creatures. Blyton's first full-length adventure novel, The Secret Island, was published in 1938, featuring the characters of Jack, Mike, Peggy and Nora. Described by The Glasgow Herald as a "Robinson Crusoe-style adventure on an island in an English lake", The Secret Island was a lifelong favourite of Gillian's and spawned the Secret series. The following year Blyton released her first book in the Circus series and her initial book in the Amelia Jane series, Naughty Amelia Jane! According to Gillian the main character was based on a large handmade doll given to her by her mother on her third birthday. During the 1940s Blyton became a prolific author, her success enhanced by her "marketing, publicity and branding that was far ahead of its time". In 1940 Blyton published two books – Three Boys and a Circus and Children of Kidillin – under the pseudonym of Mary Pollock (middle name plus first married name), in addition to the eleven published under her own name that year. So popular were Pollock's books that one reviewer was prompted to observe that "Enid Blyton had better look to her laurels". But Blyton's readers were not so easily deceived and many complained about the subterfuge to her and her publisher, with the result that all six books published under the name of Mary Pollock – two in 1940 and four in 1943 – were reissued under Blyton's name. Later in 1940 Blyton published the first of her boarding school story books and the first novel in the Naughtiest Girl series, The Naughtiest Girl in the School, which followed the exploits of the mischievous schoolgirl Elizabeth Allen at the fictional Whyteleafe School. The first of her six novels in the St. Clare's series, The Twins at St. Clare's, appeared the following year, featuring the twin sisters Patricia and Isabel O'Sullivan. In 1942 Blyton released the first book in the Mary Mouse series, Mary Mouse and the Dolls' House, about a mouse exiled from her mousehole who becomes a maid at a dolls' house. Twenty-three books in the series were produced between 1942 and 1964; 10,000 copies were sold in 1942 alone. The same year, Blyton published the first novel in the Famous Five series, Five on a Treasure Island, with illustrations by Eileen Soper. Its popularity resulted in twenty-one books between then and 1963, and the characters of Julian, Dick, Anne, George (Georgina) and Timmy the dog became household names in Britain. Matthew Grenby, author of Children's Literature, states that the five were involved with "unmasking hardened villains and solving serious crimes", although the novels were "hardly 'hard-boiled' thrillers". Blyton based the character of Georgina, a tomboy she described as "short-haired, freckled, sturdy, and snub-nosed" and "bold and daring, hot-tempered and loyal", on herself. Blyton had an interest in biblical narratives, and retold Old and New Testament stories. The Land of Far-Beyond (1942) is a Christian parable along the lines of John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress (1698), with contemporary children as the main characters. In 1943 she published The Children's Life of Christ, a collection of fifty-nine short stories related to the life of Jesus, with her own slant on popular biblical stories, from the Nativity and the Three Wise Men through to the trial, the crucifixion and the resurrection. Tales from the Bible was published the following year, followed by The Boy with the Loaves and Fishes in 1948. The first book in Blyton's Five Find-Outers series, The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage, was published in 1943, as was the second book in the Faraway series, The Magic Faraway Tree, which in 2003 was voted 66th in the BBC's Big Read poll to find the UK's favourite book. Several of Blyton's works during this period have seaside themes; John Jolly by the Sea (1943), a picture book intended for younger readers, was published in a booklet format by Evans Brothers. Other books with a maritime theme include The Secret of Cliff Castle and Smuggler Ben, both attributed to Mary Pollock in 1943; The Island of Adventure, the first in the Adventure series of eight novels from 1944 onwards; and various novels of the Famous Five series such as Five on a Treasure Island (1942), Five on Kirrin Island Again (1947) and Five Go Down to the Sea (1953). Capitalising on her success, with a loyal and ever-growing readership, Blyton produced a new edition of many of her series such as the Famous Five, the Five Find-Outers and St. Clare's every year in addition to many other novels, short stories and books. In 1946 Blyton launched the first in the Malory Towers series of six books based around the schoolgirl Darrell Rivers, First Term at Malory Towers, which became extremely popular, particularly with girls. Peak output: 1949–1959 The first book in Blyton's Barney Mysteries series, The Rockingdown Mystery, was published in 1949, as was the first of her fifteen Secret Seven novels. The Secret Seven Society consists of Peter, his sister Janet, and their friends Colin, George, Jack, Pam and Barbara, who meet regularly in a shed in the garden to discuss peculiar events in their local community. Blyton rewrote the stories so they could be adapted into cartoons, which appeared in Mickey Mouse Weekly in 1951 with illustrations by George Brook. The French author Evelyne Lallemand continued the series in the 1970s, producing an additional twelve books, nine of which were translated into English by Anthea Bell between 1983 and 1987. Blyton's Noddy, about a little wooden boy from Toyland, first appeared in the Sunday Graphic on 5 June 1949, and in November that year Noddy Goes to Toyland, the first of at least two dozen books in the series, was published. The idea was conceived by one of Blyton's publishers, Sampson, Low, Marston and Company, who in 1949 arranged a meeting between Blyton and the Dutch illustrator Harmsen van der Beek. Despite having to communicate via an interpreter, he provided some initial sketches of how Toyland and its characters would be represented. Four days after the meeting Blyton sent the text of the first two Noddy books to her publisher, to be forwarded to van der Beek. The Noddy books became one of her most successful and best-known series, and were hugely popular in the 1950s. An extensive range of sub-series, spin-offs and strip books were produced throughout the decade, including Noddy's Library, Noddy's Garage of Books, Noddy's Castle of Books, Noddy's Toy Station of Books and Noddy's Shop of Books. In 1950 Blyton established the company Darrell Waters Ltd to manage her affairs. By the early 1950s she had reached the peak of her output, often publishing more than fifty books a year, and she remained extremely prolific throughout much of the decade. By 1955 Blyton had written her fourteenth Famous Five novel, Five Have Plenty of Fun, her fifteenth Mary Mouse book, Mary Mouse in Nursery Rhyme Land, her eighth book in the Adventure series, The River of Adventure, and her seventh Secret Seven novel, Secret Seven Win Through. She completed the sixth and final book of the Malory Towers series, Last Term at Malory Towers, in 1951. Blyton published several further books featuring the character of Scamp the terrier, following on from The Adventures of Scamp, a novel she had released in 1943 under the pseudonym of Mary Pollock. Scamp Goes on Holiday (1952) and Scamp and Bimbo, Scamp at School, Scamp and Caroline and Scamp Goes to the Zoo (1954) were illustrated by Pierre Probst. She introduced the character of Bom, a stylish toy drummer dressed in a bright red coat and helmet, alongside Noddy in TV Comic in July 1956. A book series began the same year with Bom the Little Toy Drummer, featuring illustrations by R. Paul-Hoye, and followed with Bom and His Magic Drumstick (1957), Bom Goes Adventuring and Bom Goes to Ho Ho Village (1958), Bom and the Clown and Bom and the Rainbow (1959) and Bom Goes to Magic Town (1960). In 1958 she produced two annuals featuring the character, the first of which included twenty short stories, poems and picture strips. Final works Many of Blyton's series, including Noddy and The Famous Five, continued to be successful in the 1960s; by 1962, 26 million copies of Noddy had been sold. Blyton concluded several of her long-running series in 1963, publishing the last books of The Famous Five (Five Are Together Again) and The Secret Seven (Fun for the Secret Seven); she also produced three more Brer Rabbit books with the illustrator Grace Lodge: Brer Rabbit Again, Brer Rabbit Book, and Brer Rabbit's a Rascal. In 1962 many of her books were among the first to be published by Armada Books in paperback, making them more affordable to children. After 1963 Blyton's output was generally confined to short stories and books intended for very young readers, such as Learn to Count with Noddy and Learn to Tell Time with Noddy in 1965, and Stories for Bedtime and the Sunshine Picture Story Book collection in 1966. Her declining health and a falling off in readership among older children have been put forward as the principal reasons for this change in trend. Blyton published her last book in the Noddy series, Noddy and the Aeroplane, in February 1964. In May the following year she published Mixed Bag, a song book with music written by her nephew Carey, and in August she released her last full-length books, The Man Who Stopped to Help and The Boy Who Came Back. Magazine and newspaper contributions Blyton cemented her reputation as a children's writer when in 1926 she took over the editing of Sunny Stories, a magazine that typically included the re-telling of legends, myths, stories and other articles for children. That same year she was given her own column in Teachers' World, entitled "From my Window". Three years later she began contributing a weekly page in the magazine, in which she published letters from her fox terrier dog Bobs. They proved to be so popular that in 1933 they were published in book form as Letters from Bobs, and sold ten thousand copies in the first week. Her most popular feature was "Round the Year with Enid Blyton", which consisted of forty-eight articles covering aspects of natural history such as weather, pond life, how to plant a school garden and how to make a bird table. Among Blyton's other nature projects was her monthly "Country Letter" feature that appeared in The Nature Lover magazine in 1935. Sunny Stories was renamed Enid Blyton's Sunny Stories in January 1937, and served as a vehicle for the serialisation of Blyton's books. Her first Naughty Amelia Jane story, about an anti-heroine based on a doll owned by her daughter Gillian, was published in the magazine. Blyton stopped contributing in 1952, and it closed down the following year, shortly before the appearance of the new fortnightly Enid Blyton Magazine written entirely by Blyton. The first edition appeared on 18 March 1953, and the magazine ran until September 1959. Noddy made his first appearance in the Sunday Graphic in 1949, the same year as Blyton's first daily Noddy strip for the London Evening Standard. It was illustrated by van der Beek until his death in 1953. Writing style and technique Blyton worked in a wide range of fictional genres, from fairy tales to animal, nature, detective, mystery, and circus stories, but she often "blurred the boundaries" in her books, and encompassed a range of genres even in her short stories. In a 1958 article published in The Author, she wrote that there were a "dozen or more different types of stories for children", and she had tried them all, but her favourites were those with a family at their centre. In a letter to the psychologist Peter McKellar, Blyton describes her writing technique: In another letter to McKellar she describes how in just five days she wrote the 60,000-word book The River of Adventure, the eighth in her Adventure Series, by listening to what she referred to as her "under-mind", which she contrasted with her "upper conscious mind". Blyton was unwilling to conduct any research or planning before beginning work on a new book, which coupled with the lack of variety in her life according to Druce almost inevitably presented the danger that she might unconsciously, and clearly did, plagiarise the books she had read, including her own. Gillian has recalled that her mother "never knew where her stories came from", but that she used to talk about them "coming from her 'mind's eye", as did William Wordsworth and Charles Dickens. Blyton had "thought it was made up of every experience she'd ever had, everything she's seen or heard or read, much of which had long disappeared from her conscious memory" but never knew the direction her stories would take. Blyton further explained in her biography that "If I tried to think out or invent the whole book, I could not do it. For one thing, it would bore me and for another, it would lack the 'verve' and the extraordinary touches and surprising ideas that flood out from my imagination." Blyton's daily routine varied little over the years. She usually began writing soon after breakfast, with her portable typewriter on her knee and her favourite red Moroccan shawl nearby; she believed that the colour red acted as a "mental stimulus" for her. Stopping only for a short lunch break she continued writing until five o'clock, by which time she would usually have produced 6,000–10,000 words. A 2000 article in The Malay Mail considers Blyton's children to have "lived in a world shaped by the realities of post-war austerity", enjoying freedom without the political correctness of today, which serves modern readers of Blyton's novels with a form of escapism. Brandon Robshaw of The Independent refers to the Blyton universe as "crammed with colour and character", "self-contained and internally consistent", noting that Blyton exemplifies a strong mistrust of adults and figures of authority in her works, creating a world in which children govern. Gillian noted that in her mother's adventure, detective and school stories for older children, "the hook is the strong storyline with plenty of cliffhangers, a trick she acquired from her years of writing serialised stories for children's magazines. There is always a strong moral framework in which bravery and loyalty are (eventually) rewarded". Blyton herself wrote that "my love of children is the whole foundation of all my work". Victor Watson, Assistant Director of Research at Homerton College, Cambridge, believes that Blyton's works reveal an "essential longing and potential associated with childhood", and notes how the opening pages of The Mountain of Adventure present a "deeply appealing ideal of childhood". He argues that Blyton's work differs from that of many other authors in its approach, describing the narrative of The Famous Five series for instance as "like a powerful spotlight, it seeks to illuminate, to explain, to demystify. It takes its readers on a roller-coaster story in which the darkness is always banished; everything puzzling, arbitrary, evocative is either dismissed or explained". Watson further notes how Blyton often used minimalist visual descriptions and introduced a few careless phrases such as "gleamed enchantingly" to appeal to her young readers. From the mid-1950s rumours began to circulate that Blyton had not written all the books attributed to her, a charge she found particularly distressing. She published an appeal in her magazine asking children to let her know if they heard such stories and, after one mother informed her that she had attended a parents' meeting at her daughter's school during which a young librarian had repeated the allegation, Blyton decided in 1955 to begin legal proceedings. The librarian was eventually forced to make a public apology in open court early the following year, but the rumours that Blyton operated "a 'company' of ghost writers" persisted, as some found it difficult to believe that one woman working alone could produce such a volume of work. Enid's Conservative personal politics were often in view in her fiction. In The Mystery of the Missing Necklace (a The Five Find-Outers installment), she uses the character of young Elizabeth ("Bets") to give a statement praising Winston Churchill and describing the politician as a "statesman". Charitable work Blyton felt a responsibility to provide her readers with a positive moral framework, and she encouraged them to support worthy causes. Her view, expressed in a 1957 article, was that children should help animals and other children rather than adults: Blyton and the members of the children's clubs she promoted via her magazines raised a great deal of money for various charities; according to Blyton, membership of her clubs meant "working for others, for no reward". The largest of the clubs she was involved with was the Busy Bees, the junior section of the People's Dispensary for Sick Animals, which Blyton had actively supported since 1933. The club had been set up by Maria Dickin in 1934, and after Blyton publicised its existence in the Enid Blyton Magazine it attracted 100,000 members in three years. Such was Blyton's popularity among children that after she became Queen Bee in 1952 more than 20,000 additional members were recruited in her first year in office. The Enid Blyton Magazine Club was formed in 1953. Its primary objective was to raise funds to help those children with cerebral palsy who attended a centre in Cheyne Walk, in Chelsea, London, by furnishing an on-site hostel among other things. The Famous Five series gathered such a following that readers asked Blyton if they might form a fan club. She agreed, on condition that it serve a useful purpose, and suggested that it could raise funds for the Shaftesbury Society Babies' Home in Beaconsfield, on whose committee she had served since 1948. The club was established in 1952, and provided funds for equipping a Famous Five Ward at the home, a paddling pool, sun room, summer house, playground, birthday and Christmas celebrations, and visits to the pantomime. By the late 1950s Blyton's clubs had a membership of 500,000, and raised £35,000 in the six years of the Enid Blyton Magazine'''s run. By 1974 the Famous Five Club had a membership of 220,000, and was growing at the rate of 6,000 new members a year. The Beaconsfield home it was set up to support closed in 1967, but the club continued to raise funds for other paediatric charities, including an Enid Blyton bed at Great Ormond Street Hospital and a mini-bus for disabled children at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. Jigsaw puzzle and games Blyton capitalised upon her commercial success as an author by negotiating agreements with jigsaw puzzle and games manufacturers from the late 1940s onwards; by the early 1960s some 146 different companies were involved in merchandising Noddy alone. In 1948 Bestime released four jigsaw puzzles featuring her characters, and the first Enid Blyton board game appeared, Journey Through Fairyland, created by BGL. The first card game, Faraway Tree, appeared from Pepys in 1950. In 1954 Bestime released the first four jigsaw puzzles of the Secret Seven, and the following year a Secret Seven card game appeared. Bestime released the Little Noddy Car Game in 1953 and the Little Noddy Leap Frog Game in 1955, and in 1956 American manufacturer Parker Brothers released Little Noddy's Taxi Game, a board game which features Noddy driving about town, picking up various characters. Bestime released its Plywood Noddy Jigsaws series in 1957 and a Noddy jigsaw series featuring cards appeared from 1963, with illustrations by Robert Lee. Arrow Games became the chief producer of Noddy jigsaws in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Whitman manufactured four new Secret Seven jigsaw puzzles in 1975, and produced four new Malory Towers ones two years later. In 1979 the company released a Famous Five adventure board game, Famous Five Kirrin Island Treasure. Stephen Thraves wrote eight Famous Five adventure game books, published by Hodder & Stoughton in the 1980s. The first adventure game book of the series, The Wreckers' Tower Game, was published in October 1984. Personal life On 28 August 1924, Blyton married Major Hugh Alexander Pollock, DSO (1888–1968) at Bromley Register Office, without inviting her family. They married shortly after his divorce from his first wife, with whom he had two sons, one of them already deceased. Pollock was editor of the book department in the publishing firm George Newnes, which became Blyton's regular publisher. It was he who requested her to write a book about animals, resulting in The Zoo Book, completed in the month before their marriage. They initially lived in a flat in Chelsea before moving to Elfin Cottage in Beckenham in 1926 and then to Old Thatch in Bourne End (called Peterswood in her books) in 1929. Blyton's first daughter, Gillian, was born on 15 July 1931, and, after a miscarriage in 1934, she gave birth to a second daughter, Imogen, on 27 October 1935. In 1938, she and her family moved to a house in Beaconsfield, named Green Hedges by Blyton's readers, following a competition in her magazine. By the mid-1930s, Pollock had become a secret alcoholic, withdrawing increasingly from public life—possibly triggered through his meetings, as a publisher, with Winston Churchill, which may have reawakened the trauma Pollock suffered during the World War I. With the outbreak of World War II, he became involved in the Home Guard and also re-encountered Ida Crowe, an aspiring writer 19 years his junior, whom he had first met years earlier. He made her an offer to join him as secretary in his posting to a Home Guard training center at Denbies, a Gothic mansion in Surrey belonging to Lord Ashcombe, and they began a romantic relationship. Blyton's marriage to Pollock was troubled for years, and according to Crowe's memoir, she had a series of affairs, including a lesbian relationship with one of the children's nannies. In 1941, Blyton met Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters, a London surgeon with whom she began a serious affair. Pollock discovered the liaison, and threatened to initiate divorce proceedings. Due to fears that exposure of her adultery would ruin her public image, it was ultimately agreed that Blyton would instead file for divorce against Pollock. According to Crowe's memoir, Blyton promised that if he admitted to infidelity, she would allow him parental access to their daughters; but after the divorce, he was denied contact with them, and Blyton made sure he was subsequently unable to find work in publishing. Pollock, having married Crowe on 26 October 1943, eventually resumed his heavy drinking and was forced to petition for bankruptcy in 1950. Blyton and Darrell Waters married at the City of Westminster Register Office on 20 October 1943. She changed the surname of her daughters to Darrell Waters and publicly embraced her new role as a happily married and devoted doctor's wife. After discovering she was pregnant in the spring of 1945, Blyton miscarried five months later, following a fall from a ladder. The baby would have been Darrell Waters's first child and the son for which they both longed. Her love of tennis included playing naked, with nude tennis "a common practice in those days among the more louche members of the middle classes". Blyton's health began to deteriorate in 1957, when, during a round of golf, she started to feel faint and breathless, and, by 1960, she was displaying signs of dementia. Her agent, George Greenfield, recalled that it was "unthinkable" for the "most famous and successful of children's authors with her enormous energy and computerlike memory" to be losing her mind and suffering from what is now known as Alzheimer's disease in her mid-60s. Worsening Blyton's situation was her husband's declining health throughout the 1960s; he suffered from severe arthritis in his neck and hips, deafness, and became increasingly ill-tempered and erratic until his death on 15 September 1967. The story of Blyton's life was dramatised in a BBC film entitled Enid, which aired in the United Kingdom on BBC Four on 16 November 2009. Helena Bonham Carter, who played the title role, described Blyton as "a complete workaholic, an achievement junkie and an extremely canny businesswoman" who "knew how to brand herself, right down to the famous signature". Death and legacy During the months following her husband's death, Blyton became increasingly ill and moved into a nursing home three months before her death. She died in her sleep of Alzheimer's disease at the Greenways Nursing Home, Hampstead, North London, on 28 November 1968, aged 71. A memorial service was held at St James's Church, Piccadilly and she was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, where her ashes remain. Blyton's home, Green Hedges, was auctioned on 26 May 1971 and demolished in 1973; the site is now occupied by houses and a street named Blyton Close. An English Heritage blue plaque commemorates Blyton at Hook Road in Chessington, where she lived from 1920 to 1924. In 2014, a plaque recording her time as a Beaconsfield resident from 1938 until her death in 1968 was unveiled in the town hall gardens, next to small iron figures of Noddy and Big Ears. Since her death and the publication of her daughter Imogen's 1989 autobiography, A Childhood at Green Hedges, Blyton has emerged as an emotionally immature, unstable and often malicious figure. Imogen considered her mother to be "arrogant, insecure, pretentious, very skilled at putting difficult or unpleasant things out of her mind, and without a trace of maternal instinct. As a child, I viewed her as a rather strict authority. As an adult I pitied her." Blyton's eldest daughter Gillian remembered her rather differently however, as "a fair and loving mother, and a fascinating companion". The Enid Blyton Trust for Children was established in 1982, with Imogen as its first chairman, and in 1985 it established the National Library for the Handicapped Child. Enid Blyton's Adventure Magazine began publication in September 1985 and, on 14 October 1992, the BBC began publishing Noddy Magazine and released the Noddy CD-Rom in October 1996. The first Enid Blyton Day was held at Rickmansworth on 6 March 1993 and, in October 1996, the Enid Blyton award, The Enid, was given to those who have made outstanding contributions towards children. The Enid Blyton Society was formed in early 1995, to provide "a focal point for collectors and enthusiasts of Enid Blyton" through its thrice-annual Enid Blyton Society Journal, its annual Enid Blyton Day and its website. On 16 December 1996, Channel 4 broadcast a documentary about Blyton, Secret Lives. To celebrate her centenary in 1997, exhibitions were put on at the London Toy & Model Museum (now closed), Hereford and Worcester County Museum and Bromley Library and, on 9 September, the Royal Mail issued centenary stamps. The London-based entertainment and retail company Trocadero plc purchased Blyton's Darrell Waters Ltd in 1995 for £14.6 million and established a subsidiary, Enid Blyton Ltd, to handle all intellectual properties, character brands and media in Blyton's works. The group changed its name to Chorion in 1998 but, after financial difficulties in 2012, sold its assets. Hachette UK acquired from Chorion world rights in the Blyton estate in March 2013, including The Famous Five series but excluding the rights to Noddy, which had been sold to DreamWorks Classics (formerly Classic Media, now a subsidiary of DreamWorks Animation) in 2012. Blyton's granddaughter, Sophie Smallwood, wrote a new Noddy book to celebrate the character's 60th birthday, 46 years after the last book was published; Noddy and the Farmyard Muddle (2009) was illustrated by Robert Tyndall. In February 2011, the manuscript of a previously unknown Blyton novel, Mr Tumpy's Caravan, was discovered by the archivist at Seven Stories, National Centre for Children's Books in a collection of papers belonging to Blyton's daughter Gillian, purchased by Seven Stories in 2010 following her death. It was initially thought to belong to a comic strip collection of the same name published in 1949, but it appears to be unrelated and is believed to be something written in the 1930s, which had been rejected by a publisher. In a 1982 survey of 10,000 eleven-year-old children, Blyton was voted their most popular writer. She is the world's fourth most-translated author, behind Agatha Christie, Jules Verne and William Shakespeare with her books being translated into 90 languages. From 2000 to 2010, Blyton was listed as a Top Ten author, selling almost 8 million copies (worth £31.2 million) in the UK alone. In 2003, The Magic Faraway Tree was voted 66th in the BBC's Big Read. In the 2008 Costa Book Awards, Blyton was voted Britain's best-loved author. Her books continue to be very popular among children in Commonwealth nations such as India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malta, New Zealand and Australia, and around the world. They have also seen a surge of popularity in China, where they are "big with every generation". In March 2004, Chorion and the Chinese publisher Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press negotiated an agreement over the Noddy franchise, which included bringing the character to an animated series on television, with a potential audience of a further 95 million children under the age of five. Chorion spent around £10 million digitising Noddy and, as of 2002, had made television agreements with at least 11 countries worldwide. Novelists influenced by Blyton include the crime writer Denise Danks, whose fictional detective Georgina Powers is based on George from the Famous Five. Peter Hunt's A Step off the Path (1985) is also influenced by the Famous Five, and the St. Clare's and Malory Towers series provided the inspiration for Jacqueline Wilson's Double Act (1996) and Adèle Geras's Egerton Hall trilogy (1990–92) respectively. Blyton was important to Stieg Larsson. "The series Stieg Larsson most often mentioned were the Famous Five and the Adventure books." Critical backlash A.H. Thompson, who compiled an extensive overview of censorship efforts in the United Kingdom's public libraries, dedicated an entire chapter to "The Enid Blyton Affair", and wrote of her in 1975: Blyton's range of plots and settings has been described as limited, repetitive and continually recycled. Many of her books were critically assessed by teachers and librarians, deemed unfit for children to read, and removed from syllabuses and public libraries. Responding to claims that her moral views were "dependably predictable", Blyton commented that "most of you could write down perfectly correctly all the things that I believe in and stand for – you have found them in my books, and a writer's books are always a faithful reflection of himself". From the 1930s to the 1950s the BBC operated a de facto ban on dramatising Blyton's books for radio, considering her to be a "second-rater" whose work was without literary merit. The children's literary critic Margery Fisher likened Blyton's books to "slow poison", and Jean E. Sutcliffe of the BBC's schools broadcast department wrote of Blyton's ability to churn out "mediocre material", noting that "her capacity to do so amounts to genius ... anyone else would have died of boredom long ago". Michael Rosen, Children's Laureate from 2007 until 2009, wrote that "I find myself flinching at occasional bursts of snobbery and the assumed level of privilege of the children and families in the books." The children's author Anne Fine presented an overview of the concerns about Blyton's work and responses to them on BBC Radio 4 in November 2008, in which she noted the "drip, drip, drip of disapproval" associated with the books. Blyton's response to her critics was that she was uninterested in the views of anyone over the age of 12, stating that half the attacks on her work were motivated by jealousy and the rest came from "stupid people who don't know what they're talking about because they've never read any of my books". Despite criticism by contemporaries that her work's quality began to suffer in the 1950s at the expense of its increasing volume, Blyton nevertheless capitalised on being generally regarded at the time as "a more 'savoury', English alternative" to what some considered an "invasion" of Britain by American culture, in the form of "rock music, horror comics, television, teenage culture, delinquency, and Disney". According to British academic Nicholas Tucker, the works of Enid Blyton have been "banned from more public libraries over the years than is the case with any other adult or children's author", though such attempts to quell the popularity of her books over the years seem to have been largely unsuccessful, and "she still remains very widely read". Simplicity Some librarians felt that Blyton's restricted use of language, a conscious product of her teaching background, was prejudicial to an appreciation of more literary qualities. In a scathing article published in Encounter in 1958, the journalist Colin Welch remarked that it was "hard to see how a diet of Miss Blyton could help with the 11-plus or even with the Cambridge English Tripos", but reserved his harshest criticism for Blyton's Noddy, describing him as an "unnaturally priggish ... sanctimonious ... witless, spiritless, snivelling, sneaking doll." The author and educational psychologist Nicholas Tucker notes that it was common to see Blyton cited as people's favourite or least favourite author according to their age, and argues that her books create an "encapsulated world for young readers that simply dissolves with age, leaving behind only memories of excitement and strong identification". Fred Inglis considers Blyton's books to be technically easy to read, but to also be "emotionally and cognitively easy". He mentions that the psychologist Michael Woods believed that Blyton was different from many other older authors writing for children in that she seemed untroubled by presenting them with a world that differed from reality. Woods surmised that Blyton "was a child, she thought as a child, and wrote as a child ... the basic feeling is essentially pre-adolescent ... Enid Blyton has no moral dilemmas ... Inevitably Enid Blyton was labelled by rumour a child-hater. If true, such a fact should come as no surprise to us, for as a child herself all other children can be nothing but rivals for her." Inglis argues though that Blyton was clearly devoted to children and put an enormous amount of energy into her work, with a powerful belief in "representing the crude moral diagrams and garish fantasies of a readership". Blyton's daughter Imogen has stated that she "loved a relationship with children through her books", but real children were an intrusion, and there was no room for intruders in the world that Blyton occupied through her writing. Accusations of racism, xenophobia and sexism Accusations of racism in Blyton's books were first made by Lena Jeger in a Guardian article published in 1966. In the context of discussing possible moves to restrict publications inciting racial hatred, Jeger was critical of Blyton's The Little Black Doll, originally published in 1937. Sambo, the black doll of the title, is hated by his owner and other toys owing to his "ugly black face", and runs away. A shower of "magic rain" washes his face clean, after which he is welcomed back home with his now pink face. Jamaica Kincaid also considers the Noddy books to be "deeply racist" because of the blonde children and the black golliwogs. In Blyton's 1944 novel The Island of Adventure, a black servant named Jo-Jo is very intelligent, but is particularly cruel to the children. Accusations of xenophobia were also made. As George Greenfield observed, "Enid was very much part of that between the wars middle class which believed that foreigners were untrustworthy or funny or sometimes both". The publisher Macmillan conducted an internal assessment of Blyton's The Mystery That Never Was, submitted to them at the height of her fame in 1960. The review was carried out by the author and books editor Phyllis Hartnoll, in whose view "There is a faint but unattractive touch of old-fashioned xenophobia in the author's attitude to the thieves; they are 'foreign' ... and this seems to be regarded as sufficient to explain their criminality." Macmillan rejected the manuscript, but it was published by William Collins in 1961, and then again in 1965 and 1983. Blyton's depictions of boys and girls are considered by many critics to be sexist. In a Guardian article published in 2005 Lucy Mangan proposed that The Famous Five series depicts a power struggle between Julian, Dick and George (Georgina), in which the female characters either act like boys or are talked down to, as when Dick lectures George: "it's really time you gave up thinking you're as good as a boy". Revisions to later editions To address criticisms levelled at Blyton's work some later editions have been altered to reflect more politically progressive attitudes towards issues such as race, gender, violence between young persons, the treatment of children by adults, and legal changes in Britain as to what is allowable for young children to do in the years since the stories were originally written (e.g. purchasing fireworks); modern reprints of the Noddy series substitute teddy bears or goblins for golliwogs, for instance. The golliwogs who steal Noddy's car and dump him naked in the Dark Wood in Here Comes Noddy Again are replaced by goblins in the 1986 revision, who strip Noddy only of his shoes and hat and return at the end of the story to apologise.The Faraway Tree's Dame Slap, who made regular use of corporal punishment, was changed to Dame Snap who no longer did so, and the names of Dick and Fanny in the same series were changed to Rick and Frannie. Characters in the Malory Towers and St. Clare's series are no longer spanked or threatened with a spanking, but are instead scolded. References to George's short hair making her look like a boy were removed in revisions to Five on a Hike Together, reflecting the idea that girls need not have long hair to be considered feminine or normal. Anne of The Famous Five stating that boys cannot wear pretty dresses or like girls' dolls was removed. In The Adventurous Four, the names of the young twin girls were changed from Jill and Mary to Pippa and Zoe. In 2010 Hodder, the publisher of the Famous Five series, announced its intention to update the language used in the books, of which it sold more than half a million copies a year. The changes, which Hodder described as "subtle", mainly affect the dialogue rather than the narrative. For instance, "school tunic" becomes "uniform", "mother and father" and "mother and daddy" (this latter one used by young female characters and deemed sexist) become "mum and dad", "bathing" is replaced by "swimming", and "jersey" by "jumper". Some commentators see the changes as necessary to encourage modern readers, whereas others regard them as unnecessary and patronising. In 2016 Hodder's parent company Hachette announced that they would abandon the revisions as, based on feedback, they had not been a success. Stage, film and television adaptations In 1954 Blyton adapted Noddy for the stage, producing the Noddy in Toyland pantomime in just two or three weeks. The production was staged at the 2660-seat Stoll Theatre in Kingsway, London at Christmas. Its popularity resulted in the show running during the Christmas season for five or six years. Blyton was delighted with its reception by children in the audience, and attended the theatre three or four times a week. TV adaptations of Noddy since 1954 include one in the 1970s narrated by Richard Briers. In 1955 a stage play based on the Famous Five was produced, and in January 1997 the King's Head Theatre embarked on a six-month tour of the UK with The Famous Five Musical, to commemorate Blyton's centenary. On 21 November 1998 The Secret Seven Save the World was first performed at the Sherman Theatre in Cardiff. There have also been several film and television adaptations of the Famous Five: by the Children's Film Foundation in 1957 and 1964, Southern Television in 1978–79, and Zenith Productions in 1995–97. The series was also adapted for the German film Fünf Freunde, directed by Mike Marzuk and released in 2011. The Comic Strip, a group of British comedians, produced two extreme parodies of the Famous Five for Channel 4 television: Five Go Mad in Dorset, broadcast in 1982, and Five Go Mad on Mescalin, broadcast the following year. A third in the series, Five Go to Rehab, was broadcast on Sky in 2012. Blyton's The Faraway Tree series of books has also been adapted to television and film. On 29 September 1997 the BBC began broadcasting an animated series called The Enchanted Lands, based on the series. It was announced in October 2014 that a deal had been signed with publishers Hachette for "The Faraway Tree" series to be adapted into a live-action film by director Sam Mendes’ production company. Marlene Johnson, head of children's books at Hachette, said: "Enid Blyton was a passionate advocate of children’s storytelling, and The Magic Faraway Tree is a fantastic example of her creative imagination." Blyton's Malory Towers has been adapted into a musical of the same name by Emma Rice's theatre company. It was scheduled to do a UK spring tour in 2020 which has been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019, Malory Towers was adapted as a 13 part TV series for the BBC. It is made partly in Toronto and partly in the UK in association with Canada's Family Channel. The series went to air in the UK from April 2020. Papers Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children's Books in Newcastle upon Tyne, holds the largest public collection of Blyton's papers and typescripts. The Seven Stories collection contains a significant number of Blyton's typescripts, including the previously unpublished novel, Mr Tumpy's Caravan'', as well as personal papers and diaries. The purchase of the material in 2010 was made possible by special funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the MLA/V&A Purchase Grant Fund, and two private donations. See also Enid Blyton bibliography Enid Blyton Society Enid Blyton's illustrators References Notes Citations Bibliography Further reading External links Watch and listen to BBC archive programmes about Enid Blyton Enid Blyton letters from the BBC archive Enid Blyton Collection Newsreel footage of Enid Blyton at home with her family, 1946 The Enid Blyton Collection at Seven Stories Seven Stories' Enid Blyton Blog 1897 births 1968 deaths English children's writers 20th-century English novelists 20th-century English women writers Writers from London People from East Dulwich People from Hampstead Deaths from Alzheimer's disease Neurological disease deaths in England Golders Green Crematorium English women novelists Women mystery writers People from Beaconsfield

Edward Gibbon (; 8 May 173716 January 1794) was an English historian, writer, and member of parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788, is known for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its polemical criticism of organised religion. Early life: 1737–1752 Edward Gibbon was born in 1737, the son of Edward and Judith Gibbon at Lime Grove, in the town of Putney, Surrey. He had six siblings, five brothers and one sister, all of whom died in infancy. His grandfather, also named Edward, had lost his assets as a result of the South Sea bubble stock-market collapse in 1720, but eventually regained much of his wealth. Gibbon's father was thus able to inherit a substantial estate. One of his grandparents, Catherine Acton, descended from Sir Walter Acton, 2nd Baronet. As a youth, Gibbon's health was under constant threat. He described himself as "a puny child, neglected by my Mother, starved by my nurse". At age nine, he was sent to Dr. Woddeson's school at Kingston upon Thames (now Kingston Grammar School), shortly after which his mother died. He then took up residence in the Westminster School boarding house, owned by his adored "Aunt Kitty", Catherine Porten. Soon after she died in 1786, he remembered her as rescuing him from his mother's disdain, and imparting "the first rudiments of knowledge, the first exercise of reason, and a taste for books which is still the pleasure and glory of my life". From 1747 Gibbon spent time at the family home in Buriton. By 1751, Gibbon's reading was already extensive and certainly pointed toward his future pursuits: Laurence Echard's Roman History (1713), William Howel(l)'s An Institution of General History (1680–85), and several of the 65 volumes of the acclaimed Universal History from the Earliest Account of Time (1747–1768). Career Oxford, Lausanne, and a religious journey: 1752–1758 Following a stay at Bath in 1752 to improve his health, at the age of 15, Gibbon was sent by his father to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was enrolled as a gentleman-commoner. He was ill-suited, however, to the college atmosphere, and later rued his 14 months there as the "most idle and unprofitable" of his life. Because he himself says so in his autobiography, it used to be thought that his penchant for "theological controversy" (his aunt's influence) fully bloomed when he came under the spell of the deist or rationalist theologian Conyers Middleton (1683–1750), the author of Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers (1749). In that tract, Middleton denied the validity of such powers; Gibbon promptly objected, or so the argument used to run. The product of that disagreement, with some assistance from the work of Catholic Bishop Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627–1704), and that of the Elizabethan Jesuit Robert Parsons (1546–1610), yielded the most memorable event of his time at Oxford: his conversion to Roman Catholicism on 8 June 1753. He was further "corrupted" by the 'free thinking' deism of the playwright/poet couple David and Lucy Mallet; and finally Gibbon's father, already "in despair," had had enough. David Womersley has shown, however, that Gibbon's claim to having been converted by a reading of Middleton is very unlikely, and was introduced only into the final draft of the "Memoirs" in 1792–93. Bowersock suggests that Gibbon fabricated the Middleton story retrospectively in his anxiety about the impact of the French Revolution and Edmund Burke's claim that it was provoked by the French philosophes, so influential on Gibbon. Within weeks of his conversion, the adolescent was removed from Oxford and sent to live under the care and tutelage of Daniel Pavillard, Reformed pastor of Lausanne, Switzerland. There, he made one of his life's two great friendships, that of Jacques Georges Deyverdun (the French-language translator of Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther), and that of John Baker Holroyd (later Lord Sheffield). Just a year and a half later, after his father threatened to disinherit him, on Christmas Day, 1754, he reconverted to Protestantism. "The various articles of the Romish creed," he wrote, "disappeared like a dream". He remained in Lausanne for five intellectually productive years, a period that greatly enriched Gibbon's already immense aptitude for scholarship and erudition: he read Latin literature; travelled throughout Switzerland studying its cantons' constitutions; and studied the works of Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, John Locke, Pierre Bayle, and Blaise Pascal. Thwarted romance He also met the one romance in his life: the daughter of the pastor of Crassy, a young woman named Suzanne Curchod, who was later to become the wife of Louis XVI's finance minister Jacques Necker, and the mother of Madame de Staël. The two developed a warm affinity; Gibbon proceeded to propose marriage, but ultimately this was out of the question, blocked both by his father's staunch disapproval and Curchod's equally staunch reluctance to leave Switzerland. Gibbon returned to England in August 1758 to face his father. No refusal of the elder's wishes could be allowed. Gibbon put it this way: "I sighed as a lover, I obeyed as a son." He proceeded to cut off all contact with Curchod, even as she vowed to wait for him. Their final emotional break apparently came at Ferney, France, in early 1764, though they did see each other at least one more time a year later. First fame and the Grand tour: 1758–1765 Upon his return to England, Gibbon published his first book, Essai sur l'Étude de la Littérature in 1761, which produced an initial taste of celebrity and distinguished him, in Paris at least, as a man of letters. From 1759 to 1770, Gibbon served on active duty and in reserve with the South Hampshire Militia, his deactivation in December 1762 coinciding with the militia's dispersal at the end of the Seven Years' War. The following year, he returned, via Paris, to Lausanne, where he made the acquaintance of a "prudent worthy young man" William Guise. On 18 April 1764, he and Guise set off for Italy, crossed the Alps, and after spending the summer in Florence arrived in Rome, via Lucca, Pisa, Livorno and Siena, in early October.<ref>Edward Chaney, "Reiseerlebnis und 'Traumdeutung' bei Edward Gibbon und William Beckford", Europareisen politisch-sozialer Eliten im 18.Jahrhundert, eds. J. Rees, W. Siebers and H. Tilgner (Berlin 2002), pp.244-45; cf. Chaney, "Gibbon, Beckford and the Interpretation of Dreams," pp. 40-41. </ref> In his autobiography, Gibbon vividly records his rapture when he finally neared "the great object of [my] pilgrimage": ...at the distance of twenty-five years I can neither forget nor express the strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first approached and entered the eternal City. After a sleepless night, I trod, with a lofty step the ruins of the Forum; each memorable spot where Romulus stood, or Tully spoke, or Caesar fell, was at once present to my eye; and several days of intoxication were lost or enjoyed before I could descend to a cool and minute investigation. Here, Gibbon first conceived the idea of composing a history of the city, later extended to the entire empire, a moment he described later as his "Capitoline vision": It was at Rome, on the fifteenth of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted fryars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the City first started to my mind. Womersley (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, p. 12) notes the existence of "good reasons" to doubt the statement's accuracy. Elaborating, Pocock ("Classical History," ¶ #2) refers to it as a likely "creation of memory" or a "literary invention", given that Gibbon, in his autobiography, claimed that his journal dated the reminiscence to 15 October, when in fact the journal gives no date. Late Career: 1765–1776 Work In June 1765, Gibbon returned to his father's house, and remained there until the latter's death in 1770. These five years were considered by Gibbon as the worst of his life, but he tried to remain busy by making early attempts towards writing full histories. His first historical narrative known as the History of Switzerland, which represented Gibbon's love for Switzerland, was never published nor finished. Even under the guidance of Deyverdun (a German translator for Gibbons), Gibbon became too critical of himself, and completely abandoned the project, only writing 60 pages of text. However, after Gibbon's death, his writings on Switzerland's history were discovered and published by Lord Sheffield in 1815. Soon after abandoning his History of Switzerland, Gibbon made another attempt towards completing a full history. His second work, Memoires Litteraires de la Grande Bretagne, was a two-volume set which described the literary and social conditions of England at the time, such as Lord Lyttelton's history of Henry II and Nathaniel Lardner's The Credibility of the Gospel History. Gibbon's Memoires Litteraires failed to gain any notoriety, and was considered a flop by fellow historians and literary scholars. After he tended to his father's estate—which was by no means in good condition— quite enough remained for Gibbon to settle fashionably in London at 7 Bentinck Street, free of financial concern. By February 1773, he was writing in earnest, but not without the occasional self-imposed distraction. He took to London society quite easily, joined the better social clubs, including Dr. Johnson's Literary Club, and looked in from time to time on his friend Holroyd in Sussex. He succeeded Oliver Goldsmith at the Royal Academy as 'professor in ancient history' (honorary but prestigious). In late 1774, he was initiated as a Freemason of the Premier Grand Lodge of England. He was also, perhaps least productively in that same year, 1774, returned to the House of Commons for Liskeard, Cornwall through the intervention of his relative and patron, Edward Eliot. He became the archetypal back-bencher, benignly "mute" and "indifferent," his support of the Whig ministry invariably automatic. Gibbon's indolence in that position, perhaps fully intentional, subtracted little from the progress of his writing. Gibbon lost the Liskeard seat in 1780 when Eliot joined the opposition, taking with him "the Electors of Leskeard [who] are commonly of the same opinion as Mr. El[l]iot." (Murray, p. 322.) The following year, owing to the good grace of Prime Minister Lord North, he was again returned to Parliament, this time for Lymington on a by-election. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: 1776–1788 After several rewrites, with Gibbon "often tempted to throw away the labours of seven years," the first volume of what was to become his life's major achievement, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published on 17 February 1776. Through 1777, the reading public eagerly consumed three editions, for which Gibbon was rewarded handsomely: two-thirds of the profits, amounting to approximately £1,000. Biographer Leslie Stephen wrote that thereafter, "His fame was as rapid as it has been lasting." And as regards this first volume, "Some warm praise from David Hume overpaid the labour of ten years." Volumes II and III appeared on 1 March 1781, eventually rising "to a level with the previous volume in general esteem." Volume IV was finished in June 1784; the final two were completed during a second Lausanne sojourn (September 1783 to August 1787) where Gibbon reunited with his friend Deyverdun in leisurely comfort. By early 1787, he was "straining for the goal" and with great relief the project was finished in June. Gibbon later wrote: Volumes IV, V, and VI finally reached the press in May 1788, their publication having been delayed since March so it could coincide with a dinner party celebrating Gibbon's 51st birthday (the 8th). Mounting a bandwagon of praise for the later volumes were such contemporary luminaries as Adam Smith, William Robertson, Adam Ferguson, Lord Camden, and Horace Walpole. Adam Smith told Gibbon that "by the universal assent of every man of taste and learning, whom I either know or correspond with, it sets you at the very head of the whole literary tribe at present existing in Europe." In November 1788, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, the main proposer being his good friend Lord Sheffield. In 1783 Gibbon had been intrigued by the cleverness of Sheffield's 12 year-old eldest daughter, Maria, and he proposed to teach her himself. Over the following years he continued, creating a girl of sixteen who was both well educated, confident and determined to choose her own husband. Gibbon described her as a "mixture of just observation and lively imagery, the strong sense of a man expressed with the easy elegance of a female". Later life: 1789–1794 The years following Gibbon's completion of The History were filled largely with sorrow and increasing physical discomfort. He had returned to London in late 1787 to oversee the publication process alongside Lord Sheffield. With that accomplished, in 1789 it was back to Lausanne only to learn of and be "deeply affected" by the death of Deyverdun, who had willed Gibbon his home, La Grotte. He resided there with little commotion, took in the local society, received a visit from Sheffield in 1791, and "shared the common abhorrence" of the French Revolution. In 1793, word came of Lady Sheffield's death; Gibbon immediately left Lausanne and set sail to comfort a grieving but composed Sheffield. His health began to fail critically in December, and at the turn of the new year, he was on his last legs. Gibbon is believed to have suffered from an extreme case of scrotal swelling, probably a hydrocele testis, a condition which causes the scrotum to swell with fluid in a compartment overlying either testicle. In an age when close-fitting clothes were fashionable, his condition led to a chronic and disfiguring inflammation that left Gibbon a lonely figure. As his condition worsened, he underwent numerous procedures to alleviate the condition, but with no enduring success. In early January, the last of a series of three operations caused an unremitting peritonitis to set in and spread, from which he died. The "English giant of the Enlightenment" finally succumbed at 12:45 pm, 16 January 1794 at age 56. He was buried in the Sheffield Mausoleum attached to the north transept of the Church of St Mary and St Andrew, Fletching, East Sussex, having died in Fletching while staying with his great friend, Lord Sheffield. Gibbon's estate was valued at approximately £26,000. He left most of his property to cousins. As stipulated in his will, Sheffield oversaw the sale of his library at auction to William Beckford for £950. What happened next suggests that Beckford may have known of Gibbon's moralistic, 'impertinent animadversion' at his expense in the presence of the Duchess of Devonshire at Lausanne. Gibbon's wish that his 6,000-book library would not be locked up 'under the key of a jealous master' was effectively denied by Beckford who retained it in Lausanne until 1801 before inspecting it, then locking it up again until at least as late as 1818 before giving most of the books back to Gibbon's physician Dr Scholl who had helped negotiate the sale in the first place. Beckford's annotated copy of the Decline and Fall turned up in Christie's in 1953, complete with his shattering critique of the author's 'ludicrous self-complacency ... your frequent distortion of historical Truth to provoke a gibe, or excite a sneer ... your ignorance of oriental languages [etc]'. Legacy Edward Gibbon's central thesis in his explanation of how the Roman Empire fell, that it was due to embracing Christianity, is not widely accepted by scholars today. Gibbon argued that with the empire's new Christian character, large sums of wealth that would have otherwise been used in the secular affairs in promoting the state were transferred to promoting the activities of the Church. However, the pre-Christian empire also spent large financial sums on religious affairs and it is unclear whether or not the change of religion increased the amount of resources the empire spent on religion. Gibbon further argued that new attitudes in Christianity caused many Christians of wealth to renounce their lifestyles and enter a monastic lifestyle, and so stop participating in the support of the empire. However, while many Christians of wealth did become monastics, this paled in comparison to the participants in the imperial bureaucracy. Although Gibbon further pointed out the importance Christianity placed on peace caused a decline in the number of people serving the military, the decline was so small as to be negligible for the army's effectiveness. Gibbon's work has been criticised for its scathing view of Christianity as laid down in chapters XV and XVI, a situation which resulted in the banning of the book in several countries. Gibbon's alleged crime was disrespecting, and none too lightly, the character of sacred Christian doctrine, by "treat[ing] the Christian church as a phenomenon of general history, not a special case admitting supernatural explanations and disallowing criticism of its adherents". More specifically, the chapters excoriated the church for "supplanting in an unnecessarily destructive way the great culture that preceded it" and for "the outrage of [practising] religious intolerance and warfare". Gibbon, in letters to Holroyd and others, expected some type of church-inspired backlash, but the harshness of the ensuing torrents exceeded anything he or his friends had anticipated. Contemporary detractors such as Joseph Priestley and Richard Watson stoked the nascent fire, but the most severe of these attacks was an "acrimonious" piece by the young cleric, Henry Edwards Davis. Gibbon subsequently published his Vindication in 1779, in which he categorically denied Davis' "criminal accusations", branding him a purveyor of "servile plagiarism." Davis followed Gibbon's Vindication with yet another reply (1779). Gibbon's apparent antagonism to Christian doctrine spilled over into the Jewish faith, leading to charges of anti-Semitism. For example, he wrote: From the reign of Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, the Jews discovered a fierce impatience of the dominion of Rome, which repeatedly broke out in the most furious massacres and insurrections. Humanity is shocked at the recital of the horrid cruelties which they committed in the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where they dwelt in treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting natives; and we are tempted to applaud the severe retaliation which was exercised by the arms of legions against a race of fanatics, whose dire and credulous superstition seemed to render them the implacable enemies not only of the Roman government, but also of humankind. Influence Gibbon is considered to be a son of the Enlightenment and this is reflected in his famous verdict on the history of the Middle Ages: "I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion." However, politically, he aligned himself with the conservative Edmund Burke's rejection of the radical egalitarian movements of the time as well as with Burke's dismissal of overly rationalistic applications of the "rights of man". Gibbon's work has been praised for its style, his piquant epigrams and its effective irony. Winston Churchill memorably noted in My Early Life, "I set out upon...Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [and] was immediately dominated both by the story and the style. ...I devoured Gibbon. I rode triumphantly through it from end to end and enjoyed it all." Churchill modelled much of his own literary style on Gibbon's. Like Gibbon, he dedicated himself to producing a "vivid historical narrative, ranging widely over period and place and enriched by analysis and reflection." Unusually for the 18th century, Gibbon was never content with secondhand accounts when the primary sources were accessible (though most of these were drawn from well-known printed editions). "I have always endeavoured," he says, "to draw from the fountain-head; that my curiosity, as well as a sense of duty, has always urged me to study the originals; and that, if they have sometimes eluded my search, I have carefully marked the secondary evidence, on whose faith a passage or a fact were reduced to depend." In this insistence upon the importance of primary sources, Gibbon is considered by many to be one of the first modern historians: In accuracy, thoroughness, lucidity, and comprehensive grasp of a vast subject, the 'History' is unsurpassable. It is the one English history which may be regarded as definitive...Whatever its shortcomings the book is artistically imposing as well as historically unimpeachable as a vast panorama of a great period. The subject of Gibbon's writing, as well as his ideas and style, have influenced other writers. Besides his influence on Churchill, Gibbon was also a model for Isaac Asimov in his writing of The Foundation Trilogy, which he said involved "a little bit of cribbin' from the works of Edward Gibbon". Evelyn Waugh admired Gibbon's style, but not his secular viewpoint. In Waugh's 1950 novel Helena, the early Christian author Lactantius worried about the possibility of "'a false historian, with the mind of Cicero or Tacitus and the soul of an animal,' and he nodded towards the gibbon who fretted his golden chain and chattered for fruit." Monographs by Gibbon Essai sur l’Étude de la Littérature (London: Becket & De Hondt, 1761). Critical Observations on the Sixth Book of [Vergil's] The Aeneid (London: Elmsley, 1770). The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (vol. I, 1776; vols. II, III, 1781; vols. IV, V, VI, 1788–1789). all London: Strahan & Cadell. A Vindication of some passages in the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (London: J. Dodsley, 1779). Mémoire Justificatif pour servir de Réponse à l’Exposé, etc. de la Cour de France (London: Harrison & Brooke, 1779). Other writings by Gibbon "Lettre sur le gouvernement de Berne" [Letter No. IX. Mr. Gibbon to *** on the Government of Berne], in Miscellaneous Works, First (1796) edition, vol. 1 (below). Scholars differ on the date of its composition (Norman, D.M. Low: 1758–59; Pocock: 1763–64). Mémoires Littéraires de la Grande-Bretagne. co-author: Georges Deyverdun (2 vols.: vol. 1, London: Becket & De Hondt, 1767; vol. 2, London: Heydinger, 1768). Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon, Esq., ed. John Lord Sheffield (2 vols., London: Cadell & Davies, 1796; 5 vols., London: J. Murray, 1814; 3 vols., London: J. Murray, 1815). Includes Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Edward Gibbon, Esq.. Autobiographies of Edward Gibbon, ed. John Murray (London: J. Murray, 1896). EG's complete memoirs (six drafts) from the original manuscripts. The Private Letters of Edward Gibbon, 2 vols., ed. Rowland E. Prothero (London: J. Murray, 1896). The works of Edward Gibbon, Volume 3 1906. Gibbon's Journal to 28 January 1763, ed. D.M. Low (London: Chatto and Windus, 1929). Le Journal de Gibbon à Lausanne, ed. Georges A. Bonnard (Lausanne: Librairie de l'Université, 1945). Miscellanea Gibboniana, eds. G.R. de Beer, L. Junod, G.A. Bonnard (Lausanne: Librairie de l'Université, 1952). The Letters of Edward Gibbon, 3 vols., ed. J.E. Norton (London: Cassell & Co., 1956). vol. 1: 1750–1773; vol. 2: 1774–1784; vol. 3: 1784–1794. cited as 'Norton, Letters'. Gibbon's Journey from Geneva to Rome, ed. G.A. Bonnard (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1961). journal. Edward Gibbon: Memoirs of My Life, ed. G.A. Bonnard (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1969; 1966). portions of EG's memoirs arranged chronologically, omitting repetition. The English Essays of Edward Gibbon, ed. Patricia Craddock (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972); hb: . See also The Work of J.G.A. Pocock: Edward Gibbon section The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Further reading The Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon A Gibbon chronology Historiography of the United Kingdom Notes Most of this article, including quotations unless otherwise noted, has been adapted from Stephen's entry on Edward Gibbon in the Dictionary of National Biography. References Beer, G. R. de. "The Malady of Edward Gibbon, F.R.S." Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 7:1 (December 1949), 71–80. Craddock, Patricia B. Edward Gibbon, Luminous Historian 1772–1794. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. HB: . Biography. Dickinson, H.T . "The Politics of Edward Gibbon". Literature and History 8:4 (1978), 175–196. Low, D. M., Edward Gibbon. 1737–1794 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1937). Murray, John (ed.), The Autobiographies of Edward Gibbon. Second Edition (London: John Murray, 1897). Norton, J. E. A Bibliography of the Works of Edward Gibbon. New York: Burt Franklin Co., 1940, repr. 1970. Norton, J .E. The Letters of Edward Gibbon. 3 vols. London: Cassell & Co. Ltd., 1956. Pocock, J. G. A. The Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon, 1737–1764. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. HB: . Pocock, J. G. A. "Classical and Civil History: The Transformation of Humanism". Cromohs 1 (1996). Online at the Università degli Studi di Firenze. Retrieved 20 November 2009. Pocock, J. G. A. "The Ironist". Review of David Womersley's The Watchmen of the Holy City. London Review of Books 24:22 (14 November 2002). Online at the London Review of Books (subscribers only). Retrieved 20 November 2009. Gibbon, Edward. Memoirs of My Life and Writings. Online at Gutenberg. Retrieved 20 November 2009. Stephen, Sir Leslie, "Gibbon, Edward (1737–1794)". In the Dictionary of National Biography, eds. Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee. Oxford: 1921, repr. 1963. Vol. 7, 1129–1135. Womersley, David, ed. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 3 vols. (London and New York: Penguin, 1994). Womersley, David. "Introduction," in Womersley, Decline and Fall, vol. 1, xi–cvi. Womersley, David. "Gibbon, Edward (1737–1794)". In the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, eds. H.C.G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Vol. 22, 8–18. Further reading Before 1985 Barlow, J.W. (1879). “Gibbon and Julian”. In: Hermathena, Volume 3, 142–159. Dublin: Edward Posonby. Beer, Gavin de. Gibbon and His World. London: Thames and Hudson, 1968. HB: . Bowersock, G.W., et al. eds. Edward Gibbon and the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977. Craddock, Patricia B. Young Edward Gibbon: Gentleman of Letters. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982. HB: . Biography. Jordan, David. Gibbon and his Roman Empire. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1971. Keynes, Geoffrey, ed. The Library of Edward Gibbon. 2nd ed. Godalming, England: St. Paul's Bibliographies, 1940, repr. 1980. Lewis, Bernard. "Gibbon on Muhammad". Daedalus 105:3 (Summer 1976), 89–101. Low, D.M. Edward Gibbon 1737–1794. London: Chatto and Windus, 1937. Biography. Momigliano, Arnaldo. "Gibbon's Contributions to Historical Method". Historia 2 (1954), 450–463. Reprinted in Momigliano, Studies in Historiography (New York: Harper & Row, 1966; Garland Pubs., 1985), 40–55. PB: . Porter, Roger J. "Gibbon's Autobiography: Filling Up the Silent Vacancy". Eighteenth-Century Studies 8:1 (Autumn 1974), 1–26. Stephen, Leslie, "Gibbon's Autobiography" in Studies of a Biographer, Vol. 1 (1898) Swain, J. W. Edward Gibbon the Historian. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1966. White, Jr. Lynn, ed. The Transformation of the Roman World: Gibbon's Problem after Two Centuries. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. HB: . Since 1985 Berghahn, C.-F., and T. Kinzel, eds., Edward Gibbon im deutschen Sprachraum. Bausteine einer Rezeptionsgeschichte. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2015. Bowersock, G. W. Gibbon's Historical Imagination. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988. Burrow, J. W. Gibbon (Past Masters). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. HB: . PB: . Carnochan, W. Bliss. Gibbon's Solitude: The Inward World of the Historian. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987. HB: . Chaney, Edward, "Reiseerlebnis und 'Traumdeutung' bei Edward Gibbon und William Beckford", Europareisen politisch-sozialer Eliten im 18.Jahrhundert, eds. J. Rees, W. Siebers and H. Tilgner (Berlin 2002), pp.243-60. Chaney, Edward, "Gibbon, Beckford and the Interpretation of Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents", The Beckford Society Annual Lectures 2000-2003, ed. Jon Millinton (Beckford Society, 2004). Craddock, Patricia B. Edward Gibbon: a Reference Guide. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1987. PB: . A comprehensive listing of secondary literature through 1985. See also her supplement covering the period through 1997. Ghosh, Peter R. "Gibbon Observed". Journal of Roman Studies 81 (1991), 132–156. Ghosh, Peter R. "Gibbon's First Thoughts: Rome, Christianity and the Essai sur l'Étude de la Litterature 1758–61". Journal of Roman Studies 85 (1995), 148–164. Ghosh, Peter R. "The Conception of Gibbon's History", in McKitterick and Quinault, eds. Edward Gibbon and Empire, 271–316. Ghosh, Peter R. "Gibbon's Timeless Verity: Nature and Neo-Classicism in the Late Enlightenment," in Womersley, Burrow, Pocock, eds. Edward Gibbon: bicentenary essays. Ghosh, Peter R. "Gibbon, Edward 1737–1794 British historian of Rome and universal historian," in Kelly Boyd, ed. Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999), 461–463. Levine, Joseph M., "Edward Gibbon and the Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns," in Levine, Humanism and History: origins of modern English historiography (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987). Levine, Joseph M. "Truth and Method in Gibbon's Historiography," in Levine, The Autonomy of History: truth and method from Erasmus to Gibbon (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1999). McKitterick, R., and R. Quinault, eds. Edward Gibbon and Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Norman, Brian. "The Influence of Switzerland on the Life and Writings of Edward Gibbon," in Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century [SVEC] v.2002:03. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2002. O'Brien, Karen. "English Enlightenment Histories, 1750–c.1815" in . Pocock, J. G. A. Barbarism and Religion, 4 vols.: vol. 1, The Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon, 1737–1764, 1999 [hb: ]; vol. 2, Narratives of Civil Government, 1999 [hb: ]; vol. 3, The First Decline and Fall, 2003 [pb: ]; vol. 4, Barbarians, Savages and Empires, 2005 [pb: ]. all Cambridge Univ. Press. Porter, Roy. Gibbon: Making History. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989, HB: . Turnbull, Paul. "'Une marionnette infidele': the Fashioning of Edward Gibbon's Reputation as the English Voltaire," in Womersley, Burrow, Pocock, eds. Edward Gibbon: bicentenary essays. Womersley, David P. The Transformation of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. HB: . Womersley, David P., John Burrow, and J.G.A. Pocock, eds. Edward Gibbon: bicentenary essays. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1997. HB: . Womersley, David P. Gibbon and the ‘Watchmen of the Holy City’: The Historian and His Reputation, 1776–1815''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. PB: . External links Complete History of the Decline and Fall including Gibbon's Vindication, courtesy: Christian Classics Ethereal Library of Calvin College, Grands Rapids, Michigan. Edward Gibbon, Historian of the Roman Empire. Part 1: The Man and his Book Edward Gibbon, Historian of the Roman Empire. Part 2: A closer look at The Decline and Fall Archive link The Decline and Fall of Edward Gibbon @ Ward's Book of Days DeclineandFallResources.com – Original Maps and Footnote Translations Biographer Patricia Craddock's comprehensive bibliography through May 1999. Craddock's supplement to her Reference Guide. 1737 births 1794 deaths 18th-century diarists 18th-century English historians 18th-century English male writers 18th-century English non-fiction writers Edward Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford British book and manuscript collectors British classical scholars British Freemasons British historians British historians of religion British male essayists British monarchists British MPs 1774–1780 British MPs 1780–1784 British Protestants British rhetoricians Burials in Sussex Converts to Protestantism from Catholicism Critics of religions Cultural critics Deaths from peritonitis English book and manuscript collectors English classical scholars English essayists English historians English male non-fiction writers English Protestants English rhetoricians Fellows of the Royal Society Freemasons of the Premier Grand Lodge of England Historians of ancient Rome Historians of Christianity Historians of religion Irony theorists Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for constituencies in Cornwall Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies Scholars of Roman history Social critics People educated at Kingston Grammar School People educated at Westminster School, London People from Buriton People from Putney Rhetoric theorists Theorists on Western civilization

Echolocation is the use of "sound" as a form of navigation Navigation using sound Acoustic location, the general use of sound to locate objects. Animal echolocation, non-human animals emitting sound waves and listening to the echo in order to locate objects or navigate. Human echolocation, the use of sound by people to navigate. Sonar (sound navigation and ranging), the use of sound on water or underwater, to navigate or to locate other watercraft, usually by submarines. Echo sounding, listening to the echo of sound pulses to measure the distance to the bottom of the sea, a special case of Sonar. Medical ultrasonography, the use of ultrasound echoes to look inside the body. Other Echolocation (album), a 2001 album by Fruit Bats Echolocation, a 2017 album by Gone Is Gone See also Radar, locating objects by detecting the echo of emitted radio waves Lidar, locating objects by detecting the echo of emitted laser beams Time to Echolocate, a 2005 album by The Ebb and Flow

was the 32nd Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Sushun's reign spanned the years from 587 through 592. Traditional narrative Before his ascension to the Chrysanthemum Throne, his personal name (his imina) was Hatsusebe-shinnō, also known as Hatsusebe no Waka-sazaki. His name at birth was . He was the twelfth son of Emperor Kinmei. His mother was , a daughter of Soga no Iname, who was the chief, or Ōomi, of the Soga clan. He succeeded his half-brother, Emperor Yōmei in 587, and lived in the Kurahashi Palace (Kurahashi no Miya) in Yamato. 587: In the , the Emperor died, and despite a dispute over who should follow him as sovereign, the succession was received by another son of Emperor Kinmei, one of Yōmei's younger brothers. Shortly thereafter, Emperor Sushun is said to have acceded to the throne. Sushun's contemporary title would not have been tennō, as most historians believe this title was not introduced until the reigns of Emperor Tenmu and Empress Jitō. Rather, it was presumably , meaning "the great king who rules all under heaven". Alternatively, Sushun might have been referred to as or the "Great King of Yamato". He came to the throne with the support of the Soga clan and Empress Suiko, his half sister and the widow of Emperor Bidatsu. Initially, the Mononobe clan, a rival clan of the Sogas, allied with Prince Anahobe, another son of Kimmei, and attempted to have him installed as Emperor. At the Battle of Shigisan, Soga no Umako, who succeeded his father as Ōomi of the Soga clan, eventually killed Mononobe no Moriya, the head of the Mononobe clan, which led to its decline. Umako then installed Emperor Sushun on the throne. As time went on, Sushun eventually became resentful of Umako's power, and wanted him deposed. It is said that one day, he saw a wild boar and proclaimed, "I want to kill Soga Umako like this wild boar". This angered Soga no Umako and, perhaps out of fear of being struck first, Umako had Sushun assassinated by in 592. Emperor Sushun's reign lasted for five years before his death at the age of 72. The actual site of Sushun's grave is known. The Emperor is traditionally venerated at a memorial Shinto shrine (misasagi) at Nara. The Imperial Household Agency designates this location as Yōmei's mausoleum. It is formally named Kurahashi no oka no e no misasagi. Genealogy Sushun had one Empress and two Imperial children. Consort: , Otomo-no-Nukateko's daughter Third Son: Concubine: , Soga no Umako's daughter Mother Unknown , older brother of Prince Hachiko, Nakahara clan's ancestor Concubine: , Mononobe no Moriya's younger sister Ancestry See also Emperor of Japan List of Emperors of Japan Imperial cult Notes References Aston, William George. (1896). Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner. Brown, Delmer M. and Ichirō Ishida, eds. (1979). Gukanshō: The Future and the Past. Berkeley: University of California Press. ; Jochi Daigaku. (1989). Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 44. Tokyo: Sophia University Press. Ponsonby-Fane, Richard Arthur Brabazon. (1959). The Imperial House of Japan. Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society. Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). Nihon Ōdai Ichiran; ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon. Paris: Royal Asiatic Society, Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. Varley, H. Paul. (1980). Jinnō Shōtōki: A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns. New York: Columbia University Press. ; Japanese emperors 6th-century murdered monarchs 592 deaths People of Asuka-period Japan 6th-century monarchs in Asia 6th-century Japanese monarchs Year of birth unknown

, also known as was the 14th legendary Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Both the Kojiki, and the Nihon Shoki (collectively known as the Kiki) record events that took place during Chūai's alleged lifetime. Chūai is the first monarch to ascend the throne who was not a son of the previous Emperor as the latter's only child died young. He is also noted for having his capital in Kyushu, rather than Yamato like his predecessors. The records state that Chūai had a wife named Okinagatarashihime-no-Mikoto (later Jingū), and 2 consorts that all bore him 4 children. Chūai's reign is conventionally considered to have been from 192 to 200 AD. The events leading up to the Emperor's death have been subject to interpretation as they involve a vengeful Kami (spirit) indirectly killing Chūai. This event allegedly occurred after the Emperor disrespectfully scoffed at the Kami's request. His wife Jingū carried out the Kami's request which was to invade Korea, but this has since been considered legendary rather than factual. While the location of Chūai's grave (if any) is unknown, he is traditionally venerated at a memorial Shinto tomb, and at a Hachiman shrine. Modern historians have come to the conclusion that the title of "Emperor" and the name "Chūai" were used by later generations to describe this legendary Emperor. It has also been proposed that Chūai actually reigned much later than he is attested. Emperor Chūai is traditionally listed as the last Emperor of the Yayoi period. Legendary narrative The Japanese have traditionally accepted this sovereign's historical existence, and a mausoleum (misasagi) for Chūai is currently maintained. The following information available is taken from the pseudo-historical Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, which are collectively known as or Japanese chronicles. These chronicles include legends and myths, as well as potential historical facts that have since been exaggerated and/or distorted over time. The records state that Chūai was born to Futaji no Iri Hime sometime in 149 AD, and was given the name . Chūai's father was allegedly the legendary prince, Yamato Takeru. He was the first Emperor who was not the child of the previous Emperor, being instead the nephew of his predecessor Emperor Seimu. The title of Crown Prince was given to him by his uncle before his death in 170 AD, two years later Chūai became the next Emperor. Unlike his predecessors who had maintained their capitals in Yamato Province, the records state his palace was first located on the northern shores of Shimonoseki Strait, then south of that in Kyushu. Emperor Chūai is described in the Kiki as having been ten feet tall, with "a countenance of perfect beauty". He had one wife who was named Okinagatarashi (aka Jingū), and two consorts who all bore him four children. During the start of his reign he made progress to modern day Tsuruga, and led an expedition to Kii where he heard news of a revolt. Jingū accompanied him to the west to fight against a tribe in Tsukushi (located in modern-day Fukuoka Prefecture) called Kumaso. On the eve of battle though, his wife was suddenly possessed by some unknown kami who advised Chūai to invade and conquer Korea. The Kami gave the reasoning that the Kumaso were not worthy of "his steel". Chūai refused with scorn for a number of reasons which included giving up a military campaign, and doubting that such a land even existed. It is said that the Kami was so enraged by this disrespect, that Emperor Chūai was later killed in a battle that beat down his troops. The death of the Emperor was kept quiet by Jingū, who vanquished the Kumaso soon afterwards in a fit of revenge. Jingū then respected the wishes of the Kami by invading Korea, and subjugated the eastern Korean kingdom of Shiragi. The other two Korean kingdoms at the time voluntarily submitted, and Jingū ascended to the throne as Empress. Jingū's occupation of the Korean Peninsula, and reign as Empress are now considered to be legendary rather than factual. The modern traditional view is that Chūai's son (Homutawake) became the next Emperor after Jingū acted as a regent. She would have been de facto ruler in the interim. Known information Emperor Chūai is regarded by historians as a "legendary Emperor" as there is insufficient material available for further verification and study. The lack of this information has made his very existence open to debate. There is no evidence to suggest that the title tennō was used during the time to which Chūai's reign has been assigned. It is certainly possible that he was a chieftain or local clan leader, and that the polity he ruled would have only encompassed a small portion of modern-day Japan. The name Chūai-tennō was more than likely assigned to him posthumously by later generations. His name might have been regularized centuries after the lifetime ascribed to Chūai, possibly during the time in which legends about the origins of the Yamato dynasty were compiled as the chronicles known today as the Kojiki. The manner in which Chūai died has since been broken down to at least two theories. In his book Confucianism O - Z, professor Xinzhong Yao notes that it is possible the late Emperor could have succumbed to illness rather than death on the battlefield. Sources which include Yao, Francis Brinkley, and Kikuchi Dairoku also cite the enemy arrow scenario. While the actual site of Chūai's grave is not known, the Emperor is traditionally venerated at a memorial Shinto shrine (misasagi) at Nara. The Imperial Household Agency designates this location as Chūai's mausoleum, and is formally named Ega no Naganu no nishi no misasagi. The Kami (spirit) of Chūai is also enshrined at the Tamukeyama Hachiman Shrine in Nara. Chūai is traditionally listed as the last Emperor of the Yayoi period, who could have in reality ruled in the 4th century. The next era is known as the Kofun period, where more is known about the Emperors based on modern day archaeological evidence. Outside of the Kiki, the reign of Emperor Kinmei ( – 571 AD) is the first for which contemporary historiography has been able to assign verifiable dates. The conventionally accepted names and dates of the early Emperors were not confirmed as "traditional" though, until the reign of Emperor Kanmu between 737 and 806 AD. Consorts and children Emperor Chuai and Empress Jingu are both great-great-great-grandchildren of Emperor Kaika, the ninth Emperor of Japan. Empress: , later Empress Jingu, Prince Okinaga no sukune's daughter , later Emperor Ōjin Consort: , Prince Hikohitoōe's daughter (Emperor Keiko's son) Consort: , Ōsakanushi's daughter See also Emperor of Japan List of Emperors of Japan Imperial cult Notes References Further reading Aston, William George. (1896). Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner. Brown, Delmer M. and Ichirō Ishida, eds. (1979). Gukanshō: The Future and the Past. Berkeley: University of California Press. ; Chamberlain, Basil Hall. (1920). The Kojiki. Read before the Asiatic Society of Japan on April 12, May 10, and June 21, 1882; reprinted, May, 1919. Ponsonby-Fane, Richard Arthur Brabazon. (1959). The Imperial House of Japan. Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society. Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). Nihon Ōdai Ichiran; ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon. Paris: Royal Asiatic Society, Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. Varley, H. Paul. (1980). Jinnō Shōtōki: A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns. New York: Columbia University Press. ; Legendary Emperors of Japan People of Yayoi-period Japan 2nd-century monarchs in Asia 2nd-century Japanese monarchs Hachiman faith Japanese giants

was the 54th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession. Ninmyō's reign lasted from 833 to 850, during the Heian period. Traditional narrative Ninmyō was the second son of Emperor Saga and the Empress Tachibana no Kachiko. His personal name (imina) was . After his death, he was given the title . Ninmyō had nine Empresses, Imperial consorts, and concubines (kōi); and the emperor had 24 Imperial sons and daughters. Emperor Ninmyō is traditionally venerated at his tomb; the Imperial Household Agency designates , in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto, as the location of Ninmyō's mausoleum. Events of Ninmyō's life Ninmyō ascended to the throne following the abdication of his uncle, Emperor Junna. 6 January 823 (): Received the title of Crown Prince at the age of 14. 22 March 833 (): In the 10th year of Emperor Junna's reign, the emperor abdicated; and the succession (senso) was received by his adopted son. Masara-shinnō was the natural son of Emperor Saga, and therefore would have been Junna's nephew. Shortly thereafter, Emperor Ninmyo is said to have acceded to the throne (sokui). Shortly after Ninmyo was enthroned, he designated an heir. He named Prince Tsunesada, a son of former Emperor Junna, as the crown prince. 835 (): Kūkai (known posthumously as Kōbō-Daishi) died. This monk, scholar, poet, and artist had been the founder of the Shingon or "True Word" school of Buddhism. 838-839 (Jōwa 5-6): Diplomatic mission to Tang China headed by Fujiwara no Tsunetsugu. 842: Following a coup d'état called the Jōwa Incident, Tsunesada the crown prince was replaced with Ninmyō's first son, Prince Michiyasu (later Emperor Montoku) whose mother was the Empress Fujiwara no Junshi, a daughter of sadaijin Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu. It is supposed that this was the result of political intrigue planned by Ninmyō and Fujiwara no Yoshifusa. The first of what would become a powerful line of Fujiwara regents, Yoshifusa had numerous family ties to the imperial court; he was Ninmyō's brother in law (by virtue of his sister who became Ninmyō's consort), the second son of sadaijin Fuyutsugu, and uncle to the new crown prince. In his lifetime, Ninmyō could not have anticipated that his third son, Prince Tokiyasu, would eventually ascend the throne in 884 as Emperor Kōkō. 6 May 850 ({{nihongo foot|Kashō 3, 21st day of the 3rd month|嘉祥三年三月二十一日}}): Emperor Ninmyō died at the age of 41. He was sometimes posthumously referred to as "the Emperor of Fukakusa", because that was the name given to his tomb. Eras of Ninmyō's reign The years of Ninmyō's reign are more specifically identified by more than one era name (nengō). Tenchō (824–834) Jōwa (834–848) Kashō (848–851) Kugyō is a collective term for the very few most powerful men attached to the court of the Emperor of Japan in pre-Meiji eras. In general, this elite group included only three to four men at a time. These were hereditary courtiers whose experience and background would have brought them to the pinnacle of a life's career. During Ninmyō's reign, this apex of the Daijō-kan included: Sadaijin, Fujiwara no Otsugu (藤原緒嗣), 773–843. Sadaijin, Minamoto no Tokiwa (源常), 812–854. Udaijin, Kiyohara no Natsuno (清原夏野), 782–837. Udaijin, Fujiwara no Mimori (藤原三守), d. 840. Udaijin, Minamoto no Tokiwa (源常) Udaijin, Tachibana no Ujikimi (橘氏公), 783–847. Udaijin, Fujiwara no Yoshifusa (藤原良房), 804–872. Udaijin, Fujiwara no Otsugu, 825–832 Naidaijin (not appointed) Dainagon, Fujiwara no Otsugu, ?–825. Consorts and children Consort (Nyōgo) later Empress Dowager (Tai-Kōtaigō): Fujiwara no Junshi (藤原順子; 809–871), Fujiwara no Fuyutsugu’s daughter First Son: Imperial Prince Michiyasu (道康親王) later Emperor Montoku Consort (Nyōgo): Fujiwara no Takushi/Sawako (藤原沢子; d.839), Fujiwara no Fusatsugu’s daughter Second Son: Imperial Prince Muneyasu (宗康親王; 828–868) Third Son: Imperial Prince Tokiyasu (時康親王) later Emperor Kōkō Fourth Son: Imperial Prince Saneyasu (人康親王; 831–872) Imperial Princess Shinshi (新子内親王; d.897) Consort (Nyōgo): Fujiwara no Teishi/Sadako (藤原貞子; d.864), Fujiwara no Tadamori’s daughter Eighth Son: Imperial Prince Nariyasu (成康親王; 836–853) Imperial Princess Shinshi (親子内親王; d. 851) Imperial Princess Heishi (平子内親王; d. 877) Court lady: Shigeno no Tsunako (滋野縄子), Shigeno no Sadanushi’s daughter fifth Son: Imperial Prince Motoyasu (本康親王; d. 902) Ninth Daughter: Imperial Princess Tokiko (時子内親王; d. 847), 2nd Saiin in Kamo Shrine 831–833 Imperial Princess Jūshi (柔子内親王; d. 869) Consort (Nyōgo): Tachibana no Kageko (橘影子; d. 864), Tachibana no Ujikimi’s daughter Consort (Nyōgo): Fujiwara Musuko (藤原息子) Court Attendant (Koui): Ki no Taneko (紀種子; d. 869), Ki no Natora’s daughter Seventh Prince: Imperial Prince Tsuneyasu (常康親王; d. 869) Imperial Princess Shinshi/Saneko (真子内親王; d. 870) Court Attendant (Koui) (deposed in 845): Mikuni-machi (三国町), daughter of Mikuni clan Sada no Noboru (貞登), given the family name "Sada" from Emperor (Shisei Kōka, 賜姓降下) in 866 Court lady: Fujiwara no Katoko (藤原賀登子), Fujiwara no Fukutomaro’s daughter Sixth Son: Imperial Prince Kuniyasu (国康親王; d. 898) Court lady: Fujiwara no Warawako (藤原小童子), Fujiwara no Michitō’s daughter Imperial Princess Shigeko (重子内親王; d. 865) Court lady: Princess Takamune (高宗女王), Prince Okaya’s daughter Seventh/eighth Daughter: Imperial Princess Hisako (久子内親王; d. 876), 18th Saiō in Ise Shrine 833–850. Court lady: daughter of Yamaguchi clan (山口氏の娘) Minamoto no Satoru (源覚; 849–879) Nyoju: Kudaraō Toyofuku’s daughter Minamoto no Masaru (源多; 831–888), Udaijin 882–888 Minamoto no Hikaru (源光; 846–913), Udaijin 901–913 Court lady (Nyoju): Kudara no Yōkyō (百済永慶), Kudara no Kyōfuku’s daughter Twelfth Daughter: Imperial Princess Takaiko (高子内親王; d. 866), 3rd Saiin in Kamo Shrine 833–850 (from unknown women) Minamoto no Suzushi (源冷; 835–890), Sangi 882–890 Minamoto no Itaru (源効) Ancestry See also Emperor Go-Fukakusa, a later emperor named in honor of Emperor Ninmyō Imperial cult List of Emperors of Japan Shoku Nihon Kōki, a Japanese national history covering Emperor Ninmyō's reign. Notes References Adolphson, Mikael S., Edward Kamens and Stacie Matsumoto. (2007). Heian Japan, centers and peripheries. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005). Japan encyclopedia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ; Ponsonby-Fane, Richard Arthur Brabazon. (1959). The Imperial House of Japan. Kyoto: Ponsonby Memorial Society. Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). Nihon Ōdai Ichiran; ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon. Paris: Royal Asiatic Society, Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. Varley, H. Paul. (1980). Jinnō Shōtōki: A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns. New York: Columbia University Press. ; External links Hokusai: Poem #12, image of ceremonial event in Ninmyō's court Japanese emperors 808 births 850 deaths 9th-century rulers in Asia 9th-century Japanese monarchs

The Fox Film Corporation (also known as Fox Studios) was an American Independent company that produced motion pictures, formed by William Fox in 1915. It was the corporate successor and spin-off to his earlier Greater New York Film Rental Company and Box Office Attractions Film Company. The company's first film studios were set up in Fort Lee, New Jersey, but in 1917, William Fox sent Sol M. Wurtzel to Hollywood, California to oversee the studio's new West Coast production facilities, where the climate was more hospitable for filmmaking. On July 23, 1926, the company bought the patents of the Movietone sound system for recording sound onto film. After the Wall Street crash of 1929, William Fox lost control of the company in 1930, during a hostile takeover. Under new president Sidney Kent, the new owners merged the company with Twentieth Century Pictures to form 20th Century-Fox in 1935. History Background William Fox entered the film industry in 1904 when he purchased a one-third share of a Brooklyn nickelodeon for $1,667. He reinvested his profits from that initial location, expanding to fifteen similar venues in the city, and purchasing prints from the major studios of the time: Biograph, Essanay, Kalem, Lubin, Pathé, Selig, Phonoson-Coles, Tsereteli and Vitagraph. After experiencing further success presenting live vaudeville routines along with motion pictures, he expanded into larger venues beginning with his purchase of the disused Gaiety theater, and continuing with acquisitions throughout New York City and New Jersey, including the Academy of Music. Fox invested further in the film industry by founding the Greater New York Film Rental Company as a film distributor. The major film studios responded by forming the Motion Picture Patents Company in 1908 and the General Film Company in 1910, in an effort to create a monopoly on the creation and distribution of motion pictures. Fox refused to sell out to the monopoly, and sued under the Sherman Antitrust Act, eventually receiving a $370,000 settlement, and ending restrictions on the length of films and the prices that could be paid for screenplays. In 1914, reflecting the broader scope of his business, he renamed it the Box Office Attraction Film Rental Company. He entered into a contract with the Balboa Amusement Producing Company film studio, purchasing all of their films for showing in his New York area theaters and renting the prints to other exhibitors nationwide. He also continued to distribute material from other sources, such as Winsor McCay's early animated film Gertie the Dinosaur. Later that year, Fox concluded that it was unwise to be so dependent on other companies, so he purchased the Éclair studio facilities in Fort Lee, New Jersey, along with property in Staten Island, and arranged for actors and crew. The company became a film studio, with its name shortened to the Box Office Attractions Company; its first release was Life's Shop Window. Fox Film Corporation Always more of an entrepreneur than a showman, Fox concentrated on acquiring and building theaters; pictures were secondary. The company's first film studios were set up in Fort Lee where it and many other early film studios in America's first motion picture industry were based at the beginning of the 20th century. That same year, in 1914, Fox Film began making motion pictures in California, and in 1915 decided to build its own permanent studio. The company leased the Los Angeles Edendale studio of the Selig Polyscope Company until its own studio, located at Western Avenue and Sunset Boulevard, was completed in 1916. In 1917, William Fox sent Sol M. Wurtzel to Hollywood to oversee the studio's West Coast production facilities where a more hospitable and cost-effective climate existed for filmmaking. Between 1915 and 1919, Fox Films earned millions of dollars through films featuring Theda Bara, known as "The Vamp" due to her unique habit for displaying exoticism. With the introduction of sound technology, Fox moved to acquire the rights to a sound-on-film process. In the years 1925–26, Fox purchased the rights to the work of Freeman Harrison Owens, the U.S. rights to the Tri-Ergon system invented by three German inventors, and the work of Theodore Case. This resulted in the Movietone sound system later known as "Fox Movietone" developed at the Movietone Studio. Later that year, the company began offering films with a music-and-effects track, and the following year Fox began the weekly Fox Movietone News feature, that ran until 1963. The growing company needed space, and in 1926 Fox acquired 300 acres (1.2 km2) in the open country west of Beverly Hills and built "Movietone City", the best-equipped studio of its time. Because William Fox opted to remain in New York, much of the Hollywood filmmaking at the Fox Film Corporation was instead managed by Fox's movie makers. Janet Gaynor would also become one of the company's most prominent stars by the late 1920s. Decline When rival Marcus Loew died in 1927, Fox offered to buy the Loew family's holdings. Loew's Inc. controlled more than 200 theaters, as well as the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio. The Loew family agreed to the sale, and the merger of Fox and Loew's Inc. was announced in 1929; MGM studio bosses Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg were not included in the deal, and fought back. Using powerful political connections, Mayer called upon the Justice Department's antitrust unit to delay giving final approval to the merger. William Fox was badly injured in a car crash in the summer of 1929, and by the time he recovered, he had lost most of his fortune in the stock market crash of 1929, ending any chance of the Fox/Loew's merger being approved, even without the Justice Department's objections. Overextended and close to bankruptcy, Fox was stripped of his empire in 1930 and later ended up in jail on bribery and perjury charges. Fox Film, with more than 500 theatres, was placed in receivership. A bank-mandated reorganization propped the company up for a time, but it soon became apparent that despite its size, Fox could not stand on its own. William Fox resented the way he was forced out of his company and portrayed it as an active conspiracy against him in the 1933 book Upton Sinclair Presents William Fox. Merger Under new president Sidney Kent, the new owners began negotiating with the upstart, but powerful independent Twentieth Century Pictures in the early spring of 1935. The two companies merged that spring and formed 20th Century-Fox Studios. By 1985, the hyphen of that merger would lose itself by the time News Corporation purchased the company. Since 2020, that company was named 20th Century Studios following the Disney purchase. For many years, 20th Century-Fox claimed to have been founded in 1915. For instance, it marked 1945 as its 30th anniversary. However, in recent years it has claimed the 1935 merger as its founding, even though most film historians agree it was founded in 1915. Products Feature films A 1937 fire in a Fox film storage facility destroyed over 40,000 reels of negatives and prints, including the best-quality copies of every Fox feature produced prior to 1932; although copies located elsewhere allowed many to survive in some form, over 75% of Fox's feature films from before 1930 are completely lost. Newsreels In 1919, Fox began a series of silent newsreels, competing with existing series such as Hearst Metrotone News, International Newsreel, and Pathé News. Fox News premiered on October 11, 1919, with subsequent issues released on the Wednesday and Sunday of each week. Fox News gained an advantage over its more established competitors when President Woodrow Wilson endorsed the newsreel in a letter, in what may have been the first time an American president commented on a film. In subsequent years, Fox News remained one of the major names in the newsreel industry by providing often-exclusive coverage of major international events, including reporting on Pancho Villa, the airship Roma, the Ku Klux Klan, and a 1922 eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The silent newsreel series continued until 1930. In 1926, a subsidiary, Fox Movietone Corporation, was created, tasked with producing newsreels using Fox's recently acquired sound-on-film technology. The first of these newsreels debuted on January 21, 1927. Four months later, the May 25 release of a sound recording of Charles Lindbergh's departure on his transatlantic flight was described by film historian Raymond Fielding as the "first sound news film of consequence". Movietone News was launched as a regular newsreel feature December 3 of that year. Production of the series continued after the merger with Twentieth Century Pictures, until 1963, and continued to serve 20th Century Fox after that, as a source for film industry stock footage. Unlike Fox's early feature films, the Fox News and Fox Movietone News libraries have largely survived. The earlier series and some parts of its sound successor are now held by the University of South Carolina, with the remaining Fox Movietone News still held by the company. Serials Fox Film briefly experimented with serial films, releasing the 15-episode Bride 13 and the 20-episode Fantômas in 1920. William Fox was unwilling to compromise on production quality in order to make serials profitable, however, and none were produced subsequently. Short films Hundreds of one- and two-reel short films of various types were also produced by Fox. Beginning in 1916, the Sunshine Comedy division created two-reel comedy shorts. Many of these, beginning with 1917's Roaring Lions and Wedding Bliss, starring Lloyd Hamilton, were slapstick, intended to compete with Mack Sennett's popular offerings. Sunshine releases continued until the introduction of sound. Other short film series included Imperial Comedies, Van Bibber Comedies (with Earle Foxe), O'Henry, Married Life of Helen and Warren, and Fox Varieties. Fox's expansion into Spanish-language films in the early 1930s also included shorts. Notes References Bibliography External links 1915 establishments in California 1935 disestablishments in California American companies established in 1915 American companies disestablished in 1935 Mass media companies established in 1915 Mass media companies disestablished in 1935 Companies based in Los Angeles Defunct American film studios Film production companies of the United States Film distributors of the United States 20th Century Studios Articles containing video clips Academy Award for Technical Achievement winners

Telecommunications in Fiji include radio, television, fixed and mobile telephones, and the Internet. Radio and television Radio stations: state-owned commercial company, Fiji Broadcasting Corporation, operates 6 radio stations - 2 public broadcasters and 4 commercial broadcasters with multiple repeaters; 5 radio stations with repeaters operated by Communications Fiji, Ltd; transmissions of multiple international broadcasters are available (2009); 13 AM, 40 FM, and no shortwave stations (1998). Radios: 500,000 (1997). Television stations: Fiji TV, a publicly traded company on the South Pacific Stock Exchange, operates a free to air channel ever since its inception in 1994. 2 terrestrial stations (1998). Television sets: 21,000 (1997). Radio is a key source of information, particularly on the outer islands. There are publicly and privately owned stations. State-owned Fiji Broadcasting Corporation operates Fijian-language Radio Fiji One, Hindi-language Radio Fiji Two, music-based Bula FM, Hindi station Mirchi FM, and music-based 2day FM. Communications Fiji Limited, a public listed company on the South Pacific Stock Exchange was established in 1996 and is located in 231 Waimanu Road, Suva. It broadcasts English speaking stations FM96 and LegendFM on 96.2FM and 98.6FM respectively, Fijian language station, VitiFM, Navtarang and Radio Sargam - Hindi speaking stations. The BBC World Service broadcasts on 88.2 FM in the capital, Suva. Media control Under the military government's Media Decree, the directors and 90 percent of the shareholders of locally based media must be citizens of, and permanently resident in, the country. The Fiji Media Industry Development Authority is responsible for enforcing these provisions. The authority has the power to investigate journalists and media outlets for alleged violations of the decree, including powers of search and seizure of equipment. A code of ethics contained in the Media Decree requires that all stories run by the media be balanced, with comment obtained from both sides where there is any disagreement on the facts. This requirement enables government departments and private businesses to prevent stories from being published by not responding to media questions, thus making it impossible for the media to fulfill the decree's requirement for comment from both sides. However, media sources report that if the story is positive toward the government, the balance requirement could be ignored without consequence. Telephones Calling code: +679 International call prefix: 00 or 052 Main lines:   88,400 lines in use, 147th in the world (2012); 112,500 lines in use (2005). Mobile cellular: 858,800 lines, 159th in the world (2012); 315,000 lines (2007). Telephone system: modern local, interisland, and international (wire/radio integrated) public and special-purpose telephone, telegraph, and teleprinter facilities; regional radio communications center; telephone or radio telephone links to almost all inhabited islands; most towns and large villages have automatic telephone exchanges and direct dialing; combined fixed and mobile-cellular teledensity roughly 100 per 100 persons (2011). Communications cables: Southern Cross Cable, links to the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia; Vanuatu-Fiji Interchange Cable (2014); Tonga-Fiji cable. Satellite earth station: 2 Inmarsat (Pacific Ocean) (2011). Internet Top-level domain: .fj Internet users: 300,326 users, 140th in the world; 33.7% of the population, 126th in the world (2012); 114,200 users, 157th in the world (2009). Fixed broadband: 13,734 subscriptions, 142nd in the world; 1.5% of the population, 133rd in the world (2012). Wireless broadband: 96,277 subscriptions, 118th in the world; 10.8% of the population, 89th in the world (2012). Internet hosts: 21,739 hosts, 115th in the world (2012). IPv4: 134,656 addresses allocated, less than 0.05% of the world total, 151.3 addresses per 1000 people (2012). Internet Service Providers: 7 ISPs (2011) The Internet is widely available and used in and around urban centers, but its availability and use are minimal or nonexistent outside these areas. Internet censorship and surveillance The government in a parliament sitting on March 15, 2018 passed a bill known as the Online Safety Bill to the Standing Committee on Justice, Law and Human Rights that was tabled in the Parliament of Fiji to enforce tougher restrictions on those that may share explicit photos of individuals on social media or spread anti- government remarks as well. Currently, there are no government restrictions on general public access to the Internet, but evidence suggests that the government monitors private e-mails of citizens as well as Internet traffic in an attempt to control antigovernment reports by anonymous bloggers. The country has operated under a military-led government since 2006 and has had no constitution or functioning parliament since 2009. A series of decrees have been issued, including the Public Order Amendment Decree (POAD), the Media Decree, and the Crime Decree. By decree all telephone and Internet service users must register their personal details with telephone and Internet providers, including their name, birth date, home address, left thumbprint, and photographic identification. The decree imposes fines of up to F$100,000 ($56,721) on providers who continue to provide services to unregistered users and up to F$10,000 ($5,672) on users who do not update their registration information as required. Vodafone, one of two mobile telephone providers, also requires users to register their nationality, postal address, employment details, and both thumbprints. The POAD gives the government the power to detain persons on suspicion of "endangering public safety or the preservation of the peace"; defines terrorism as any act designed to advance a political, religious, or ideological cause that could "reasonably be regarded" as intended to compel a government to do or refrain from doing any act or to intimidate the public or a section thereof; and makes religious vilification and attempts to sabotage or undermine the economy offenses punishable by a maximum F$10,000 ($5,672) fine or five years’ imprisonment. The Media Decree prohibits "irresponsible reporting" and provides for government censorship of the media. The Crimes Decree includes criticism of the government in its definition of the crime of sedition, including statements made in other countries by any person, who can be prosecuted on return to Fiji. The government uses the threat of prosecution under these provisions to intimidate government critics and limit public criticism of the government. Journalists and media organizations practice varying degrees of self-censorship, with many reportedly fearing retribution if they criticize the government. In May 2007 it was reported that the military in Fiji had blocked access to blogs critical of the regime. In 2012 police investigated former University of the South Pacific (USP) professor Wadan Narsey, a prominent Fijian economist and long-time critic of the military government, for alleged sedition in writings published on his personal blog. The POAD permits military personnel to search persons and premises without a warrant from a court and to take photographs, fingerprints, and measurements of any person. Police and military officers may enter private premises to break up any meeting considered unlawful. References External links .fj Domain Name Registry, at The University of the South Pacific. Fiji Fiji

The economy of the Faroe Islands was the 166th largest in the world in 2014, having a nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of $2.613 billion per annum. GDP increased from DKK 8 billion in 1999, to 21 billion in 2019. The vast majority of Faroese exports, around 90%, consists of fishery products. History After the severe economic troubles of the early 1990s, brought on by a drop in the vital fish catch and poor management of the economy, the Faroe Islands have recently recovered, with unemployment down to 5% in mid-1998, and holding below 3% since 2006, one of the lowest rates in Europe. Challenges and opportunities High dependence on fishing (including salmon farming) means the Faroe Islands' economy remains vulnerable. The Faroese hope to broaden their economic base by building new fish-processing plants. The islands allow up to 25% foreign ownership of ocean industry decreasing gradually until 2032 when foreign ownership must end. Petroleum found close to the Faroese area gives hope for deposits in the immediate area, which may lay the basis for sustained economic prosperity. Also important are the annual subsidy from Denmark, which amounted to about 3% of the GDP. The Faroes have one of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe (1% in 2019), but this is not necessarily a sign of a recovering economy, as many young students move to Denmark and other countries once they are finished with high school. This leaves a largely middle-aged and elderly population that may lack the skills and knowledge to take IT positions in business and industry. Since 2000, new information technology and business projects have been fostered in the Faroe Islands to attract new investment. The result from these projects is not yet known but is hoped to bring a better market economy to the Faroe Islands. The population was around 52,000 by 2019. General salaries increased from DKK 7 billion in 2013 to DKK 10 billion in 2019. In 2020, salmon exports were DKK 3.3 billion. Fishing industries occupied 1,441 people on land and 1,341 at sea. Trade In 2014 the Faroe Islands had a trade surplus of 401 million DKK, a figure that rose to 1.43 billion DKK in 2016. As of 2016, the Faroe Islands mainly imported goods from Denmark (2,467 million DKK), Germany (877 million DKK), and Norway (610 million DKK). The country's top export destinations were Russia (1,907 million DKK), the United States (898 million DKK), the United Kingdom (851 million DKK), and Denmark (697 million DKK). European Union countries constituted 72.9% of total Faroese imports, while the exports of the Faroe Islands were more equally distributed between European Union (44.4%) and non-European Union countries (55.6%). The vast majority of Faroese exports, around 90%, consists of fishery products. Russian countersanctions on food imports from Norway and the European Union, saw the Faroe Islands increase its fresh salmon exports to Russia. The Faroe Islands has a free trade agreement with Iceland since 2005. Energy Oil consumption peaked at over 300,000 tonnes in 2020, of which 30% was for fishing vessels. In 2014 217,547 tonnes of oil products were consumed in the Faroe Islands. Of this 31.58% was consumed by fishing vessels, 14.73% was used by SEV for electricity production, 23.23% was consumed in air, sea or land transport, 9.6% was used in the industry, and the rest was used in public or private buildings. The islands have 6 hydroelectric plants, 4 diesel plants and several wind power plants with a capacity factor above 40%. In 2014, a 12MW wind farm for DKK 180 million became operational near Torshavn and increased wind capacity from 6.6 to 18.6MW. It decreases oil consumption by 8,000 ton (approximately 4M€) per year. A 2.3MW 700 kWh lithium-ion battery became operational in 2016. Planners also consider converting the existing hydropower to pumped-storage hydroelectricity. Tidal power and Thermal energy storage solutions are also considered. The islands have a goal of 100% green electricity production by 2030. In 2014 and 2017 50.8% of the electricity production of SEV in the Faroe Islands came from green energy like hydro and wind, while 49.2% was produced by the thermal power plants, which was 12.4% less than in 2013. fossil fuel: 49.2% hydro: 39.5% wind: 11.3% (2014) nuclear: 0% Total annual production: 305.4 GWh (2014) of which the production of thermal, hydropower and wind power was: Thermal: 150,2 GWh Hydropower: 120,7 GWh Wind: 34,5 GWh The Faroe Islands have no electricity connections to other areas, and thus operate in island condition. Some islands are also not connected to the other islands, and must maintain their own electric system. Other Agriculture - products: milk, potatoes, vegetables; sheep; salmon, other fish Currency: 1 Danish krone (DKr) = 100 ører Exchange rates: Danish kroner (DKr) per US$1 – 5.560 (2008), 7.336 (January 2000), 6.976 (1999), 6.701 (1998), 6.604 (1997), 5.799 (1996), 5.602 (1995) Further reading www.FaroeseSeafood.com - Information site on fisheries and aquaculture in the Faroe Islands Apostle, Richard A. The Restructuration of the Faroese Economy The Significance of the Inner Periphery. Frederiksberg, Denmark: Samfundslitteratur, 2002. Elkjær-Hansen, Niels. The Faroe Islands Scenery, Culture, and Economy. Copenhagen: Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1959. Hagstova.fo, 2008 figures References External links Faroese banknote series Information about Faroese banknotes Economy of Denmark Faroe Islands +Faroe Islands

Telephones – main lines in use: 47,000 (1995) Telephones – mobile cellular: NA Telephone system: domestic: fair open wire and microwave radio relay system international: satellite earth station – 1 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) Radio stations: AM 2, FM 14 (including 6 repeaters), shortwave 6 (including 5 repeaters) (1998) Radios: 104,000 (1997) Television stations: 3 (plus eight low-power repeaters) (1997) Televisions: 30,000 (1997) Internet Service Providers (ISPs): NA Country code (Top-level domain): GF See also French Guiana Telecommunications in France French Guiana French Guiana +French Guiana

Francium is a chemical element with the symbol Fr and atomic number 87. It is extremely radioactive; its most stable isotope, francium-223 (originally called actinium K after the natural decay chain it appears in), has a half-life of only 22 minutes. It is the second-most electropositive element, behind only caesium, and is the second rarest naturally occurring element (after astatine). The isotopes of francium decay quickly into astatine, radium, and radon. The electronic structure of a francium atom is [Rn] 7s1, and so the element is classed as an alkali metal. Bulk francium has never been seen. Because of the general appearance of the other elements in its periodic table column, it is presumed that francium would appear as a highly reactive metal, if enough could be collected together to be viewed as a bulk solid or liquid. Obtaining such a sample is highly improbable, since the extreme heat of decay resulting from its short half-life would immediately vaporize any viewable quantity of the element. Francium was discovered by Marguerite Perey in France (from which the element takes its name) in 1939. Prior to its discovery, it was referred to as eka-caesium or ekacaesium because of its conjectured existence below caesium in the periodic table. It was the last element first discovered in nature, rather than by synthesis. Outside the laboratory, francium is extremely rare, with trace amounts found in uranium and thorium ores, where the isotope francium-223 continually forms and decays. As little as 20–30 g (one ounce) exists at any given time throughout the Earth's crust; aside from francium-221, its other isotopes are entirely synthetic. The largest amount produced in the laboratory was a cluster of more than 300,000 atoms. Characteristics Francium is one of the most unstable of the naturally occurring elements: its longest-lived isotope, francium-223, has a half-life of only 22 minutes. The only comparable element is astatine, whose most stable natural isotope, astatine-219 (the alpha daughter of francium-223), has a half-life of 56 seconds, although synthetic astatine-210 is much longer-lived with a half-life of 8.1 hours. All isotopes of francium decay into astatine, radium, or radon. Francium-223 also has a shorter half-life than the longest-lived isotope of each synthetic element up to and including element 105, dubnium. Francium is an alkali metal whose chemical properties mostly resemble those of caesium. A heavy element with a single valence electron, it has the highest equivalent weight of any element. Liquid francium—if created—should have a surface tension of 0.05092 N/m at its melting point. Francium's melting point was estimated to be around ; a value of is also often encountered. The melting point is uncertain because of the element's extreme rarity and radioactivity; a different extrapolation based on Dmitri Mendeleev's method gave . The estimated boiling point of is also uncertain; the estimates and , as well as the extrapolation from Mendeleev's method of , have also been suggested. The density of francium is expected to be around 2.48 g/cm3 (Mendeleev's method extrapolates 2.4 g/cm3). Linus Pauling estimated the electronegativity of francium at 0.7 on the Pauling scale, the same as caesium; the value for caesium has since been refined to 0.79, but there are no experimental data to allow a refinement of the value for francium. Francium has a slightly higher ionization energy than caesium, 392.811(4) kJ/mol as opposed to 375.7041(2) kJ/mol for caesium, as would be expected from relativistic effects, and this would imply that caesium is the less electronegative of the two. Francium should also have a higher electron affinity than caesium and the Fr− ion should be more polarizable than the Cs− ion. Compounds Due to francium being very unstable, its salts are only known to a small extent. Francium coprecipitates with several caesium salts, such as caesium perchlorate, which results in small amounts of francium perchlorate. This coprecipitation can be used to isolate francium, by adapting the radiocaesium coprecipitation method of Lawrence E. Glendenin and C. M. Nelson. It will additionally coprecipitate with many other caesium salts, including the iodate, the picrate, the tartrate (also rubidium tartrate), the chloroplatinate, and the silicotungstate. It also coprecipitates with silicotungstic acid, and with perchloric acid, without another alkali metal as a carrier, which leads to other methods of separation. Francium perchlorate Francium perchlorate is produced by the reaction of francium chloride and sodium perchlorate. The francium perchlorate coprecipitates with caesium perchlorate. This coprecipitation can be used to isolate francium, by adapting the radiocaesium coprecipitation method of Lawrence E. Glendenin and C. M. Nelson. However, this method is unreliable in separating thallium due to it coprecipitates with the francium. Francium perchlorate's enthropy is expected to be 42.7 e.u. Francium halides Francium halides are all soluble in water and are expected to be white solids. They are expected to be produced by the reaction of the corresponding halides. For example, francium chloride would be produced by the reaction of francium and chlorine. Francium chloride has been studied as a pathway to separate francium from other elements, by using the high vapour pressure of the compound, although francium fluoride would have a higher vapour pressure. Other compounds Francium nitrate, sulfate, hydroxide, carbonate, acetate, and oxalate, are all soluble in water, while the iodate, picrate, tartrate, chloroplatinate, and silicotungstate are insoluble. The insolubility of these compounds are used to extract francium from other radioactive products, such as zirconium, niobium, molybdenum, tin, antimony, the method mentioned in the section above. The CsFr molecule is predicted to have francium at the negative end of the dipole, unlike all known heterodiatomic alkali metal molecules. Francium superoxide (FrO2) is expected to have a more covalent character than its lighter congeners; this is attributed to the 6p electrons in francium being more involved in the francium–oxygen bonding. The only double salt known of francium has the formula Fr9Bi2I9. Isotopes There are 34 known isotopes of francium ranging in atomic mass from 199 to 232. Francium has seven metastable nuclear isomers. Francium-223 and francium-221 are the only isotopes that occur in nature, with the former being far more common. Francium-223 is the most stable isotope, with a half-life of 21.8 minutes, and it is highly unlikely that an isotope of francium with a longer half-life will ever be discovered or synthesized. Francium-223 is a fifth product of the uranium-235 decay series as a daughter isotope of actinium-227; thorium-227 is the more common daughter. Francium-223 then decays into radium-223 by beta decay (1.149 MeV decay energy), with a minor (0.006%) alpha decay path to astatine-219 (5.4 MeV decay energy). Francium-221 has a half-life of 4.8 minutes. It is the ninth product of the neptunium decay series as a daughter isotope of actinium-225. Francium-221 then decays into astatine-217 by alpha decay (6.457 MeV decay energy). The least stable ground state isotope is francium-215, with a half-life of 0.12 μs: it undergoes a 9.54 MeV alpha decay to astatine-211. Its metastable isomer, francium-215m, is less stable still, with a half-life of only 3.5 ns. Applications Due to its instability and rarity, there are no commercial applications for francium. It has been used for research purposes in the fields of chemistry and of atomic structure. Its use as a potential diagnostic aid for various cancers has also been explored, but this application has been deemed impractical. Francium's ability to be synthesized, trapped, and cooled, along with its relatively simple atomic structure, has made it the subject of specialized spectroscopy experiments. These experiments have led to more specific information regarding energy levels and the coupling constants between subatomic particles. Studies on the light emitted by laser-trapped francium-210 ions have provided accurate data on transitions between atomic energy levels which are fairly similar to those predicted by quantum theory. History As early as 1870, chemists thought that there should be an alkali metal beyond caesium, with an atomic number of 87. It was then referred to by the provisional name eka-caesium. Research teams attempted to locate and isolate this missing element, and at least four false claims were made that the element had been found before an authentic discovery was made. Erroneous and incomplete discoveries Soviet chemist Dmitry Dobroserdov was the first scientist to claim to have found eka-caesium, or francium. In 1925, he observed weak radioactivity in a sample of potassium, another alkali metal, and incorrectly concluded that eka-caesium was contaminating the sample (the radioactivity from the sample was from the naturally occurring potassium radioisotope, potassium-40). He then published a thesis on his predictions of the properties of eka-caesium, in which he named the element russium after his home country. Shortly thereafter, Dobroserdov began to focus on his teaching career at the Polytechnic Institute of Odessa, and he did not pursue the element further. The following year, English chemists Gerald J. F. Druce and Frederick H. Loring analyzed X-ray photographs of manganese(II) sulfate. They observed spectral lines which they presumed to be of eka-caesium. They announced their discovery of element 87 and proposed the name alkalinium, as it would be the heaviest alkali metal. In 1930, Fred Allison of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute claimed to have discovered element 87 (in addition to 85) when analyzing pollucite and lepidolite using his magneto-optical machine. Allison requested that it be named virginium after his home state of Virginia, along with the symbols Vi and Vm. In 1934, H.G. MacPherson of UC Berkeley disproved the effectiveness of Allison's device and the validity of his discovery. In 1936, Romanian physicist Horia Hulubei and his French colleague Yvette Cauchois also analyzed pollucite, this time using their high-resolution X-ray apparatus. They observed several weak emission lines, which they presumed to be those of element 87. Hulubei and Cauchois reported their discovery and proposed the name moldavium, along with the symbol Ml, after Moldavia, the Romanian province where Hulubei was born. In 1937, Hulubei's work was criticized by American physicist F. H. Hirsh Jr., who rejected Hulubei's research methods. Hirsh was certain that eka-caesium would not be found in nature, and that Hulubei had instead observed mercury or bismuth X-ray lines. Hulubei insisted that his X-ray apparatus and methods were too accurate to make such a mistake. Because of this, Jean Baptiste Perrin, Nobel Prize winner and Hulubei's mentor, endorsed moldavium as the true eka-caesium over Marguerite Perey's recently discovered francium. Perey took pains to be accurate and detailed in her criticism of Hulubei's work, and finally she was credited as the sole discoverer of element 87. All other previous purported discoveries of element 87 were ruled out due to francium's very limited half-life. Perey's analysis Eka-caesium was discovered on 7 January 1939 by Marguerite Perey of the Curie Institute in Paris, when she purified a sample of actinium-227 which had been reported to have a decay energy of 220 keV. Perey noticed decay particles with an energy level below 80 keV. Perey thought this decay activity might have been caused by a previously unidentified decay product, one which was separated during purification, but emerged again out of the pure actinium-227. Various tests eliminated the possibility of the unknown element being thorium, radium, lead, bismuth, or thallium. The new product exhibited chemical properties of an alkali metal (such as coprecipitating with caesium salts), which led Perey to believe that it was element 87, produced by the alpha decay of actinium-227. Perey then attempted to determine the proportion of beta decay to alpha decay in actinium-227. Her first test put the alpha branching at 0.6%, a figure which she later revised to 1%. Perey named the new isotope actinium-K (it is now referred to as francium-223) and in 1946, she proposed the name catium (Cm) for her newly discovered element, as she believed it to be the most electropositive cation of the elements. Irène Joliot-Curie, one of Perey's supervisors, opposed the name due to its connotation of cat rather than cation; furthermore, the symbol coincided with that which had since been assigned to curium. Perey then suggested francium, after France. This name was officially adopted by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) in 1949, becoming the second element after gallium to be named after France. It was assigned the symbol Fa, but this abbreviation was revised to the current Fr shortly thereafter. Francium was the last element discovered in nature, rather than synthesized, following hafnium and rhenium. Further research into francium's structure was carried out by, among others, Sylvain Lieberman and his team at CERN in the 1970s and 1980s. Occurrence 223Fr is the result of the alpha decay of 227Ac and can be found in trace amounts in uranium minerals. In a given sample of uranium, there is estimated to be only one francium atom for every 1 × 1018 uranium atoms. It is also calculated that there is a total mass of at most 30 g of francium in the Earth's crust at any given time. Production Francium can be synthesized by a fusion reaction when a gold-197 target is bombarded with a beam of oxygen-18 atoms from a linear accelerator in a process originally developed at the physics department of the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1995. Depending on the energy of the oxygen beam, the reaction can yield francium isotopes with masses of 209, 210, and 211. 197Au + 18O → 209Fr + 6 n 197Au + 18O → 210Fr + 5 n 197Au + 18O → 211Fr + 4 n The francium atoms leave the gold target as ions, which are neutralized by collision with yttrium and then isolated in a magneto-optical trap (MOT) in a gaseous unconsolidated state. Although the atoms only remain in the trap for about 30 seconds before escaping or undergoing nuclear decay, the process supplies a continual stream of fresh atoms. The result is a steady state containing a fairly constant number of atoms for a much longer time. The original apparatus could trap up to a few thousand atoms, while a later improved design could trap over 300,000 at a time. Sensitive measurements of the light emitted and absorbed by the trapped atoms provided the first experimental results on various transitions between atomic energy levels in francium. Initial measurements show very good agreement between experimental values and calculations based on quantum theory. The research project using this production method relocated to TRIUMF in 2012, where over 106 francium atoms have been held at a time, including large amounts of 209Fr in addition to 207Fr and 221Fr. Other synthesis methods include bombarding radium with neutrons, and bombarding thorium with protons, deuterons, or helium ions. 223Fr can also be isolated from samples of its parent 227Ac, the francium being milked via elution with NH4Cl–CrO3 from an actinium-containing cation exchanger and purified by passing the solution through a silicon dioxide compound loaded with barium sulfate. In 1996, the Stony Brook group trapped 3000 atoms in their MOT, which was enough for a video camera to capture the light given off by the atoms as they fluoresce. Francium has not been synthesized in amounts large enough to weigh. Notes References External links Francium at The Periodic Table of Videos (University of Nottingham) WebElements.com – Francium Stony Brook University Physics Dept. 2013, E.R. Scerri,A tale of seven elements, Oxford University Press, Oxford, Chemical elements Alkali metals Eponyms Science and technology in France Chemical elements with body-centered cubic structure

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals and influenced important 19th- and 20th-century painters. Goya is often referred to as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Goya was born to a middle-class family in 1746, in Fuendetodos in Aragon. He studied painting from age 14 under José Luzán y Martinez and moved to Madrid to study with Anton Raphael Mengs. He married Josefa Bayeu in 1773. Their life was characterised by a series of pregnancies and miscarriages, and only one child, a son, survived into adulthood. Goya became a court painter to the Spanish Crown in 1786 and this early portion of his career is marked by portraits of the Spanish aristocracy and royalty, and Rococo-style tapestry cartoons designed for the royal palace. He was guarded, and although letters and writings survive, little is known about his thoughts. He suffered a severe and undiagnosed illness in 1793 which left him deaf, after which his work became progressively darker and pessimistic. His later easel and mural paintings, prints and drawings appear to reflect a bleak outlook on personal, social and political levels, and contrast with his social climbing. He was appointed Director of the Royal Academy in 1795, the year Manuel Godoy made an unfavorable treaty with France. In 1799, Goya became Primer Pintor de Cámara (Prime Court Painter), the highest rank for a Spanish court painter. In the late 1790s, commissioned by Godoy, he completed his La maja desnuda, a remarkably daring nude for the time and clearly indebted to Diego Velázquez. In 1800–01 he painted Charles IV of Spain and His Family, also influenced by Velázquez. In 1807, Napoleon led the French army into the Peninsular War against Spain. Goya remained in Madrid during the war, which seems to have affected him deeply. Although he did not speak his thoughts in public, they can be inferred from his Disasters of War series of prints (although published 35 years after his death) and his 1814 paintings The Second of May 1808 and The Third of May 1808. Other works from his mid-period include the Caprichos and Los Disparates etching series, and a wide variety of paintings concerned with insanity, mental asylums, witches, fantastical creatures and religious and political corruption, all of which suggest that he feared for both his country's fate and his own mental and physical health. His late period culminates with the Black Paintings of 1819–1823, applied on oil on the plaster walls of his house the Quinta del Sordo (House of the Deaf Man) where, disillusioned by political and social developments in Spain, he lived in near isolation. Goya eventually abandoned Spain in 1824 to retire to the French city of Bordeaux, accompanied by his much younger maid and companion, Leocadia Weiss, who may or may not have been his lover. There he completed his La Tauromaquia series and a number of other, major, canvases. Following a stroke which left him paralyzed on his right side, and suffering failing eyesight and poor access to painting materials, he died and was buried on 16 April 1828 aged 82. His body was later re-interred in the Real Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida in Madrid. Famously, the skull was missing, a detail the Spanish consul immediately communicated to his superiors in Madrid, who wired back, "Send Goya, with or without head." Early years (1746–1771) Francisco Goya was born in Fuendetodos, Aragón, Spain, on 30 March 1746 to José Benito de Goya y Franque and Gracia de Lucientes y Salvador. The family had moved that year from the city of Zaragoza, but there is no record why; likely José was commissioned to work there. They were lower middle-class. José was the son of a notary and of Basque origin, his ancestors being from Zerain, earning his living as a gilder, specialising in religious and decorative craftwork. He oversaw the gilding and most of the ornamentation during the rebuilding of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar (Santa Maria del Pilar), the principal cathedral of Zaragoza. Francisco was their fourth child, following his sister Rita (b. 1737), brother Tomás (b. 1739) (who was to follow in his father's trade) and second sister Jacinta (b. 1743). There were two younger sons, Mariano (b. 1750) and Camilo (b. 1753). His mother's family had pretensions of nobility and the house, a modest brick cottage, was owned by her family and, perhaps fancifully, bore their crest. About 1749 José and Gracia bought a home in Zaragoza and were able to return to live in the city. Although there are no surviving records, it is thought that Goya may have attended the Escuelas Pías de San Antón, which offered free schooling. His education seems to have been adequate but not enlightening; he had reading, writing and numeracy, and some knowledge of the classics. According to Robert Hughes the artist "seems to have taken no more interest than a carpenter in philosophical or theological matters, and his views on painting ... were very down to earth: Goya was no theoretician." At school he formed a close and lifelong friendship with fellow pupil Martín Zapater; the 131 letters Goya wrote to him from 1775 until Zapater's death in 1803 give valuable insight into Goya's early years at the court in Madrid. Visit to Italy At age 14 Goya studied under the painter José Luzán, where he copied stamps for 4 years until he decided to work on his own, as he wrote later on "paint from my invention". He moved to Madrid to study with Anton Raphael Mengs, a popular painter with Spanish royalty. He clashed with his master, and his examinations were unsatisfactory. Goya submitted entries for the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1763 and 1766 but was denied entrance into the academia. Rome was then the cultural capital of Europe and held all the prototypes of classical antiquity, while Spain lacked a coherent artistic direction, with all of its significant visual achievements in the past. Having failed to earn a scholarship, Goya relocated at his own expense to Rome in the old tradition of European artists stretching back at least to Albrecht Dürer. He was an unknown at the time and so the records are scant and uncertain. Early biographers have him travelling to Rome with a gang of bullfighters, where he worked as a street acrobat, or for a Russian diplomat, or fell in love with a beautiful young nun whom he plotted to abduct from her convent. It is possible that Goya completed two surviving mythological paintings during the visit, a Sacrifice to Vesta and a Sacrifice to Pan, both dated 1771. In 1771 he won second prize in a painting competition organized by the City of Parma. That year he returned to Zaragoza and painted elements of the cupolas of the Basilica of the Pillar (including Adoration of the Name of God), a cycle of frescoes for the monastic church of the Charterhouse of Aula Dei, and the frescoes of the Sobradiel Palace. He studied with the Aragonese artist Francisco Bayeu y Subías and his painting began to show signs of the delicate tonalities for which he became famous. He befriended Francisco Bayeu and married his sister Josefa (he nicknamed her "Pepa") on 25 July 1773. Their first child, Antonio Juan Ramon Carlos, was born on 29 August 1774. Madrid (1775–1789) The marriage and Francisco Bayeu's 1765 membership of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando and directorship of the tapestry works from 1777 helped Goya earn a commission for a series of tapestry cartoons for the Royal Tapestry Factory. Over five years he designed some 42 patterns, many of which were used to decorate and insulate the stone walls of El Escorial and the Palacio Real del Pardo, the residences of the Spanish monarchs. While designing tapestries was neither prestigious nor well paid, his cartoons are mostly popularist in a rococo style, and Goya used them to bring himself to wider attention. The cartoons were not his only royal commissions, and were accompanied by a series of engravings, mostly copies after old masters such as Marcantonio Raimondi and Velázquez. Goya had a complicated relationship to the latter artist; while many of his contemporaries saw folly in Goya's attempts to copy and emulate him, he had access to a wide range of the long-dead painter's works that had been contained in the royal collection. Nonetheless, etching was a medium that the young artist was to master, a medium that was to reveal both the true depths of his imagination and his political beliefs. His c. 1779 etching of The Garrotted Man ("El agarrotado") was the largest work he had produced to date, and an obvious foreboding of his later "Disasters of War" series. Goya was beset by illness, and his condition was used against him by his rivals, who looked jealously upon any artist seen to be rising in stature. Some of the larger cartoons, such as The Wedding, were more than 8 by 10 feet, and had proved a drain on his physical strength. Ever resourceful, Goya turned this misfortune around, claiming that his illness had allowed him the insight to produce works that were more personal and informal. However, he found the format limiting, as it did not allow him to capture complex color shifts or texture, and was unsuited to the impasto and glazing techniques he was by then applying to his painted works. The tapestries seem as comments on human types, fashion and fads. Other works from the period include a canvas for the altar of the Church of San Francisco El Grande in Madrid, which led to his appointment as a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Art. Court painter In 1783, the Count of Floridablanca, favorite of King Charles III, commissioned Goya to paint his portrait. He became friends with the King's half-brother Luis, and spent two summers working on portraits of both the Infante and his family. During the 1780s, his circle of patrons grew to include the Duke and Duchess of Osuna, the King and other notable people of the kingdom whom he painted. In 1786, Goya was given a salaried position as painter to Charles III. Goya was appointed court painter to Charles IV in 1789. The following year he became First Court Painter, with a salary of 50,000 reales and an allowance of 500 ducats for a coach. He painted portraits of the king and the queen, and the Spanish Prime Minister Manuel de Godoy and many other nobles. These portraits are notable for their disinclination to flatter; his Charles IV of Spain and His Family is an especially brutal assessment of a royal family. Modern interpreters view the portrait as satirical; it is thought to reveal the corruption behind the rule of Charles IV. Under his reign his wife Louisa was thought to have had the real power, and thus Goya placed her at the center of the group portrait. From the back left of the painting one can see the artist himself looking out at the viewer, and the painting behind the family depicts Lot and his daughters, thus once again echoing the underlying message of corruption and decay. Goya earned commissions from the highest ranks of the Spanish nobility, including Pedro Téllez-Girón, 9th Duke of Osuna and his wife María Josefa Pimentel, 12th Countess-Duchess of Benavente, José Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba and his wife María del Pilar de Silva, and María Ana de Pontejos y Sandoval, Marchioness of Pontejos. In 1801 he painted Godoy in a commission to commemorate the victory in the brief War of the Oranges against Portugal. The two were friends, even if Goya's 1801 portrait is usually seen as satire. Yet even after Godoy's fall from grace the politician referred to the artist in warm terms. Godoy saw himself as instrumental in the publication of the Caprichos and is widely believed to have commissioned La maja desnuda. Middle period (1793–1799) La Maja Desnuda (La maja desnuda) has been described as "the first totally profane life-size female nude in Western art" without pretense to allegorical or mythological meaning. The identity of the Majas is uncertain. The most popularly cited models are the Duchess of Alba, with whom Goya was sometimes thought to have had an affair, and Pepita Tudó, mistress of Manuel de Godoy. Neither theory has been verified, and it remains as likely that the paintings represent an idealized composite. The paintings were never publicly exhibited during Goya's lifetime and were owned by Godoy. In 1808 all Godoy's property was seized by Ferdinand VII after his fall from power and exile, and in 1813 the Inquisition confiscated both works as 'obscene', returning them in 1836 to the Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. In 1798 he painted luminous and airy scenes for the pendentives and cupola of the Real Ermita (Chapel) of San Antonio de la Florida in Madrid. Many of these depict miracles of Saint Anthony of Padua set in the midst of contemporary Madrid. At some time between late 1792 and early 1793 an undiagnosed illness left Goya deaf. He became withdrawn and introspective while the direction and tone of his work changed. He began the series of aquatinted etchings, published in 1799 as the Caprichos—completed in parallel with the more official commissions of portraits and religious paintings. In 1799 Goya published 80 Caprichos prints depicting what he described as "the innumerable foibles and follies to be found in any civilized society, and from the common prejudices and deceitful practices which custom, ignorance, or self-interest have made usual". The visions in these prints are partly explained by the caption "The sleep of reason produces monsters". Yet these are not solely bleak; they demonstrate the artist's sharp satirical wit, particularly evident in etchings such as Hunting for Teeth. Goya's physical and mental breakdown seems to have happened a few weeks after the French declaration of war on Spain. A contemporary reported, "The noises in his head and deafness aren’t improving, yet his vision is much better and he is back in control of his balance." These symptoms may indicate a prolonged viral encephalitis, or possibly a series of miniature strokes resulting from high blood pressure and which affected the hearing and balance centers of the brain. Symptoms of tinnitus, episodes of imbalance and progressive deafness are typical of Ménière's disease. It is possible that Goya suffered from cumulative lead poisoning, as he used massive amounts of lead white—which he ground himself—in his paintings, both as a canvas primer and as a primary color. Other postmortem diagnostic assessments point toward paranoid dementia, possibly due to brain trauma, as evidenced by marked changes in his work after his recovery, culminating in the "black" paintings. Art historians have noted Goya's singular ability to express his personal demons as horrific and fantastic imagery that speaks universally, and allows his audience to find its own catharsis in the images. Peninsular War (1808–1814) The French army invaded Spain in 1808, leading to the Peninsular War of 1808–1814. The extent of Goya's involvement with the court of the "Intruder king", Joseph I, the brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, is not known; he painted works for French patrons and sympathisers, but kept neutral during the fighting. After the restoration of the Spanish king Ferdinand VII in 1814, Goya denied any involvement with the French. By the time of his wife Josefa's death in 1812, he was painting The Second of May 1808 and The Third of May 1808, and preparing the series of etchings later known as The Disasters of War (Los desastres de la guerra). Ferdinand VII returned to Spain in 1814 but relations with Goya were not cordial. The artist completed portraits of the king for a variety of ministries, but not for the king himself. While convalescing between 1793 and 1794, Goya completed a set of eleven small pictures painted on tin that mark a significant change in the tone and subject matter of his art, and draw from the dark and dramatic realms of fantasy nightmare. Yard with Lunatics is an imaginary vision of loneliness, fear and social alienation. The condemnation of brutality towards prisoners (whether criminal or insane) is a subject that Goya assayed in later works that focused on the degradation of the human figure. It was one of the first of Goya's mid-1790s cabinet paintings, in which his earlier search for ideal beauty gave way to an examination of the relationship between naturalism and fantasy that would preoccupy him for the rest of his career. He was undergoing a nervous breakdown and entering prolonged physical illness, and admitted that the series was created to reflect his own self-doubt, anxiety and fear that he was losing his mind. Goya wrote that the works served "to occupy my imagination, tormented as it is by contemplation of my sufferings." The series, he said, consisted of pictures which "normally find no place in commissioned works." Although Goya did not make his intention known when creating The Disasters of War, art historians view them as a visual protest against the violence of the 1808 Dos de Mayo Uprising, the subsequent Peninsular War and the move against liberalism in the aftermath of the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1814. The scenes are singularly disturbing, sometimes macabre in their depiction of battlefield horror, and represent an outraged conscience in the face of death and destruction. They were not published until 1863, 35 years after his death. It is likely that only then was it considered politically safe to distribute a sequence of artworks criticising both the French and restored Bourbons. The first 47 plates in the series focus on incidents from the war and show the consequences of the conflict on individual soldiers and civilians. The middle series (plates 48 to 64) record the effects of the famine that hit Madrid in 1811–12, before the city was liberated from the French. The final 17 reflect the bitter disappointment of liberals when the restored Bourbon monarchy, encouraged by the Catholic hierarchy, rejected the Spanish Constitution of 1812 and opposed both state and religious reform. Since their first publication, Goya's scenes of atrocities, starvation, degradation and humiliation have been described as the "prodigious flowering of rage". His works from 1814 to 1819 are mostly commissioned portraits, but also include the altarpiece of Santa Justa and Santa Rufina for the Cathedral of Seville, the print series of La Tauromaquia depicting scenes from bullfighting, and probably the etchings of Los Disparates. Quinta del Sordo and Black Paintings (1819–1822) Records of Goya's later life are relatively scant, and ever politically aware, he suppressed a number of his works from this period, working instead in private. Goya was tormented by a dread of old age and fear of madness, the latter possibly from anxiety caused by an undiagnosed illness that left him deaf from the early 1790s. Goya had been a successful and royally placed artist, but withdrew from public life during his final years. From the late 1810s he lived in near-solitude outside Madrid in a farmhouse converted into a studio. The house had become known as "La Quinta del Sordo" (The House of the Deaf Man), after the nearest farmhouse that had coincidentally also belonged to a deaf man. Art historians assume Goya felt alienated from the social and political trends that followed the 1814 restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, and that he viewed these developments as reactionary means of social control. In his unpublished art he seems to have railed against what he saw as a tactical retreat into Medievalism. It is thought that he had hoped for political and religious reform, but like many liberals became disillusioned when the restored Bourbon monarchy and Catholic hierarchy rejected the Spanish Constitution of 1812. At the age of 75, alone and in mental and physical despair, he completed the work of his 14 Black Paintings, all of which were executed in oil directly onto the plaster walls of his house. Goya did not intend for the paintings to be exhibited, did not write of them, and likely never spoke of them. Around 1874, 50 years after his death, they were taken down and transferred to a canvas support by owner Baron Frédéric Émile d'Erlanger. Many of the works were significantly altered during the restoration, and in the words of Arthur Lubow what remain are "at best a crude facsimile of what Goya painted." The effects of time on the murals, coupled with the inevitable damage caused by the delicate operation of mounting the crumbling plaster on canvas, meant that most of the murals suffered extensive damage and loss of paint. Today they are on permanent display at the Museo del Prado, Madrid. Bordeaux (October 1824 – 1828) Leocadia Weiss (née Zorrilla, 1790–1856), the artist's maid, younger by 35 years, and a distant relative, lived with and cared for Goya after Bayeu's death. She stayed with him in his Quinta del Sordo villa until 1824 with her daughter Rosario. Leocadia was probably similar in features to Goya's first wife Josefa Bayeu, to the point that one of his well-known portraits bears the cautious title of Josefa Bayeu (or Leocadia Weiss). Not much is known about her beyond her fiery temperament. She was likely related to the Goicoechea family, a wealthy dynasty into which the artist's son, Javier, had married. It is known that Leocadia had an unhappy marriage with a jeweler, Isidore Weiss, but was separated from him since 1811, after he had accused her of "illicit conduct". She had two children before that time, and bore a third, Rosario, in 1814 when she was 26. Isidore was not the father, and it has often been speculated—although with little firm evidence—that the child belonged to Goya. There has been much speculation that Goya and Weiss were romantically linked; however, it is more likely the affection between them was sentimental. Goya died on 16 April 1828. Leocadia was left nothing in Goya's will; mistresses were often omitted in such circumstances, but it is also likely that he did not want to dwell on his mortality by thinking about or revising his will. She wrote to a number of Goya's friends to complain of her exclusion but many of her friends were Goya's also and by then were old men or had died, and did not reply. Largely destitute, she moved into rented accommodation, later passing on her copy of the Caprichos for free. Films and television Goya: Crazy Like a Genius (2002), a documentary by Ian MacMillan, presented by Robert Hughes Goya's Ghosts (2006), directed by Miloš Forman Volavérunt (1999), directed by Bigas Luna and based on the novel by Antonio Larreta Goya in Bordeaux (1999), Spanish historical drama film written and directed by Carlos Saura about the life of Francisco de Goya Goya or the Hard Way to Enlightenment (1971) (German: Goya – oder der arge Weg der Erkenntnis) is a 1971 East German drama film directed by Konrad Wolf. It was entered into the 7th Moscow International Film Festival where it won a Special Prize. It is based on a novel with the same title by Lion Feuchtwanger. The Naked Maja (1958), directed by Henry Koster. A film about the painter Francisco Goya and the Duchess of Alba; Anthony Franciosa played Goya and Ava Gardner played The Duchess. Tiempo de ilustrados (Time of the Enlightened) in the series The Ministry of Time. Goya (played by Pedro Casablanc) must repaint La maja desnuda after a cult called the Exterminating Angels destroy it. Goya's influence on modern and contemporary artists and writers In the early 20th century, Spanish masters Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí drew influence from Los caprichos and the Black Paintings of Goya. In the 21st century, American postmodern painters such as Michael Zansky and Bradley Rubenstein draw inspiration from "The Dream of Reason Produces Monsters" (1796–98) and Goya's Black Paintings. Zanksy's "Giants and Dwarf Series" (1990–2002) of large-scale paintings and wood carvings use imagery from Goya. Spanish author Fernando Arrabal's novel The Burial of the Sardine was inspired by Goya's painting. Russian poet Andrei Voznesensky's I Am Goya was inspired by Goya's anti-war paintings. References Footnotes Citations Further reading Baticle, Jeannine. Goya: Painter of Terrible Splendor, "Abrams Discoveries" series. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994 Buchholz, Elke Linda. Francisco de Goya. Cologne: Könemann, 1999. Ciofalo, John J. The Self-Portraits of Francisco Goya. Cambridge University Press, 2002 Connell, Evan S. Francisco Goya: A Life. New York: Counterpoint, 2004. Eitner, Lorenz. An Outline of 19th Century European Painting. New York: Harper & Row, 1997. Gassier, Pierre. Goya: A Biographical and Critical Study. New York: Skira, 1955 Gassier, Piere and Juliet Wilson. The Life and Complete Work of Francisco Goya. New York 1971. Glendinning, Nigel. Goya and his Critics. New Haven 1977. Glendinning, Nigel. "The Strange Translation of Goya's Black Paintings". The Burlington Magazine, Volume 117, No. 868, 1975 Hagen, Rose-Marie & Hagen, Rainer. Francisco Goya, 1746–1828. London: Taschen, 1999. Havard, Robert. "Goya's House Revisited: Why a Deaf Man Painted his Walls Black". Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Volume 82, Issue 5 July 2005 Hennigfeld, Ursula (ed.). Goya im Dialog der Medien, Kulturen und Disziplinen. Freiburg: Rombach, 2013. Hilt, Douglas. "Goya: Turmoils of a Patriot" History Today (Aug 1973), Vol. 23 Issue 8, pp 536–545, online Hughes, Robert. Goya. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. Junquera, Juan José. The Black Paintings of Goya. London: Scala Publishers, 2008. Kravchenko, Anastasiia. Mythological subjects in Francisco Goya’s work. 2019 Licht, Fred S. Goya in Perspective. New York 1973. Licht, Fred. Goya: The Origins of the Modern Temper in Art. Universe Books, 1979. Litroy, Jo. Jusqu'à la mort. Paris: Editions du Masque, 2013. Orozco, Miguel. Goya's frescoes in San Antonio de la Florida and José María Galván's etchings after them. Academia.edu. San Francisco, California 2021 Orozco, Miguel. The complete prints of Francisco de Goya. Academia.edu. San Francisco, California 2021 Symmons, Sarah. Goya: A Life in Letters. Pimlico, 2004. Tomlinson, Janis. Francisco Goya y Lucientes 1746–1828. London: Phaidon, 1994. Tomlinson, Janis. "Burn It, Hide It, Flaunt It: Goya's Majas and the Censorial Mind". The Art Journal, Volume 50, No. 4, 1991 External links Francisco Goya's Cats www.FranciscoGoya.com Goya in Aragon Foundation: Online catalogue Goya, the Secret of the Shadows, a documentary film by David Mauas, Spain, 2011, 77' Goya: The Most Spanish of Artists, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston   (PDF in the Arno Schmidt Reference Library)   (PDF in the Arno Schmidt Reference Library) Etching series by Goya "His Majesty’s Giant Anteater – A New Goya is Discovered!" Bibliothèque numérique de l'INHA – Estampes de Francisco de Goya Goya in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF) Prints & People: A Social History of Printed Pictures, an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains a significant amount of material on the prints of Goya Francisco Goya Prints in the Claremont Colleges Digital Library Francisco Goya Work at the Muscarelle Museum of Art Goya hidden micro-signatures, a revolutionary discovery 1746 births 1828 deaths 18th-century Spanish painters 19th-century Spanish painters 19th-century male artists 18th-century Spanish people 19th-century Spanish people Painters from Aragon Burials in Madrid Court painters Deaf artists Deaf people from Spain People from Campo de Belchite Royal Order of Spain members Spanish battle painters Spanish people of Basque descent Spanish printmakers Spanish Roman Catholics Spanish romantic painters Spanish satirists

Fontainebleau (; ) is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located south-southeast of the centre of Paris. Fontainebleau is a sub-prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne department, and it is the seat of the arrondissement of Fontainebleau. The commune has the largest land area in the Île-de-France region; it is the only one to cover a larger area than Paris itself. The commune is closest to Seine-et-Marne Prefecture, Melun. Fontainebleau, together with the neighbouring commune of Avon and three other smaller communes, form an urban area of 36,298 inhabitants (according to the 2011 census). This urban area is a satellite of Paris. Fontainebleau is renowned for the large and scenic forest of Fontainebleau, a favourite weekend getaway for Parisians, as well as for the historic Château de Fontainebleau, which once belonged to the kings of France. It is also the home of INSEAD, one of the world's most elite business schools. Inhabitants of Fontainebleau are sometimes called Bellifontains. History Fontainebleau was recorded in the Latinised forms Fons Bleaudi, Fons Bliaudi, and Fons Blaadi in the 12th and 13th centuries, as Fontem blahaud in 1137, as Fontaine belle eau (folk etymology "fountain of beautiful water") in the 16th century, as Fontainebleau and Fontaine belle eau in 1630, and as the invented, fanciful Latin Fons Bellaqueus in the 17th century, which is the origin of the fanciful name Bellifontains of the inhabitants. Contrary to the folk etymology, the name comes from the medieval compound noun of fontaine, meaning spring (fountainhead) and fountain, and blitwald, consisting of the Germanic personal name Blit and the Germanic word for forest. This hamlet was endowed with a royal hunting lodge and a chapel by Louis VII in the middle of the twelfth century. A century later, Louis IX, also called Saint Louis, who held Fontainebleau in high esteem and referred to it as "his wilderness", had a country house and a hospital constructed there. Philip the Fair was born there in 1268 and died there in 1314. In all, thirty-four sovereigns, from Louis VI, the Fat, (1081–1137) to Napoleon III (1808–1873), spent time at Fontainebleau. The connection between the town of Fontainebleau and the French monarchy was reinforced with the transformation of the royal country house into a true royal palace, the Palace of Fontainebleau. This was accomplished by the great builder-king, Francis I (1494–1547), who, in the largest of his many construction projects, reconstructed, expanded, and transformed the royal château at Fontainebleau into a residence that became his favourite, as well as the residence of his mistress, Anne, duchess of Étampes. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, every monarch, from Francis I to Louis XV, made important renovations at the Palace of Fontainebleau, including demolitions, reconstructions, additions, and embellishments of various descriptions, all of which endowed it with a character that is a bit heterogeneous, but harmonious nonetheless. On 18 October 1685, Louis XIV signed the Edict of Fontainebleau there. Also known as the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, this royal fiat reversed the permission granted to the Huguenots in 1598 to worship publicly in specified locations and hold certain other privileges. The result was that a large number of Protestants were forced to convert to the Catholic faith, killed, or forced into exile, mainly in the Low Countries, Prussia and in England. The 1762 Treaty of Fontainebleau, a secret agreement between France and Spain concerning the Louisiana territory in North America, was concluded here. Also, preliminary negotiations, held before the 1763 Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Seven Years' War, were at Fontainebleau. During the French Revolution, Fontainebleau was temporarily renamed Fontaine-la-Montagne, meaning "Fountain by the Mountain". (The mountain referred to is the series of rocky formations located in the forest of Fontainebleau.) On 29 October 1807, Manuel Godoy, chancellor to the Spanish king, Charles IV and Napoleon signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau, which authorized the passage of French troops through Spanish territories so that they might invade Portugal. On 20 June 1812, Pope Pius VII arrived at the château of Fontainebleau, after a secret transfer from Savona, accompanied by his personal physician, Balthazard Claraz. In poor health, the Pope was the prisoner of Napoleon, and he remained in his genteel prison at Fontainebleau for nineteen months. From June 1812 until 23 January 1814, the Pope never left his apartments. On 20 April 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte, shortly before his first abdication, bid farewell to the Old Guard, the renowned grognards (gripers) who had served with him since his first campaigns, in the "White Horse Courtyard" (la cour du Cheval Blanc) at the Palace of Fontainebleau. (The courtyard has since been renamed the "Courtyard of Goodbyes".) According to contemporary sources, the occasion was very moving. The 1814 Treaty of Fontainebleau stripped Napoleon of his powers (but not his title as Emperor of the French) and sent him into exile on Elba. Until the 19th century, Fontainebleau was a village and a suburb of Avon. Later, it developed as an independent residential city. For the 1924 Summer Olympics, the town played host to the riding portion of the modern pentathlon event. This event took place near a golf course. In July and August 1946, the town hosted the Franco-Vietnamese Conference, intended to find a solution to the long-contested struggle for Vietnam's independence from France, but the conference ended in failure. Fontainebleau also hosted the general staff of the Allied Forces in Central Europe (Allied Forces Center or AFCENT) and the land forces command (LANDCENT); the air forces command (AIRCENT) was located nearby at Camp Guynemer. These facilities were in place from the inception of NATO until France's partial withdrawal from NATO in 1967 when the United States returned those bases to French control. NATO moved AFCENT to Brunssum in the Netherlands and AIRCENT to Ramstein in West Germany. (Note that the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, also known as SHAPE, was located at Rocquencourt, west of Paris, quite a distance from Fontainebleau). In 2008, The men's World Championship of Real Tennis (Jeu de Paume) was held in the tennis court of the Chateau. The real tennis World Championship is the oldest in sport and Fontainebleau has one of only two active courts in France. Tourism Fontainebleau is a popular tourist destination; each year, 300,000 people visit the palace and more than 13 million people visit the forest. Fontainebleau forest The forest of Fontainebleau surrounds the town and dozens of nearby villages. It is protected by France's Office National des Forêts, and it is recognised as a French national park. It is managed in order that its wild plants and trees, such as the rare service tree of Fontainebleau, and its populations of birds, mammals, and butterflies, can be conserved. It is a former royal hunting park often visited by hikers and horse riders. The forest is also well regarded for bouldering and is particularly popular among climbers, as it is the biggest developed area of that kind in the world. Royal Château de Fontainebleau The Royal Château de Fontainebleau is a large palace where the kings of France took their ease. It is also the site where the French royal court, from 1528 onwards, entertained the body of new ideas that became known as the Renaissance. INSEAD The European (and historic) campus of the INSEAD business school is located at the edge of Fontainebleau, by the Lycee Francois Couperin. INSEAD students live in local accommodations around the Fontainebleau area, and especially in the surrounding towns. Other notables The graves of G. I. Gurdjieff and Katherine Mansfield can be found in the cemetery at Avon. Transport Fontainebleau is served by two stations on the Transilien Paris–Lyon rail line: Fontainebleau–Avon and Thomery. Fontainebleau–Avon station, the station closest to the centre of Fontainebleau, is located near the dividing-line between the commune of Fontainebleau and the commune of Avon, on the Avon side of the border. Hospital Fontainebleau has a campus of the Centre hospitalier Sud Seine et Marne. Notable people Francis I of France, built a large part of the palace Philip IV of France, born and died in Fontainebleau Francis II of France, born in Fontainebleau Henry III of France, born in Fontainebleau Henry IV of France, built a part of the palace Louis XIII, king of France, born in Fontainebleau Louis XIV of France, built a part of the palace Louis XV, king of France, built a part of the palace Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, king and queen of France, built a part of the palace Christina, Queen of Sweden; her lover, Gian Rinaldo Monaldeschi, was murdered in Fontainebleau Pierre Levassor (1808–1870), actor Alfonso XIII, king of Spain, after his abdication Aga Khan IV, international business magnate Anna Elizabeth Klumpke, an early twentieth-century artist Ernst August, Prince of Hanover and Caroline, Princess of Hanover Rosa Bonheur, a 19th-century artist Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923), New Zealander short story writer, died in Fontainebleau Arnold Bennett (1867- 1931), writer, lived in Fontainebleau from 1908 to 1912 Lilian Thuram, football player, World Cup and European Championship winner Django Reinhardt, died near Fontainebleau, in Samois-sur-Seine Napoleon Pope Pius VII, lived (as a prisoner of Napoleon) in the palace Napoleon III Robert Louis Stevenson, a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer Lin Fengmian, famous Chinese painter who advocated the synthesis of Western techniques and Eastern traditions and later became known as the father of modern Chinese painting, brushed up on his French in Fontainebleau before moving on to study art at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts of Paris Gabrièle Buffet-Picabia (1881–1985), art critic, first wife of painter Francis Picabia was born in Fontainebleau Pascal Lecocq, born in 1958, fine art painter, study at École Comairas (1973–1977) and exhibit for the 1st time in 1977 ; Mark Maggiori, lead vocalist of Pleymo Oscar Milosz, poet, novelist, dramatist and Lithuanian diplomat died in Fontainebleau in 1939. Twinning Fontainebleau is twinned with the following cities: Konstanz, Germany, since 28 May 1960 Richmond-upon-Thames, England, United Kingdom, since 1977 Siem Reap, Cambodia, since 11 June 2000 Nanjing, China Lodi, Italy since 2011 Sintra, Portugal since 2016 Image gallery See also Communauté d'agglomération du Pays de Fontainebleau Fontainebleau rock climbing Milly-la-Forêt Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762) Bibliography The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Miscellanies, Volume III, Edinburgh, Longmans Green and Co, 1895 "Fontainebleau : Village Communities of Painters" p.201-226 References External links Venues of the 1924 Summer Olympics Communes of Seine-et-Marne Olympic modern pentathlon venues Subprefectures in France

First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantified variables over non-logical objects, and allows the use of sentences that contain variables, so that rather than propositions such as "Socrates is a man", one can have expressions in the form "there exists x such that x is Socrates and x is a man", where "there exists" is a quantifier, while x is a variable. This distinguishes it from propositional logic, which does not use quantifiers or relations; in this sense, propositional logic is the foundation of first-order logic. A theory about a topic is usually a first-order logic together with a specified domain of discourse (over which the quantified variables range), finitely many functions from that domain to itself, finitely many predicates defined on that domain, and a set of axioms believed to hold about them. Sometimes, "theory" is understood in a more formal sense, which is just a set of sentences in first-order logic. The adjective "first-order" distinguishes first-order logic from higher-order logic, in which there are predicates having predicates or functions as arguments, or in which predicate quantifiers or function quantifiers or both are permitted. In first-order theories, predicates are often associated with sets. In interpreted higher-order theories, predicates may be interpreted as sets of sets. There are many deductive systems for first-order logic which are both sound (i.e., all provable statements are true in all models) and complete (i.e. all statements which are true in all models are provable). Although the logical consequence relation is only semidecidable, much progress has been made in automated theorem proving in first-order logic. First-order logic also satisfies several metalogical theorems that make it amenable to analysis in proof theory, such as the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem and the compactness theorem. First-order logic is the standard for the formalization of mathematics into axioms, and is studied in the foundations of mathematics. Peano arithmetic and Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory are axiomatizations of number theory and set theory, respectively, into first-order logic. No first-order theory, however, has the strength to uniquely describe a structure with an infinite domain, such as the natural numbers or the real line. Axiom systems that do fully describe these two structures (that is, categorical axiom systems) can be obtained in stronger logics such as second-order logic. The foundations of first-order logic were developed independently by Gottlob Frege and Charles Sanders Peirce. For a history of first-order logic and how it came to dominate formal logic, see José Ferreirós (2001). Introduction While propositional logic deals with simple declarative propositions, first-order logic additionally covers predicates and quantification. A predicate takes an entity or entities in the domain of discourse as input while outputs are either True or False. Consider the two sentences "Socrates is a philosopher" and "Plato is a philosopher". In propositional logic, these sentences are viewed as being unrelated, and might be denoted, for example, by variables such as p and q. The predicate "is a philosopher" occurs in both sentences, which have a common structure of "a is a philosopher". The variable a is instantiated as "Socrates" in the first sentence, and is instantiated as "Plato" in the second sentence. While first-order logic allows for the use of predicates, such as "is a philosopher" in this example, propositional logic does not. Relationships between predicates can be stated using logical connectives. Consider, for example, the first-order formula "if a is a philosopher, then a is a scholar". This formula is a conditional statement with "a is a philosopher" as its hypothesis, and "a is a scholar" as its conclusion. The truth of this formula depends on which object is denoted by a, and on the interpretations of the predicates "is a philosopher" and "is a scholar". Quantifiers can be applied to variables in a formula. The variable a in the previous formula can be universally quantified, for instance, with the first-order sentence "For every a, if a is a philosopher, then a is a scholar". The universal quantifier "for every" in this sentence expresses the idea that the claim "if a is a philosopher, then a is a scholar" holds for all choices of a. The negation of the sentence "For every a, if a is a philosopher, then a is a scholar" is logically equivalent to the sentence "There exists a such that a is a philosopher and a is not a scholar". The existential quantifier "there exists" expresses the idea that the claim "a is a philosopher and a is not a scholar" holds for some choice of a. The predicates "is a philosopher" and "is a scholar" each take a single variable. In general, predicates can take several variables. In the first-order sentence "Socrates is the teacher of Plato", the predicate "is the teacher of" takes two variables. An interpretation (or model) of a first-order formula specifies what each predicate means, and the entities that can instantiate the variables. These entities form the domain of discourse or universe, which is usually required to be a nonempty set. For example, in an interpretation with the domain of discourse consisting of all human beings and the predicate "is a philosopher" understood as "was the author of the Republic", the sentence "There exists a such that a is a philosopher" is seen as being true, as witnessed by Plato. Syntax There are two key parts of first-order logic. The syntax determines which finite sequences of symbols are well-formed expressions in first-order logic, while the semantics determines the meanings behind these expressions. Alphabet Unlike natural languages, such as English, the language of first-order logic is completely formal, so that it can be mechanically determined whether a given expression is well formed. There are two key types of well-formed expressions: terms, which intuitively represent objects, and formulas, which intuitively express predicates that can be true or false. The terms and formulas of first-order logic are strings of symbols, where all the symbols together form the alphabet of the language. As with all formal languages, the nature of the symbols themselves is outside the scope of formal logic; they are often regarded simply as letters and punctuation symbols. It is common to divide the symbols of the alphabet into logical symbols, which always have the same meaning, and non-logical symbols, whose meaning varies by interpretation. For example, the logical symbol always represents "and"; it is never interpreted as "or", which is represented by the logical symbol . On the other hand, a non-logical predicate symbol such as Phil(x) could be interpreted to mean "x is a philosopher", "x is a man named Philip", or any other unary predicate depending on the interpretation at hand. Logical symbols There are several logical symbols in the alphabet, which vary by author but usually include: The quantifier symbols: for universal quantification, and for existential quantification The logical connectives: for conjunction, for disjunction, for implication, for biconditional, for negation. Occasionally other logical connective symbols are included. Some authors use Cpq, instead of , and Epq, instead of , especially in contexts where → is used for other purposes. Moreover, the horseshoe may replace ; the triple-bar may replace ; a tilde (), Np, or Fp, may replace ; a double bar , or Apq may replace ; and ampersand , Kpq, or the middle dot, , may replace , especially if these symbols are not available for technical reasons. (The aforementioned symbols Cpq, Epq, Np, Apq, and Kpq are used in Polish notation.) Parentheses, brackets, and other punctuation symbols. The choice of such symbols varies depending on context. An infinite set of variables, often denoted by lowercase letters at the end of the alphabet x, y, z, ... . Subscripts are often used to distinguish variables: An equality symbol (sometimes, identity symbol) (see below). Not all of these symbols are required–only one of the quantifiers, negation and conjunction, variables, brackets and equality suffice. There are numerous minor variations that may define additional logical symbols: In some occasions, the truth constants T, Vpq, or , for "true" and F, Opq, or , for "false" are included. Without any such logical operators of valence 0, these two constants can only be expressed using quantifiers. In other occasions, additional logical connectives are included, such as the Sheffer stroke, Dpq (NAND), and exclusive or, Jpq. Non-logical symbols The non-logical symbols represent predicates (relations), functions and constants on the domain of discourse. It used to be standard practice to use a fixed, infinite set of non-logical symbols for all purposes. A more recent practice is to use different non-logical symbols according to the application one has in mind. Therefore, it has become necessary to name the set of all non-logical symbols used in a particular application. This choice is made via a signature. The traditional approach is to have only one, infinite, set of non-logical symbols (one signature) for all applications. Consequently, under the traditional approach there is only one language of first-order logic. This approach is still common, especially in philosophically oriented books. For every integer n ≥ 0, there is a collection of n-ary, or n-place, predicate symbols. Because they represent relations between n elements, they are also called relation symbols. For each arity n, we have an infinite supply of them: Pn0, Pn1, Pn2, Pn3, ... For every integer n ≥ 0, there are infinitely many n-ary function symbols: f n0, f n1, f n2, f n3, ... In contemporary mathematical logic, the signature varies by application. Typical signatures in mathematics are {1, ×} or just {×} for groups, or {0, 1, +, ×, <} for ordered fields. There are no restrictions on the number of non-logical symbols. The signature can be empty, finite, or infinite, even uncountable. Uncountable signatures occur for example in modern proofs of the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem. In this approach, every non-logical symbol is of one of the following types. A predicate symbol (or relation symbol) with some valence (or arity, number of arguments) greater than or equal to 0. These are often denoted by uppercase letters such as P, Q and R. Relations of valence 0 can be identified with propositional variables. For example, P, which can stand for any statement. For example, P(x) is a predicate variable of valence 1. One possible interpretation is "x is a man". Q(x,y) is a predicate variable of valence 2. Possible interpretations include "x is greater than y" and "x is the father of y". A function symbol, with some valence greater than or equal to 0. These are often denoted by lowercase roman letters such as f, g and h. Examples: f(x) may be interpreted as for "the father of x". In arithmetic, it may stand for "-x". In set theory, it may stand for "the power set of x". In arithmetic, g(x,y) may stand for "x+y". In set theory, it may stand for "the union of x and y". Function symbols of valence 0 are called constant symbols, and are often denoted by lowercase letters at the beginning of the alphabet such as a, b and c. The symbol a may stand for Socrates. In arithmetic, it may stand for 0. In set theory, such a constant may stand for the empty set. The traditional approach can be recovered in the modern approach, by simply specifying the "custom" signature to consist of the traditional sequences of non-logical symbols. Formation rules The formation rules define the terms and formulas of first-order logic. When terms and formulas are represented as strings of symbols, these rules can be used to write a formal grammar for terms and formulas. These rules are generally context-free (each production has a single symbol on the left side), except that the set of symbols may be allowed to be infinite and there may be many start symbols, for example the variables in the case of terms. Terms The set of terms is inductively defined by the following rules: Variables. Any variable is a term. Functions. Any expression f(t1,...,tn) of n arguments (where each argument ti is a term and f is a function symbol of valence n) is a term. In particular, symbols denoting individual constants are nullary function symbols, and thus are terms. Only expressions which can be obtained by finitely many applications of rules 1 and 2 are terms. For example, no expression involving a predicate symbol is a term. Formulas The set of formulas (also called well-formed formulas or WFFs) is inductively defined by the following rules: Predicate symbols. If P is an n-ary predicate symbol and t1, ..., tn are terms then P(t1,...,tn) is a formula. Equality. If the equality symbol is considered part of logic, and t1 and t2 are terms, then t1 = t2 is a formula. Negation. If is a formula, then is a formula. Binary connectives. If and are formulas, then () is a formula. Similar rules apply to other binary logical connectives. Quantifiers. If is a formula and x is a variable, then (for all x, holds) and (there exists x such that ) are formulas. Only expressions which can be obtained by finitely many applications of rules 1–5 are formulas. The formulas obtained from the first two rules are said to be atomic formulas. For example, is a formula, if f is a unary function symbol, P a unary predicate symbol, and Q a ternary predicate symbol. On the other hand, is not a formula, although it is a string of symbols from the alphabet. The role of the parentheses in the definition is to ensure that any formula can only be obtained in one way—by following the inductive definition (i.e., there is a unique parse tree for each formula). This property is known as unique readability of formulas. There are many conventions for where parentheses are used in formulas. For example, some authors use colons or full stops instead of parentheses, or change the places in which parentheses are inserted. Each author's particular definition must be accompanied by a proof of unique readability. This definition of a formula does not support defining an if-then-else function ite(c, a, b), where "c" is a condition expressed as a formula, that would return "a" if c is true, and "b" if it is false. This is because both predicates and functions can only accept terms as parameters, but the first parameter is a formula. Some languages built on first-order logic, such as SMT-LIB 2.0, add this. Notational conventions For convenience, conventions have been developed about the precedence of the logical operators, to avoid the need to write parentheses in some cases. These rules are similar to the order of operations in arithmetic. A common convention is: is evaluated first and are evaluated next Quantifiers are evaluated next is evaluated last. Moreover, extra punctuation not required by the definition may be inserted—to make formulas easier to read. Thus the formula might be written as In some fields, it is common to use infix notation for binary relations and functions, instead of the prefix notation defined above. For example, in arithmetic, one typically writes "2 + 2 = 4" instead of "=(+(2,2),4)". It is common to regard formulas in infix notation as abbreviations for the corresponding formulas in prefix notation, cf. also term structure vs. representation. The definitions above use infix notation for binary connectives such as . A less common convention is Polish notation, in which one writes , and so on in front of their arguments rather than between them. This convention is advantageous in that it allows all punctuation symbols to be discarded. As such, Polish notation is compact and elegant, but rarely used in practice because it is hard for humans to read. In Polish notation, the formula becomes Free and bound variables In a formula, a variable may occur free or bound (or both). Intuitively, a variable occurrence is free in a formula if it is not quantified: in , the sole occurrence of variable x is free while that of y is bound. The free and bound variable occurrences in a formula are defined inductively as follows. Atomic formulas If φ is an atomic formula, then x occurs free in φ if and only if x occurs in φ. Moreover, there are no bound variables in any atomic formula. Negation x occurs free in ¬φ if and only if x occurs free in φ. x occurs bound in ¬φ if and only if x occurs bound in φ Binary connectives x occurs free in (φ → ψ) if and only if x occurs free in either φ or ψ. x occurs bound in (φ → ψ) if and only if x occurs bound in either φ or ψ. The same rule applies to any other binary connective in place of →. Quantifiers x occurs free in , if and only if x occurs free in φ and x is a different symbol from y. Also, x occurs bound in , if and only if x is y or x occurs bound in φ. The same rule holds with in place of . For example, in , x and y occur only bound, z occurs only free, and w is neither because it does not occur in the formula. Free and bound variables of a formula need not be disjoint sets: in the formula , the first occurrence of x, as argument of P, is free while the second one, as argument of Q, is bound. A formula in first-order logic with no free variable occurrences is called a first-order sentence. These are the formulas that will have well-defined truth values under an interpretation. For example, whether a formula such as Phil(x) is true must depend on what x represents. But the sentence will be either true or false in a given interpretation. Example: ordered abelian groups In mathematics, the language of ordered abelian groups has one constant symbol 0, one unary function symbol −, one binary function symbol +, and one binary relation symbol ≤. Then: The expressions +(x, y) and +(x, +(y, −(z))) are terms. These are usually written as x + y and x + y − z. The expressions +(x, y) = 0 and ≤(+(x, +(y, −(z))), +(x, y)) are atomic formulas. These are usually written as x + y = 0 and x + y − z  ≤  x + y. The expression is a formula, which is usually written as This formula has one free variable, z. The axioms for ordered abelian groups can be expressed as a set of sentences in the language. For example, the axiom stating that the group is commutative is usually written Semantics An interpretation of a first-order language assigns a denotation to each non-logical symbol in that language. It also determines a domain of discourse that specifies the range of the quantifiers. The result is that each term is assigned an object that it represents, each predicate is assigned a property of objects, and each sentence is assigned a truth value. In this way, an interpretation provides semantic meaning to the terms, the predicates, and formulas of the language. The study of the interpretations of formal languages is called formal semantics. What follows is a description of the standard or Tarskian semantics for first-order logic. (It is also possible to define game semantics for first-order logic, but aside from requiring the axiom of choice, game semantics agree with Tarskian semantics for first-order logic, so game semantics will not be elaborated herein.) The domain of discourse D is a nonempty set of "objects" of some kind. Intuitively, a first-order formula is a statement about these objects; for example, states the existence of an object x such that the predicate P is true where referred to it. The domain of discourse is the set of considered objects. For example, one can take to be the set of integer numbers. The interpretation of a function symbol is a function. For example, if the domain of discourse consists of integers, a function symbol f of arity 2 can be interpreted as the function that gives the sum of its arguments. In other words, the symbol f is associated with the function which, in this interpretation, is addition. The interpretation of a constant symbol is a function from the one-element set D0 to D, which can be simply identified with an object in D. For example, an interpretation may assign the value to the constant symbol . The interpretation of an n-ary predicate symbol is a set of n-tuples of elements of the domain of discourse. This means that, given an interpretation, a predicate symbol, and n elements of the domain of discourse, one can tell whether the predicate is true of those elements according to the given interpretation. For example, an interpretation I(P) of a binary predicate symbol P may be the set of pairs of integers such that the first one is less than the second. According to this interpretation, the predicate P would be true if its first argument is less than the second. First-order structures The most common way of specifying an interpretation (especially in mathematics) is to specify a structure (also called a model; see below). The structure consists of a nonempty set D that forms the domain of discourse and an interpretation of the non-logical terms of the signature. This interpretation is itself a function: Each function symbol f of arity n is assigned a function from to . In particular, each constant symbol of the signature is assigned an individual in the domain of discourse. Each predicate symbol P of arity n is assigned a relation over or, equivalently, a function from to . Thus each predicate symbol is interpreted by a Boolean-valued function on D. Evaluation of truth values A formula evaluates to true or false given an interpretation, and a variable assignment μ that associates an element of the domain of discourse with each variable. The reason that a variable assignment is required is to give meanings to formulas with free variables, such as . The truth value of this formula changes depending on whether x and y denote the same individual. First, the variable assignment μ can be extended to all terms of the language, with the result that each term maps to a single element of the domain of discourse. The following rules are used to make this assignment: Variables. Each variable x evaluates to μ(x) Functions. Given terms that have been evaluated to elements of the domain of discourse, and a n-ary function symbol f, the term evaluates to . Next, each formula is assigned a truth value. The inductive definition used to make this assignment is called the T-schema. Atomic formulas (1). A formula is associated the value true or false depending on whether , where are the evaluation of the terms and is the interpretation of , which by assumption is a subset of . Atomic formulas (2). A formula is assigned true if and evaluate to the same object of the domain of discourse (see the section on equality below). Logical connectives. A formula in the form , , etc. is evaluated according to the truth table for the connective in question, as in propositional logic. Existential quantifiers. A formula is true according to M and if there exists an evaluation of the variables that only differs from regarding the evaluation of x and such that φ is true according to the interpretation M and the variable assignment . This formal definition captures the idea that is true if and only if there is a way to choose a value for x such that φ(x) is satisfied. Universal quantifiers. A formula is true according to M and if φ(x) is true for every pair composed by the interpretation M and some variable assignment that differs from only on the value of x. This captures the idea that is true if every possible choice of a value for x causes φ(x) to be true. If a formula does not contain free variables, and so is a sentence, then the initial variable assignment does not affect its truth value. In other words, a sentence is true according to M and if and only if it is true according to M and every other variable assignment . There is a second common approach to defining truth values that does not rely on variable assignment functions. Instead, given an interpretation M, one first adds to the signature a collection of constant symbols, one for each element of the domain of discourse in M; say that for each d in the domain the constant symbol cd is fixed. The interpretation is extended so that each new constant symbol is assigned to its corresponding element of the domain. One now defines truth for quantified formulas syntactically, as follows: Existential quantifiers (alternate). A formula is true according to M if there is some d in the domain of discourse such that holds. Here is the result of substituting cd for every free occurrence of x in φ. Universal quantifiers (alternate). A formula is true according to M if, for every d in the domain of discourse, is true according to M. This alternate approach gives exactly the same truth values to all sentences as the approach via variable assignments. Validity, satisfiability, and logical consequence If a sentence φ evaluates to True under a given interpretation M, one says that M satisfies φ; this is denoted . A sentence is satisfiable if there is some interpretation under which it is true. Satisfiability of formulas with free variables is more complicated, because an interpretation on its own does not determine the truth value of such a formula. The most common convention is that a formula with free variables is said to be satisfied by an interpretation if the formula remains true regardless which individuals from the domain of discourse are assigned to its free variables. This has the same effect as saying that a formula is satisfied if and only if its universal closure is satisfied. A formula is logically valid (or simply valid) if it is true in every interpretation. These formulas play a role similar to tautologies in propositional logic. A formula φ is a logical consequence of a formula ψ if every interpretation that makes ψ true also makes φ true. In this case one says that φ is logically implied by ψ. Algebraizations An alternate approach to the semantics of first-order logic proceeds via abstract algebra. This approach generalizes the Lindenbaum–Tarski algebras of propositional logic. There are three ways of eliminating quantified variables from first-order logic that do not involve replacing quantifiers with other variable binding term operators: Cylindric algebra, by Alfred Tarski and colleagues; Polyadic algebra, by Paul Halmos; Predicate functor logic, mainly due to Willard Quine. These algebras are all lattices that properly extend the two-element Boolean algebra. Tarski and Givant (1987) showed that the fragment of first-order logic that has no atomic sentence lying in the scope of more than three quantifiers has the same expressive power as relation algebra. This fragment is of great interest because it suffices for Peano arithmetic and most axiomatic set theory, including the canonical ZFC. They also prove that first-order logic with a primitive ordered pair is equivalent to a relation algebra with two ordered pair projection functions. First-order theories, models, and elementary classes A first-order theory of a particular signature is a set of axioms, which are sentences consisting of symbols from that signature. The set of axioms is often finite or recursively enumerable, in which case the theory is called effective. Some authors require theories to also include all logical consequences of the axioms. The axioms are considered to hold within the theory and from them other sentences that hold within the theory can be derived. A first-order structure that satisfies all sentences in a given theory is said to be a model of the theory. An elementary class is the set of all structures satisfying a particular theory. These classes are a main subject of study in model theory. Many theories have an intended interpretation, a certain model that is kept in mind when studying the theory. For example, the intended interpretation of Peano arithmetic consists of the usual natural numbers with their usual operations. However, the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem shows that most first-order theories will also have other, nonstandard models. A theory is consistent if it is not possible to prove a contradiction from the axioms of the theory. A theory is complete if, for every formula in its signature, either that formula or its negation is a logical consequence of the axioms of the theory. Gödel's incompleteness theorem shows that effective first-order theories that include a sufficient portion of the theory of the natural numbers can never be both consistent and complete. For more information on this subject see List of first-order theories and Theory (mathematical logic) Empty domains The definition above requires that the domain of discourse of any interpretation must be nonempty. There are settings, such as inclusive logic, where empty domains are permitted. Moreover, if a class of algebraic structures includes an empty structure (for example, there is an empty poset), that class can only be an elementary class in first-order logic if empty domains are permitted or the empty structure is removed from the class. There are several difficulties with empty domains, however: Many common rules of inference are only valid when the domain of discourse is required to be nonempty. One example is the rule stating that implies when x is not a free variable in . This rule, which is used to put formulas into prenex normal form, is sound in nonempty domains, but unsound if the empty domain is permitted. The definition of truth in an interpretation that uses a variable assignment function cannot work with empty domains, because there are no variable assignment functions whose range is empty. (Similarly, one cannot assign interpretations to constant symbols.) This truth definition requires that one must select a variable assignment function (μ above) before truth values for even atomic formulas can be defined. Then the truth value of a sentence is defined to be its truth value under any variable assignment, and it is proved that this truth value does not depend on which assignment is chosen. This technique does not work if there are no assignment functions at all; it must be changed to accommodate empty domains. Thus, when the empty domain is permitted, it must often be treated as a special case. Most authors, however, simply exclude the empty domain by definition. Deductive systems A deductive system is used to demonstrate, on a purely syntactic basis, that one formula is a logical consequence of another formula. There are many such systems for first-order logic, including Hilbert-style deductive systems, natural deduction, the sequent calculus, the tableaux method, and resolution. These share the common property that a deduction is a finite syntactic object; the format of this object, and the way it is constructed, vary widely. These finite deductions themselves are often called derivations in proof theory. They are also often called proofs, but are completely formalized unlike natural-language mathematical proofs. A deductive system is sound if any formula that can be derived in the system is logically valid. Conversely, a deductive system is complete if every logically valid formula is derivable. All of the systems discussed in this article are both sound and complete. They also share the property that it is possible to effectively verify that a purportedly valid deduction is actually a deduction; such deduction systems are called effective. A key property of deductive systems is that they are purely syntactic, so that derivations can be verified without considering any interpretation. Thus a sound argument is correct in every possible interpretation of the language, regardless whether that interpretation is about mathematics, economics, or some other area. In general, logical consequence in first-order logic is only semidecidable: if a sentence A logically implies a sentence B then this can be discovered (for example, by searching for a proof until one is found, using some effective, sound, complete proof system). However, if A does not logically imply B, this does not mean that A logically implies the negation of B. There is no effective procedure that, given formulas A and B, always correctly decides whether A logically implies B. Rules of inference A rule of inference states that, given a particular formula (or set of formulas) with a certain property as a hypothesis, another specific formula (or set of formulas) can be derived as a conclusion. The rule is sound (or truth-preserving) if it preserves validity in the sense that whenever any interpretation satisfies the hypothesis, that interpretation also satisfies the conclusion. For example, one common rule of inference is the rule of substitution. If t is a term and φ is a formula possibly containing the variable x, then φ[t/x] is the result of replacing all free instances of x by t in φ. The substitution rule states that for any φ and any term t, one can conclude φ[t/x] from φ provided that no free variable of t becomes bound during the substitution process. (If some free variable of t becomes bound, then to substitute t for x it is first necessary to change the bound variables of φ to differ from the free variables of t.) To see why the restriction on bound variables is necessary, consider the logically valid formula φ given by , in the signature of (0,1,+,×,=) of arithmetic. If t is the term "x + 1", the formula φ[t/y] is , which will be false in many interpretations. The problem is that the free variable x of t became bound during the substitution. The intended replacement can be obtained by renaming the bound variable x of φ to something else, say z, so that the formula after substitution is , which is again logically valid. The substitution rule demonstrates several common aspects of rules of inference. It is entirely syntactical; one can tell whether it was correctly applied without appeal to any interpretation. It has (syntactically defined) limitations on when it can be applied, which must be respected to preserve the correctness of derivations. Moreover, as is often the case, these limitations are necessary because of interactions between free and bound variables that occur during syntactic manipulations of the formulas involved in the inference rule. Hilbert-style systems and natural deduction A deduction in a Hilbert-style deductive system is a list of formulas, each of which is a logical axiom, a hypothesis that has been assumed for the derivation at hand, or follows from previous formulas via a rule of inference. The logical axioms consist of several axiom schemas of logically valid formulas; these encompass a significant amount of propositional logic. The rules of inference enable the manipulation of quantifiers. Typical Hilbert-style systems have a small number of rules of inference, along with several infinite schemas of logical axioms. It is common to have only modus ponens and universal generalization as rules of inference. Natural deduction systems resemble Hilbert-style systems in that a deduction is a finite list of formulas. However, natural deduction systems have no logical axioms; they compensate by adding additional rules of inference that can be used to manipulate the logical connectives in formulas in the proof. Sequent calculus The sequent calculus was developed to study the properties of natural deduction systems. Instead of working with one formula at a time, it uses sequents, which are expressions of the form where A1, ..., An, B1, ..., Bk are formulas and the turnstile symbol is used as punctuation to separate the two halves. Intuitively, a sequent expresses the idea that implies . Tableaux method Unlike the methods just described, the derivations in the tableaux method are not lists of formulas. Instead, a derivation is a tree of formulas. To show that a formula A is provable, the tableaux method attempts to demonstrate that the negation of A is unsatisfiable. The tree of the derivation has at its root; the tree branches in a way that reflects the structure of the formula. For example, to show that is unsatisfiable requires showing that C and D are each unsatisfiable; this corresponds to a branching point in the tree with parent and children C and D. Resolution The resolution rule is a single rule of inference that, together with unification, is sound and complete for first-order logic. As with the tableaux method, a formula is proved by showing that the negation of the formula is unsatisfiable. Resolution is commonly used in automated theorem proving. The resolution method works only with formulas that are disjunctions of atomic formulas; arbitrary formulas must first be converted to this form through Skolemization. The resolution rule states that from the hypotheses and , the conclusion can be obtained. Provable identities Many identities can be proved, which establish equivalences between particular formulas. These identities allow for rearranging formulas by moving quantifiers across other connectives, and are useful for putting formulas in prenex normal form. Some provable identities include: (where must not occur free in ) (where must not occur free in ) Equality and its axioms There are several different conventions for using equality (or identity) in first-order logic. The most common convention, known as first-order logic with equality, includes the equality symbol as a primitive logical symbol which is always interpreted as the real equality relation between members of the domain of discourse, such that the "two" given members are the same member. This approach also adds certain axioms about equality to the deductive system employed. These equality axioms are: Reflexivity. For each variable x, x = x. Substitution for functions. For all variables x and y, and any function symbol f, x = y → f(..., x, ...) = f(..., y, ...). Substitution for formulas. For any variables x and y and any formula φ(x), if φ' is obtained by replacing any number of free occurrences of x in φ with y, such that these remain free occurrences of y, then x = y → (φ → φ'). These are axiom schemas, each of which specifies an infinite set of axioms. The third schema is known as Leibniz's law, "the principle of substitutivity", "the indiscernibility of identicals", or "the replacement property". The second schema, involving the function symbol f, is (equivalent to) a special case of the third schema, using the formula x = y → (f(..., x, ...) = z → f(..., y, ...) = z). Many other properties of equality are consequences of the axioms above, for example: Symmetry. If x = y then y = x. Transitivity. If x = y and y = z then x = z. First-order logic without equality An alternate approach considers the equality relation to be a non-logical symbol. This convention is known as first-order logic without equality. If an equality relation is included in the signature, the axioms of equality must now be added to the theories under consideration, if desired, instead of being considered rules of logic. The main difference between this method and first-order logic with equality is that an interpretation may now interpret two distinct individuals as "equal" (although, by Leibniz's law, these will satisfy exactly the same formulas under any interpretation). That is, the equality relation may now be interpreted by an arbitrary equivalence relation on the domain of discourse that is congruent with respect to the functions and relations of the interpretation. When this second convention is followed, the term normal model is used to refer to an interpretation where no distinct individuals a and b satisfy a = b. In first-order logic with equality, only normal models are considered, and so there is no term for a model other than a normal model. When first-order logic without equality is studied, it is necessary to amend the statements of results such as the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem so that only normal models are considered. First-order logic without equality is often employed in the context of second-order arithmetic and other higher-order theories of arithmetic, where the equality relation between sets of natural numbers is usually omitted. Defining equality within a theory If a theory has a binary formula A(x,y) which satisfies reflexivity and Leibniz's law, the theory is said to have equality, or to be a theory with equality. The theory may not have all instances of the above schemas as axioms, but rather as derivable theorems. For example, in theories with no function symbols and a finite number of relations, it is possible to define equality in terms of the relations, by defining the two terms s and t to be equal if any relation is unchanged by changing s to t in any argument. Some theories allow other ad hoc definitions of equality: In the theory of partial orders with one relation symbol ≤, one could define s = t to be an abbreviation for s ≤ t ∧ t ≤ s. In set theory with one relation ∈, one may define s = t to be an abbreviation for . This definition of equality then automatically satisfies the axioms for equality. In this case, one should replace the usual axiom of extensionality, which can be stated as , with an alternative formulation , which says that if sets x and y have the same elements, then they also belong to the same sets. Metalogical properties One motivation for the use of first-order logic, rather than higher-order logic, is that first-order logic has many metalogical properties that stronger logics do not have. These results concern general properties of first-order logic itself, rather than properties of individual theories. They provide fundamental tools for the construction of models of first-order theories. Completeness and undecidability Gödel's completeness theorem, proved by Kurt Gödel in 1929, establishes that there are sound, complete, effective deductive systems for first-order logic, and thus the first-order logical consequence relation is captured by finite provability. Naively, the statement that a formula φ logically implies a formula ψ depends on every model of φ; these models will in general be of arbitrarily large cardinality, and so logical consequence cannot be effectively verified by checking every model. However, it is possible to enumerate all finite derivations and search for a derivation of ψ from φ. If ψ is logically implied by φ, such a derivation will eventually be found. Thus first-order logical consequence is semidecidable: it is possible to make an effective enumeration of all pairs of sentences (φ,ψ) such that ψ is a logical consequence of φ. Unlike propositional logic, first-order logic is undecidable (although semidecidable), provided that the language has at least one predicate of arity at least 2 (other than equality). This means that there is no decision procedure that determines whether arbitrary formulas are logically valid. This result was established independently by Alonzo Church and Alan Turing in 1936 and 1937, respectively, giving a negative answer to the Entscheidungsproblem posed by David Hilbert and Wilhelm Ackermann in 1928. Their proofs demonstrate a connection between the unsolvability of the decision problem for first-order logic and the unsolvability of the halting problem. There are systems weaker than full first-order logic for which the logical consequence relation is decidable. These include propositional logic and monadic predicate logic, which is first-order logic restricted to unary predicate symbols and no function symbols. Other logics with no function symbols which are decidable are the guarded fragment of first-order logic, as well as two-variable logic. The Bernays–Schönfinkel class of first-order formulas is also decidable. Decidable subsets of first-order logic are also studied in the framework of description logics. The Löwenheim–Skolem theorem The Löwenheim–Skolem theorem shows that if a first-order theory of cardinality λ has an infinite model, then it has models of every infinite cardinality greater than or equal to λ. One of the earliest results in model theory, it implies that it is not possible to characterize countability or uncountability in a first-order language with a countable signature. That is, there is no first-order formula φ(x) such that an arbitrary structure M satisfies φ if and only if the domain of discourse of M is countable (or, in the second case, uncountable). The Löwenheim–Skolem theorem implies that infinite structures cannot be categorically axiomatized in first-order logic. For example, there is no first-order theory whose only model is the real line: any first-order theory with an infinite model also has a model of cardinality larger than the continuum. Since the real line is infinite, any theory satisfied by the real line is also satisfied by some nonstandard models. When the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem is applied to first-order set theories, the nonintuitive consequences are known as Skolem's paradox. The compactness theorem The compactness theorem states that a set of first-order sentences has a model if and only if every finite subset of it has a model. This implies that if a formula is a logical consequence of an infinite set of first-order axioms, then it is a logical consequence of some finite number of those axioms. This theorem was proved first by Kurt Gödel as a consequence of the completeness theorem, but many additional proofs have been obtained over time. It is a central tool in model theory, providing a fundamental method for constructing models. The compactness theorem has a limiting effect on which collections of first-order structures are elementary classes. For example, the compactness theorem implies that any theory that has arbitrarily large finite models has an infinite model. Thus the class of all finite graphs is not an elementary class (the same holds for many other algebraic structures). There are also more subtle limitations of first-order logic that are implied by the compactness theorem. For example, in computer science, many situations can be modeled as a directed graph of states (nodes) and connections (directed edges). Validating such a system may require showing that no "bad" state can be reached from any "good" state. Thus one seeks to determine if the good and bad states are in different connected components of the graph. However, the compactness theorem can be used to show that connected graphs are not an elementary class in first-order logic, and there is no formula φ(x,y) of first-order logic, in the logic of graphs, that expresses the idea that there is a path from x to y. Connectedness can be expressed in second-order logic, however, but not with only existential set quantifiers, as also enjoys compactness. Lindström's theorem Per Lindström showed that the metalogical properties just discussed actually characterize first-order logic in the sense that no stronger logic can also have those properties (Ebbinghaus and Flum 1994, Chapter XIII). Lindström defined a class of abstract logical systems, and a rigorous definition of the relative strength of a member of this class. He established two theorems for systems of this type: A logical system satisfying Lindström's definition that contains first-order logic and satisfies both the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem and the compactness theorem must be equivalent to first-order logic. A logical system satisfying Lindström's definition that has a semidecidable logical consequence relation and satisfies the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem must be equivalent to first-order logic. Limitations Although first-order logic is sufficient for formalizing much of mathematics, and is commonly used in computer science and other fields, it has certain limitations. These include limitations on its expressiveness and limitations of the fragments of natural languages that it can describe. For instance, first-order logic is undecidable, meaning a sound, complete and terminating decision algorithm for provability is impossible. This has led to the study of interesting decidable fragments, such as C2: first-order logic with two variables and the counting quantifiers and . Expressiveness The Löwenheim–Skolem theorem shows that if a first-order theory has any infinite model, then it has infinite models of every cardinality. In particular, no first-order theory with an infinite model can be categorical. Thus there is no first-order theory whose only model has the set of natural numbers as its domain, or whose only model has the set of real numbers as its domain. Many extensions of first-order logic, including infinitary logics and higher-order logics, are more expressive in the sense that they do permit categorical axiomatizations of the natural numbers or real numbers. This expressiveness comes at a metalogical cost, however: by Lindström's theorem, the compactness theorem and the downward Löwenheim–Skolem theorem cannot hold in any logic stronger than first-order. Formalizing natural languages First-order logic is able to formalize many simple quantifier constructions in natural language, such as "every person who lives in Perth lives in Australia". Hence, first-order logic is used as a basis for knowledge representation languages, such as FO(.). Still, there are complicated features of natural language that cannot be expressed in first-order logic. "Any logical system which is appropriate as an instrument for the analysis of natural language needs a much richer structure than first-order predicate logic". Restrictions, extensions, and variations There are many variations of first-order logic. Some of these are inessential in the sense that they merely change notation without affecting the semantics. Others change the expressive power more significantly, by extending the semantics through additional quantifiers or other new logical symbols. For example, infinitary logics permit formulas of infinite size, and modal logics add symbols for possibility and necessity. Restricted languages First-order logic can be studied in languages with fewer logical symbols than were described above. Because can be expressed as , and can be expressed as , either of the two quantifiers and can be dropped. Since can be expressed as and can be expressed as , either or can be dropped. In other words, it is sufficient to have and , or and , as the only logical connectives. Similarly, it is sufficient to have only and as logical connectives, or to have only the Sheffer stroke (NAND) or the Peirce arrow (NOR) operator. It is possible to entirely avoid function symbols and constant symbols, rewriting them via predicate symbols in an appropriate way. For example, instead of using a constant symbol one may use a predicate (interpreted as ), and replace every predicate such as with . A function such as will similarly be replaced by a predicate interpreted as . This change requires adding additional axioms to the theory at hand, so that interpretations of the predicate symbols used have the correct semantics. Restrictions such as these are useful as a technique to reduce the number of inference rules or axiom schemas in deductive systems, which leads to shorter proofs of metalogical results. The cost of the restrictions is that it becomes more difficult to express natural-language statements in the formal system at hand, because the logical connectives used in the natural language statements must be replaced by their (longer) definitions in terms of the restricted collection of logical connectives. Similarly, derivations in the limited systems may be longer than derivations in systems that include additional connectives. There is thus a trade-off between the ease of working within the formal system and the ease of proving results about the formal system. It is also possible to restrict the arities of function symbols and predicate symbols, in sufficiently expressive theories. One can in principle dispense entirely with functions of arity greater than 2 and predicates of arity greater than 1 in theories that include a pairing function. This is a function of arity 2 that takes pairs of elements of the domain and returns an ordered pair containing them. It is also sufficient to have two predicate symbols of arity 2 that define projection functions from an ordered pair to its components. In either case it is necessary that the natural axioms for a pairing function and its projections are satisfied. Many-sorted logic Ordinary first-order interpretations have a single domain of discourse over which all quantifiers range. Many-sorted first-order logic allows variables to have different sorts, which have different domains. This is also called typed first-order logic, and the sorts called types (as in data type), but it is not the same as first-order type theory. Many-sorted first-order logic is often used in the study of second-order arithmetic. When there are only finitely many sorts in a theory, many-sorted first-order logic can be reduced to single-sorted first-order logic. One introduces into the single-sorted theory a unary predicate symbol for each sort in the many-sorted theory, and adds an axiom saying that these unary predicates partition the domain of discourse. For example, if there are two sorts, one adds predicate symbols and and the axiom . Then the elements satisfying are thought of as elements of the first sort, and elements satisfying as elements of the second sort. One can quantify over each sort by using the corresponding predicate symbol to limit the range of quantification. For example, to say there is an element of the first sort satisfying formula φ(x), one writes . Additional quantifiers Additional quantifiers can be added to first-order logic. Sometimes it is useful to say that " holds for exactly one x", which can be expressed as . This notation, called uniqueness quantification, may be taken to abbreviate a formula such as . First-order logic with extra quantifiers has new quantifiers Qx,..., with meanings such as "there are many x such that ...". Also see branching quantifiers and the plural quantifiers of George Boolos and others. Bounded quantifiers are often used in the study of set theory or arithmetic. Infinitary logics Infinitary logic allows infinitely long sentences. For example, one may allow a conjunction or disjunction of infinitely many formulas, or quantification over infinitely many variables. Infinitely long sentences arise in areas of mathematics including topology and model theory. Infinitary logic generalizes first-order logic to allow formulas of infinite length. The most common way in which formulas can become infinite is through infinite conjunctions and disjunctions. However, it is also possible to admit generalized signatures in which function and relation symbols are allowed to have infinite arities, or in which quantifiers can bind infinitely many variables. Because an infinite formula cannot be represented by a finite string, it is necessary to choose some other representation of formulas; the usual representation in this context is a tree. Thus formulas are, essentially, identified with their parse trees, rather than with the strings being parsed. The most commonly studied infinitary logics are denoted Lαβ, where α and β are each either cardinal numbers or the symbol ∞. In this notation, ordinary first-order logic is Lωω. In the logic L∞ω, arbitrary conjunctions or disjunctions are allowed when building formulas, and there is an unlimited supply of variables. More generally, the logic that permits conjunctions or disjunctions with less than κ constituents is known as Lκω. For example, Lω1ω permits countable conjunctions and disjunctions. The set of free variables in a formula of Lκω can have any cardinality strictly less than κ, yet only finitely many of them can be in the scope of any quantifier when a formula appears as a subformula of another. In other infinitary logics, a subformula may be in the scope of infinitely many quantifiers. For example, in Lκ∞, a single universal or existential quantifier may bind arbitrarily many variables simultaneously. Similarly, the logic Lκλ permits simultaneous quantification over fewer than λ variables, as well as conjunctions and disjunctions of size less than κ. Non-classical and modal logics Intuitionistic first-order logic uses intuitionistic rather than classical propositional calculus; for example, ¬¬φ need not be equivalent to φ. First-order modal logic allows one to describe other possible worlds as well as this contingently true world which we inhabit. In some versions, the set of possible worlds varies depending on which possible world one inhabits. Modal logic has extra modal operators with meanings which can be characterized informally as, for example "it is necessary that φ" (true in all possible worlds) and "it is possible that φ" (true in some possible world). With standard first-order logic we have a single domain and each predicate is assigned one extension. With first-order modal logic we have a domain function that assigns each possible world its own domain, so that each predicate gets an extension only relative to these possible worlds. This allows us to model cases where, for example, Alex is a Philosopher, but might have been a Mathematician, and might not have existed at all. In the first possible world P(a) is true, in the second P(a) is false, and in the third possible world there is no a in the domain at all. First-order fuzzy logics are first-order extensions of propositional fuzzy logics rather than classical propositional calculus. Fixpoint logic Fixpoint logic extends first-order logic by adding the closure under the least fixed points of positive operators. Higher-order logics The characteristic feature of first-order logic is that individuals can be quantified, but not predicates. Thus is a legal first-order formula, but is not, in most formalizations of first-order logic. Second-order logic extends first-order logic by adding the latter type of quantification. Other higher-order logics allow quantification over even higher types than second-order logic permits. These higher types include relations between relations, functions from relations to relations between relations, and other higher-type objects. Thus the "first" in first-order logic describes the type of objects that can be quantified. Unlike first-order logic, for which only one semantics is studied, there are several possible semantics for second-order logic. The most commonly employed semantics for second-order and higher-order logic is known as full semantics. The combination of additional quantifiers and the full semantics for these quantifiers makes higher-order logic stronger than first-order logic. In particular, the (semantic) logical consequence relation for second-order and higher-order logic is not semidecidable; there is no effective deduction system for second-order logic that is sound and complete under full semantics. Second-order logic with full semantics is more expressive than first-order logic. For example, it is possible to create axiom systems in second-order logic that uniquely characterize the natural numbers and the real line. The cost of this expressiveness is that second-order and higher-order logics have fewer attractive metalogical properties than first-order logic. For example, the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem and compactness theorem of first-order logic become false when generalized to higher-order logics with full semantics. Automated theorem proving and formal methods Automated theorem proving refers to the development of computer programs that search and find derivations (formal proofs) of mathematical theorems. Finding derivations is a difficult task because the search space can be very large; an exhaustive search of every possible derivation is theoretically possible but computationally infeasible for many systems of interest in mathematics. Thus complicated heuristic functions are developed to attempt to find a derivation in less time than a blind search. The related area of automated proof verification uses computer programs to check that human-created proofs are correct. Unlike complicated automated theorem provers, verification systems may be small enough that their correctness can be checked both by hand and through automated software verification. This validation of the proof verifier is needed to give confidence that any derivation labeled as "correct" is actually correct. Some proof verifiers, such as Metamath, insist on having a complete derivation as input. Others, such as Mizar and Isabelle, take a well-formatted proof sketch (which may still be very long and detailed) and fill in the missing pieces by doing simple proof searches or applying known decision procedures: the resulting derivation is then verified by a small core "kernel". Many such systems are primarily intended for interactive use by human mathematicians: these are known as proof assistants. They may also use formal logics that are stronger than first-order logic, such as type theory. Because a full derivation of any nontrivial result in a first-order deductive system will be extremely long for a human to write, results are often formalized as a series of lemmas, for which derivations can be constructed separately. Automated theorem provers are also used to implement formal verification in computer science. In this setting, theorem provers are used to verify the correctness of programs and of hardware such as processors with respect to a formal specification. Because such analysis is time-consuming and thus expensive, it is usually reserved for projects in which a malfunction would have grave human or financial consequences. For the problem of model checking, efficient algorithms are known to decide whether an input finite structure satisfies a first-order formula, in addition to computational complexity bounds: see . See also ACL2 — A Computational Logic for Applicative Common Lisp. Equiconsistency Extension by definitions Extension (predicate logic) Herbrandization Higher-order logic List of logic symbols Löwenheim number Nonfirstorderizability Prenex normal form Relational algebra Relational model Second-order logic Skolem normal form Tarski's World Truth table Type (model theory) Prolog Aristotelian logic Prior Analytics Notes References Andrews, Peter B. (2002); An Introduction to Mathematical Logic and Type Theory: To Truth Through Proof, 2nd ed., Berlin: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Available from Springer. Avigad, Jeremy; Donnelly, Kevin; Gray, David; and Raff, Paul (2007); "A formally verified proof of the prime number theorem", ACM Transactions on Computational Logic, vol. 9 no. 1 Barwise, Jon; and Etchemendy, John (2000); Language Proof and Logic, Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications (Distributed by the University of Chicago Press) Bocheński, Józef Maria (2007); A Précis of Mathematical Logic, Dordrecht, NL: D. Reidel, translated from the French and German editions by Otto Bird Ferreirós, José (2001); The Road to Modern Logic — An Interpretation, Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, Volume 7, Issue 4, 2001, pp. 441–484, , Hilbert, David; and Ackermann, Wilhelm (1950); Principles of Mathematical Logic, Chelsea (English translation of Grundzüge der theoretischen Logik, 1928 German first edition) Hodges, Wilfrid (2001); "Classical Logic I: First Order Logic", in Goble, Lou (ed.); The Blackwell Guide to Philosophical Logic, Blackwell Ebbinghaus, Heinz-Dieter; Flum, Jörg; and Thomas, Wolfgang (1994); Mathematical Logic, Undergraduate Texts in Mathematics, Berlin, DE/New York, NY: Springer-Verlag, Second Edition, Tarski, Alfred and Givant, Steven (1987); A Formalization of Set Theory without Variables. Vol.41 of American Mathematical Society colloquium publications, Providence RI: American Mathematical Society, External links Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Shapiro, Stewart; "Classical Logic". Covers syntax, model theory, and metatheory for first-order logic in the natural deduction style. Magnus, P. D.; forall x: an introduction to formal logic. Covers formal semantics and proof theory for first-order logic. Metamath: an ongoing online project to reconstruct mathematics as a huge first-order theory, using first-order logic and the axiomatic set theory ZFC. Principia Mathematica modernized. Podnieks, Karl; Introduction to mathematical logic Cambridge Mathematical Tripos notes (typeset by John Fremlin). These notes cover part of a past Cambridge Mathematical Tripos course taught to undergraduate students (usually) within their third year. The course is entitled "Logic, Computation and Set Theory" and covers Ordinals and cardinals, Posets and Zorn's Lemma, Propositional logic, Predicate logic, Set theory and Consistency issues related to ZFC and other set theories. Tree Proof Generator can validate or invalidate formulas of first-order logic through the semantic tableaux method. Systems of formal logic Predicate logic Model theory

Events Pre-1600 1339 – The Milanese army and the St. George's (San Giorgio) Mercenaries of Lodrisio Visconti clash in the Battle of Parabiago; Visconti is defeated. 1472 – Orkney and Shetland are pawned by Norway to Scotland in lieu of a dowry for Margaret of Denmark. 1521 – Juan Ponce de León sets out from Spain for Florida with about 200 prospective colonists. 1547 – Edward VI of England is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey. 1601–1900 1685 – René-Robert Cavelier establishes Fort St. Louis at Matagorda Bay thus forming the basis for France's claim to Texas. 1792 – The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, is signed by United States President George Washington. 1798 – Louis-Alexandre Berthier removes Pope Pius VI from power. 1813 – Manuel Belgrano defeats the royalist army of Pío de Tristán during the Battle of Salta. 1816 – Rossini's opera The Barber of Seville premieres at the Teatro Argentina in Rome. 1835 – The 1835 Concepción earthquake destroys Concepción, Chile. 1846 – Polish insurgents lead an uprising in Kraków to incite a fight for national independence. 1864 – American Civil War: Battle of Olustee: The largest battle fought in Florida during the war. 1865 – End of the Uruguayan War, with a peace agreement between President Tomás Villalba and rebel leader Venancio Flores, setting the scene for the destructive War of the Triple Alliance. 1872 – The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens in New York City. 1877 – Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake receives its premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. 1901–present 1901 – The legislature of Hawaii Territory convenes for the first time. 1905 – The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of Massachusetts's mandatory smallpox vaccination program in Jacobson v. Massachusetts. 1909 – Publication of the Futurist Manifesto in the French journal Le Figaro. 1913 – King O'Malley drives in the first survey peg to mark commencement of work on the construction of Canberra. 1920 – An earthquake kills between 114 and 130 in Georgia and heavily damages the town of Gori. 1931 – The U.S. Congress approves the construction of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge by the state of California. 1931 – An anarchist uprising in Encarnación briefly transforms the city into a revolutionary commune. 1933 – The U.S. Congress approves the Blaine Act to repeal federal Prohibition in the United States, sending the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution to state ratifying conventions for approval. 1933 – Adolf Hitler secretly meets with German industrialists to arrange for financing of the Nazi Party's upcoming election campaign. 1935 – Caroline Mikkelsen becomes the first woman to set foot in Antarctica. 1942 – Lieutenant Edward O'Hare becomes America's first World War II flying ace. 1943 – American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies. 1943 – The Saturday Evening Post publishes the first of Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms in support of United States President Franklin Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union address theme of Four Freedoms. 1944 – World War II: The "Big Week" began with American bomber raids on German aircraft manufacturing centers. 1944 – World War II: The United States takes Eniwetok Atoll. 1952 – Emmett Ashford becomes the first African-American umpire in organized baseball by being authorized to be a substitute umpire in the Southwestern International League. 1956 – The United States Merchant Marine Academy becomes a permanent Service Academy. 1959 – The Avro Arrow program to design and manufacture supersonic jet fighters in Canada is cancelled by the Diefenbaker government amid much political debate. 1962 – Mercury program: While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth, making three orbits in four hours, 55 minutes. 1965 – Ranger 8 crashes into the Moon after a successful mission of photographing possible landing sites for the Apollo program astronauts. 1968 – The China Academy of Space Technology, China's main arm for the research, development, and creation of space satellites, is established in Beijing. 1971 – The United States Emergency Broadcast System is accidentally activated in an erroneous national alert. 1979 – An earthquake cracks open the Sinila volcanic crater on the Dieng Plateau, releasing poisonous H2S gas and killing 149 villagers in the Indonesian province of Central Java. 1986 – The Soviet Union launches its Mir spacecraft. Remaining in orbit for 15 years, it is occupied for ten of those years. 1988 – The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast votes to secede from Azerbaijan and join Armenia, triggering the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. 1991 – In the Albanian capital Tirana, a gigantic statue of Albania's long-time leader, Enver Hoxha, is brought down by mobs of angry protesters. 1998 – American figure skater Tara Lipinski, at the age of 15, becomes the youngest Olympic figure skating gold-medalist at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. 2003 – During a Great White concert in West Warwick, Rhode Island, a pyrotechnics display sets the Station nightclub ablaze, killing 100 and injuring over 200 others. 2005 – Spain becomes the first country to vote in a referendum on ratification of the proposed Constitution of the European Union, passing it by a substantial margin, but on a low turnout. 2009 – Two Tamil Tigers aircraft packed with C4 explosives en route to the national airforce headquarters are shot down by the Sri Lankan military before reaching their target, in a kamikaze style attack. 2010 – In Madeira Island, Portugal, heavy rain causes floods and mudslides, resulting in at least 43 deaths, in the worst disaster in the history of the archipelago. 2014 – Dozens of Euromaidan anti-government protesters died in Ukraine's capital Kyiv, many reportedly killed by snipers. 2015 – Two trains collide in the Swiss town of Rafz resulting in as many as 49 people injured and Swiss Federal Railways cancelling some services. 2016 – Six people are killed and two injured in multiple shooting incidents in Kalamazoo County, Michigan. Births Pre-1600 1358 – Eleanor of Aragon, queen of John I of Castile (d. 1382) 1469 – Thomas Cajetan, Italian philosopher (d. 1534) 1523 – Jan Blahoslav, Czech writer (d. 1571) 1549 – Francesco Maria II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, last Duke of Urbino (d. 1631) 1552 – Sengoku Hidehisa, Daimyō (d. 1614) 1601–1900 1608 – Arthur Capell, 1st Baron Capell of Hadham (d. 1649) 1631 – Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds, English politician, Treasurer of the Navy (d. 1712) 1633 – Jan de Baen, Dutch painter (d. 1702) 1705 – Nicolas Chédeville, French musette player and composer (d. 1782) 1726 – William Prescott, American colonel (d. 1795) 1745 – Henry James Pye, English poet and politician (d. 1813) 1748 – Luther Martin, American politician (d. 1826) 1751 – Johann Heinrich Voss, German poet, translator, and academic (d. 1826) 1753 – Louis-Alexandre Berthier, French general and politician, French Minister of Defence (d. 1815) 1756 – Angelica Schuyler Church, American socialite, sister-in-law to Alexander Hamilton (d. 1814) 1759 – Johann Christian Reil, German physician, physiologist, and anatomist (d. 1813) 1774 – Vicente Sebastián Pintado, Spanish cartographer, engineer, military officer and land surveyor of Spanish Louisiana and Spanish West Florida (d. 1829) 1784 – Judith Montefiore, British linguist, travel writer, philanthropist (d. 1862) 1792 – Eliza Courtney, French daughter of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (d. 1859) 1794 – William Carleton, Irish author (d. 1869) 1802 – Charles Auguste de Bériot, Belgian violinist and composer (d. 1870) 1819 – Alfred Escher, Swiss businessman and politician (d. 1882) 1839 – Benjamin Waugh, English activist, founded the NSPCC (d. 1908) 1844 – Ludwig Boltzmann, Austrian physicist and philosopher (d. 1906) 1844 – Joshua Slocum, Canadian sailor and adventurer (d. 1909) 1848 – E. H. Harriman, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1909) 1857 – A. P. Lucas, English cricketer (d. 1923) 1866 – Carl Westman, Swedish architect, designed the Stockholm Court House and Röhsska Museum (d. 1936) 1867 – Louise, Princess Royal of England (d. 1931) 1870 – Jay Johnson Morrow, American engineer and politician, 3rd Governor of the Panama Canal Zone (d. 1937) 1874 – Mary Garden, Scottish-American soprano and actress (d. 1967) 1879 – Hod Stuart, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 1907) 1880 – Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen, French author and poet (d. 1923) 1882 – Elie Nadelman, Polish-American sculptor (d. 1946) 1887 – Vincent Massey, Canadian lawyer and politician, 18th Governor General of Canada (d. 1967) 1888 – Georges Bernanos, French soldier and author (d. 1948) 1889 – Hulusi Behçet, Turkish dermatologist and physician (d. 1948) 1893 – Elizabeth Holloway Marston, American psychologist and author (d. 1993) 1895 – Louis Zborowski, English race car driver and engineer (d. 1924) 1897 – Ivan Albright, American painter (d. 1983) 1898 – Ante Ciliga, Croatian politician, writer and publisher (d. 1992) 1899 – Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1992) 1901–present 1901 – René Dubos, French-American biologist and author (d. 1982) 1901 – Louis Kahn, American architect, designed the Salk Institute, the Kimbell Art Museum and the Bangladesh Parliament Building (d. 1974) 1901 – Muhammad Naguib, Egyptian general and politician, 1st President of Egypt (d. 1984) 1901 – Ramakrishna Ranga Rao of Bobbili, Indian lawyer and politician, 6th Chief Minister of Madras Presidency (d. 1978) 1902 – Ansel Adams, American photographer and environmentalist (d. 1984) 1906 – Gale Gordon, American actor (d. 1995) 1912 – Pierre Boulle, French soldier and author (d. 1994) 1912 – Johnny Checketts, New Zealand flying ace of the Second World War (d. 2006) 1913 – Tommy Henrich, American baseball player and sportscaster (d. 2009) 1914 – John Charles Daly, South African–American journalist and game show host (d. 1991) 1916 – Jean Erdman, American dancer and choreographer (d. 2020) 1918 – Leonore Annenberg, American businesswoman and diplomat (d. 2009) 1919 – James O'Meara, English soldier and pilot (d. 1974) 1920 – Karl Albrecht, German businessman, co-founded Aldi (d. 2014) 1921 – Buddy Rogers, American wrestler (d. 1992) 1923 – Victor G. Atiyeh, American businessman and politician, 32nd Governor of Oregon (d. 2014) 1923 – Forbes Burnham, Guyanese lawyer and politician, 2nd President of Guyana (d. 1985) 1923 – Rena Vlahopoulou, Greek actress (d. 2004) 1924 – Gloria Vanderbilt, American actress, fashion designer, and socialite (d. 2019) 1925 – Robert Altman, American director and screenwriter (d. 2006) 1925 – Tochinishiki Kiyotaka, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 44th Yokozuna (d. 1990) 1926 – Matthew Bucksbaum, American businessman and philanthropist, co-founded General Growth Properties (d. 2013) 1926 – Gillian Lynne, English ballerina, choreographer, and director (d. 2018) 1926 – Richard Matheson, American author and screenwriter (d. 2013) 1926 – Bob Richards, American Olympic track and field athlete 1926 – María de la Purísima Salvat Romero, Spanish Roman Catholic nun; later canonized (d. 1998) 1927 – Roy Cohn, American lawyer and political activist (d. 1986) 1927 – Ibrahim Ferrer, Cuban singer and musician (d. 2005) 1927 – Sidney Poitier, Bahamian-American actor, director, and diplomat (d. 2022) 1928 – Jean Kennedy Smith, American diplomat, 25th United States Ambassador to Ireland (d. 2020) 1929 – Amanda Blake, American actress (d. 1989) 1931 – John Milnor, American mathematician and academic 1932 – Adrian Cristobal, Filipino journalist and author (d. 2007) 1934 – Bobby Unser, American race car driver (d. 2021) 1935 – Ellen Gilchrist, American novelist, short story writer, and poet 1936 – Marj Dusay, American actress (d. 2020) 1936 – Larry Hovis, American actor and singer (d. 2003) 1936 – Shigeo Nagashima, Japanese baseball player and coach 1937 – Robert Huber, German biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate 1937 – Roger Penske, American race car driver and businessman 1937 – Nancy Wilson, American singer and actress (d. 2018) 1940 – Jimmy Greaves, English international footballer and TV pundit (d. 2021) 1941 – Lim Kit Siang, Malaysian lawyer and politician 1941 – Buffy Sainte-Marie, Canadian singer-songwriter and producer 1942 – Phil Esposito, Canadian ice hockey player, coach, and manager 1942 – Mitch McConnell, American lawyer and politician 1942 – Claude Miller, French director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2012) 1943 – Antonio Inoki, Japanese wrestler, mixed martial artist, and politician 1943 – Mike Leigh, English director and screenwriter 1944 – Robert de Cotret, Canadian economist and politician, 56th Secretary of State for Canada (d. 1999) 1944 – Lew Soloff, American trumpet player, composer, and actor (d. 2015) 1944 – Willem van Hanegem, Dutch footballer and coach 1945 – Alan Hull, English singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1995) 1946 – Brenda Blethyn, English actress 1946 – Sandy Duncan, American actress, singer, and dancer 1946 – J. 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wrestler 1980 – Imanol Harinordoquy, French rugby player 1980 – Luis Gabriel Rey, Colombian footballer 1981 – Tony Hibbert, English footballer 1982 – Jason Hirsh, American baseball player 1983 – Jose Morales, Puerto Rican-American baseball player 1983 – Justin Verlander, American baseball player 1984 – Brian McCann, American baseball player 1984 – Trevor Noah, South African comedian, actor, and television host 1984 – Ramzee Robinson, American football player 1985 – Ryan Sweeney, American baseball player 1985 – Julia Volkova, Russian singer and actress 1985 – TJ Kirk, American YouTube personality and podcast host 1987 – Luke Burgess, English rugby league player 1987 – Miles Teller, American actor 1988 – Kealoha Pilares, American football player 1988 – Ki Bo-bae, South Korean archer 1988 – Rihanna, Barbadian-American singer-songwriter and actress 1988 – Jiah Khan, Indian singer and actress (d. 2013) 1989 – Daly Cherry-Evans, Australian rugby league player 1990 – Ciro Immobile, Italian footballer 1991 – Hidilyn Diaz, Filipino weightlifter 1991 – Angelique van der Meet, Dutch tennis player 1992 – Kyle Turner, Australian rugby league player 2003 – Olivia Rodrigo, American actress and singer Deaths Pre-1600 789 – Leo of Catania, saint and bishop of Catania (b. 709) 922 – Theodora, Byzantine empress 1054 – Yaroslav the Wise, grand prince of Veliky Novgorod and Kyiv (b. 978) 1154 – Saint Wulfric of Haselbury (b. c. 1080) 1171 – Conan IV, Duke of Brittany (b. 1138) 1194 – Tancred, King of Sicily (b. 1138) 1258 – Al-Musta'sim, Iraqi caliph (b. 1213) 1408 – Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland, English politician, Earl Marshal of the United Kingdom (b. 1342) 1431 – Pope Martin V (b. 1368) 1458 – Lazar Branković, Despot of Serbia 1513 – King John of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (b. 1455) 1524 – Tecun Uman, Mayan ruler (b. 1500) 1579 – Nicholas Bacon, English politician (b. 1509) 1601–1900 1618 – Philip William, Prince of Orange (b. 1554) 1626 – John Dowland, English lute player and composer (b. 1563) 1762 – Tobias Mayer, German astronomer and academic (b. 1723) 1771 – Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan, French geophysicist and astronomer (b. 1678) 1773 – Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia (b. 1701) 1778 – Laura Bassi, Italian physicist and scholar (b. 1711) 1790 – Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1741) 1806 – Lachlan McIntosh, Scottish-American general and politician (b. 1725) 1810 – Andreas Hofer, Tyrolean rebel leader (b. 1767) 1850 – Valentín Canalizo, Mexican general and politician. 14th President (1843–1844) (b. 1794) 1862 – William Wallace Lincoln, American son of Abraham Lincoln (b. 1850) 1871 – Paul Kane, Irish-Canadian painter (b. 1810) 1893 – P. 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Massad, American general (b. 1908) 1996 – Solomon Asch, American psychologist and academic (b. 1907) 1996 – Audrey Munson, American model (b. 1891) 1996 – Toru Takemitsu, Japanese pianist, guitarist, and composer (b. 1930) 1999 – Sarah Kane, English playwright (b. 1971) 1999 – Gene Siskel, American journalist and critic (b. 1946) 2001 – Rosemary DeCamp, American actress (b. 1910) 2001 – Donella Meadows, American environmentalist, author, and academic (b. 1941) 2003 – Mushaf Ali Mir, Pakistani air marshal (b. 1947) 2003 – Maurice Blanchot, French philosopher and author (b. 1907) 2003 – Orville Freeman, American soldier, lawyer, and politician, 29th Governor of Minnesota (b. 1918) 2005 – Sandra Dee, American actress (b. 1942) 2005 – Josef Holeček, Czechoslovakian canoeist (b. 1921) 2005 – John Raitt, American actor and singer (b. 1917) 2005 – Hunter S. Thompson, American journalist and author (b. 1937) 2006 – Curt Gowdy, American sportscaster (b. 1919) 2006 – Lucjan Wolanowski, Polish journalist and author (b. 1920) 2008 – Emily Perry, English actress and dancer (b. 1907) 2009 – Larry H. Miller, American businessman and philanthropist (b. 1944) 2010 – Alexander Haig, American general and politician, 59th United States Secretary of State (b. 1924) 2012 – Knut Torbjørn Eggen, Norwegian footballer and manager (b. 1960) 2012 – Katie Hall, American educator and politician (b. 1938) 2013 – Kenji Eno, Japanese game designer and composer (b. 1970) 2013 – David S. McKay, American biochemist and geologist (b. 1936) 2013 – Antonio Roma, Argentinian footballer (b. 1932) 2014 – Rafael Addiego Bruno, Uruguayan jurist and politician, President of Uruguay (b. 1923) 2014 – Walter D. Ehlers, American lieutenant, Medal of Honor recipient (b. 1921) 2014 – Garrick Utley, American journalist (b. 1939) 2015 – Govind Pansare, Indian author and activist (b. 1933) 2015 – Henry Segerstrom, American businessman and philanthropist (b. 1923) 2015 – John C. Willke, American physician, author, and activist (b. 1925) 2016 – Fernando Cardenal, Nicaraguan priest and politician (b. 1934) 2017 – Vitaly Churkin, Ambassador of the Russian Federation to the United Nations (b. 1952) 2017 – Mildred Dresselhaus, American physicist (b. 1930) 2017 – Steve Hewlett, British journalist (b. 1958) 2020 – Joaquim Pina Moura, Portuguese Minister of Economy and Treasury and MP (b. 1952) 2021 – Nurul Haque Miah, Bangladeshi professor and writer (b. 1944) 2021 – Mauro Bellugi, Italian footballer (b. 1950) Holidays and observances Christian feast day: Eleutherius of Tournai Eucherius of Orléans Francisco Marto and Jacinta Marto Frederick Douglass (Episcopal Church (USA)) Wulfric of Haselbury February 20 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Day of Heavenly Hundred Heroes (Ukraine) World Day of Social Justice References External links BBC: On This Day Historical Events on February 20 Today in Canadian History Days of the year February

FAO, or the Food and Agriculture Organization, is an agency of the United Nations. FAO may also refer to: Places Fao, Iraq Fao Peninsula Fão, Portugal Faro Airport, in Portugal, airport code FAO Military and insurgents Al-Fao, an Iraqi artillery system Western Armed Forces (French: ), a Chadian insurgent group Fusil ametrallador Oviedo, a Spanish light machine gun Professions Flight Activities Officer, a NASA flight controller Foreign area officer of the United States Armed Forces Other uses Fao (god), a god of Niue Fao festival, in Ghana FAO Schwarz, an American toy retailer Faroese language, language code Fao Football Association of Odisha, in India

Fortaleza (, locally , Portuguese for Fortress) is the state capital of Ceará, located in Northeastern Brazil. It belongs to the Metropolitan mesoregion of Fortaleza and microregion of Fortaleza. It is Brazil's 5th largest city and the twelfth richest city in the country in GDP. It also has the third richest metropolitan area in the North and Northeast regions. It is an important industrial and commercial center of Brazil, the nation's eighth largest municipality in purchasing power. According to the Ministry of Tourism, the city reached the mark of second most desired destination of Brazil and fourth among Brazilian cities in tourists received. The BR-116, the most important highway of the country, starts in Fortaleza. The municipality is part of the Common Market of Mercosur Cities, and also the Brazilian state capital which is closest to Europe, from Lisbon, Portugal. To the north of the city lies the Atlantic Ocean; to the south are the municipalities of Pacatuba, Eusébio, Maracanaú and Itaitinga; to the east is the municipality of Aquiraz and the Atlantic Ocean; and to the west is the municipality of Caucaia. Residents of the city are known as Fortalezenses. Fortaleza is one of the three leading cities in the Northeast region together with Recife and Salvador. History Colonial period Colonisation began in 1603 when Portugal was part of the Iberian Union, when the Portuguese Pero Coelho de Souza constructed the Fort of São Tiago and founded the settlement of Nova Lisboa (New Lisbon). After a victory over the French in 1612, Martins Soares Moreno expanded the Fort of São Tiago and changed its name to Forte de São Sebastião. In 1630 the Dutch invaded the Brazilian Northeast and in 1637 they took the Fort of São Sebastião and ruled over Ceará. In battles with the Portuguese and natives in 1644 the fort was destroyed. Under captain Matthias Beck the Dutch West Indies Company built a new fortress by the banks of river Pajeú. Fort Schoonenborch ("graceful stronghold") officially opened on August 19, 1649. After the capitulation of Pernambuco in 1654, the Dutch handed over this fortress to the Portuguese, who renamed it Fortaleza da Nossa Senhora de Assunção ("Fort of Our Lady of the Assumption"), after which the city of Fortaleza takes its name. Fortaleza was officially founded as a village 1726, becoming the capital of Ceará state in 1799. Imperial period During the 19th century, Fortaleza was consolidated as an urban centre in Ceará, supported by the cotton industry. With the transformation of the city into a regional export center and with the increase of direct navigation to Europe, the customs building of Fortaleza was built in 1812. In 1824, the city was targeted by the revolutionaries of Confederation of the Equator. Republican period The city gained a number of new districts in the 1930s, including Messejana and Porangaba. In 1954, the first university in the city was created, the Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC). In 1983 the city started to integrate the territory of the new city of Maracanaú, which, just some years ago, was made again part of the Greater Fortaleza (the city's Metropolitan area). In the 1980s, Fortaleza exceeded Recife in population terms, becoming the second most populous city in Northeastern Brazil, with 2,571,896 inhabitants. Geography Climate Fortaleza has a typical tropical climate, specifically a tropical wet and dry climate (Köppen climate classification: Aw/As), with high temperatures and relative humidity throughout the year. However, these conditions are usually relieved by pleasant winds blowing from the ocean. Average temperatures are not much different throughout the year. December is the warmest month, with a high of and low of . The rainy season spans from January to July, with rainfall particularly prodigious in March and April. The average annual temperature is . The relative humidity in Fortaleza is 79%, with average annual rainfall of . There is usually rain during the first seven months of the year from January to July. During this period, relative humidity is high. Fortaleza's climate is usually very dry from August to December, with very little rainfall. Rainfall is like all of Northeastern Brazil among the most variable in the world, comparable (for similar average annual rainfalls) to central Queensland cities like Townsville and Mackay. In the notorious drought year of 1877 as little as fell, and in 1958 only , but in the Nordeste's record wet year of 1985 Fortaleza received . Vegetation In Fortaleza there are some remaining areas of mangrove in preserved areas, including Cocó Park. Ten miles offshore is the Pedra da Risca do Meio Marine State Park, created in 1997 to protect the reefs. Ecology and environment The vegetation of Fortaleza is typically coastal. The restinga areas are found in dune regions near the mouths of the Ceará, Cocó and Pacoti rivers, in the beds of which there is still a mangrove forest. In other green areas of the city, there is no longer native vegetation, consisting of varied vegetation, fruit trees more commonly. The city is home to seven environmental conservation units. These are the Sabiaguaba Dunes Municipal Natural Park, the Sabiaguaba Environmental Protection Area, the Maraponga Lagoon Ecological Park, the Cocó Ecological Park, the Ceará River Estuary Environmental Protection Area, the Environmental Protection Area of the Rio Pacoti and the Pedra da Risca do Meio Marine State Park. There is also, in the city, the Area of Relevant Ecological Interest of Sírio Curió, that protects the last enclave of Atlantic Forest in the urban zone. The Cocó River is part of the river basin of the east coast of Ceará and has a total length of about 50 km in its main area. The park is inserted in the area of greater environmental sensitivity of the city, where it is possible to identify geoenvironmental formations such as coastal plain, fluvial plain and surface of the coastal trays. The Cocó river mangrove is home to mollusks, crustaceans, fish, reptiles, birds and mammals. The park has a structure of visitation, with guides, ecological trails and equipment and events of environmental education and ecotourism. The Coaçu River, affluent of the river Cocó, forms in its bed the lagoon of the Precabura. The Rio Pacoti provides much of the water supply for Fortaleza. At the municipal boundary with Caucaia, the estuary of the Rio Ceará is covered by an environmental protection area (APA), which was set up in 1999. Demographics According to the 2010 IBGE Census, there were 2,315,116 people residing in the city of Fortaleza. The census revealed the following numbers: 1,403,292 Pardo (multiracial) people (57.2%), 901,816 White people (36.8%), 110,811 Black people (4.5%), 33,161 Asian people (1.4%), 3,071 Amerindian people (0.1%). In 2010, the city of Fortaleza was the 5th most populous city proper in Brazil, after São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, and Brasília. In 2010, the city had 433,942 opposite-sex couples and 1,559 same-sex couples. The population of Fortaleza was 53.2% female and 46.8% male. The following cities are included in the metropolitan area of Fortaleza (ordered by population): Fortaleza, Caucaia, Maracanaú, Maranguape, Aquiraz, Pacatuba, Pacajus, Horizonte, São Gonçalo do Amarante, Itatinga, Guaiúba and Chorozinho. According to a genetic study from 2011, 'pardos' and whites' from Fortaleza, which comprise the largest share of the population, showed European ancestry of about 70%, the rest divided between Native American and African ancestries. A 2015 study, however, found out the following composition in Fortaleza: 48,9% of European contribution, 35,4% of Native American input and 15,7% of African ancestry. Religion The prevailing religion of Fortaleza is the Roman Catholic branch of Christianity. Source: IBGE 2000. According to the census of 2010, 1,664,521 people, 67.88% of the population, followed Roman Catholicism, 523,456 (21.35%) were Protestant, 31,691 (1.29%) represented Spiritism and 162,985 (6.65%) had no religion whatsoever. Other religions, such as Umbanda, Candomblé, other Afro-Brazilian religions, Spiritualism, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, other Eastern religions, Esotericism and other Christian churches like The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had a smaller number of adherents. Politics The administration of the municipality is made from the executive and legislative branches. Roberto Cláudio, of the PDT, won 650,607 votes in the 2012 election, and was elected mayor. Legislative power rests with the City Council of Fortaleza, composed of 43 city councilors, elected for four-year terms, responsible for drafting municipal laws and supervising the executive. The municipality is, in addition, governed by organic law. In January 2015, there were 1 659 091 voters in Fortaleza (26,457% of the total state), distributed in thirteen electoral zones. The number of persons directly and indirectly employed in the municipal public administration in 2013 was respectively 31 318 and 4 950. The city also houses the seat of state executive power, the Abolition Palace, occupied by governor Camilo Santana, of the PT, elected in the general elections in Brazil in 2014. historically headquarters of the Iracema Club, which was Ceded to the Municipal Hall and now houses municipal executive bodies. In the city, there is the Administrative Center Governor Virgílio Távora. Among the institutions present in the city, are the Fortaleza Air Base, the Port Authority of Ceará, School of Apprentice Sailors of Ceará and the Command of the Tenth Military Region. The city also has units of the International Committee of the Red Cross and UNICEF. Since 1996, a city is part of the Common Market of Cities of Mercosur. Economy At the beginning of the decade of 2000, among the capitals of the Northeast, Fortaleza had the third largest Gross Domestic Product (GDP), being surpassed by Recife and Salvador. In 2012, the GDP of Fortaleza reached the value of 43.4 billion Reais, the tenth highest of the country. In the same year, the value of taxes on products net of subsidies at current prices was R $6,612,822,000 and the municipality's GDP per capita was R$17.359,53. The city's booming economy is reflected in purchasing power, the country's eighth largest, with estimated consumption potential at 42 billion reais in 2014. The main economic source of the municipality is centered in the tertiary sector, with its diversified segments of commerce and service rendering. Next, the secondary sector stands out, with the industrial complexes. In 2012, the city had 873,746 people in employment. Culture According to the Master Plan of Fortaleza, the Special Areas for the Preservation of Historic, Cultural and Archaeological Heritage are the regions of the center, Parangaba, Alagadiço Novo/José de Alencar, Benfica, Porangabuçu and Praia de Iracema. Properties of conservation interest. The architectural heritage of Fortaleza in the form of fallen goods, however, is predominantly concentrated in the center of the city. The Mucuripe Lighthouse is unfortunately in ruins today, Ceará and Fortaleza were part of the pioneering group of states and cities to adopt public policies to protect the living intangible heritage of their culture, through the Masters of Culture program. Museums, theatres and cultural spaces Among the theaters, the largest and most popular are Theatro José de Alencar, São José Theater, São Luiz Cinema Theater, and Teatro RioMarand Teatro Via Sul. The Ceará Museum houses numerous artifacts, including pieces of paleontology and furniture. The Dragão do Mar Center of Art and Culture is the main cultural centre, and includes the Ceará Museum of Culture, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Ceará, theaters, a planetarium, cinemas, shops and spaces for public presentations, as well as housing the Public Library Governador Menezes Pimentel, Oporto Iracema of the Arts and the School of Arts and Crafts Thomaz Pompeu Sobrinho. The Casa de Jose Alencar is one of the Brazilian museums recognised as dealing with Brazilian literature. It was opened in 1964 and houses art collections, a gallery, a library and the ruins of the first steam power plant in Ceará. In the different SERs of the city, the complexes of the CUCA Network are spread, which are facilities dedicated to art, leisure and education, especially for young people. Freemasonry is represented by the Grand Masonic Lodge of Ceará and the Great State East of Ceará. There are also service clubs in the city, such as the Lions Club and Rotary International. The Ceará handicraft has its main market and showcase in Fortaleza. In the city, there are several specific places for trade in handicraft products, such as the Ceará Craft Center (CeArt), Ceará Tourism Center (Emcetur), Crafts Fair of Beira-Mar, and on Avenida Monsenhor Tabosa. Literature and cinema The main literary manifestation of Fortaleza's history emerged at the end of the 19th century, in the cafes of Praça do Ferreira, known as the Spiritual Bakery, a pioneer in the dissemination of modern ideas in Brazilian literature that would only be adopted nationally in the following century, in the Modern Art Week. The most important historical entities of high culture still present in the city are the Ceará Institute and the Ceará Academy of Letters, the first academy of letters created in Brazil, founded in 1887 and 1894 respectively. The Ceará Institute has helped launch important names in national historiography and philosophy, such as Farias Brito and Capistrano de Abreu. Among the writers who are members of the Cearense Academy of Letters and members or patrons of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, are Gustavo Barroso, Araripe Júnior, José de Alencar, Heráclito Graça, Franklin Tavora, Clóvis Beviláqua and Rachel de Queiroz, the first woman to Be part of the entity. The Casa de Juvenal Galeno is another historical cultural institution of Fortaleza, named after one of the greatest poets born in the city, Juvenal Galeno. The house became well known for its festivals of poetry and seminaries. In cinema, the most well known name is Zelito Viana, director of films like Villa-Lobos: A Life of Passion and Life and Death of Severina. More recently, Karim Aïnouz has directed Madame Satã, Suely in the Sky and Futuro Beach, and script of Lower City, Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures and Behind the Sun. Another current exponent of cinema born in Fortaleza is Halder Gomes, director and screenwriter of Holliúdy Cinema. New filmmakers in the city have gained in recent years prominent exhibitions such as at the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival. The most traditional cinema event in Fortaleza is the Cine Ceará (Ibero-American Film Festival), considered one of the main festivals of the country. Fashion The main fashion name in the city is the , who, from Fortaleza, designed himself nationally and internationally and today is one of the main names of São Paulo Fashion Week, besides being one of the founding designers of this fashion week. There are major events in the city, such as the Dragão Fashion Brasil, considered the largest fashion event in the Northeast and the third largest in the country. Much of the clothing that is produced in Ceará flows through Fortaleza, which in turn is recognized as one of the most important textile centers of the country, giving the garment industry great weight in the metropolitan economy. Brands of the city like Santana Textiles and headquarters of brands like Esplanada and Otoch have considerable regional influence. Music Forró is the most popular musical genre in the city. Bands originating in Fortaleza, such as Mastruz com Leite and Aviões do Forró, were responsible for the popularization of electronic forró, which promoted the revaluation of the accordion in the genre and brought it closer to pop music. The forró pé-de serra, however, still holds great cultural influence and commercial prominence in the city. In Música popular brasileira, some of the names from Fortaleza were Fagner, Ednardo, Belchior (from Sobral but lived in Fortaleza) and Amelinha. The musical tradition of Fortaleza, however, goes back to the composer Alberto Nepomuceno, one of the greatest names in classical music in Brazil, a pioneer in the development of the country's musical nationalism, and therefore considered the "founder of Brazilian music". The Alberto Nepomuceno Conservatory is one of the city's leading music schools. Carnival Fortaleza hosts one of the noted Brazilian Carnivals. Its main locations are Iracema Beach and Avenue Domingos Olimpio. Cuisine The gastronomy of Fortaleza is very close to the typical Northeastern cuisine, and, traditional include the baião de dois, usually accompanied by barbecue of mutton or meat of sun, and tapioca which is a pancake made from the starch of cassava. The seafood is another ingredient of typical dishes of fortalezeense cuisine, such as the steak moqueca and the mackerel and snapper fish. The fruit of the sea identity of the coast of the state is the crab. Shrimp and lobster are also widely used delicacies in dishes such as shrimp rice or shrimp dumplings. Tourism Acquario Ceará, due to be one of the largest oceanariums in Brazil, is currently under construction. Attractions such as the Beach Park theme park, located in the Great Fortaleza, Avenida Beira Mar and its bars, restaurants and music clubs, the beaches of Futuro and Iracema and Pirata Bar have placed Fortaleza among the Brazilian destinations preferred by Europeans. Scuba diving is possible in the area of Pedra da Risca do Meio Marine State Park, a marine protected area located about 10 nautical miles from the shoreline of Fortaleza. Urban beaches Fortaleza has about of urban beaches. Mucuripe is the place where jangadas can be found. Still used by fishermen to go into high seas, jangadas can be seen along the way during the afternoon and evenings, and returning from the sea in the morning; part of the catch of the day is sold in an old-style fish market. Education In 2010, the level of the education factor of the Strengthening Human Development Index was medium, despite its great advance, which went from 0.367 to 0.695 between 1991 and 2010. According to data from the 2010 Human Development Atlas of Brazil, Fortaleza's adult education levels were divided as follows: 8.57% did not complete primary school or were illiterate, 62.43% had completed elementary education, 45.93% had completed high school and 13.73% had completed higher education. Health The health indexes of the Fortaleza population are better than the Brazilian average. According to data from 2010, the infant mortality rate up to one year old was 15.8 per 1000 live births in Fortaleza, against a Brazilian average of 16.7. By 2013, 90.6% of children under one year of age had their immunization records up to date. In 2012, 37,577 live births were registered, and the infant mortality rate up to five years of age was 13.2 per 1000. Of the total number of children under two years old weighed by the Family Health Program in 2013, 0.8% were malnourished. In 2009, Fortaleza had a total of 35 general hospitals, of which 11 were public, 21 were private, two were philanthropic, and one was a trade union. The Doctor José Frota Institute is the largest hospital administered by the Municipal Government, and the General Hospital of Fortaleza is the largest hospital administered by the State Government. In addition, it had 54 specialized hospitals and eight polyclinics. The total number of physicians working in the health network of the municipality was 13,604, approximately 5.4 per thousand inhabitants. Fortaleza has 117 units of health posts, three administered by the municipality and six administered by the state. The first hospital built in Fortaleza was the Santa Casa de Misericórdia, founded in 1861. Among the most important public health institutions in the city, the most important is the Dr. José Frota Institute, the largest hospital administered by the Municipal Government, and the General Hospital of Fortaleza, the largest hospital administered by the State Government. Among the private institutions, the largest are the Unimed Fortaleza Regional Hospital, Antônio Prudente Hospital, Monte Klinikum Hospital and São Mateus Hospital. One of the most important basic health programs in Fortaleza is the Family Health Program, within which the city is in third place in the country in extension of coverage, with hundreds of teams distributed in dozens of care units. The Emergency Mobile Care Service (SAMU) is the municipality's health care service, which serves an average of 200 daily occurrences. The University Hospital Walter Cantídio is the largest liver transplantation facility in the country. The Faculty of Medicine of the UFC is the 13th best medical school in Brazil, 2nd best medical school in the North and Northeast regions and the best medical school in Ceará. UFC's medical degree is still one of the most popular in the country. Transportation International Airport The current passenger terminal of Pinto Martins – Fortaleza International Airport, located in the center of Fortaleza, was built between 1996 and 1998. The airport is now undergoing an expansion process, from which the number of boarding bridges will increase from seven to sixteen and the passenger terminal will be expanded from 38,000 m2 to 133,000 m2. In 2014, the airport was capable of serving 6.2 million passengers per year, but after expansion, capacity would be 11.2 million. Pinto Martins Airport is the third busiest airport in the Northeast Region and one of the busiest in the country, receiving on average 1,500 international aircraft and 65,000 domestic aircraft per year. In 2013, it received more than 5.9 million passengers. Air Force Base Fortaleza Air Force Base - BAFZ, a base of the Brazilian Air Force, is located in Fortaleza. Roads In 2013, Fortaleza had 908,074 vehicles, of which 511,109 were cars, and 229 154 motorcycles. Traffic density at peak times in the city is rated as the fourth largest in the country, with 48% of congested roads. The cycle network of Fortaleza is composed of 116.4 km, of which 78.8 km are cycle paths and 37.6 km are cycle paths. The municipality also has a public bicycle system, Bicicletar, which had 40 stations and 400 units in April 2015. In 2015, the municipal taxi fleet was composed of 4 886 vehicles, including common, adapted and special use vehicles. The city's road transport system is regulated by the Fortaleza Urban Transportation Company (ETUFOR), an agency of the Municipality of Fortaleza. The collective transport carried out by buses is called the Integrated Transportation System (SIT-FOR), and its operation began in 1992. The system of traffic monitoring is known by the acronym CTAFOR, which stands for (Traffic Control of the Area of Fortaleza). Subway The Fortaleza Metro comprises five lines. The Fortaleza Metro started on October 1, 2014. As of 2014 18 of the 20 stations planned for the South Line are in operation, along with 9 stations of the West Line. MetroFor is the rapid transit system for the city of Fortaleza. Bus stations Fortaleza has multiple Bus Rapid Transit, or BRT, lines throughout the city and has plans to extend this network of transportation (BRTBrasil.org) Bike lanes Fortaleza officially has of bike lanes. Sports The main games of the Ceará State Championship are played in Fortaleza. There are several association football clubs in the city, including Ceará SC, Fortaleza EC and Ferroviário AC. Fortaleza was one of the host cities of the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup and 2014 FIFA World Cup. Neighborhoods Dom Lustosa Notable people José de Alencar, famous writer from the 19th century Alberto Nepomuceno, famous composer from the 19th century Rachel de Queiroz, first female writer in Academia Brasileira de Letras André Diamant, international chess grandmaster Casimiro Montenegro Filho, founder of the Brazilian Air Force Aeronautical Technologic Institute - ITA Maurício Peixoto, mathematician, one of the founders of IMPA Gilberto Câmara, former director of Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) Hélder Câmara, Roman Catholic Archbishop nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize Castelo Branco, former president (1964–67) Karim Aïnouz, film director Ed Lincoln, musician and composer Shelda Bede, beach volleyball player and olympic medalist Raffael, professional footballer Ronny Araújo, professional footballer Mário Jardel, retired professional footballer José Gerardo Moreira Rocha Júnior, footballer Otávio Dutra, professional footballer Marcus Aurélio, mixed martial arts professional Wilson Gouveia, mixed martial arts professional Thiago Alves, mixed martial arts professional Hermes França, mixed martial arts professional Jorge Gurgel, mixed martial arts professional Heloneida Studart, writer, politician, women's rights advocate International relations Fortaleza is twinned with: Ferreira do Alentejo, Portugal Lisbon, Portugal Miami Beach, United States Montese, Italy Praia, Cape Verde Racine, United States Sal, Cape Verde See also Housing in Fortaleza, Brazil References Bibliography External links Fortaleza City Council home page Fortaleza Tourism Office home page Port cities in Brazil Populated places established in 1726 1726 establishments in the Portuguese Empire 1726 establishments in South America

The Premier League, also known exonymously as the English Premier League or the EPL (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited), is the top level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football League (EFL). Seasons run from August to May with each team playing 38 matches (playing all 19 other teams both home and away). Most games are played on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. The competition was founded as the FA Premier League on 20 February 1992 following the decision of clubs in the Football League First Division to break away from the Football League, founded in 1888, and take advantage of a lucrative television rights sale to Sky. From 2019 to 2020, the league's accumulated television rights deals were worth around £3.1 billion a year, with Sky and BT Group securing the domestic rights to broadcast 128 and 32 games respectively. The Premier League is a corporation where chief executive Richard Masters is responsible for its management, whilst the member clubs act as shareholders. Clubs were apportioned central payment revenues of £2.4 billion in 2016–17, with a further £343 million in solidarity payments to English Football League (EFL) clubs. The Premier League is the most-watched sports league in the world, broadcast in 212 territories to 643 million homes and a potential TV audience of 4.7 billion people. For the 2018–19 season, the average Premier League match attendance was at 38,181, second to the German Bundesliga's 43,500, while aggregated attendance across all matches is the highest of any association football league at 14,508,981. Most stadium occupancies are near capacity. The Premier League ranks first in the UEFA coefficients of leagues based on performances in European competitions over the past five seasons as of 2021. The English top-flight has produced the second-highest number of UEFA Champions League/European Cup titles, with five English clubs having won fourteen European trophies in total. Fifty clubs have competed since the inception of the Premier League in 1992: forty-eight English and two Welsh clubs. Seven of them have won the title: Manchester United (13), Chelsea (5), Manchester City (5), Arsenal (3), Blackburn Rovers (1), Leicester City (1) and Liverpool (1). History Origins Despite significant European success in the 1970s and early 1980s, the late 1980s marked a low point for English football. Stadiums were crumbling, supporters endured poor facilities, hooliganism was rife, and English clubs had been banned from European competition for five years following the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985. The Football League First Division, the top level of English football since 1888, was behind leagues such as Italy's Serie A and Spain's La Liga in attendances and revenues, and several top English players had moved abroad. By the turn of the 1990s, the downward trend was starting to reverse. At the 1990 FIFA World Cup, England reached the semi-finals; UEFA, European football's governing body, lifted the five-year ban on English clubs playing in European competitions in 1990, resulting in Manchester United lifting the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1991. The Taylor Report on stadium safety standards, which proposed expensive upgrades to create all-seater stadiums in the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster, was published in January 1990. During the 1980s, major English clubs had begun to transform into business ventures, applying commercial principles to club administration to maximise revenue. Martin Edwards of Manchester United, Irving Scholar of Tottenham Hotspur, and David Dein of Arsenal were among the leaders in this transformation. The commercial imperative led to the top clubs seeking to increase their power and revenue: the clubs in Division One threatened to break away from the Football League, and in so doing they managed to increase their voting power and gain a more favourable financial arrangement, taking a 50% share of all television and sponsorship income in 1986. They demanded that television companies should pay more for their coverage of football matches, and revenue from television grew in importance. The Football League received £6.3 million for a two-year agreement in 1986, but by 1988, in a deal agreed with ITV, the price rose to £44 million over four years with the leading clubs taking 75% of the cash. According to Scholar, who was involved in the negotiations of television deals, each of the First Division clubs received only around £25,000 per year from television rights before 1986, this increased to around £50,000 in the 1986 negotiation, then to £600,000 in 1988. The 1988 negotiations were conducted under the threat of ten clubs leaving to form a "super league", but they were eventually persuaded to stay, with the top clubs taking the lion's share of the deal. The negotiations also convinced the bigger clubs that in order to receive enough votes, they needed to take the whole of First Division with them instead of a smaller "super league". By the beginning of the 1990s, the big clubs again considered breaking away, especially now that they had to fund the cost of stadium upgrade as proposed by the Taylor Report. In 1990, the managing director of London Weekend Television (LWT), Greg Dyke, met with the representatives of the "big five" football clubs in England (Manchester United, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, Everton and Arsenal) over a dinner. The meeting was to pave the way for a breakaway from The Football League. Dyke believed that it would be more lucrative for LWT if only the larger clubs in the country were featured on national television and wanted to establish whether the clubs would be interested in a larger share of television rights money. The five clubs agreed with the suggestion and decided to press ahead with it; however, the league would have no credibility without the backing of The Football Association, and so David Dein of Arsenal held talks to see whether the FA were receptive to the idea. The FA did not enjoy an amicable relationship with the Football League at the time and considered it as a way to weaken the Football League's position. The FA released a report in June 1991, Blueprint for the Future of Football, that supported the plan for Premier League with FA the ultimate authority that would oversee the breakaway league. Foundation (1990s) At the close of the 1990–1991 season, a proposal was tabled for the establishment of a new league that would bring more money into the game overall. The Founder Members Agreement, signed on 17 July 1991 by the game's top-flight clubs, established the basic principles for setting up the FA Premier League. The newly formed top division was to have commercial independence from The Football Association and the Football League, giving the FA Premier League licence to negotiate its own broadcast and sponsorship agreements. The argument given at the time was that the extra income would allow English clubs to compete with teams across Europe. Although Dyke played a significant role in the creation of the Premier League, he and ITV (of which LWT was part) lost out in the bidding for broadcast rights: BSkyB won with a bid of £304 million over five years, with the BBC awarded the highlights package broadcast on Match of the Day. The First Division clubs resigned en masse from the Football League in 1992, and on 27 May that year the FA Premier League was formed as a limited company, working out of an office at the Football Association's then headquarters in Lancaster Gate. The 22 inaugural members of the new Premier League were: This meant a break-up of the 104-year-old Football League that had operated until then with four divisions; the Premier League would operate with a single division and the Football League with three. There was no change in competition format; the same number of teams competed in the top flight, and promotion and relegation between the Premier League and the new First Division remained the same as the old First and Second Divisions with three teams relegated from the league and three promoted. The league held its first season in 1992–93. It was composed of 22 clubs for that season (reduced to 20 in the 1995–96 season). The first Premier League goal was scored by Brian Deane of Sheffield United in a 2–1 win against Manchester United. Luton Town, Notts County, and West Ham United were the three teams relegated from the old First Division at the end of the 1991–92 season, and did not take part in the inaugural Premier League season. "Top Four" dominance (2000s) The 2000s saw the dominance of the so-called "Top Four" clubs. Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United finished at the top of the table for bulk of the decade, thereby guaranteeing qualification for the UEFA Champions League. Only four other clubs managed to qualify for the competition during this period: Leeds United (2000-01), Newcastle United (2001–02 and 2002–03), Everton (2004–05) and Tottenham Hotspur (2009–10) – each occupying the final Champions League spot, with the exception of Newcastle in the 2002–03 season, who finished third. Following the 2003–04 season, Arsenal acquired the nickname "The Invincibles" as it became the first club to complete a Premier League campaign without losing a single game, the only time this has ever happened in the Premier League. In May 2008, Kevin Keegan stated that "Top Four" dominance threatened the division: "This league is in danger of becoming one of the most boring but great leagues in the world." Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore said in defence: "There are a lot of different tussles that go on in the Premier League depending on whether you're at the top, in the middle or at the bottom that make it interesting." Between 2005 and 2012 there was a Premier League representative in seven of the eight Champions League finals, with only "Top Four" clubs reaching that stage. Liverpool (2005), Manchester United (2008) and Chelsea (2012) won the competition during this period, with Arsenal (2006), Liverpool (2007), Chelsea (2008) and Manchester United (2009 and 2011) all losing Champions League finals. Leeds United were the only non-"Top Four" side to reach the semi-finals of the Champions League, in the 2000–01 season. There were three Premier League teams in the Champions League semi-finals in 2006-07, 2007-08, and 2008-09, a feat only ever achieved five times (along with Serie A in 2002-03 and La Liga in 1999-2000). Additionally, between the 1999–2000 and 2009–10 seasons, four Premier League sides reached UEFA Cup or Europa League finals, with only Liverpool managing to win the competition in 2001. Arsenal (2000), Middlesbrough (2006) and Fulham (2010) all lost their finals. Although the group's dominance was reduced to a degree after this period with the emergence of Manchester City and Tottenham, in terms of all time Premier League points won they remain clear by some margin. As of the end of the 2018–19 season – the 27th season of the Premier League – Liverpool, in fourth place in the all-time points table, were over 250 points ahead of the next team, Tottenham Hotspur. They are also the only teams to maintain a winning average of over 50% throughout their entire Premier League tenures. Emergence of the "Big Six" (2010s) The years following 2009 marked a shift in the structure of the "Top Four" with Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City both breaking into the top four places on a regular basis, turning the "Top Four" into the "Big Six". In the 2009–10 season, Tottenham finished fourth and became the first team to break the top four since Everton five years prior. Criticism of the gap between an elite group of "super clubs" and the majority of the Premier League has continued, nevertheless, due to their increasing ability to spend more than the other Premier League clubs. Manchester City won the title in the 2011–12 season, becoming the first club outside the "Big Four" to win since Blackburn Rovers in the 1994–95 season. That season also saw two of the "Big Four" (Chelsea and Liverpool) finish outside the top four places for the first time since that season. With only four UEFA Champions League qualifying places available in the league, greater competition for qualification now exists, albeit from a narrow base of six clubs. In the five seasons following the 2011–12 campaign, Manchester United and Liverpool both found themselves outside of the top four three times, while Chelsea finished 10th in the 2015–16 season. Arsenal finished 5th in 2016–17, ending their record run of 20 consecutive top-four finishes. In the 2015–16 season, the top four was breached by a non-Big Six side for the first time since Everton in 2005. Leicester City were the surprise winners of the league, qualifying for the Champions League as a result. Off the pitch, the "Big Six" wield significant financial power and influence, with these clubs arguing that they should be entitled to a greater share of revenue due to the greater stature of their clubs globally and the attractive football they aim to play. Objectors argue that the egalitarian revenue structure in the Premier League helps to maintain a competitive league which is vital for its future success. The 2016–17 Deloitte Football Money League report showed the financial disparity between the "Big Six" and the rest of the division. All of the "Big Six" had revenues greater than €350 million, with Manchester United having the largest revenue in the league at €676.3 million. Leicester City was the closest club to the "Big Six" in terms of revenue, recording a figure of €271.1 million for that season – helped by participation in the Champions League. The eighth-largest revenue generator, West Ham – who did not play in European competition – had revenues of €213.3 million, nearly half of those of the club with the fifth-largest revenue, Liverpool (€424.2 million). A substantial part of the clubs' revenue by then came from television broadcast deals, with the biggest clubs each taking from around £150 million to nearly £200 million in the 2016–17 season from such deals. In Deloitte's 2019 report, all the "Big Six" were in the top ten of the world's richest clubs. 2020s From the 2019–20 season, video assistant referees were used in the league. Project Big Picture was announced in October 2020 that described a plan to reunite the top Premier League clubs with the English Football League, proposed by leading Premier League clubs Manchester United and Liverpool. It has been criticised by the Premier League leadership and the UK government's Department of Culture, Media and Sport. On 26 April 2021, play was stopped during a match between Leicester City and Crystal Palace to allow players Wesley Fofana and Cheikhou Kouyaté to break Ramadan fast. It is believed to be the first time in Premier League history that a game was paused to allow Muslim players to eat and drink after the sun had set in accordance with the rules of the faith. Corporate structure The Football Association Premier League Ltd (FAPL) is operated as a corporation and is owned by the 20 member clubs. Each club is a shareholder, with one vote each on issues such as rule changes and contracts. The clubs elect a chairman, chief executive, and board of directors to oversee the daily operations of the league. The Football Association is not directly involved in the day-to-day operations of the Premier League, but has veto power as a special shareholder during the election of the chairman and chief executive and when new rules are adopted by the league. The current chief executive is Richard Masters, who was appointed in December 2019, whilst the chairman is Gary Hoffman, appointed in April 2020. Both men succeeded Richard Scudamore, who held the combined position of "Executive Chairman" from November 1999 until his retirement in November 2019. The Premier League sends representatives to UEFA's European Club Association, the number of clubs and the clubs themselves chosen according to UEFA coefficients. For the 2012–13 season the Premier League has 10 representatives in the Association: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Everton, Fulham, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur. The European Club Association is responsible for electing three members to UEFA's Club Competitions Committee, which is involved in the operations of UEFA competitions such as the Champions League and UEFA Europa League. Criticism of governance The Premier League has faced criticism of its governance due to an alleged lack of transparency and accountability. Following the Premier League's blocking of the attempted takeover of Newcastle United by a PIF-backed consortium through the league's Owners' and Directors' test, many MPs, Newcastle United fans and related parties to the deal denounced the Premier League for its perceived lack of transparency and accountability throughout the process. On 6 July 2021, consortium member Amanda Staveley of PCP Capital Partners said that “fans surely deserve absolute transparency from the regulators across all their processes - to best ensure that they act responsibly. They (the Premier League) are performing a function like that of a government regulator - but without the same systems for accountability.” On 22 July 2021, Tracey Crouch MP – chair of the fan-led review into the UK's football governance - announced in the review's interim findings that the Premier League had “lost the trust and confidence" of fans. The review also recommended that a new independent regulator be created to oversee matters such as club takeovers. Premier League chief executive Richard Masters had earlier spoken out against the implementation of an independent regulator, saying on 17 May 2021 that "I don’t think that the independent regulator is the answer to the question. I would defend the Premier League’s role as regulator of its clubs over the past 30 years." Competition format Competition There are 20 clubs in the Premier League. During the course of a season (from August to May) each club plays the others twice (a double round-robin system), once at their home stadium and once at that of their opponents', for 38 games. Teams receive three points for a win and one point for a draw. No points are awarded for a loss. Teams are ranked by total points, then goal difference, and then goals scored. If still equal, teams are deemed to occupy the same position. If there is a tie for the championship, for relegation, or for qualification to other competitions, a play-off match at a neutral venue decides rank. Promotion and relegation A system of promotion and relegation exists between the Premier League and the EFL Championship. The three lowest placed teams in the Premier League are relegated to the Championship, and the top two teams from the Championship promoted to the Premier League, with an additional team promoted after a series of play-offs involving the third, fourth, fifth and sixth placed clubs. The number of clubs was reduced from 22 to 20 in 1995, when four teams were relegated from the league and only two teams promoted. The top flight had only been expanded to 22 teams at the start of the 1991–92 season – the year prior to the formation of the Premier League. On 8 June 2006, FIFA requested that all major European leagues, including Italy's Serie A and Spain's La Liga, be reduced to 18 teams by the start of the 2007–08 season. The Premier League responded by announcing their intention to resist such a reduction. Ultimately, the 2007–08 season kicked off again with 20 teams. Clubs 50 clubs have played in the Premier League from its inception in 1992, up to and including the 2021–22 season. Champions 2021–22 season Twenty clubs compete in the 2021–22 Premier League, with three promoted from the Championship: Fulham, West Bromwich Albion and Sheffield United were relegated to the EFL Championship for the 2021–22 season, while Norwich City, Watford and Brentford, as winners, runners-up and play-off final winners respectively, were promoted from the 2020–21 season. Brighton & Hove Albion are the only club to have remained in the Premier League since their first promotion, having been in 5 seasons (out of 30). Non-English clubs In 2011, after Swansea City gained promotion, a Welsh club participated in the Premier League for the first time. The first Premier League match to be played outside England was Swansea City's home match at the Liberty Stadium against Wigan Athletic on 20 August 2011. The number of Welsh clubs in the Premier League increased to two in 2013–14, as Cardiff City gained promotion, but they were relegated after their maiden season. Cardiff were promoted again in 2017–18 but the number of Welsh clubs remained the same for the 2018–19 Premier League season, for Swansea City were relegated from the Premier League in 2017–18. Following Cardiff City's relegation after the 2018–19 season, there are currently no Welsh clubs participating in the Premier League. Because they are members of the Football Association of Wales (FAW), the question of whether clubs like Swansea should represent England or Wales in European competitions has caused long-running discussions in UEFA. Swansea took one of England's three available places in the Europa League in 2013–14 by winning the League Cup in 2012–13. The right of Welsh clubs to take up such English places was in doubt until UEFA clarified the matter in March 2012, allowing them to participate. Participation in the Premier League by some Scottish or Irish clubs has sometimes been discussed, but without result. The idea came closest to reality in 1998, when Wimbledon received Premier League approval to relocate to Dublin, Ireland, but the move was blocked by the Football Association of Ireland. Additionally, the media occasionally discusses the idea that Scotland's two biggest teams, Celtic and Rangers, should or will take part in the Premier League, but nothing has come of these discussions. International competitions Qualification for European competitions Qualification criteria for 2020–21 The top four teams in the Premier League qualify for the subsequent season's UEFA Champions League group stage. The winners of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League may earn an additional qualification for the subsequent season's UEFA Champions League group stage if they are not in the top four. If this means six Premier League teams qualify, then the fourth-placed team in the Premier League instead plays in the UEFA Europa League, for any single nation is limited to a maximum of five teams in UCL. The fifth-placed team in the Premier League, as well as the winner of the FA Cup, qualifies for the subsequent season's UEFA Europa League group stage, but if the winner also finished in the top five places in the Premier League or has won one of UEFA's major tournaments, then this place reverts to the team that finished sixth. The winner of the EFL Cup qualifies for the subsequent season's UEFA Europa League second qualifying round, but if the winner already qualified for a UEFA competition via their performance in another competition, then this place reverts to the team that finished sixth in the Premier League, or seventh if the FA Cup result already caused the sixth-placed team to qualify. The number of places allocated to English clubs in UEFA competitions is dependent upon the position a country holds in the UEFA country coefficients, which are calculated based upon the performance of teams in UEFA competitions in the previous five years. Currently the ranking of England (and de facto the Premier League) is second, behind Spain. Previous seasons An exception to the usual European qualification system happened in 2005, after Liverpool won the Champions League the year before, but did not finish in a Champions League qualification place in the Premier League that season. UEFA gave special dispensation for Liverpool to enter the Champions League, giving England five qualifiers. UEFA subsequently ruled that the defending champions qualify for the competition the following year regardless of their domestic league placing. However, for those leagues with four entrants in the Champions League, this meant that if the Champions League winner finished outside the top four in its domestic league, it would qualify at the expense of the fourth-placed team in the league. At that time, no association could have more than four entrants in the Champions League. This occurred in 2012, when Chelsea – who had won the Champions League that summer, but finished sixth in the league – qualified for the Champions League in place of Tottenham Hotspur, who went into the Europa League. From 2015–16, the Europa League winners qualify for the Champions League, increasing the maximum number of participants per country to five. This took effect in England in 2016–17, when Manchester United finished sixth in the Premier League and won the Europa League, giving England five Champions League entrants for 2017–18. In these instances, any Europa League berth vacated will not be handed down to the next-best Premier League finisher outside a qualifying place and so the association's Europa League entrants for the following season will be reduced. If it happens that both Champions League and Europa League winners are of the same association and both finish outside the top four, then the fourth-placed team will be transferred to the Europa League. Performance in international competition Between the 1992–93 and the 2020–21 seasons, Premier League clubs won the UEFA Champions League six times (and had seven runners-up), behind Spain's La Liga with eleven wins, and ahead of, among others, Italy's Serie A with five wins and Germany's Bundesliga with four wins. The FIFA Club World Cup (originally called the FIFA Club World Championship) has been won twice by a Premier League club (Manchester United in 2008 and Liverpool in 2019), with two runners-up (Liverpool in 2005 and Chelsea in 2012), behind Spain's La Liga with seven wins, Brazil's Brasileirão with four wins, and tied with Italy's Serie A with two wins. Sponsorship The league changed its name from the FA Premier League to simply the Premier League in 2007. From 1993 to 2016, the Premier League had title sponsorship rights sold to two companies, which were Carling brewery and Barclays Bank PLC; Barclays was the most recent title sponsor, having sponsored the Premier League from 2001 until 2016 (until 2004, the title sponsorship was held through its Barclaycard brand before shifting to its main banking brand in 2004). Barclays' deal with the Premier League expired at the end of the 2015–16 season. The FA announced on 4 June 2015 that it would not pursue any further title sponsorship deals for the Premier League, arguing that they wanted to build a "clean" brand for the competition more in line with those of major U.S. sports leagues. As well as sponsorship for the league itself, the Premier League has a number of official partners and suppliers. The official ball supplier for the league is Nike who have had the contract since the 2000–01 season when they took over from Mitre. Under its Merlin brand, Topps held the licence to produce collectables for the Premier League between 1994 and 2019 including stickers (for their sticker album) and trading cards. Launched in the 2007–08 season, Topps’ Match Attax, the official Premier League trading card game, is the best selling boys collectable in the UK, and is also the biggest selling sports trading card game in the world. In October 2018, Panini were awarded the licence to produce collectables from the 2019–20 season. The chocolate company Cadbury has been the official snack partner of the Premier League since 2017, and sponsors the Golden Boot, Golden Glove, and Playmaker of the Season awards. Finances The Premier League has the highest revenue of any association football league in the world, with total club revenues of €2.48 billion in 2009–10. In 2013–14, due to improved television revenues and cost controls, the Premier League clubs collectively made a net profit in excess of £78 million, exceeding all other football leagues. In 2010 the Premier League was awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise in the International Trade category for its outstanding contribution to international trade and the value it brings to English football and the United Kingdom's broadcasting industry. The Premier League includes some of the richest football clubs in the world. Deloitte's "Football Money League" listed seven Premier League clubs in the top 20 for the 2009–10 season, and all 20 clubs were in the top 40 globally by the end of the 2013–14 season, largely as a result of increased broadcasting revenue. In 2019, the league generated around £3.1 billion per year in domestic and international television rights. Premier League clubs agreed in principle in December 2012, to radical new cost controls. The two proposals consist of a break-even rule and a cap on the amount clubs can increase their wage bill by each season. With the new television deals on the horizon, momentum has been growing to find ways of preventing the majority of the cash going straight to players and agents. Central payments for the 2016–17 season amounted to £2,398,515,773 across the 20 clubs, with each team receiving a flat participation fee of £35,301,989 and additional payments for TV broadcasts (£1,016,690 for general UK rights to match highlights, £1,136,083 for each live UK broadcast of their games and £39,090,596 for all overseas rights), commercial rights (a flat fee of £4,759,404) and a notional measure of "merit" which was based upon final league position. The merit component was a nominal sum of £1,941,609 multiplied by each finishing place, counted from the foot of the table (e.g., Burnley finished 16th in May 2017, five places counting upwards, and received 5 × £1,941,609 = £9,708,045 merit payment). Relegation Since its split with the Football League, established clubs in the Premier League have a funding disparity from counterparts in lower leagues. Revenue from television rights between the leagues has played a part in this. Promoted teams have found it difficult to avoid relegation in their first Premier League season. One Premier League newcomer has been relegated back to the Football League every season, save the 2001–02, 2011–12 and 2017–18 seasons. In the 1997–98 season, all three promoted clubs were relegated by the season's end. The Premier League distributes a portion of its television revenue as "parachute payments" to relegated clubs for adjustment to television revenue loss. The average Premier League team receives £41 million while the average Championship club receives £2 million. Starting with the 2013–14 season, these payments are in excess of £60 million over four seasons. Critics maintain that the payments widen the gap between teams that have reached the Premier League and those that have not, leading to the common occurrence of teams "bouncing back" soon after their relegation. Clubs which have failed to win immediate promotion back to the Premier League have seen financial problems, in some cases administration or liquidation. Further relegations down the footballing ladder have occurred for multiple clubs unable to cope with the gap. Media coverage United Kingdom and Ireland Television has played a major role in the history of the Premier League. The League's decision to assign broadcasting rights to BSkyB in 1992 was at the time a radical decision, but one that has paid off. At the time pay television was an almost untested proposition in the UK market, as was charging fans to watch live televised football. However, a combination of Sky's strategy, the quality of Premier League football and the public's appetite for the game has seen the value of the Premier League's TV rights soar. The Premier League sells its television rights on a collective basis. This is in contrast to some other European leagues, including La Liga, in which each club sells its rights individually, leading to a much higher share of the total income going to the top few clubs. The money is divided into three parts: half is divided equally between the clubs; one quarter is awarded on a merit basis based on final league position, the top club getting twenty times as much as the bottom club, and equal steps all the way down the table; the final quarter is paid out as facilities fees for games that are shown on television, with the top clubs generally receiving the largest shares of this. The income from overseas rights is divided equally between the twenty clubs. Not all Premier League matches are televised in the United Kingdom, as the league upholds the long-standing prohibition on telecasts of any association football match (domestic or otherwise) that kicks off between 2:45 p.m. and 5:15 p.m. on Saturday matchdays. The first Sky television rights agreement was worth £304 million over five seasons. The next contract, negotiated to start from the 1997–98 season, rose to £670 million over four seasons. The third contract was a £1.024 billion deal with BSkyB for the three seasons from 2001 to 2002 to 2003–04. The league brought in £320 million from the sale of its international rights for the three-year period from 2004 to 2005 to 2006–07. It sold the rights itself on a territory-by-territory basis. Sky's monopoly was broken from August 2006 when Setanta Sports was awarded rights to show two out of the six packages of matches available. This occurred following an insistence by the European Commission that exclusive rights should not be sold to one television company. Sky and Setanta paid £1.7 billion, a two-thirds increase which took many commentators by surprise as it had been widely assumed that the value of the rights had levelled off following many years of rapid growth. Setanta also hold rights to a live 3 pm match solely for Irish viewers. The BBC has retained the rights to show highlights for the same three seasons (on Match of the Day) for £171.6 million, a 63 per cent increase on the £105 million it paid for the previous three-year period. Sky and BT have agreed to jointly pay £84.3 million for delayed television rights to 242 games (that is the right to broadcast them in full on television and over the internet) in most cases for a period of 50 hours after 10 pm on matchday. Overseas television rights fetched £625 million, nearly double the previous contract. The total raised from these deals is more than £2.7 billion, giving Premier League clubs an average media income from league games of around £40 million-a-year from 2007 to 2010. The TV rights agreement between the Premier League and Sky has faced accusations of being a cartel, and a number of court cases have arisen as a result. An investigation by the Office of Fair Trading in 2002 found BSkyB to be dominant within the pay TV sports market, but concluded that there were insufficient grounds for the claim that BSkyB had abused its dominant position. In July 1999 the Premier League's method of selling rights collectively for all member clubs was investigated by the UK Restrictive Practices Court, which concluded that the agreement was not contrary to the public interest. The BBC's highlights package on Saturday and Sunday nights, as well as other evenings when fixtures justify, will run until 2016. Television rights alone for the period 2010 to 2013 have been purchased for £1.782 billion. On 22 June 2009, due to troubles encountered by Setanta Sports after it failed to meet a final deadline over a £30 million payment to the Premier League, ESPN was awarded two packages of UK rights containing 46 matches that were available for the 2009–10 season as well as a package of 23 matches per season from 2010 to 2011 to 2012–13. On 13 June 2012, the Premier League announced that BT had been awarded 38 games a season for the 2013–14, 2014–15 and 2015–16 seasons at £246 million-a-year. The remaining 116 games were retained by Sky, which paid £760 million-a-year. The total domestic rights have raised £3.018 billion, an increase of 70.2% over the 2010–11 to 2012–13 rights. The value of the licensing deal rose by another 70.2% in 2015, when Sky and BT paid £5.136 billion to renew their contracts with the Premier League for another three years up to the 2018–19 season. A new rights cycle began in the 2019–20 season, with the domestic package increasing to 200 matches overall; in February 2018, BT were awarded the package of 32 lunchtime fixtures on Saturdays, while Sky was awarded four of the seven packages, covering the majority of weekend fixtures (including eight new prime time fixtures on Saturdays), as well as Monday and Friday matches. Two remaining packages of 20 fixtures each were to be sold at a later date, including three rounds of mid-week fixtures and a bank holiday round. As Sky already owned the maximum number of matches it could hold without breaching a 148-match cap, it was speculated that at least one of the new packages could go to a new entrant, such as a streaming service. The five packages sold to BT and Sky were valued at £4.464 billion. In June 2018, it was announced that Amazon Prime Video and BT had acquired the remaining two packages; Amazon acquired rights to 20 matches per-season, covering a mid-week round in December, and all Boxing Day fixtures. The Amazon telecasts are produced in association with Sunset + Vine and BT Sport. With the resumption of play in the 2019–20 Premier League due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, the Premier League announced that all remaining matches would be carried on British television, split primarily across Sky, BT, and Amazon. A large number of these matches were also scheduled for free-to-air broadcasts, with Sky airing 25 on Pick, Amazon streaming its four matches on Twitch, and the BBC – for the first time in league history – carrying four live matches. As matches would continue to be played without spectators upon the start of the 2020–21 Premier League, its clubs voted on 8 September to continue broadcasting all matches through at least September (with the BBC and Amazon each holding one additional match), and "appropriate arrangements" being made for October. It was later announced that matches not selected for broadcast would be carried on pay-per-view via BT Sport Box Office and Sky Box Office at a cost of £14.95 per-match. The PPV scheme was poorly-received; the Football Supporters' Federation felt that the price was too high, and there were concerns that it could encourage piracy. There were calls from supporters to boycott the pay-per-views, and make donations to support charitable causes instead (with Newcastle's "Charity Not PPV" campaign raising £20,000 for a local food bank, and Arsenal fans raising £34,000 for Islington Giving). On 13 November, amid the reintroduction of measures across the UK, the Premier League officially announced that the non-televised matches would be assigned to its main broadcast partners, and again including additional matches for the BBC and Amazon. UK highlights In August 2016, it was announced the BBC would be creating a new magazine-style show for the Premier League entitled The Premier League Show. Worldwide The Premier League is the most-watched football league in the world, broadcast in 212 territories to 643 million homes and a potential TV audience of 4.7 billion people,. The Premier League's production arm, Premier League Productions, is operated by IMG Productions and produces all content for its international television partners. The Premier League is the most widely distributed sports programme in Asia. In Australia, Optus telecommunications holds exclusive rights to the Premier League, providing live broadcasts and online access (Fox Sports formerly held rights). In India, the matches are broadcast live on STAR Sports. In China, the broadcast rights were awarded to Super Sports in a six-year agreement that began in the 2013–14 season. As of the 2019–20 season, Canadian broadcast rights to the Premier League are owned by DAZN, after having been jointly owned by Sportsnet and TSN from 2013 to 2014. The Premier League is broadcast in the United States by NBC Sports, a division of Sky parent Comcast. Acquiring the rights to the Premier League in 2013 (replacing Fox Soccer and ESPN), NBC Sports has been widely praised for its coverage. NBC Sports reached a six-year extension with the Premier League in 2015 to broadcast the league until the end of the 2021–22 season in a deal valued at $1 billion (£640 million). In November 2021, NBC reached another six-year extension through 2028 in a deal valued at $2.76 billion (£2 billion). The Premier League is broadcast by SuperSport across sub-Saharan Africa. Broadcasters to continental Europe until 2025 include Canal+ for France, Sky Sport for Germany and Austria, Match TV for Russia, Sky Sport for Italy, Eleven Sports for Portugal, DAZN for Spain, beIN Sports to Turkey, and NENT to Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark and Norway), Poland and the Netherlands. In South America, ESPN covers much of the continent, with coverage in Brazil shared between ESPN Brasil and Fox Sports. SKY México broadcasts the league in Central America. Stadiums As of the 2017–18 season, Premier League football has been played in 58 stadiums since the formation of the division. The Hillsborough disaster in 1989 and the subsequent Taylor Report saw a recommendation that standing terraces should be abolished. As a result, all stadiums in the Premier League are all-seater. Since the formation of the Premier League, football grounds in England have seen constant improvements to capacity and facilities, with some clubs moving to new-build stadiums. Nine stadiums that have seen Premier League football have now been demolished. The stadiums for the 2017–18 season show a large disparity in capacity. For example, Wembley Stadium, the temporary home of Tottenham Hotspur, has a capacity of 90,000 while Dean Court, the home of AFC Bournemouth, has a capacity of 11,360. The combined total capacity of the Premier League in the 2017–18 season is 806,033 with an average capacity of 40,302. Stadium attendances are a significant source of regular income for Premier League clubs. For the 2016–17 season, average attendances across the league clubs were 35,838 for Premier League matches with an aggregate attendance of 13,618,596. This represents an increase of 14,712 from the average attendance of 21,126 recorded in the Premier League's first season (1992–93). However, during the 1992–93 season, the capacities of most stadiums were reduced as clubs replaced terraces with seats in order to meet the Taylor Report's 1994–95 deadline for all-seater stadiums. The Premier League's record average attendance of 36,144 was set during the 2007–08 season. This record was then beaten in the 2013–14 season recording an average attendance of 36,695 with an attendance of just under 14 million, the highest average in England's top flight since 1950. Managers Managers in the Premier League are involved in the day-to-day running of the team, including the training, team selection and player acquisition. Their influence varies from club-to-club and is related to the ownership of the club and the relationship of the manager with fans. Managers are required to have a UEFA Pro Licence which is the final coaching qualification available, and follows the completion of the UEFA 'B' and 'A' Licences. The UEFA Pro Licence is required by every person who wishes to manage a club in the Premier League on a permanent basis (i.e., more than 12 weeks, the amount of time an unqualified caretaker manager is allowed to take control). Caretaker appointments are managers that fill the gap between a managerial departure and a new appointment. Several caretaker managers have gone on to secure a permanent managerial post after performing well as a caretaker, including Paul Hart at Portsmouth and David Pleat at Tottenham Hotspur. Arsène Wenger is the longest-serving manager, having been in charge of Arsenal in the Premier League from 1996 to his departure at the conclusion of the 2017–18 season, and holds the record for most matches managed in the Premier League with 828, all with Arsenal. He broke the record set by Alex Ferguson, who had managed 810 matches with Manchester United from the Premier League's inception to his retirement at the end of the 2012–13 season. Ferguson was in charge of Manchester United from November 1986 until his retirement at the end of the 2012–13 season, meaning he was manager for the last five years of the old Football League First Division and all of the first 21 seasons of the Premier League. There have been several studies into the reasoning behind, and effects of, managerial sackings. Most famously, Professor Sue Bridgewater of the University of Liverpool and Dr. Bas ter Weel of the University of Amsterdam, performed two separate studies which helped to explain the statistics behind managerial sackings. Bridgewater's study found clubs generally sack their managers upon dropping below an average of one point per match. Players Appearances Transfer regulations and foreign players Player transfers may only take place within transfer windows set by the Football Association. The two transfer windows run from the last day of the season to 31 August and from 31 December to 31 January. Player registrations cannot be exchanged outside these windows except under specific licence from the FA, usually on an emergency basis. As of the 2010–11 season, the Premier League introduced new rules mandating that each club must register a maximum 25-man squad of players aged over 21, with the squad list only allowed to be changed in transfer windows or in exceptional circumstances. This was to enable the "home grown" rule to be enacted, whereby the Premier League would also from 2010 require at least eight members of the named 25-man squad to be "home-grown players". At the inception of the Premier League in 1992–93, just 11 players named in the starting line-ups for the first round of matches hailed from outside of the United Kingdom or Ireland. By 2000–01, the number of foreign players participating in the Premier League was 36% of the total. In the 2004–05 season, the figure had increased to 45%. On 26 December 1999, Chelsea became the first Premier League side to field an entirely foreign starting line-up, and on 14 February 2005, Arsenal were the first to name a completely foreign 16-man squad for a match. By 2009, under 40% of the players in the Premier League were English. By February 2020, 117 different nationalities had played in the Premier League, and 101 nationalities had scored in the competition. In 1999, in response to concerns that clubs were increasingly passing over young English players in favour of foreign players, the Home Office tightened its rules for granting work permits to players from countries outside of the European Union. A non-EU player applying for the permit must have played for his country in at least 75 per cent of its competitive 'A' team matches for which he was available for selection during the previous two years, and his country must have averaged at least 70th place in the official FIFA world rankings over the previous two years. If a player does not meet those criteria, the club wishing to sign him may appeal. Following the implementation of Brexit in January 2021, new regulations were introduced which require all foreign players to obtain a Governing Body Endorsement (GBE) in order to play football in the United Kingdom, regardless of EU status. Top scorers Italics denotes players still playing professional football,Bold denotes players still playing in the Premier League. The Premier League Golden Boot is awarded each season to the top scorer in the division. Former Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United striker Alan Shearer holds the record for most Premier League goals with 260. Twenty-eight players have reached the 100-goal mark. Since the first Premier League season in 1992–93, 23 players from 11 clubs have won or shared the top scorer title. Thierry Henry won his fourth overall scoring title by scoring 27 goals in the 2005–06 season. Andrew Cole and Alan Shearer hold the record for most goals in a season (34) – for Newcastle and Blackburn respectively. Ryan Giggs of Manchester United holds the record for scoring goals in consecutive seasons, having scored in the first 21 seasons of the league. Giggs also holds the record for the most Premier League assists, with 162. Wages There is no team or individual salary cap in the Premier League. As a result of the increasingly lucrative television deals, player wages rose sharply following the formation of the Premier League when the average player wage was £75,000 per year. In the 2018–19 season the average annual salary stood at £2.99 million. The total salary bill for the 20 Premier League clubs in the 2018–19 season was £1.62bn; this compares to £1.05bn in La Liga, £0.83bn in Serie A, £0.72bn in Bundesliga, and £0.54bn in Ligue 1. The club with the highest average wages is Manchester United at £6.5m. This is smaller than the club with the highest wage bill in Spain (Barcelona £10.5m), and Italy (Juventus £6.7m), but higher than in Germany (Bayern Munich £6.4m), and France (Paris Saint-Germain 6.1m). For the 2018–19 season the ratio of the wages of the highest-paid team to lowest-paid in the Premier League is 6.82 to 1. This is much lower than in La Liga (19.1 to 1), Serie A (16 to 1), Bundesliga (20.5 to 1), and Ligue 1 (26.6 to 1). Because of the lower differential between team wage bills in the Premier League, it is often regarded as being more competitive than other top European leagues. Player transfer fees The record transfer fee for a Premier League player has risen steadily over the lifetime of the competition. Prior to the start of the first Premier League season Alan Shearer became the first British player to command a transfer fee of more than £3 million. The record has increased steadily and Philippe Coutinho is now the most expensive transfer involving a Premier League club at £106 million. The highest transfer fee paid by a Premier League club is £100 million for Jack Grealish. Awards Trophy The Premier League maintains two trophies – the genuine trophy (held by the reigning champions) and a spare replica. Two trophies are held for the purpose of making the award within minutes of the title being secured, in the event that on the final day of the season two clubs are still within reach of winning the League. In the rare event that more than two clubs are vying for the title on the final day of the season, a replica won by a previous club is used. The current Premier League trophy was created by Royal Jewellers Asprey of London. It consists of a trophy with a golden crown and a malachite plinth base. The plinth weighs and the trophy weighs . The trophy and plinth are tall, wide and deep. Its main body is solid sterling silver and silver gilt, while its plinth is made of malachite, a semi-precious stone. The plinth has a silver band around its circumference, upon which the names of the title-winning clubs are listed. The green of the malachite represents the green field of play. The design of the trophy is based on the heraldry of Three Lions that is associated with English football. Two of the lions are found above the handles on either side of the trophy – the third is symbolised by the captain of the title-winning team as he raises the trophy, and its gold crown, above his head at the end of the season. The ribbons that drape the handles are presented in the team colours of the league champions that year. In 2004, a special gold version of the trophy was commissioned to commemorate Arsenal winning the title without a single defeat. Player and manager awards In addition to the winner's trophy and the individual winner's medals awarded to players who win the title, the Premier League also issues other awards throughout the season. A man-of-the-match award is awarded to the player who has the greatest impact in an individual match. Monthly awards are also given for the Manager of the Month, Player of the Month and Goal of the Month. These are also issued annually for Manager of the Season, Player of the Season. and Goal of the Season. The Young Player of the Season award is given to the most outstanding U-23 player starting from the 2019–20 season. The Golden Boot award is given to the top goalscorer of every season, the Playmaker of the Season award is given to the player who makes the most assists of every season, and the Golden Glove award is given to the goalkeeper with the most clean sheets at the end of the season. From the 2017–18 season, players also receive a milestone award for 100 appearances and every century there after and also players who score 50 goals and multiples thereof. Each player to reach these milestones is to receive a presentation box from the Premier League containing a special medallion and a plaque commemorating their achievement. 20 Seasons Awards In 2012, the Premier League celebrated its second decade by holding the 20 Seasons Awards: Fantasy Team of the 20 Seasons Panel Choice: Peter Schmeichel, Gary Neville, Tony Adams, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, Cristiano Ronaldo, Roy Keane, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Thierry Henry, Alan Shearer Public Vote: Peter Schmeichel, Gary Neville, Tony Adams, Nemanja Vidić, Ashley Cole, Cristiano Ronaldo, Steven Gerrard, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Thierry Henry, Alan Shearer Best Manager: Sir Alex Ferguson Best Player: Ryan Giggs Most Appearances: Gareth Barry (652) Top Goalscorer: Alan Shearer (260) Most Clean Sheets: David James (173) 500 Club: Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, Gareth Barry, Ryan Giggs, David James, Gary Speed, Frank Lampard, Emile Heskey and Sol Campbell Best Goal: Wayne Rooney, 12 February 2011, Manchester United vs Manchester City Best Save: Craig Gordon, 18 December 2010, Sunderland vs Bolton Wanderers Best Team: Arsenal 2003–04 See also List of English football champions List of English Football League managers Football records and statistics in England List of professional sports teams in the United Kingdom References Bibliography External links 1 1992 establishments in England Professional sports leagues in the United Kingdom Sports leagues established in 1992 England

Felidae () is a family of mammals in the order Carnivora, colloquially referred to as cats, and constitutes a clade. A member of this family is also called a felid (). The term "cat" refers both to felids in general and specifically to the domestic cat (Felis catus). Felidae species exhibit the most diverse fur pattern of all terrestrial carnivores. Cats have retractile claws, slender muscular bodies and strong flexible forelimbs. Their teeth and facial muscles allow for a powerful bite. They are all obligate carnivores, and most are solitary predators ambushing or stalking their prey. Wild cats occur in Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas. Some wild cat species are adapted to forest habitats, some to arid environments, and a few also to wetlands and mountainous terrain. Their activity patterns range from nocturnal and crepuscular to diurnal, depending on their preferred prey species. Reginald Innes Pocock divided the extant Felidae into three subfamilies: the Pantherinae, the Felinae and the Acinonychinae, differing from each other by the ossification of the hyoid apparatus and by the cutaneous sheaths which protect their claws. This concept has been revised following developments in molecular biology and techniques for analysis of morphological data. Today, the living Felidae are divided in two subfamilies: the Pantherinae and Felinae, with the Acinonychinae subsumed into the latter. Pantherinae includes five Panthera and two Neofelis species, while Felinae includes the other 34 species in ten genera. The first cats emerged during the Oligocene about , with the appearance of Proailurus and Pseudaelurus. The latter species complex was ancestral to two main lines of felids: the cats in the extant subfamilies and a group of extinct cats of the subfamily Machairodontinae, which include the saber-toothed cats such as the Smilodon. The "false sabre-toothed cats", the Barbourofelidae and Nimravidae, are not true cats, but are closely related. Together with the Felidae, Viverridae, hyaenas and mongooses, they constitute the Feliformia. Characteristics All members of the cat family have the following characteristics in common: They are digitigrade, have five toes on their forefeet and four on their hind feet. Their curved claws are protractile and attached to the terminal bones of the toe with ligaments and tendons. The claws are guarded by cutaneous sheaths, except in the Acinonyx. The plantar pads of both fore and hind feet form compact three-lobed cushions. They actively protract the claws by contracting muscles in the toe, and they passively retract them. The dewclaws are expanded but do not protract. They have lithe and flexible bodies with muscular limbs. Their skull is foreshortened with a rounded profile and large orbits. They have 30 teeth with a dental formula of . The upper third premolar and lower molar are adapted as carnassial teeth, suited to tearing and cutting flesh. The canine teeth are large, reaching exceptional size in the extinct saber-toothed species. The lower carnassial is smaller than the upper carnassial and has a crown with two compressed blade-like pointed cusps. Their tongue is covered with horny papillae, which rasp meat from prey and aid in grooming. Their nose projects slightly beyond the lower jaw. Their eyes are relatively large, situated to provide binocular vision. Their night vision is especially good due to the presence of a tapetum lucidum, which reflects light back inside the eyeball, and gives felid eyes their distinctive shine. As a result, the eyes of felids are about six times more light-sensitive than those of humans, and many species are at least partially nocturnal. The retina of felids also contains a relatively high proportion of rod cells, adapted for distinguishing moving objects in conditions of dim light, which are complemented by the presence of cone cells for sensing colour during the day. They have well-developed and highly sensitive whiskers above the eyes, on the cheeks, on the muzzle, but not below the chin. Whiskers help to navigate in the dark and to capture and hold prey. Their external ears are large and especially sensitive to high-frequency sounds in the smaller cat species. This sensitivity allows them to locate small rodent prey. The penis is subconical, facing backward when not erect. The baculum is small or vestigial, and shorter than in the Canidae. Felids have a vomeronasal organ in the roof of the mouth, allowing them to "taste" the air. The use of this organ is associated with the Flehmen response. They cannot detect the sweetness of sugar, as they lack the sweet-taste receptor. They share a broadly similar set of vocalisations, but with some variation between species. In particular, the pitch of calls varies, with larger species producing deeper sounds; overall, the frequency of felid calls ranges between 50 and 10,000 hertz. The standard sounds made by all felids include meowing, spitting, hissing, snarling and growling. Meowing is the main contact sound, whereas the others signify an aggressive motivation. They can purr during both phases of respiration, though pantherine cats seem to purr only during oestrus and copulation, and as cubs when suckling. Purring is generally a low pitch sound of less than 2 kHz and mixed with other vocalization types during the expiratory phase. The ability to roar comes from an elongated and specially adapted larynx and hyoid apparatus. When air passes through the larynx on the way from the lungs, the cartilage walls of the larynx vibrate, producing sound. Only lions, leopards, tigers, and jaguars are truly able to roar, although the loudest mews of snow leopards have a similar, if less structured, sound. The colour, length and density of their fur is very diverse. Fur colour covers the gamut from white to black, and fur pattern from distinctive small spots, stripes to small blotches and rosettes. Most cat species are born with a spotted fur, except the jaguarundi (Herpailurus yagouaroundi), Asian golden cat (Catopuma temminckii) and caracal (Caracal caracal). The spotted fur of lion (Panthera leo) and cougar (Puma concolor) cubs change to a uniform fur during their ontogeny. Those living in cold environments have thick fur with long hair, like the snow leopard (Panthera uncia) and the Pallas's cat (Otocolobus manul). Those living in tropical and hot climate zones have short fur. Several species exhibit melanism with all-black individuals. In the great majority of cat species, the tail is between a third and a half of the body length, although with some exceptions, like the Lynx species and margay (Leopardus wiedii). Cat species vary greatly in body and skull sizes, and weights: The largest cat species is the tiger (Panthera tigris), with a head-to-body length of up to , a weight range of at least , and a skull length ranging from . Although the maximum skull length of a lion is slightly greater at , it is generally smaller in head-to-body length than the former. The smallest cat species are the rusty-spotted cat (Prionailurus rubiginosus) and the black-footed cat (Felis nigripes). The former is in length and weighs . The latter has a head-to-body length of and a maximum recorded weight of . Most cat species have a haploid number of 18 or 19. Central and South American cats have a haploid number of 18, possibly due to the combination of two smaller chromosomes into a larger one. Most cat species are also induced ovulators, although the margay appears to be a spontaneous ovulator. Evolution The family Felidae is part of the Feliformia, a suborder that diverged probably about into several families. The Felidae and the Asiatic linsangs are considered a sister group, which split about . The earliest cats probably appeared about . Proailurus is the oldest known cat that occurred after the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event about ; fossil remains were excavated in France and Mongolia's Hsanda Gol Formation. Fossil occurrences indicate that the Felidae arrived in North America around . This is about 20million years later than the Ursidae and the Nimravidae, and about 10 million years later than the Canidae. In the Early Miocene about , Pseudaelurus lived in Africa. Its fossil jaws were also excavated in geological formations of Europe's Vallesian, Asia's Middle Miocene and North America's late Hemingfordian to late Barstovian epochs. In the Early or Middle Miocene, the sabre-toothed Machairodontinae evolved in Africa and migrated northwards in the Late Miocene. With their large upper canines, they were adapted to prey on large-bodied megaherbivores. Miomachairodus is the oldest known member of this subfamily. Metailurus lived in Africa and Eurasia about . Several Paramachaerodus skeletons were found in Spain. Homotherium appeared in Africa, Eurasia and North America around , and Megantereon about . Smilodon lived in North and South America from about . This subfamily became extinct in the Late Pleistocene. Results of mitochondrial analysis indicate that the living Felidae species descended from a common ancestor, which originated in Asia in the Late Miocene epoch. They migrated to Africa, Europe and the Americas in the course of at least 10 migration waves during the past ~11 million years. Low sea levels, interglacial and glacial periods facilitated these migrations. Panthera blytheae is the oldest known pantherine cat dated to the late Messinian to early Zanclean ages about . A fossil skull was excavated in 2010 in Zanda County on the Tibetan Plateau. Panthera palaeosinensis from North China probably dates to the Late Miocene or Early Pliocene. The skull of the holotype is similar to that of a lion or leopard. Panthera zdanskyi dates to the Gelasian about . Several fossil skulls and jawbones were excavated in northwestern China. Panthera gombaszoegensis is the earliest known pantherine cat that lived in Europe about . Living felids fall into eight evolutionary lineages or species clades. Genotyping of nuclear DNA of all 41 felid species revealed that hybridization between species occurred in the course of evolution within the majority of the eight lineages. Modelling of felid coat pattern transformations revealed that nearly all patterns evolved from small spots. Classification Traditionally, five subfamilies have been distinguished within the Felidae based on phenotypical features: the Pantherinae, the Felinae, the Acinonychinae, and the extinct Machairodontinae and Proailurinae. Phylogeny The following cladogram based on Piras et al. (2013) depicts the phylogeny of basal living and extinct groups. The phylogenetic relationships of living felids are shown in the following cladogram: See also Cat gap Felid hybrid List of felids List of largest cats References External links Mammal families Extant Chattian first appearances Taxa named by Gotthelf Fischer von Waldheim

Events Pre-1600 1229 – The Sixth Crusade: Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, signs a ten-year truce with al-Kamil, regaining Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem with neither military engagements nor support from the papacy. 1268 – The Battle of Wesenberg is fought between the Livonian Order and Dovmont of Pskov. 1332 – Amda Seyon I, Emperor of Ethiopia begins his campaigns in the southern Muslim provinces. 1478 – George, Duke of Clarence, convicted of treason against his older brother Edward IV of England, is executed in private at the Tower of London. 1601–1900 1637 – Eighty Years' War: Off the coast of Cornwall, England, a Spanish fleet intercepts an important Anglo-Dutch merchant convoy of 44 vessels escorted by six warships, destroying or capturing 20 of them. 1735 – The ballad opera called Flora, or Hob in the Well went down in history as the first opera of any kind to be produced in North America (Charleston, S.C.) 1781 – Fourth Anglo-Dutch War: Captain Thomas Shirley opens his expedition against Dutch colonial outposts on the Gold Coast of Africa (present-day Ghana). 1791 – Congress passes a law admitting the state of Vermont to the Union, effective 4 March, after that state had existed for 14 years as a de facto independent largely unrecognized state. 1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: Sir Ralph Abercromby and a fleet of 18 British warships invade Trinidad. 1814 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Montereau. 1861 – In Montgomery, Alabama, Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the provisional President of the Confederate States of America. 1861 – With Italian unification almost complete, Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont, Savoy and Sardinia assumes the title of King of Italy. 1873 – Bulgarian revolutionary leader Vasil Levski is executed by hanging in Sofia by the Ottoman authorities. 1878 – John Tunstall is murdered by outlaw Jesse Evans, sparking the Lincoln County War in Lincoln County, New Mexico. 1885 – Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is published in the United States. 1900 – Second Boer War: Imperial forces suffer their worst single-day loss of life on Bloody Sunday, the first day of the Battle of Paardeberg. 1901–present 1906 – Édouard de Laveleye forms the Belgian Olympic Committee in Brussels. 1911 – The first official flight with airmail takes place from Allahabad, United Provinces, British India (now India), when Henri Pequet, a 23-year-old pilot, delivers 6,500 letters to Naini, about away. 1915 – U-boat Campaign: The Imperial German Navy institutes unrestricted submarine warfare in the waters around Great Britain and Ireland. 1930 – While studying photographs taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto. 1930 – Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly in a fixed-wing aircraft and also the first cow to be milked in an aircraft. 1932 – The Empire of Japan creates the independent state of Manzhouguo (the obsolete Chinese name for Manchuria) free from the Republic of China and installed former Chinese Emperor Aisin Gioro Puyi as Chief Executive of the State. 1938 – Second Sino-Japanese War: During the Nanking Massacre, the Nanking Safety Zone International Committee is renamed "Nanking International Rescue Committee", and the safety zone in place for refugees falls apart. 1942 – World War II: The Imperial Japanese Army begins the systematic extermination of perceived hostile elements among the Chinese in Singapore. 1943 – World War II: The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose movement. 1943 – World War II: Joseph Goebbels delivers his Sportpalast speech. 1946 – Sailors of the Royal Indian Navy mutiny in Bombay harbour, from where the action spreads throughout the Provinces of British India, involving 78 ships, twenty shore establishments and 20,000 sailors 1947 – First Indochina War: The French gain complete control of Hanoi after forcing the Viet Minh to withdraw to mountains. 1954 – The first Church of Scientology is established in Los Angeles. 1955 – Operation Teapot: Teapot test shot "Wasp" is successfully detonated at the Nevada Test Site with a yield of 1.2 kilotons. Wasp is the first of fourteen shots in the Teapot series. 1957 – Kenyan rebel leader Dedan Kimathi is executed by the British colonial government. 1957 – Walter James Bolton becomes the last person legally executed in New Zealand. 1965 – The Gambia becomes independent from the United Kingdom. 1970 – The Chicago Seven are found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. 1972 – The California Supreme Court in the case of People v. Anderson, (6 Cal.3d 628) invalidates the state's death penalty and commutes the sentences of all death row inmates to life imprisonment. 1977 – The Space Shuttle Enterprise test vehicle is carried on its maiden "flight" on top of a Boeing 747. 1979 – Richard Petty wins a then-record sixth Daytona 500 after leaders Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough crash on the final lap of the first NASCAR race televised live flag-to-flag. 1983 – Thirteen people die and one is seriously injured in the Wah Mee massacre in Seattle. It is said to be the largest robbery-motivated mass-murder in U.S. history. 1991 – The IRA explodes bombs in the early morning at Paddington station and Victoria station in London. 2001 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested for spying for the Soviet Union. He is ultimately convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. 2001 – Sampit conflict: Inter-ethnic violence between Dayaks and Madurese breaks out in Sampit, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, ultimately resulting in more than 500 deaths and 100,000 Madurese displaced from their homes. 2001 – NASCAR Champion Dale Earnhardt dies from an accident on the final lap of the Daytona 500. 2003 – Nearly 200 people die in the Daegu subway fire in South Korea. 2004 – Up to 295 people, including nearly 200 rescue workers, die near Nishapur, Iran, when a runaway freight train carrying sulfur, petrol and fertilizer catches fire and explodes. 2007 – Samjhauta Express bombings occurred around midnight in Diwana near the Indian city of Panipat, 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of New Delhi, India. 2010 – WikiLeaks publishes the first of hundreds of thousands of classified documents disclosed by the soldier now known as Chelsea Manning. 2013 – Armed robbers steal a haul of diamonds worth $50 million during a raid at Brussels Airport in Belgium. 2014 – At least 76 people are killed and hundreds are injured in clashes between riot police and demonstrators in Kyiv, Ukraine. 2021 – Perseverance, a Mars rover designed to explore Jezero crater on Mars, as part of NASA's Mars 2020 mission, lands successfully. Births Pre-1600 1201 – Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, Persian scientist and writer (d. 1274) 1372 – Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, Egyptian jurist and scholar (d. 1448) 1486 – Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Indian monk and saint (d. 1534) 1516 – Mary I of England (d. 1558) 1530 – Uesugi Kenshin, Japanese daimyō (d. 1578) 1543 – Charles III, Duke of Lorraine (d. 1608) 1547 – Bahāʾ al-dīn al-ʿĀmilī, founder of Isfahan School of Islamic Philosophy (d. 1621) 1559 – Isaac Casaubon, Swiss philologist and scholar (d. 1614) 1589 – Henry Vane the Elder, English politician (d. 1655) 1589 – Maarten Gerritsz Vries, Dutch explorer (d. 1646) 1601–1900 1602 – Per Brahe the Younger, Swedish soldier and politician, Governor-General of Finland (d. 1680) 1602 – Michelangelo Cerquozzi, Italian painter (d. 1660) 1609 – Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, English historian and politician, Chancellor of the Exchequer (d. 1674) 1626 – Francesco Redi, Italian physician (d. 1697) 1632 – Giovanni Battista Vitali, Italian violinist and composer (d. 1692) 1642 – Marie Champmeslé, French actress (d. 1698) 1658 – Charles-Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre, French philosopher and author (d. 1743) 1732 – Johann Christian Kittel, German organist and composer (d. 1809) 1745 – Alessandro Volta, Italian physicist, invented the battery (d. 1827) 1754 – Emanuel Granberg, Finnish church painter (d. 1797) 1814 – Samuel Fenton Cary, American lawyer and politician (d. 1900) 1817 – Lewis Armistead, American general (d. 1863) 1818 – John O'Shanassy, Irish-Australian politician, 2nd Premier of Victoria (d. 1883) 1836 – Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Indian mystic and yogi (d. 1886) 1838 – Ernst Mach, Austrian physicist and philosopher (d. 1916) 1846 – Wilson Barrett, English actor, playwright, and manager (d. 1904) 1848 – Louis Comfort Tiffany, American stained glass artist (d. 1933) 1849 – Alexander Kielland, Norwegian author, playwright, and politician (d. 1906) 1850 – George Henschel, German-English singer-songwriter, pianist, and conductor (d. 1934) 1855 – Jean Jules Jusserand, French historian, author, and diplomat, French Ambassador to the United States (d. 1932) 1860 – Anders Zorn, Swedish artist (d. 1920) 1862 – Charles M. Schwab, American businessman, co-founded Bethlehem Steel (d. 1939) 1867 – Hedwig Courths-Mahler, German writer (d. 1950) 1870 – William Laurel Harris, American painter and author (d. 1924) 1871 – Harry Brearley, English inventor (d. 1948) 1883 – Nikos Kazantzakis, Greek philosopher, author, and playwright (d. 1957) 1885 – Henri Laurens, French sculptor and illustrator (d. 1954) 1893 – Maksim Haretski, Belarusian prose writer, journalist and activist (d. 1938) 1890 – Edward Arnold, American actor (d. 1956) 1890 – Adolphe Menjou, American actor (d. 1963) 1892 – Wendell Willkie, American captain, lawyer, and politician (d. 1944) 1896 – Li Linsi, Chinese educator and diplomat (d. 1970) 1898 – Luis Muñoz Marín, Puerto Rican poet and politician, 1st Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (d. 1980) 1899 – Arthur Bryant, English historian and journalist (d. 1985) 1901–present 1903 – Nikolai Podgorny, Ukrainian engineer and politician (d. 1983) 1906 – Hans Asperger, Austrian pediatrician and academic (d. 1980) 1909 – Wallace Stegner, American novelist, short story writer, and essayist (d. 1993) 1914 – Pee Wee King, American singer-songwriter and fiddler (d. 2000) 1915 – Phyllis Calvert, English actress (d. 2002) 1919 – Jack Palance, American boxer and actor (d. 2006) 1920 – Rolande Falcinelli, French organist, pianist, composer, and pedagogue (d. 2006) 1921 – Mary Amdur, American toxicologist and public health researcher (d. 1998) 1921 – Oscar Feltsman, Ukrainian-Russian pianist and composer (d. 2013) 1922 – Eric Gairy, Grenadan politician, 1st Prime Minister of Grenada (d. 1997) 1922 – Helen Gurley Brown, American journalist and author (d. 2012) 1922 – Connie Wisniewski, American baseball player (d. 1995) 1925 – George Kennedy, American actor (d. 2016) 1926 – Wallace Berman, American painter and illustrator (d. 1976) 1927 – Fazal Mahmood, Pakistani cricketer (d. 2005) 1929 – Len Deighton, English historian and author 1929 – André Mathieu, Canadian pianist and composer (d. 1968) 1931 – Johnny Hart, American cartoonist, co-created The Wizard of Id (d. 2007) 1931 – Toni Morrison, American novelist and editor, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2019). 1932 – Miloš Forman, Czech-American actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 2018) 1933 – Yoko Ono, Japanese-American multimedia artist and musician 1933 – Bobby Robson, English international footballer and international manager (d. 2009) 1933 – Mary Ure, Scottish-English actress (d. 1975) 1934 – Audre Lorde, American writer and activist (d. 1992) 1939 – Claude Ake, Nigerian political scientist and academic (d. 1996) 1940 – Fabrizio De André, Italian singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 1999) 1940 – Prue Leith, English restaurateur and journalist 1946 – Michael Buerk, English journalist 1950 – Nana Amba Eyiaba I, Ghanaian queen mother and advocate 1950 – John Hughes, American director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2009) 1951 – Queen Komal of Nepal 1951 – Isabel Preysler, Filipino-Spanish journalist 1952 – Randy Crawford, American jazz and R&B singer 1952 – Juice Newton, American singer-songwriter and guitarist 1954 – Charlie Fowler, American mountaineer, author, and photographer (d. 2006) 1954 – John Travolta, American actor, singer and producer 1955 – Lisa See, American writer and novelist 1957 – Marita Koch, German sprinter 1960 – Greta Scacchi, Italian-Australian actress 1967 – Roberto Baggio, Italian international footballer 1967 – Colin Jackson, Welsh sprinter and hurdler 1968 – Molly Ringwald, American actress 1970 – James H. Fowler, American political scientist and author 1971 – Thomas Bjørn, Danish golfer 1974 – Carrie Ann Baade, American painter and academic 1974 – Radek Černý, Czech international footballer 1974 – Julia Butterfly Hill, American environmentalist and author 1974 – Leilani Maaja Münter, American environmental activist and former professional race car driver 1975 – Gary Neville, English international footballer 1982 – Christian Tiffert, German footballer 1983 – Jermaine Jenas, English international footballer 1990 – Monica Aksamit, American Olympic saber fencer 1991 – Sebastian Neumann, German footballer 1994 – J-Hope, South Korean rapper, songwriter, dancer, and record producer Deaths Pre-1600 675 – Colmán, bishop of Lindisfarne 814 – Angilbert, Frankish monk and diplomat (b. 760) 901 – Thābit ibn Qurra, Arab astronomer and physician (b. 826) 999 – Gregory V, pope of the Catholic Church (b. 972) 1139 – Yaropolk II, Grand Prince of Kiev (b. 1082) 1218 – Berthold V, duke of Zähringen (b. 1160) 1225 – Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk, Norman nobleman 1294 – Kublai Khan, Mongol emperor (b. 1215) 1379 – Albert II, duke of Mecklenburg (b. 1318) 1397 – Enguerrand VII, French nobleman (b. 1340) 1455 – Fra Angelico, Italian priest and painter (b. 1395) 1478 – George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, English nobleman (b. 1449) 1502 – Hedwig Jagiellon, duchess of Bavaria (b. 1457) 1535 – Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, German magician, astrologer, and theologian (b. 1486) 1546 – Martin Luther, German priest and theologian, leader of the Protestant Reformation (b. 1483) 1564 – Michelangelo, Italian sculptor and painter (b. 1475) 1601–1900 1654 – Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, French author (b. 1594) 1658 – John Villiers, 1st Viscount Purbeck, English courtier (b. c. 1591) 1683 – Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem, Dutch painter (b. 1620) 1695 – William Phips, governor of Massachusetts (b. 1650) 1712 – Louis, Dauphin of France, (b. 1682) 1743 – Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, Italian noble (b. 1667) 1748 – Otto Ferdinand von Abensberg und Traun, Austrian field marshal (b. 1677) 1772 – Count Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff, Danish politician (b. 1712) 1778 – Joseph Marie Terray, French economist and politician, Controller-General of Finances (b. 1715) 1780 – Kristijonas Donelaitis, Lithuanian pastor and poet (b. 1714) 1788 – John Whitehurst, English geologist and clockmaker (b. 1713) 1803 – Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, German poet and educator (b. 1719) 1851 – Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, German mathematician and academic (b. 1804) 1873 – Vasil Levski, Bulgarian activist, founded the Internal Revolutionary Organization (b. 1837) 1880 – Nikolay Zinin, Russian organic chemist (b. 1812) 1893 – Serranus Clinton Hastings, American lawyer and politician, 1st Chief Justice of California (b. 1814) 1901–present 1902 – Charles Lewis Tiffany, American businessman, founded Tiffany & Co. (b. 1812) 1910 – Lucy Stanton, American activist (b. 1831) 1915 – Frank James, American soldier and criminal (b. 1843) 1933 – James J. Corbett, American boxer and actor (b. 1866) 1938 – David King Udall, American missionary and politician (b. 1851) 1956 – Gustave Charpentier, French composer (b. 1860) 1957 – Henry Norris Russell, American astronomer, astrophysicist, and academic (b. 1877) 1960 – Gertrude Vanderbilt, American stage actress (b. ) 1967 – J. Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist and academic (b. 1904) 1969 – Dragiša Cvetković, Serbian lawyer and politician, 17th Prime Minister of Yugoslavia (b. 1893) 1977 – Andy Devine, American actor (b. 1905) 1981 – Jack Northrop, American engineer and businessman, founded the Northrop Corporation (b. 1895) 1982 – Ngaio Marsh, New Zealand author (b. 1895) 2001 – Balthus, Polish-Swiss painter and illustrator (b. 1908) 2001 – Dale Earnhardt, American racer and NASCAR seven times champion (b. 1951) 2014 – Mavis Gallant, Canadian-French author and playwright (b. 1922) 2014 – Maria Franziska von Trapp, Austrian-American singer (b. 1914) 2015 – Elchanan Heilprin, Czechoslovakian-born English rabbi (b. 1920 or 1922) 2019 – Alessandro Mendini, Italian designer and architect (b. 1931) 2020 – Flavio Bucci, Italian actor and voice actor (b. 1947) Holidays and observances Christian feast day: Bernadette Soubirous (France) Colmán of Lindisfarne Flavian of Constantinople Geltrude Comensoli Simeon of Jerusalem (Western Christianity) February 18 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Dialect Day (Amami Islands, Japan) Independence Day, celebrates the independence of the Gambia from the United Kingdom in 1965 Kurdish Students Union Day (Iraqi Kurdistan) National Democracy Day, celebrates the 1951 overthrow of the Rana dynasty (Nepal) Wife's Day (Konudagur) (Iceland) References External links BBC: On This Day Historical Events on February 18 Today in Canadian History Days of the year February

A flag is a piece of fabric (most often rectangular or quadrilateral) with a distinctive design and colours. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term flag is also used to refer to the graphic design employed, and flags have evolved into a general tool for rudimentary signalling and identification, especially in environments where communication is challenging (such as the maritime environment, where semaphore is used). The study of flags is known as "vexillology" from the Latin vexillum, meaning "flag" or "banner". National flags are patriotic symbols with widely varied interpretations that often include strong military associations because of their original and ongoing use for that purpose. Flags are also used in messaging, advertising, or for decorative purposes. Some military units are called "flags" after their use of flags. A flag (Arabic: لواء) is equivalent to a brigade in Arab countries. In Spain, a flag (Spanish: bandera) is a battalion-equivalent in the Spanish Legion. History The origin of the flag is unknown. In antiquity, field signs or standards were used in warfare that can be categorised as vexilloid or 'flag-like'. This originated in ancient Egypt or Assyria. Examples include the Sassanid battle standard Derafsh Kaviani, and the standards of the Roman legions such as the eagle of Augustus Caesar's Xth legion, or the dragon standard of the Sarmatians; the latter was let fly freely in the wind, carried by a horseman, but judging from depictions it was more similar to an elongated dragon kite than to a simple flag. Flags as recognized today, made of a piece of cloth representing a particular entity, were invented in the Indian subcontinent or Chinese Zhou dynasty (1046-256 BCE). Chinese flags depicted colourful animals and royal flags were to be treated with a similar level of respect attributed to the ruler. Indian flags were often triangular and decorated with attachments such as yak's tail and the state umbrella. These usages spread to Southeast Asia as well, and were transmitted to Europe through the Muslim world where plainly coloured flags were being used due to Islamic proscriptions. In Europe, during the High Middle Ages, flags came to be used primarily as a heraldic device in battle, allowing more easily to identify a knight than only from the heraldic device painted on the shield. Already during the high medieval period, and increasingly during the Late Middle Ages, city states and communes such as those of the Old Swiss Confederacy also began to use flags as field signs. Regimental flags for individual units became commonplace during the Early Modern period. During the peak of the age of sail, beginning in the early 17th century, it was customary (and later a legal requirement) for ships to fly flags designating their nationality; these flags eventually evolved into the national flags and maritime flags of today. Flags also became the preferred means of communications at sea, resulting in various systems of flag signals; see, International maritime signal flags. Use of flags outside of military or naval context begins only with the rise of nationalist sentiment by the end of the 18th century, although some flags date back earlier. The flags of countries such as Austria, Denmark or Turkey emerged from the midst of legend while many others, including those of Poland and Switzerland, grew out of the heraldic emblems of the Middle Ages. The 17th century saw the birth of several national flags through revolutionary struggle. One of these was the flag of the Netherlands, which appeared during the 80-year Dutch rebellion which began in 1568 against Spanish domination. Political change and social reform, allied to a growing sense of nationhood among ordinary people, led to the birth of new nations and flags all over the world in the 19th and 20th centuries. National flags One of the most popular uses of a flag is to symbolise a nation or country. Some national flags have been particularly inspirational to other nations, countries, or subnational entities in the design of their own flags. Some prominent examples include: The flag of Denmark, the Dannebrog, is attested in 1478, and is the oldest national flag still in use. It inspired the cross design of the other Nordic countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and regional Scandinavian flags for the Faroe Islands, Åland, Scania and Bornholm, as well as flags for the non-Scandinavian Shetland and Orkney. The flag of the Netherlands is the oldest tricolour. Its three colours of red, white and blue go back to Charlemagne's time, the 9th century. The coastal region of what today is the Netherlands was then known for its cloth in these colours. Maps from the early 16th century already put flags in these colours next to this region, like Texeira's map of 1520. A century before that, during the 15th century, the three colours were mentioned as the coastal signals for this area, with the three bands straight or diagonal, single or doubled. As state flag it first appeared around 1572 as the Prince's Flag in orange–white–blue. Soon the more famous red–white–blue began appearing, becoming the prevalent version from around 1630. Orange made a comeback during the civil war of the late 18th century, signifying the orangist or pro-stadtholder party. During World War II the pro-Nazi NSB used it. Any symbolism has been added later to the three colours, although the orange comes from the House of Orange-Nassau. This use of orange comes from Nassau, which today uses orange-blue, not from Orange, which today uses red-blue. However, the usual way to show the link with the House of Orange-Nassau is the orange pennant above the red-white-blue. It is said that the Dutch Tricolour has inspired many flags but most notably those of Russia, New York City, and South Africa (the 1928–94 flag as well the current flag). As the probable inspiration for the Russian flag, it is the source too for the Pan-Slavic colours red, white and blue, adopted by many Slavic states and peoples as their symbols; examples are Slovakia, Serbia, and Slovenia. The national flag of France was designed in 1794. As a forerunner of revolution, France's tricolour flag style has been adopted by other nations. Examples: Italy, Belgium, Ireland, Romania and Mexico. The Union Flag (Union Jack) of the United Kingdom is the most commonly used. British colonies typically flew a flag based on one of the ensigns based on this flag, and many former colonies have retained the design to acknowledge their cultural history. Examples: Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Tuvalu, and also the Canadian provinces of Manitoba, Ontario and British Columbia, and the American state of Hawaii; see commons:Flags based on British ensigns. The flag of the United States is nicknamed The Stars and Stripes or Old Glory. Some nations imitated this flag so as to symbolise their similarity to the United States and/or the American Revolution. Examples: Liberia, Chile, Taiwan (ROC), and the French region of Brittany. Ethiopia was seen as a model by emerging African states of the 1950s and 1960s, as it was one of the oldest independent states in Africa. Accordingly, its flag became the source of the Pan-African colours, or 'Rasta colours'. Examples: Benin, Togo, Senegal, Ghana, Mali, Guinea. The flag of Turkey, which is very similar to the last flag of the old Ottoman Empire, has been an inspiration for the flag designs of many other Muslim nations. During the time of the Ottomans the crescent began to be associated with Islam and this is reflected on the flags of Algeria, Azerbaijan, Comoros, Libya, Mauritania, Pakistan, Tunisia and Maldives The Pan-Arab colours, green, white, red and black, are derived from the flag of the Great Arab Revolt as seen on the flags of Jordan, Libya, Kuwait, Sudan, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Western Sahara, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen and Palestine. The Soviet flag, with its golden symbols of the hammer and sickle on a red field, was an inspiration to flags of other communist states, such as East Germany, People's Republic of China, Vietnam, Angola, Afghanistan (1978–1980) and Mozambique. The flag of Venezuela, created by Francisco de Miranda to represent the independence movement in Venezuela that later gave birth to the "Gran Colombia", inspired the flags of Colombia, Ecuador, and the Federal Territories in Malaysia, all sharing three bands of yellow, blue and red with the flag of Venezuela. The flag of Argentina, created by Manuel Belgrano during the war of independence, was the inspiration for the United Provinces of Central America's flag, which in turn was the origin for the flags of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. National flag designs are often used to signify nationality in other forms, such as flag patches. Civil flags A civil flag is a version of the national flag that is flown by civilians on non-government installations or craft. The use of civil flags was more common in the past, in order to denote buildings or ships that were not crewed by the military. In some countries the civil flag is the same as the war flag or state flag, but without the coat of arms, such as in the case of Spain, and in others it's an alteration of the war flag. War flags Several countries, including the British Army and the Royal Navy (White Ensign) of the United Kingdom (Great Britain) and the Soviet Union have had unique flags flown by their armed forces separately, rather than the national flag. Other countries' armed forces (such as those of the United States or Switzerland) use their standard national flag, in addition, the U.S. has alongside flags and seals designed from long tradition for each of its six uniformed military services/military sub-departments in the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The Philippines' armed forces may use their standard national flag, but during times of war the flag is turned upside down. Bulgaria's flag is also turned upside down during times of war. These are also considered war flags, though the terminology only applies to the flag's military usage. Large versions of the war flag flown on the warships of countries' navies are known as battle ensigns. In addition besides flying the national standard or a military services' emblem flag at a military fort, base, station or post and at sea at the stern (rear) or main top mast of a warship, a Naval Jack flag and other Maritime flags, pennants and emblems are flown at the bow (front). In times of war waving a white flag is a banner of truce, talks/negotiations or surrender. Four distinctive African flags currently in the collection of the National Maritime Museum in Britain were flown in action by Itsekiri ships under the control of Nana Olomu during the conflict in the late 19th century. One is the flag generally known as the Benin Empire flag and one is referred to as Nana Olomu's flag. International flags Among international flags are the Flag of the United Nations, the Olympic flag, and the Paralympic flag. Maritime flags Flags are particularly important at sea, where they can mean the difference between life and death, and consequently where the rules and regulations for the flying of flags are strictly enforced. A national flag flown at sea is known as an ensign. A courteous, peaceable merchant ship or yacht customarily flies its ensign (in the usual ensign position), together with the flag of whatever nation it is currently visiting at the mast (known as a courtesy flag). To fly one's ensign alone in foreign waters, a foreign port or in the face of a foreign warship traditionally indicates a willingness to fight, with cannon, for the right to do so. As of 2009, this custom is still taken seriously by many naval and port authorities and is readily enforced in many parts of the world by boarding, confiscation and other civil penalties. In some countries yacht ensigns are different from merchant ensigns in order to signal that the yacht is not carrying cargo that requires a customs declaration. Carrying commercial cargo on a boat with a yacht ensign is deemed to be smuggling in many jurisdictions. Traditionally, a vessel flying under the courtesy flag of a specific nation, regardless of the vessel's country of registry, is considered to be operating under the law of her 'host' nation. There is a system of international maritime signal flags for numerals and letters of the alphabet. Each flag or pennant has a specific meaning when flown individually. As well, semaphore flags can be used to communicate on an ad hoc basis from ship to ship over short distances. Another category of maritime flag flown by some United States Government ships is the distinguishing mark. Although the United States Coast Guard has its own service ensign, all other U.S. Government ships fly the national ensign their service ensign, following United States Navy practice. To distinguish themselves from ships of the Navy, such ships historically have flown their parent organisation's flag from a forward mast as a distinguishing mark. Today, for example, commissioned ships of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) fly the NOAA flag as a distinguishing mark. Shapes and designs Flags are usually rectangular in shape (often in the ratio 2:3, 1:2, or 3:5), but may be of any shape or size that is practical for flying, including square, triangular, or swallow tailed. A more unusual flag shape is that of the flag of Nepal, which is in the shape of two stacked triangles. Other unusually shaped flags include the civil flags of Ohio (a swallowtail); Tampa, Florida; and Pike County, Ohio. Many flags are dyed through and through to be inexpensive to manufacture, such that the reverse side is the mirror image of the obverse (front) side, generally the side displayed when, from the observer's point of view, the flag flies from pole-side left to right. This presents two possibilities: If the design is symmetrical in an axis parallel to the flag pole, obverse and reverse will be identical despite the mirror-reversal, such as the Indian Flag or Canadian Flag If not, the obverse and reverse will present two variants of the same design, one with the hoist on the left (usually considered the obverse side), the other with the hoist on the right (usually considered the reverse side of the flag). This is very common and usually not disturbing if there is no text in the design. Some complex flag designs are not intended to be shown on both sides, requiring separate obverse and reverse sides if made correctly. In these cases there is a design element (usually text) which is not symmetric and should be read in the same direction, regardless of whether the hoist is to the viewer's left or right. These cases can be divided into two types: The same (asymmetric) design may be duplicated on both sides. Such flags can be manufactured by creating two identical through and through flags and then sewing them back to back, though this can affect the resulting combination's responsiveness to the wind. Depictions of such flags may be marked with the symbol , indicating the reverse is congruent to (rather than a mirror image of) the obverse. Rarely, the reverse design may differ, in whole or in part, from that of the obverse. Examples of flags whose reverse differs from the obverse include the flag of Paraguay, the flag of Oregon, and the historical flag of the Soviet Union. Depictions of such flags may be marked with the symbol . Common designs on flags include crosses, stripes, and divisions of the surface, or field, into bands or quarters—patterns and principles mainly derived from heraldry. A heraldic coat of arms may also be flown as a banner of arms, as is done on both the state flag of Maryland and the flag of Kiribati. The de jure flag of Libya under Muammar Gaddafi, which consisted of a rectangular field of green, was for a long period the only national flag using a single colour and no design or insignia. However, other historical states have also used flags without designs or insignia, such as the short-lived Soviet Republic of Hungary and the more recent Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, whose flags were both a plain field of red. Colours are normally described with common names, such as "red", but may be further specified using colourimetry. The largest flag flown from a flagpole worldwide, according to Guinness World Records, is the flag of the United Arab Emirates flown in Sharjah. This flag was . The largest flag ever made was the flag of Qatar; the flag, which measures at , was completed in December 2013 in Doha. Parts of a flag The general parts of a flag are: canton (the upper inner section of the flag), field or ground (the entire flag except the canton), the hoist (the edge used to attach the flag to the hoist), and the fly (the furthest edge from the hoist end). Vertical flags Vertical flags are sometimes used in lieu of the standard horizontal flag in central and eastern Europe, particularly in the German-speaking countries. This practice came about because the relatively brisk wind needed to display horizontal flags is not common in these countries. The standard horizontal flag (no. 1 in the preceding illustration) is nonetheless the form most often used even in these countries. The vertical flag (German: Hochformatflagge or Knatterflagge; no. 2) is a vertical form of the standard flag. The flag's design may remain unchanged (No. 2a) or it may change, e.g. by changing horizontal stripes to vertical ones (no. 2b). If the flag carries an emblem, it may remain centred or may be shifted slightly upwards. The vertical flag for hoisting from a beam (German: Auslegerflagge or Galgenflagge; no. 3) is additionally attached to a horizontal beam, ensuring that it is fully displayed even if there is no wind. The vertical flag for hoisting from a horizontal pole (German: Hängeflagge; no. 4) is hoisted from a horizontal pole, normally attached to a building. The topmost stripe on the horizontal version of the flag faces away from the building. The vertical flag for hoisting from a crossbar or banner (German: Bannerflagge; no. 5) is firmly attached to a horizontal crossbar from which it is hoisted, either by a vertical pole (no. 5a) or a horizontal one (no. 5b). The topmost stripe on the horizontal version of the flag normally faces to the left. Religious flags Flags can play many different roles in religion. In Buddhism, prayer flags are used, usually in sets of five differently coloured flags. Several flags and banners including the Black Standard are associated with Islam. Many national flags and other flags include religious symbols such as the cross, the crescent, or a reference to a patron saint. Flags are also adopted by religious groups and flags such as the Jain flag, Nishan Sahib (Sikhism), the Saffron Flag (Hindu) and the Christian flag are used to represent a whole religion. In sports Because of their ease of signalling and identification, flags are often used in sports. In association football, linesmen carry small flags along the touch lines. They use the flags to indicate to the referee potential infringements of the laws, or who is entitled to possession of the ball that has gone out of the field of play, or, most famously, raising the flag to indicate an offside offence. Officials called touch judges use flags for similar purposes in both codes of rugby. In American and Canadian football, referees use penalty flags to indicate that a foul has been committed in game play. The phrase used for such an indication is flag on the play. The flag itself is a small, weighted handkerchief, tossed on the field at the approximate point of the infraction; the intent is usually to sort out the details after the current play from scrimmage has concluded. In American football, the flag is usually yellow; in Canadian football, it is usually orange. In the National Football League, coaches also use red challenge flags to indicate that they wish to contest a ruling on the field. In yacht racing, flags are used to communicate information from the race committee boat to the racers. Different flags hoisted from the committee boat may communicate a false start, changes in the course, a cancelled race, or other important information. Racing boats themselves may also use flags to symbolise a protest or distress. The flags are often part of the nautical alphabetic system of International maritime signal flags, in which 26 different flags designate the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet. In auto and motorcycle racing, racing flags are used to communicate with drivers. Most famously, a checkered flag of black and white squares indicates the end of the race, and victory for the leader. A yellow flag is used to indicate caution requiring slow speed and a red flag requires racers to stop immediately. A black flag is used to indicate penalties. In addition, fans of almost all sports wave flags in the stands to indicate their support for the participants. Many sports teams have their own flags, and, in individual sports, fans will indicate their support for a player by waving the flag of his or her home country. Capture the flag is a popular children's sport. In Gaelic football and Hurling a green flag is used to indicate a goal while a white flag is used to indicate a point In Australian rules football, the goal umpire will wave two flags to indicate a goal (worth six points) and a single flag to indicate a behind (worth one point). For safety, dive flags indicate the locations of underwater scuba divers or that diving operations are being conducted in the vicinity. In water sports such as wakeboarding and Water-Skiing, an orange flag is held in between runs to indicate someone is in the water. In golf, the hole is almost always marked with a flag. The flagpole is designed to fit centered within the base of the hole and is removable. Many courses will use colour-coded flags to determine a hole location at the front, middle or rear of the green. However colour-coded flags are not used in the professional tours. (A rare example of a golf course that does not use flags to mark the hole is the East Course of Merion Golf Club, which instead uses flagpoles topped by wicker baskets.) Flag poles with flags of all shapes and sizes are used by marching bands, drum corps, and winter guard teams use flags as a method of visual enhancement in performances. Diplomatic flags Some countries use diplomatic flags, such as the United Kingdom (see image of the Embassy flag) and the Kingdom of Thailand (see image of the Embassy flag). The socialist movement uses red flags to represent their cause. The anarchist movement has a variety of different flags, but the primary flag associated with them is the black flag. In the Spanish civil war, the anarchists used the red-and-black bisected flag. In the 20th century, the rainbow flag was adopted as a symbol of the LGBT social movements. Its derivatives include the Bisexual pride and Transgender pride flags. Some of these political flags have become national flags, such as the red flag of the Soviet Union and national socialist banners for Nazi Germany. The present Flag of Portugal is based on what had been the political flag of the Portuguese Republican Party previous to the 5 October 1910 revolution which brought this party to power. Personal flags Throughout history, monarchs have often had personal flags (including royal standards), representing the royal person, including in personal union of national monarchies. Vehicle flags Flags are often representative of an individual's affinity or allegiance to a country, team or business and can be presented in various ways. A popular trend that has surfaced revolves around the idea of the 'mobile' flag in which an individual displays their particular flag of choice on their vehicle. These items are commonly referred to as car flags and are usually manufactured from high strength polyester material and are attached to a vehicle via a polypropylene pole and clip window attachment. Swimming flags In Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Philippines, Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, a pair of red-yellow flags is used to mark the limits of the bathing area on a beach, usually guarded by surf lifesavers. If the beach is closed, the poles of the flags are crossed. The flags are coloured with a red triangle and a yellow triangle making a rectangular flag, or a red rectangle over a yellow rectangle. On many Australian beaches there is a slight variation with beach condition signalling. A red flag signifies a closed beach (in the UK also other dangers), yellow signifies strong current or difficult swimming conditions, and green represents a beach safe for general swimming. In Ireland, a red and yellow flag indicates that it is safe to swim; a red flag that it is unsafe; and no flag indicates that there are no lifeguards on duty. Blue flags may also be used away from the yellow-red lifesaver area to designate a zone for surfboarding and other small, non-motorised watercraft. Reasons for closing the beach include: dangerous rip hurricane warning no lifeguards in attendance overpolluted water sharks tsunami waves too strong A surf flag exists, divided into four quadrants. The top left and bottom right quadrants are black, and the remaining area is white. Signal flag "India" (a black circle on a yellow square) is frequently used to denote a "blackball" zone where surfboards cannot be used but other water activities are permitted. Railway flags Railways use a number of coloured flags. When used as wayside signals they usually use the following meanings (exact meanings are set by the individual railroad company): red = stop yellow = proceed with care green or white = proceed. a flag of any colour waved vigorously means stop a blue flag on the side of a locomotive means that it should not be moved because someone is working on it (or on the train attached to it). A blue flag on a track means that nothing on that track should be moved. The flag can only be removed by the person or group that placed it. In the railway dominated steel industry this principle of "blue flag and tag" was extended to all operations at Bethlehem Steel, Lackawanna, New York. If a man went inside a large machine or worked on an electrical circuit for example, his blue flag and tag was sacrosanct. The "Lock Out/Tag Out" practice is similar and now used in other industries to comply with safety regulations. At night, the flags are replaced with lanterns showing the same colours. Flags displayed on the front of a moving locomotive are an acceptable replacement for classification lights and usually have the following meanings (exact meanings are set by the individual railroad company): white = extra (not on the timetable) green = another section following red = last section Additionally, a railroad brakeman will typically carry a red flag to make his or her hand signals more visible to the engineer. Railway signals are a development of railway flags. Flagpoles A flagpole, flagmast, flagstaff, or staff can be a simple support made of wood or metal. If it is taller than can be easily reached to raise the flag, a cord is used, looping around a pulley at the top of the pole with the ends tied at the bottom. The flag is fixed to one lower end of the cord, and is then raised by pulling on the other end. The cord is then tightened and tied to the pole at the bottom. The pole is usually topped by a flat plate or ball called a "truck" (originally meant to keep a wooden pole from splitting) or a finial in a more complex shape. Very high flagpoles may require more complex support structures than a simple pole, such as a guyed mast. Dwajasthambam are flagpoles commonly found at the entrances of South Indian Hindu temples. Record heights Since 26 December 2021, the tallest free-standing flagpole in the world is unnamed, located in the New Administrative Capital under construction in Egypt at a height of , exceeding the former record holders, the Jeddah Flagpole in Saudi Arabia (height: ), the Dushanbe Flagpole in Tajikistan (height: ) and the National Flagpole in Azerbaijan (height: ). The flagpole in North Korea is the 4th tallest flagpole in the world, however, it is not free-standing. It is a radio tower supported flagpole. Besides the first two flagpoles mentioned beforehand as the tallest, the previous six world-record holders were all built by the American company Trident Support: the Ashgabat flagpole in Turkmenistan at ; the Aqaba Flagpole in Jordan at ; the Raghadan Flagpole in Jordan at ; and the Abu Dhabi Flagpole in the United Arab Emirates at . The current tallest flagpole in India (and the tallest flying the tricolour) is the flagpole in Belgaum, Karnataka which was first hoisted on 12 March 2018. The tallest flagpole in the United Kingdom from 1959 until 2013 stood in Kew Gardens. It was made from a Canadian Douglas-fir tree and was in height. The current tallest flagpole in the United States (and the tallest flying an American flag) is the pole completed before Memorial Day 2014 and custom-made with an base in concrete by wind turbine manufacturer Broadwind Energy. It is situated on the north side of the Acuity Insurance headquarters campus along Interstate 43 in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and is visible from Cedar Grove. The pole can fly a 220-pound flag for in light wind conditions and a heavier 350-pound flag in higher wind conditions. Design Flagpoles can be designed in one piece with a taper (typically a steel taper or a Greek entasis taper), or be made from multiple pieces to make them able to expand. In the United States, ANSI/NAAMM guide specification FP-1001-97 covers the engineering design of metal flagpoles to ensure safety. Hoisting the flag Hoisting the flag is the act of raising the flag on the flagpole. Raising or lowering flags, especially national flags, usually involves ceremonies and certain sets of rules, depending on the country, and usually involve the performance of a national anthem. A flag-raising squad is a group of people, usually troops, cadets, or students, that march in and bring the flags for the flag-hoisting ceremony. Flag-hoisting ceremonies involving flag-raising squads can be simple or elaborate, involving large numbers of squads. Elaborate flag-hoisting ceremonies are usually performed on national holidays. The cord or rope that ties a flag to its pole is called a halyard. Flags may have a strip of fabric along the hoist side called a heading for the halyard to pass through, or a pair of grommets for the halyard to be threaded through. Flags may also be held in position using Inglefield clips. Flags in communication Semaphore is a form of communication that utilises flags. The signalling is performed by an individual using two flags (or lighted wands), the positions of the flags indicating a symbol. The person who holds the flags is known as the signalman. This form of communication is primarily used by naval signallers. This technique of signalling was adopted in the early 19th century and is still used in various forms today. The colours of the flags can also be used to communicate. For example; a white flag means, among other things, surrender or peace, a red flag can be used as a warning signal, and a black flag can mean war, or determination to defeat enemies. Orientation of a flag is also used for communication, though the practice is rarely used given modern communication systems. Raising a flag upside-down was indicative that the raising force controlled that particular area, but that it was in severe distress. See also Lists and galleries of flags Gallery of sovereign state flags List of flag names Lists of flags Timeline of national flags Unofficial flags Notable flag-related topics False flag Flag Day Flag desecration Flag protocol Flag patch Flag semaphore Flag throwing Glossary of vexillology Pledge of Allegiance (United States) Standard-bearer (also enumerates various types of standards, both flag types and immobile ensigns) Vexillology Flags of the World, an Internet-based vexillological association and resource Windsock References Bibliography Inglefield, Eric (1979 edition). Flags. Ward Lock, London. External links International Marine Signal Flags Articles containing video clips National symbols Vexillology

There are two Epistles to the Thessalonians in the Bible: First Epistle to the Thessalonians Second Epistle to the Thessalonians

Florence ( ; ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,084 inhabitants in 2013, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area. Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is considered by many academics to have been the birthplace of the Renaissance, becoming a major artistic, cultural, commercial, political, economic and financial center. During this time, Florence rose to a position of enormous influence in Italy, Europe, and beyond. Its turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 the city served as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy (established in 1861). The Florentine dialect forms the base of Standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Italy due to the prestige of the masterpieces by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini. The city attracts millions of tourists each year, and UNESCO declared the Historic Centre of Florence a World Heritage Site in 1982. The city is noted for its culture, Renaissance art and architecture and monuments. The city also contains numerous museums and art galleries, such as the Uffizi Gallery and the Palazzo Pitti, and still exerts an influence in the fields of art, culture and politics. Due to Florence's artistic and architectural heritage, Forbes has ranked it as the most beautiful city in the world of 2010. Florence plays an important role in Italian fashion, and is ranked in the top 15 fashion capitals of the world by Global Language Monitor; furthermore, it is a major national economic centre, as well as a tourist and industrial hub. It is the 4th richest Italian city. History Florence originated as a Roman city, and later, after a long period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune, it was the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance. It was politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe and the world from the 14th to 16th centuries. The language spoken in the city during the 14th century came to be accepted as the model for what would become the Italian language. Thanks especially to the works of the Tuscans Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, the Florentine dialect, above all the local dialects, was adopted as the basis for a national literary language. Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of industry all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon and Hungary. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years War. They similarly financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome. Florence was home to the Medici, one of European history's most important noble families. Lorenzo de' Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century: Leo X and Clement VII. Catherine de Medici married King Henry II of France and, after his death in 1559, reigned as regent in France. Marie de' Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future King Louis XIII. The Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de' Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici in 1737. Roman origins In the 9th–8th century BC, the Etruscans formed the small settlement of Fiesole (Faesulae in Latin) This was destroyed by Lucius Cornelius Sulla in 80 BC, in reprisal for supporting the populares faction in Rome. The present city of Florence was established by Julius Caesar in 59 BC as a settlement for his veteran soldiers and was named originally Fluentia, owing to the fact that it was built between two rivers, which was later changed to Florentia ("flowering"). It was built in the style of an army camp with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. Situated along the Via Cassia, the main route between Rome and the north, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial centre. In centuries to come, the city experienced turbulent periods of Ostrogothic rule, during which the city was often troubled by warfare between the Ostrogoths and the Byzantines, which may have caused the population to fall to as few as 1,000 people. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century. Florence was conquered by Charlemagne in 774 and became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as capital. The population began to grow again and commerce prospered. In 854, Florence and Fiesole were united in one county. Second millennium Margrave Hugo chose Florence as his residency instead of Lucca at about 1000 AD. The Golden Age of Florentine art began around this time. In 1013, construction began on the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte. The exterior of the church was reworked in Romanesque style between 1059 and 1128. In 1100, Florence was a "commune", meaning a city state. The city's primary resource was the Arno river, providing power and access for the industry (mainly textile industry), and access to the Mediterranean sea for international trade. Another great source of strength was its industrious merchant community. The Florentine merchant banking skills became recognised in Europe after they brought decisive financial innovation (e.g. bills of exchange, double-entry bookkeeping system) to medieval fairs. This period also saw the eclipse of Florence's formerly powerful rival Pisa (defeated by Genoa in 1284 and subjugated by Florence in 1406), and the exercise of power by the mercantile elite following an anti-aristocratic movement, led by Giano della Bella, that resulted in a set of laws called the Ordinances of Justice (1293). Middle Ages and Renaissance Rise of the Medici At the height of demographic expansion around 1325, the urban population may have been as great as 120,000, and the rural population around the city was probably close to 300,000. The Black Death of 1348 reduced it by over half, about 25,000 are said to have been supported by the city's wool industry: in 1345 Florence was the scene of an attempted strike by wool combers (ciompi), who in 1378 rose up in a brief revolt against oligarchic rule in the Revolt of the Ciompi. After their suppression, Florence came under the sway (1382–1434) of the Albizzi family, who became bitter rivals of the Medici. In the 15th century, Florence was among the largest cities in Europe, with a population of 60,000, and was considered rich and economically successful. Cosimo de' Medici was the first Medici family member to essentially control the city from behind the scenes. Although the city was technically a democracy of sorts, his power came from a vast patronage network along with his alliance to the new immigrants, the gente nuova (new people). The fact that the Medici were bankers to the pope also contributed to their ascendancy. Cosimo was succeeded by his son Piero, who was, soon after, succeeded by Cosimo's grandson, Lorenzo in 1469. Lorenzo was a great patron of the arts, commissioning works by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli. Lorenzo was an accomplished poet and musician and brought composers and singers to Florence, including Alexander Agricola, Johannes Ghiselin, and Heinrich Isaac. By contemporary Florentines (and since), he was known as "Lorenzo the Magnificent" (Lorenzo il Magnifico). Following Lorenzo de' Medici's death in 1492, he was succeeded by his son Piero II. When the French king Charles VIII invaded northern Italy, Piero II chose to resist his army. But when he realised the size of the French army at the gates of Pisa, he had to accept the humiliating conditions of the French king. These made the Florentines rebel, and they expelled Piero II. With his exile in 1494, the first period of Medici rule ended with the restoration of a republican government. Savonarola, Machiavelli, and the Medici popes During this period, the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola had become prior of the San Marco monastery in 1490. He was famed for his penitential sermons, lambasting what he viewed as widespread immorality and attachment to material riches. He praised the exile of the Medici as the work of God, punishing them for their decadence. He seized the opportunity to carry through political reforms leading to a more democratic rule. But when Savonarola publicly accused Pope Alexander VI of corruption, he was banned from speaking in public. When he broke this ban, he was excommunicated. The Florentines, tired of his teachings, turned against him and arrested him. He was convicted as a heretic, hung and burned at the stake on the Piazza della Signoria on 23 May 1498. His ashes were dispersed in the Arno river. Another Florentine of this period with famously acute insight was Niccolò Machiavelli, whose prescriptions for Florence's regeneration under strong leadership have often been seen as a legitimization of political expediency and even malpractice. Machiavelli was a political thinker, renowned for his political handbook The Prince, which is about ruling and exercising power. Commissioned by the Medici, Machiavelli also wrote the Florentine Histories, the history of the city. In 1512, the Medici retook control of Florence with the help of Spanish and Papal troops. They were led by two cousins, Giovanni and Giulio de' Medici, both of whom would later become Popes of the Catholic Church, (Leo X and Clement VII, respectively). Both were generous patrons of the arts, commissioning works like Michelangelo's Laurentian Library and Medici Chapel in Florence, to name just two. Their reigns coincided with political upheaval in Italy, and thus in 1527, Florentines drove out the Medici for a second time and re-established a theocratic republic on 16 May 1527, (Jesus Christ was named King of Florence). The Medici returned to power in Florence in 1530, with the armies of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the blessings of Pope Clement VII (Giulio de' Medici). Florence officially became a monarchy in 1531, when Emperor Charles and Pope Clement named Alessandro de Medici as Duke of the Florentine Republic. The Medici's monarchy would last over two centuries. Alessandro's successor, Cosimo I de Medici, was named Grand Dukes of Tuscany in 1569; in all Tuscany, only the Republic of Lucca (later a Duchy) and the Principality of Piombino were independent from Florence. 18th and 19th centuries The extinction of the Medici dynasty and the accession in 1737 of Francis Stephen, duke of Lorraine and husband of Maria Theresa of Austria, led to Tuscany's temporary inclusion in the territories of the Austrian crown. It became a secundogeniture of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty, who were deposed for the House of Bourbon-Parma in 1801. From 1801 to 1807 Florence was the capital of the Napoleonic client state Kingdom of Etruria. The Bourbon-Parma were deposed in December 1807 when Tuscany was annexed by France. Florence was the prefecture of the French département of Arno from 1808 to the fall of Napoleon in 1814. The Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty was restored on the throne of Tuscany at the Congress of Vienna but finally deposed in 1859. Tuscany became a region of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. Florence replaced Turin as Italy's capital in 1865 and, in an effort to modernise the city, the old market in the Piazza del Mercato Vecchio and many medieval houses were pulled down and replaced by a more formal street plan with newer houses. The Piazza (first renamed Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, then Piazza della Repubblica, the present name) was significantly widened and a large triumphal arch was constructed at the west end. This development was unpopular and was prevented from continuing by the efforts of several British and American people living in the city. A museum recording the destruction stands nearby today. The country's second capital city was superseded by Rome six years later, after the withdrawal of the French troops allowed the capture of Rome. 20th century During World War II the city experienced a year-long German occupation (1943–1944) being part of the Italian Social Republic. Hitler declared it an open city on 3 July 1944 as troops of the British 8th Army closed in. In early August, the retreating Germans decided to demolish all the bridges along the Arno linking the district of Oltrarno to the rest of the city, making it difficult for troops of the 8th Army to cross. However, at the last moment Charles Steinhauslin, at the time consul of 26 countries in Florence, convinced the German general in Italy that the Ponte Vecchio was not to be destroyed due to its historical value. Instead, an equally historic area of streets directly to the south of the bridge, including part of the Corridoio Vasariano, was destroyed using mines. Since then the bridges have been restored to their original forms using as many of the remaining materials as possible, but the buildings surrounding the Ponte Vecchio have been rebuilt in a style combining the old with modern design. Shortly before leaving Florence, as they knew that they would soon have to retreat, the Germans executed many freedom fighters and political opponents publicly, in streets and squares including the Piazza Santo Spirito. Florence was liberated by New Zealand, South African and British troops on 4 August 1944 alongside partisans from the Tuscan Committee of National Liberation (CTLN). The Allied soldiers who died driving the Germans from Tuscany are buried in cemeteries outside the city (Americans about south of the city, British and Commonwealth soldiers a few kilometres east of the centre on the right bank of the Arno). At the end of World War II in May 1945, the US Army's Information and Educational Branch was ordered to establish an overseas university campus for demobilised American service men and women in Florence, Italy. The first American university for service personnel was established in June 1945 at the School of Aeronautics in Florence, Italy. Some 7,500 soldier-students were to pass through the university during its four one-month sessions (see G. I. American Universities). In November 1966, the Arno flooded parts of the centre, damaging many art treasures. Around the city there are tiny placards on the walls noting where the flood waters reached at their highest point. Geography Florence lies in a basin formed by the hills of Careggi, Fiesole, Settignano, Arcetri, Poggio Imperiale and Bellosguardo (Florence). The Arno river, three other minor rivers (Mugnone, Ema and Greve) and some streams flow through it. Climate Florence has a humid subtropical climate (Cfa), tending to Mediterranean (Csa). It has hot summers with moderate or light rainfall and cool, damp winters. As Florence lacks a prevailing wind, summer temperatures are higher than along the coast. Rainfall in summer is convectional, while relief rainfall dominates in the winter. Snow flurries occur almost every year, but often result in no accumulation. The highest officially recorded temperature was on 26 July 1983 and the lowest was on 12 January 1985. Government The legislative body of the municipality is the City Council (Consiglio Comunale), which is composed of 36 councillors elected every five years with a proportional system, at the same time as the mayoral elections. The executive body is the City Committee (Giunta Comunale), composed of 7 assessors, nominated and presided over by a directly elected Mayor. The current mayor of Florence is Dario Nardella. The municipality of Florence is subdivided into five administrative Boroughs (Quartieri). Each borough is governed by a Council (Consiglio) and a President, elected at the same time as the city mayor. The urban organisation is governed by the Italian Constitution (art. 114). The boroughs have the power to advise the Mayor with nonbinding opinions on a large spectrum of topics (environment, construction, public health, local markets) and exercise the functions delegated to them by the City Council; in addition they are supplied with an autonomous funding in order to finance local activities. The boroughs are: Q1 – Centro storico (Historic Centre); population: 67,170; Q2 – Campo di Marte; population: 88,588; Q3 – Gavinana-Galluzzo; population: 40,907; Q4 – Isolotto-Legnaia; population: 66,636; Q5 – Rifredi; population: 103,761. All of the five boroughs are governed by the Democratic Party. The former Italian Prime Minister (2014–2016), Matteo Renzi, served as mayor from 2009 to 2014. Main sights Florence is known as the "cradle of the Renaissance" (la culla del Rinascimento) for its monuments, churches, and buildings. The best-known site of Florence is the domed cathedral of the city, Santa Maria del Fiore, known as The Duomo, whose dome was built by Filippo Brunelleschi. The nearby Campanile (partly designed by Giotto) and the Baptistery buildings are also highlights. The dome, 600 years after its completion, is still the largest dome built in brick and mortar in the world. In 1982, the historic centre of Florence (Italian: centro storico di Firenze) was declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO. The centre of the city is contained in medieval walls that were built in the 14th century to defend the city. At the heart of the city, in Piazza della Signoria, is Bartolomeo Ammannati's Fountain of Neptune (1563–1565), which is a masterpiece of marble sculpture at the terminus of a still functioning Roman aqueduct. The layout and structure of Florence in many ways harkens back to the Roman era, where it was designed as a garrison settlement. Nevertheless, the majority of the city was built during the Renaissance. Despite the strong presence of Renaissance architecture within the city, traces of medieval, Baroque, Neoclassical and modern architecture can be found. The Palazzo Vecchio as well as the Duomo, or the city's Cathedral, are the two buildings which dominate Florence's skyline. The river Arno, which cuts through the old part of the city, is as much a character in Florentine history as many of the people who lived there. Historically, the locals have had a love-hate relationship with the Arno – which alternated between nourishing the city with commerce, and destroying it by flood. One of the bridges in particular stands out – the Ponte Vecchio (Old Bridge), whose most striking feature is the multitude of shops built upon its edges, held up by stilts. The bridge also carries Vasari's elevated corridor linking the Uffizi to the Medici residence (Palazzo Pitti). Although the original bridge was constructed by the Etruscans, the current bridge was rebuilt in the 14th century. It is the only bridge in the city to have survived World War II intact. It is the first example in the western world of a bridge built using segmental arches, that is, arches less than a semicircle, to reduce both span-to-rise ratio and the numbers of pillars to allow lesser encumbrance in the riverbed (being in this much more successful than the Roman Alconétar Bridge). The church of San Lorenzo contains the Medici Chapel, the mausoleum of the Medici family—the most powerful family in Florence from the 15th to the 18th century. Nearby is the Uffizi Gallery, one of the finest art museums in the world – founded on a large bequest from the last member of the Medici family. The Uffizi is located at the corner of Piazza della Signoria, a site important for being the centre of Florence's civil life and government for centuries. The Palazzo della Signoria facing it is still home of the municipal government. Many significant episodes in the history of art and political changes were staged here, such as: In 1301, Dante Alighieri was sent into exile from here (commemorated by a plaque on one of the walls of the Uffizi). On 26 April 1478, Jacopo de' Pazzi and his retainers tried to raise the city against the Medici after the plot known as La congiura dei Pazzi (The Pazzi conspiracy), murdering Giuliano di Piero de' Medici and wounding his brother Lorenzo. All the members of the plot who could be apprehended were seized by the Florentines and hanged from the windows of the palace. In 1497, it was the location of the Bonfire of the Vanities instigated by the Dominican friar and preacher Girolamo Savonarola On 23 May 1498, the same Savonarola and two followers were hanged and burnt at the stake. (A round plate in the ground marks the spot where he was hanged) In 1504, Michelangelo's David (now replaced by a replica, since the original was moved in 1873 to the Galleria dell'Accademia) was installed in front of the Palazzo della Signoria (also known as Palazzo Vecchio). The Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazza della Signoria is the location of a number of statues by other sculptors such as Donatello, Giambologna, Ammannati and Cellini, although some have been replaced with copies to preserve the originals. Monuments, museums and religious buildings Florence contains several palaces and buildings from various eras. The Palazzo Vecchio is the town hall of Florence and also an art museum. This large Romanesque crenellated fortress-palace overlooks the Piazza della Signoria with its copy of Michelangelo's David statue as well as the gallery of statues in the adjacent Loggia dei Lanzi. Originally called the Palazzo della Signoria, after the Signoria of Florence, the ruling body of the Republic of Florence, it was also given several other names: Palazzo del Popolo, Palazzo dei Priori, and Palazzo Ducale, in accordance with the varying use of the palace during its long history. The building acquired its current name when the Medici duke's residence was moved across the Arno to the Palazzo Pitti. It is linked to the Uffizi and the Palazzo Pitti through the Corridoio Vasariano. Palazzo Medici Riccardi, designed by Michelozzo di Bartolomeo for Cosimo il Vecchio, of the Medici family, is another major edifice, and was built between 1445 and 1460. It was well known for its stone masonry that includes rustication and ashlar. Today it is the head office of the Metropolitan City of Florence and hosts museums and the Riccardiana Library. The Palazzo Strozzi, an example of civil architecture with its rusticated stone, was inspired by the Palazzo Medici, but with more harmonious proportions. Today the palace is used for international expositions like the annual antique show (founded as the Biennale dell'Antiquariato in 1959), fashion shows and other cultural and artistic events. Here also is the seat of the Istituto Nazionale del Rinascimento and the noted Gabinetto Vieusseux, with the library and reading room. There are several other notable places, including the Palazzo Rucellai, designed by Leon Battista Alberti between 1446 and 1451 and executed, at least in part, by Bernardo Rossellino; the Palazzo Davanzati, which houses the museum of the Old Florentine House; the Palazzo delle Assicurazioni Generali, designed in the Neo-Renaissance style in 1871; the Palazzo Spini Feroni, in Piazza Santa Trinita, a historic 13th-century private palace, owned since the 1920s by shoe-designer Salvatore Ferragamo; as well as various others, including the Palazzo Borghese, the Palazzo di Bianca Cappello, the Palazzo Antinori, and the Royal building of Santa Maria Novella. Florence contains numerous museums and art galleries where some of the world's most important works of art are held. The city is one of the best preserved Renaissance centres of art and architecture in the world and has a high concentration of art, architecture and culture. In the ranking list of the 15 most visited Italian art museums, ⅔ are represented by Florentine museums. The Uffizi is one of these, having a very large collection of international and Florentine art. The gallery is articulated in many halls, catalogued by schools and chronological order. Engendered by the Medici family's artistic collections through the centuries, it houses works of art by various painters and artists. The Vasari Corridor is another gallery, built connecting the Palazzo Vecchio with the Pitti Palace passing by the Uffizi and over the Ponte Vecchio. The Galleria dell'Accademia houses a Michelangelo collection, including the David. It has a collection of Russian icons and works by various artists and painters. Other museums and galleries include the Bargello, which concentrates on sculpture works by artists including Donatello, Giambologna and Michelangelo; the Palazzo Pitti, containing part of the Medici family's former private collection. In addition to the Medici collection, the palace's galleries contain many Renaissance works, including several by Raphael and Titian, large collections of costumes, ceremonial carriages, silver, porcelain and a gallery of modern art dating from the 18th century. Adjoining the palace are the Boboli Gardens, elaborately landscaped and with numerous sculptures. There are several different churches and religious buildings in Florence. The cathedral is Santa Maria del Fiore. The San Giovanni Baptistery located in front of the cathedral, is decorated by numerous artists, notably by Lorenzo Ghiberti with the Gates of Paradise. Other churches in Florence include the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, located in Santa Maria Novella square (near the Firenze Santa Maria Novella railway station) which contains works by Masaccio, Paolo Uccello, Filippino Lippi and Domenico Ghirlandaio; the Basilica of Santa Croce, the principal Franciscan church in the city, which is situated on the Piazza di Santa Croce, about southeast of the Duomo, and is the burial place of some of the most illustrious Italians, such as Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Foscolo, Rossini, thus it is known also as the Temple of the Italian Glories (Tempio dell'Itale Glorie); the Basilica of San Lorenzo, which is one of the largest churches in the city, situated at the centre of Florence's main market district, and the burial place of all the principal members of the Medici family from Cosimo il Vecchio to Cosimo III; Santo Spirito, in the Oltrarno quarter, facing the square with the same name; Orsanmichele, whose building was constructed on the site of the kitchen garden of the monastery of San Michele, now demolished; Santissima Annunziata, a Roman Catholic basilica and the mother church of the Servite order; Ognissanti, which was founded by the lay order of the Umiliati, and is among the first examples of Baroque architecture built in the city; the Santa Maria del Carmine, in the Oltrarno district of Florence, which is the location of the Brancacci Chapel, housing outstanding Renaissance frescoes by Masaccio and Masolino da Panicale, later finished by Filippino Lippi; the Medici Chapel with statues by Michelangelo, in the San Lorenzo; as well as several others, including Santa Trinita, San Marco, Santa Felicita, Badia Fiorentina, San Gaetano, San Miniato al Monte, Florence Charterhouse, and Santa Maria del Carmine. The city additionally contains the Orthodox Russian church of Nativity, and the Great Synagogue of Florence, built in the 19th century. Florence contains various theatres and cinemas. The Odeon Cinema of the Palazzo dello Strozzino is one of the oldest cinemas in the city. Established from 1920 to 1922 in a wing of the Palazzo dello Strozzino, it used to be called the Cinema Teatro Savoia (Savoy Cinema-Theatre), yet was later called Odeon. The Teatro della Pergola, located in the centre of the city on the eponymous street, is an opera house built in the 17th century. Another theatre is the Teatro Comunale (or Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino), originally built as the open-air amphitheatre, the Politeama Fiorentino Vittorio Emanuele, which was inaugurated on 17 May 1862 with a production of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and which seated 6,000 people. There are several other theatres, such as the Saloncino Castinelli, the Teatro Puccini, the Teatro Verdi, the Teatro Goldoni and the Teatro Niccolini. Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore Florence Cathedral, formally the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, is the cathedral of Florence, Italy. It was begun in 1296 in the Gothic style to a design of Arnolfo di Cambio and was structurally completed by 1436, with the dome designed by Filippo Brunelleschi. Squares, streets and parks Aside from such monuments, Florence contains numerous major squares (piazze) and streets. The Piazza della Repubblica is a square in the city centre, location of the cultural cafés and bourgeois palaces. Among the square's cafés (like Caffè Gilli, Paszkowski or the Hard Rock Cafè), the Giubbe Rosse café has long been a meeting place for artists and writers, notably those of Futurism. The Piazza Santa Croce is another; dominated by the Basilica of Santa Croce, it is a rectangular square in the centre of the city where the Calcio Fiorentino is played every year. Furthermore, there is the Piazza Santa Trinita, a square near the Arno that mark the end of the Via de' Tornabuoni street. Other squares include the Piazza San Marco, the Piazza Santa Maria Novella, the Piazza Beccaria and the Piazza della Libertà. The centre additionally contains several streets. Such include the Via Camillo Cavour, one of the main roads of the northern area of the historic centre; the Via Ghibellina, one of central Florence's longest streets; the Via dei Calzaiuoli, one of the most central streets of the historic centre which links Piazza del Duomo to Piazza della Signoria, winding parallel to via Roma and Piazza della Repubblica; the Via de' Tornabuoni, a luxurious street in the city centre that goes from Antinori square to ponte Santa Trinita, across Piazza Santa Trinita, characterised by the presence of fashion boutiques; the Viali di Circonvallazione, 6-lane boulevards surrounding the northern part of the historic centre; as well as others, such as Via Roma, Via degli Speziali, Via de' Cerretani, and the Viale dei Colli. Florence also contains various parks and gardens. Such include the Boboli Gardens, the Parco delle Cascine, the Giardino Bardini and the Giardino dei Semplici, amongst others. Demographics In 1200 the city was home to 50,000 people. By 1300 the population of the city proper was 120,000, with an additional 300,000 living in the Contado. Between 1500 and 1650 the population was around 70,000. , the population of the city proper is 370,702, while Eurostat estimates that 696,767 people live in the urban area of Florence. The Metropolitan Area of Florence, Prato and Pistoia, constituted in 2000 over an area of roughly , is home to 1.5 million people. Within Florence proper, 46.8% of the population was male in 2007 and 53.2% were female. Minors (children aged 18 and less) totalled 14.10 percent of the population compared to pensioners, who numbered 25.95 percent. This compares with the Italian average of 18.06 percent (minors) and 19.94 percent (pensioners). The average age of Florence resident is 49 compared to the Italian average of 42. In the five years between 2002 and 2007, the population of Florence grew by 3.22 percent, while Italy as a whole grew by 3.56 percent. The birth rate of Florence is 7.66 births per 1,000 inhabitants compared to the Italian average of 9.45 births. , 87.46% of the population was Italian. An estimated 6,000 Chinese live in the city. The largest immigrant group came from other European countries (mostly Romanians and Albanians): 3.52%, East Asia (mostly Chinese and Filipino): 2.17%, the Americas: 1.41%, and North Africa (mostly Moroccan): 0.9%. Much like the rest of Italy most of the people in Florence are Roman Catholic, with more than 90% of the population belonging to the Archdiocese of Florence. Economy Tourism is, by far, the most important of all industries and most of the Florentine economy relies on the money generated by international arrivals and students studying in the city. The value tourism to the city totalled some €2.5 billion in 2015 and the number of visitors had increased by 5.5% from the previous year. In 2013, Florence was listed as the second best world city by Condé Nast Traveler. Manufacturing and commerce, however, still remain highly important. Florence is also Italy's 17th richest city in terms of average workers' earnings, with the figure being €23,265 (the overall city's income is €6,531,204,473), coming after Mantua, yet surpassing Bolzano. Industry, commerce and services Florence is a major production and commercial centre in Italy, where the Florentine industrial complexes in the suburbs produce all sorts of goods, from furniture, rubber goods, chemicals, and food. However, traditional and local products, such as antiques, handicrafts, glassware, leatherwork, art reproductions, jewellery, souvenirs, elaborate metal and iron-work, shoes, accessories and high fashion clothes also dominate a fair sector of Florence's economy. The city's income relies partially on services and commercial and cultural interests, such as annual fairs, theatrical and lyrical productions, art exhibitions, festivals and fashion shows, such as the Calcio Fiorentino. Heavy industry and machinery also take their part in providing an income. In Nuovo Pignone, numerous factories are still present, and small-to medium industrial businesses are dominant. The Florence-Prato-Pistoia industrial districts and areas were known as the 'Third Italy' in the 1990s, due to the exports of high-quality goods and automobile (especially the Vespa) and the prosperity and productivity of the Florentine entrepreneurs. Some of these industries even rivalled the traditional industrial districts in Emilia-Romagna and Veneto due to high profits and productivity. In the fourth quarter of 2015, manufacturing increased by 2.4% and exports increased by 7.2%. Leading sectors included mechanical engineering, fashion, pharmaceutics, food and wine. During 2015, permanent employment contracts increased by 48.8 percent, boosted by nationwide tax break. Tourism Tourism is the most significant industry in central Florence. From April to October, tourists outnumber local population. Tickets to the Uffizi and Accademia museums are regularly sold out and large groups regularly fill the basilicas of Santa Croce and Santa Maria Novella, both of which charge for entry. Tickets for The Uffizi and Accademia can be purchased online prior to visiting. In 2010, readers of Travel + Leisure magazine ranked the city as their third favourite tourist destination. In 2015, Condé Nast Travel readers voted Florence as the best city in Europe. Studies by Euromonitor International have concluded that cultural and history-oriented tourism is generating significantly increased spending throughout Europe. Florence is believed to have the greatest concentration of art (in proportion to its size) in the world. Thus, cultural tourism is particularly strong, with world-renowned museums such as the Uffizi selling over 1.93 million tickets in 2014. The city's convention centre facilities were restructured during the 1990s and host exhibitions, conferences, meetings, social forums, concerts and other events all year. In 2016, Florence had 20,588 hotel rooms in 570 facilities. International visitors use 75% of the rooms; some 18% of those were from the U.S. In 2014, the city had 8.5 million overnight stays. A Euromonitor report indicates that in 2015 the city ranked as the world's 36th most visited in the world, with over 4.95 million arrivals for the year. Tourism brings revenue to Florence, but also creates certain problems. The Ponte Vecchio, The San Lorenzo Market and Santa Maria Novella are plagued by pickpockets. The province of Florence receives roughly 13 million visitors per year and in peak seasons, popular locations may become overcrowded as a result. In 2015, Mayor Dario Nardella expressed concern over visitors who arrive on buses, stay only a few hours, spend little money but contribute significantly to overcrowding. "No museum visit, just a photo from the square, the bus back and then on to Venice... We don’t want tourists like that," he said. Some tourists are less than respectful of the city's cultural heritage, according to Nardella. In June 2017, he instituted a programme of spraying church steps with water to prevent tourists from using such areas as picnic spots. While he values the benefits of tourism, he claims that there has been "an increase among those who sit down on church steps, eat their food and leave rubbish strewn on them," he explained. To boost the sale of traditional foods, the mayor had introduced legislation (enacted in 2016) that requires restaurants to use typical Tuscan products and rejected McDonald's application to open a location in the Piazza del Duomo. In October 2021, Florence was shortlisted for the European Commission's 2022 European Capital of Smart Tourism award along with Bordeaux, Copenhagen, Dublin, Ljubljana, Palma de Mallorca and Valencia. Food and wine production Food and wine have long been an important staple of the economy. The Chianti region is just south of the city, and its Sangiovese grapes figure prominently not only in its Chianti Classico wines but also in many of the more recently developed Supertuscan blends. Within to the west is the Carmignano area, also home to flavourful sangiovese-based reds. The celebrated Chianti Rufina district, geographically and historically separated from the main Chianti region, is also few kilometres east of Florence. More recently, the Bolgheri region (about southwest of Florence) has become celebrated for its "Super Tuscan" reds such as Sassicaia and Ornellaia. Culture Art Florence was the birthplace of High Renaissance art, which lasted from 1450 to 1527. While Medieval art focused on basic story telling of the Bible, Renaissance art focused on naturalism and human emotion. Medieval art was abstract, formulaic, and largely produced by monks whereas Renaissance art was rational, mathematical, individualistic, consisted of linear perspective and shading (Chiaroscuro) and produced by specialists (Leonardo da Vinci, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael). Religion was important, but with this new age came the humanization of religious figures in art, such as Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Ecce Homo (Bosch, 1470s), and Madonna Della Seggiola; People of this age began to understand themselves as human beings, which reflected in art. The Renaissance marked the rebirth of classical values in art and society as people studied the ancient masters of the Greco-Roman world; Art became focused on realism as opposed to idealism. Cimabue and Giotto, the fathers of Italian painting, lived in Florence as well as Arnolfo and Andrea Pisano, renewers of architecture and sculpture; Brunelleschi, Donatello and Masaccio, forefathers of the Renaissance, Ghiberti and the Della Robbias, Filippo Lippi and Angelico; Botticelli, Paolo Uccello and the universal genius of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Their works, together with those of many other generations of artists, are gathered in the several museums of the town: the Uffizi Gallery, the Palatina gallery with the paintings of the "Golden Ages", the Bargello with the sculptures of the Renaissance, the museum of San Marco with Fra Angelico's works, the Academy, the chapels of the Medicis Buonarroti's house with the sculptures of Michelangelo, the following museums: Bardini, Horne, Stibbert, Romano, Corsini, The Gallery of Modern Art, the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, the museum of Silverware and the museum of Precious Stones. Several monuments are located in Florence: the Florence Baptistery with its mosaics; the cathedral with its sculptures, the medieval churches with bands of frescoes; public as well as private palaces: Palazzo Vecchio, Palazzo Pitti, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Palazzo Davanzati; monasteries, cloisters, refectories; the "Certosa". In the archaeological museum includes documents of Etruscan civilisation. In fact the city is so rich in art that some first time visitors experience the Stendhal syndrome as they encounter its art for the first time. Florentine architects such as Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1466) and Leon Battista Alberti (1404–1472) were among the fathers of both Renaissance and Neoclassical architecture. The cathedral, topped by Brunelleschi's dome, dominates the Florentine skyline. The Florentines decided to start building it – late in the 13th century, without a design for the dome. The project proposed by Brunelleschi in the 14th century was the largest ever built at the time, and the first major dome built in Europe since the two great domes of Roman times – the Pantheon in Rome, and Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. The dome of Santa Maria del Fiore remains the largest brick construction of its kind in the world. In front of it is the medieval Baptistery. The two buildings incorporate in their decoration the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. In recent years, most of the important works of art from the two buildings – and from the nearby Giotto's Campanile, have been removed and replaced by copies. The originals are now housed in the Museum dell'Opera del Duomo, just to the east of the cathedral. Florence has large numbers of art-filled churches, such as San Miniato al Monte, San Lorenzo, Santa Maria Novella, Santa Trinita, Santa Maria del Carmine, Santa Croce, Santo Spirito, the Annunziata, Ognissanti and numerous others. Artists associated with Florence range from Arnolfo di Cambio and Cimabue to Giotto, Nanni di Banco, and Paolo Uccello; through Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Donatello and Massaccio and the della Robbia family; through Fra Angelico and Botticelli and Piero della Francesca, and on to Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. Others include Benvenuto Cellini, Andrea del Sarto, Benozzo Gozzoli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Filippo Lippi, Bernardo Buontalenti, Orcagna, Pollaiuolo, Filippino Lippi, Verrocchio, Bronzino, Desiderio da Settignano, Michelozzo, the Rossellis, the Sangallos, and Pontormo. Artists from other regions who worked in Florence include Raphael, Andrea Pisano, Giambologna, Il Sodoma and Peter Paul Rubens. Picture galleries in Florence include the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace. Two superb collections of sculpture are in the Bargello and the Museum of the Works of the Duomo. They are filled with the creations of Donatello, Verrochio, Desiderio da Settignano, Michelangelo and others. The Galleria dell'Accademia has Michelangelo's David – perhaps the best-known work of art anywhere, plus the unfinished statues of the slaves Michelangelo created for the tomb of Pope Julius II. Other sights include the medieval city hall, the Palazzo della Signoria (also known as the Palazzo Vecchio), the Archeological Museum, the Museum of the History of Science, the Garden of Archimedes, the Palazzo Davanzatti, the Stibbert Museum, St. Marks, the Medici Chapels, the Museum of the Works of Santa Croce, the Museum of the Cloister of Santa Maria Novella, the Zoological Museum ("La Specola"), the Bardini, and the Museo Horne. There is also a collection of works by the modern sculptor, Marino Marini, in a museum named after him. The Strozzi Palace is the site of special exhibits. Language Florentine (fiorentino), spoken by inhabitants of Florence and its environs, is a Tuscan dialect and the immediate parent language to modern Italian. Although its vocabulary and pronunciation are largely identical to standard Italian, differences do exist. The Vocabolario del fiorentino contemporaneo (Dictionary of Modern Florentine) reveals lexical distinctions from all walks of life. Florentines have a highly recognisable accent in phonetic terms due to the so-called gorgia toscana): "hard c" between two vowels is pronounced as a fricative similar to an English h, so that dico 'I say' is phonetically , i cani 'the dogs' is . Similarly, t between vowels is pronounced as in English thin, and p in the same position is the bilabial fricative . Other traits include using a form of the subjunctive mood last commonly used in medieval times, a frequent usage in everyday speech of the modern subjunctive, and a shortened pronunciation of the definite article, instead of "il", causing doubling of the consonant that follows, so that il cane 'the dog', for example, is pronounced . Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio pioneered the use of the vernacular instead of the Latin used for most literary works at the time. Literature Despite Latin being the main language of the courts and the Church in the Middle Ages, writers such as Dante Alighieri and many others used their own language, the Florentine vernacular descended from Latin, in composing their greatest works. The oldest literary pieces written in Florentine go as far back as the 13th century. Florence's literature fully blossomed in the 14th century, when not only Dante with his Divine Comedy (1306–1321) and Petrarch, but also poets such as Guido Cavalcanti and Lapo Gianni composed their most important works. Dante's masterpiece is the Divine Comedy, which mainly deals with the poet himself taking an allegoric and moral tour of Hell, Purgatory and finally Heaven, during which he meets numerous mythological or real characters of his age or before. He is first guided by the Roman poet Virgil, whose non-Christian beliefs damned him to Hell. Later on he is joined by Beatrice, who guides him through Heaven. In the 14th century, Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio led the literary scene in Florence after Dante's death in 1321. Petrarch was an all-rounder writer, author and poet, but was particularly known for his Canzoniere, or the Book of Songs, where he conveyed his unremitting love for Laura. His style of writing has since become known as Petrarchism. Boccaccio was better known for his Decameron, a slightly grim story of Florence during the 1350s bubonic plague, known as the Black Death, when some people fled the ravaged city to an isolated country mansion, and spent their time there recounting stories and novellas taken from the medieval and contemporary tradition. All of this is written in a series of 100 distinct novellas. In the 16th century, during the Renaissance, Florence was the home town of political writer and philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, whose ideas on how rulers should govern the land, detailed in The Prince, spread across European courts and enjoyed enduring popularity for centuries. These principles became known as Machiavellianism. Music Florence became a musical centre during the Middle Ages and music and the performing arts remain an important part of its culture. The growth of Northern Italian Cities in the 1500s likely contributed to its increased prominence. During the Renaissance, there were four kinds of musical patronage in the city with respect to both sacred and secular music: state, corporate, church, and private. It was here that the Florentine Camerata convened in the mid-16th century and experimented with setting tales of Greek mythology to music and staging the result—in other words, the first operas, setting the wheels in motion not just for the further development of the operatic form, but for later developments of separate "classical" forms such as the symphony and concerto. After the year 1600, Italian trends prevailed across Europe, by 1750 it was the primary musical language. The genre of the Madrigal, born in Italy, gained popularity in Britain and elsewhere. Several Italian cities were "larger on the musical map than their real-size for power suggested. Florence, was once such city which experienced a fantastic period in the early seventeenth Century of musico-theatrical innovation, including the beginning and flourishing of opera. Opera was invented in Florence in the late 16th century when Jacobo Peri's Dafne an opera in the style of monody, was premiered. Opera spread from Florence throughout Italy and eventually Europe. Vocal Music in the choir setting was also taking new identity at this time. At the beginning of the 17th century, two practices for writing music were devised, one the first practice or Stile Antico/Prima Prattica the other the Stile Moderno/Seconda Prattica. The Stile Antico was more prevalent in Northern Europe and Stile Moderno was practiced more by the Italian Composers of the time. The piano was invented in Florence in 1709 by Bartolomeo Cristofori. Composers and musicians who have lived in Florence include Piero Strozzi (1550 – after 1608), Giulio Caccini (1551–1618) and Mike Francis (1961–2009). Giulio Caccini's book Le Nuove Musiche was significant in performance practice technique instruction at the time. The book specified a new term, in use by the 1630s, called monody which indicated the combination of voice and basso continuo and connoted a practice of stating text in a free, lyrical, yet speech-like manner. This would occur while an instrument, usually a keyboard type such as harpsichord, played and held chords while the singer sang/spoke the monodic line. Cinema Florence has been a setting for numerous works of fiction and movies, including the novels and associated films, such as Light in the Piazza, The Girl Who Couldn't Say No, Calmi Cuori Appassionati, Hannibal, A Room with a View, Tea with Mussolini, Virgin Territory and Inferno. The city is home to renowned Italian actors and actresses, such as Roberto Benigni, Leonardo Pieraccioni and Vittoria Puccini. Video games Florence has appeared as a location in video games such as Assassins Creed II. The Republic of Florence also appears as a playable nation in Paradox Interactive's grand strategy game Europa Universalis IV. Other Media 16th century Florence is the setting of the Japanese manga and anime series Arte. Cuisine Florentine food grows out of a tradition of peasant eating rather than rarefied high cooking. The majority of dishes are based on meat. The whole animal was traditionally eaten; tripe (trippa) and stomach (lampredotto) were once regularly on the menu and still are sold at the food carts stationed throughout the city. Antipasti include crostini toscani, sliced bread rounds topped with a chicken liver-based pâté, and sliced meats (mainly prosciutto and salame, often served with melon when in season). The typically saltless Tuscan bread, obtained with natural levain frequently features in Florentine courses, especially in its soups, ribollita and pappa al pomodoro, or in the salad of bread and fresh vegetables called panzanella that is served in summer. The bistecca alla fiorentina is a large (the customary size should weigh around ) – the "date" steak – T-bone steak of Chianina beef cooked over hot charcoal and served very rare with its more recently derived version, the tagliata, sliced rare beef served on a bed of arugula, often with slices of Parmesan cheese on top. Most of these courses are generally served with local olive oil, also a prime product enjoying a worldwide reputation. Among the desserts, schiacciata alla fiorentina, a white flatbread cake, is one of the most popular; it is a very soft cake, prepared with extremely simple ingredients, typical of Florentine cuisine, and is especially eaten at Carnival. Research activity Research institutes and university departments are located within the Florence area and within two campuses at Polo di Novoli and Polo Scientifico di Sesto Fiorentino as well as in the Research Area of Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche. Science and discovery Florence has been an important scientific centre for centuries, notably during the Renaissance with scientists such as Leonardo da Vinci. Florentines were one of the driving forces behind the Age of Discovery. Florentine bankers financed Henry the Navigator and the Portuguese explorers who pioneered the route around Africa to India and the Far East. It was a map drawn by the Florentine Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, a student of Brunelleschi, that Christopher Columbus used to sell his "enterprise" to the Spanish monarchs, and which he used on his first voyage. Mercator's "Projection" is a refined version of Toscanelli's, taking the Americas into account. Galileo and other scientists pioneered the study of optics, ballistics, astronomy, anatomy, and other scientific disciplines. Pico della Mirandola, Leonardo Bruni, Machiavelli, and many others laid the groundwork for modern scientific understanding. Fashion By the year 1300 Florence had become a centre of textile production in Europe. Many of the rich families in Renaissance Florence were major purchasers of locally produced fine clothing, and the specialists of fashion in the economy and culture of Florence during that period is often underestimated. Florence is regarded by some as the birthplace and earliest centre of the modern (post World War Two) fashion industry in Italy. The Florentine "soirées" of the early 1950s organised by Giovanni Battista Giorgini were events where several Italian designers participated in group shows and first garnered international attention. Florence has served as the home of the Italian fashion company Salvatore Ferragamo since 1928. Gucci, Roberto Cavalli, and Emilio Pucci are also headquartered in Florence. Other major players in the fashion industry such as Prada and Chanel have large offices and stores in Florence or its outskirts. Florence's main upscale shopping street is Via de' Tornabuoni, where major luxury fashion houses and jewellery labels, such as Armani and Bulgari, have their elegant boutiques. Via del Parione and Via Roma are other streets that are also well known for their high-end fashion stores. Historical evocations Scoppio del Carro The Scoppio del Carro ("Explosion of the Cart") is a celebration of the First Crusade. During the day of Easter, a cart, which the Florentines call the Brindellone and which is led by four white oxen, is taken to the Piazza del Duomo between the Baptistery of St. John the Baptist (Battistero di San Giovanni) and the Florence Cathedral (Santa Maria del Fiore). The cart is connected by a rope to the interior of the church. Near the cart there is a model of a dove, which, according to legend, is a symbol of good luck for the city: at the end of the Easter mass, the dove emerges from the nave of the Duomo and ignites the fireworks on the cart. Calcio Storico Calcio Storico Fiorentino ("Historic Florentine Football"), sometimes called Calcio in costume, is a traditional sport, regarded as a forerunner of soccer, though the actual gameplay most closely resembles rugby. The event originates from the Middle Ages, when the most important Florentine nobles amused themselves playing while wearing bright costumes. The most important match was played on 17 February 1530, during the siege of Florence. That day Papal troops besieged the city while the Florentines, with contempt of the enemies, decided to play the game notwithstanding the situation. The game is played in the Piazza di Santa Croce. A temporary arena is constructed, with bleachers and a sand-covered playing field. A series of matches are held between four teams representing each quartiere (quarter) of Florence during late June and early July. There are four teams: Azzurri (light blue), Bianchi (white), Rossi (red) and Verdi (green). The Azzurri are from the quarter of Santa Croce, Bianchi from the quarter of Santo Spirito, Verdi are from San Giovanni and Rossi from Santa Maria Novella. Sport In association football Florence is represented by ACF Fiorentina, which plays in Serie A, the top league of Italian league system. ACF Fiorentina has won two Italian Championships, in 1956 and 1969, and 6 Italian cups, since their formation in 1926. They play their games at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, which holds 47,282. The female squad of ACF Fiorentina have won the women's association football Italian Championship of the 2016–17 season. The city is home of the Centro Tecnico Federale di Coverciano, in Coverciano, Florence, the main training ground of the Italian national team, and the technical department of the Italian Football Federation. Florence was one of the host cities for cycling's 2013 UCI Road World Championships. The city has also hosted stages of the Giro d'Italia, most recently in 2017. Since 2017 Florence is also represented in Eccellenza, the top tier of rugby union league system in Italy, by I Medicei, which is a club established in 2015 by the merging of the senior squads of I Cavalieri (of Prato) and Firenze Rugby 1931. I Medicei won the Serie A Championship in 2016–17 and were promoted to Eccellenza for the 2017–18 season. Rari Nantes Florentia is a successful water polo club based in Florence; both its male and female squads have won several Italian championships and the female squad has also European titles in their palmarès. Education The University of Florence was first founded in 1321, and was recognized by Pope Clement VI in 1349. In 2019, over 50,000 students were enrolled at the university. The European University Institute has been based in the suburb of Fiesole since 1976. Several American universities host a campus in Florence. Including New York University, Marist College, Pepperdine, Stanford, Florida State and James Madison. Another center of crucial importance is Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. The center for arts and humanities advanced research is located on the border of Florence, Fiesole and Settignano since 1961. Over 8,000 American students are enrolled for study in Florence. The private school, Centro Machiavelli which teaches Italian language and culture to foreigners, is located in Piazza Santo Spirito in Florence. Transportation Cars The centre of Florence is closed to through-traffic, although buses, taxis and residents with appropriate permits are allowed in. This area is commonly referred to as the ZTL (Zona Traffico Limitato), which is divided into several subsections. Residents of one section, therefore, will only be able to drive in their district and perhaps some surrounding ones. Cars without permits are allowed to enter after 7.30 pm, or before 7.30 am. The rules shift during the tourist-filled summers, putting more restrictions on where one can get in and out. Buses The principal public transit network in the city is run by the ATAF and Li-nea bus company. Individual tickets, or a pass called Carta Agile with multiple rides, are purchased in advance and must be validated once on board. These tickets may be used on ATAF and Li-nea buses, Tramvia and second-class local trains only within city railway stations. Train tickets must be validated before boarding. The main bus station is next to Santa Maria Novella railway station. Trenitalia runs trains between the railway stations within the city, and to other destinations around Italy and Europe. The central railway station, Santa Maria Novella, is about northwest of the Piazza del Duomo. There are two other important stations: Campo di Marte and Rifredi. Most bundled routes are Firenze—Pisa, Firenze—Viareggio and Firenze-Arezzo (along the main line to Rome). Other local railways connect Florence with Borgo San Lorenzo in the Mugello area (Faentina railway) and Siena. Long distance buses are run by the SITA, Copit, and CAP companies. The transit companies also accommodate travellers from the Amerigo Vespucci Airport, which is west of the city centre, and which has scheduled services run by major European carriers. Trams In an effort to reduce air pollution and car traffic in the city, a multi-line tram network called Tramvia is under construction. The first line began operation on 14 February 2010 and connects Florence's primary intercity railway station (Santa Maria Novella) with the southwestern suburb of Scandicci. This line is long and has 14 stops. The construction of a second line began on 5 November 2011, construction was stopped due to contractors' difficulties and restarted in 2014 with the new line opening on 11 February 2019. This second line connects Florence's airport with the city centre. A third line (from Santa Maria Novella to the Careggi area, where the most important hospitals of Florence are located) is also under construction. Florence public transport statistics The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Firenze, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 59 min. 13% of public transit riders ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 14 min, while 22% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 4.1 km, while 3% travel for over 12 km in a single direction. Railway station Firenze Santa Maria Novella railway station is the main national and international railway station in Florence and is used by 59 million people every year. The building, designed by Giovanni Michelucci, was built in the Italian Rationalism style and it is one of the major rationalist buildings in Italy. It is located in Piazza della Stazione, near the Fortezza da Basso (a masterpiece of the military Renaissance architecture) and the Viali di Circonvallazione, and in front of the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella's apse from which it takes its name. As well as numerous high speed trains to major Italian cities Florence is served by international overnight sleeper services to Munich and Vienna operated by Austrian railways ÖBB. A new high-speed rail station is under construction and is contracted to be operational by 2015. It is planned to be connected to Vespucci airport, Santa Maria Novella railway station, and to the city centre by the second line of Tramvia. The architectural firms Foster + Partners and Lancietti Passaleva Giordo and Associates designed this new rail station. Airport The Florence Airport, Peretola, is one of two main airports in the Tuscany region though it is not widely used by popular airlines. The other airport in the Tuscany region is the Galileo Galilei International Airport in Pisa. Mobike (bike-sharing) Mobike, a Chinese dockless bike sharing company, has been operating in Florence since July 2017. As of 2019, the company operates 4,000 bikes in Florence. The users scan the QR code on the bike using the Mobike app, and end the ride by parking curbside. The bikes have a fixed rate of €1 every 20 minutes. Since Mobike is a dock-less bike-sharing system, it does not provide stations, therefore the bikes can be left almost anywhere. International relations Twin towns and sister cities Florence is twinned with: Bethlehem, Palestine Budapest, Hungary Dresden, Germany Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom Fes, Morocco Isfahan, Iran Kassel, Germany Kyiv, Ukraine Kuwait City, Kuwait Kyoto, Japan Nanjing, China Nazareth, Israel Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Puebla, Mexico Reims, France Riga, Latvia Salvador, Brazil Samarkand, Uzbekistan Sydney, Australia Tirana, Albania Turku, Finland Valladolid, Spain Other partnerships Arequipa, Peru Cannes, France Gifu, Gifu Japan Kraków, Poland Malmö, Sweden Mauthausen, Austria Ningbo, China Porto-Vecchio, Corsica, France Providence, Rhode Island, United States Tallinn, Estonia Notable residents Antonia of Florence, saint Agnes of Montepulciano, saint Harold Acton, author and aesthete John Argyropoulos, scholar Leone Battista Alberti, polymath Dante Alighieri, poet Giovanni Boccaccio, poet Baldassarre Bonaiuti, 14th-century chronicler Sandro Botticelli, painter Aureliano Brandolini, agronomist and development cooperation scholar Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 19th-century English poets Filippo Brunelleschi, architect Michelangelo Buonarroti, sculptor, painter, author of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and David Francesco Casagrande, cyclist Roberto Cavalli, fashion designer Carlo Collodi, writer Enrico Coveri, fashion designer Donatello, sculptor Oriana Fallaci, journalist and author Salvatore Ferragamo, fashion designer and shoemaker Mike Francis (born Francesco Puccioni), singer and composer Silpa Bhirasri (born Corrado Feroci), sculptor, credited as the principal figure of modern art in Thailand. Frescobaldi Family, notable bankers and wine producers Galileo Galilei, Italian physicist, astronomer, and philosopher Giotto, early 14th-century painter, sculptor and architect Lorenzo Ghiberti, sculptor Guccio Gucci, founder of the Gucci label Pauline von Hügel (1858-1901), baroness, writer, philanthropist Bruno Innocenti, sculptor Robert Lowell, poet Niccolò Machiavelli, poet, philosopher and political thinker, author of The Prince and The Discourses Masaccio, painter Rose McGowan, Florence-born actress Medici family Girolamo Mei, historian and humanist Antonio Meucci, inventor of the telephone Pirrho Musefili, Florentine cryptographer and cryptanalyst Florence Nightingale, pioneer of modern nursing, and statistician Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione, early photographic artist, secret agent and courtesan Valerio Profondavalle, Flemish painter Giulio Racah (1909–1965), Italian-Israeli mathematician and physicist; Acting President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Raphael, painter Anna Sarfatti, children's author Girolamo Savonarola, reformist Adriana Seroni, politician Giovanni Spadolini, politician Antonio Squarcialupi, organist and composer Evangelista Torricelli, Italian physicist Anna Tonelli (c.1763–1846), Florence born portrait painter in the late 17th century and early 18th century. Giorgio Vasari, painter, architect, and historian Amerigo Vespucci, explorer and cartographer, namesake of the Americas Leonardo da Vinci, polymath Lisa del Giocondo, model of the Mona Lisa Giorgio Antonucci, physician, psychoanalyst and an international reference on the questioning of the basis of psychiatry See also Chancellor of Florence Cronaca fiorentina European University Institute Florentine School List of historic states of Italy List of squares in Florence :Category:Buildings and structures in Florence Notes References Sources Niccolò Machiavelli. Florentine Histories Chaney, Edward (2003), A Traveller's Companion to Florence. Ferdinand Schevill, History of Florence: From the Founding of the City Through the Renaissance (Frederick Ungar, 1936) is the standard overall history of Florence. External links Florence Art Museums The High Renaissance in Florence – Video UNESCO video Former capitals of Italy Former national capitals 50s BC establishments 59 BC Capitals of former nations Populated places established in the 1st century BC

Fucking Åmål (released in some countries as Show Me Love) is a 1998 Swedish romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Lukas Moodysson in his feature-length directorial debut. It stars Rebecka Liljeberg and Alexandra Dahlström as two seemingly disparate teenage girls who begin a tentative romantic relationship. The film was released theatrically in Sweden on 23 October 1998, and first premiered internationally at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. The film received an overwhelmingly positive reception and won four Guldbagge Awards (Sweden's official film awards) at the 1999 ceremony. Its international awards include the Teddy Award at the 1999 Berlin International Film Festival, and the Special Jury Prize at the 34th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The Swedish title refers to the small town of Åmål in Västra Götaland County, western Sweden. However, only a few scenes were filmed in Åmål, and they were not included in the final version. The main shooting took place in the nearby town of Trollhättan, the location of producing company Film i Väst's studios. Plot Two girls, Agnes and Elin, attend school in the small town of Åmål, Sweden. Elin is outgoing and popular but finds her life unsatisfying and dull. Agnes, by contrast, has no real friends and is constantly depressed. Agnes is in love with Elin but cannot find any way to express it. Agnes's parents worry about their daughter's reclusive life and try to be reassuring. Her mother decides, against Agnes's will, to throw a 16th birthday party for her. Agnes is afraid no one will come. Viktoria, a girl in a wheelchair, shows up and Agnes shouts at her in front of her parents, telling her they are friends only because no one else will talk to them. Agnes, overcome with anger and depression, goes to her room and cries into her pillow shouting that she wishes she were dead, while her father tries to soothe her. Viktoria leaves and Agnes's family eats the food made for the party. Elin arrives at Agnes's house, mainly as an excuse to avoid going to another party, where there will be a boy (Johan, played by Mathias Rust) she wants to avoid. Elin's older sister, Jessica, who comes with her, dares her to kiss Agnes, who is rumoured to be a lesbian. Elin fulfills the dare and then runs out with Jessica, only to soon feel guilty for having humiliated Agnes. After becoming drunk at the other party, Elin gets sick and throws up. Johan tries to help her and ends up professing his love to her. Elin leaves Johan and the party, only to return to Agnes's house to apologize for how she acted earlier. In doing so, Elin stops Agnes from cutting herself. She even manages to persuade Agnes to return with her to the other party. On the way, Elin shares her real feelings about being trapped in Åmål. She asks Agnes about being a lesbian and believes that their problems could be solved by leaving Åmål and going to Stockholm. On impulse, Elin persuades Agnes to hitchhike to Stockholm, which is a five-hour journey by car. They find a driver who agrees to take them, believing them to be sisters who are visiting their grandmother. While sitting in the back seat, they have their first real kiss. The driver sees them and, shocked at the behaviour of the two 'sisters', orders them to leave the car. Elin discovers that she is attracted to Agnes but is afraid to admit it. She proceeds to ignore Agnes and refuses to talk to her. Elin's sister Jessica sees that she is in love and pushes her to figure out who it is. To cover the fact that she is in love with Agnes, Elin lies, pretending to be in love with Johan, and loses her virginity during a short-lived relationship with him. Elin eventually admits her feelings, when, after a climactic scene in a school bathroom, they are forced to 'out' their relationship to the school. The film ends with Elin and Agnes sitting in Elin's bedroom drinking chocolate milk. Elin explains that she often adds too much chocolate until her milk is nearly black. She must fill another glass with milk and mix it and that her sister Jessica often gets mad that she finishes the chocolate. Elin has the last word saying "It makes a lot of chocolate milk. But that doesn't matter." Cast Alexandra Dahlström as Elin Olsson Rebecka Liljeberg as Agnes Ahlberg Erica Carlson as Jessica Olsson Mathias Rust as Johan Hulth Stefan Hörberg as Markus Josefine Nyberg as Viktoria Ralph Carlsson as Agnes's father, Olof Maria Hedborg as Agnes's mother, Karin Axel Widegren as Agnes's little brother, Oskar Jill Ung as Elin's and Jessica's mother, Birgitta Title The original title of the film, Fucking Åmål, refers to the girls' feelings about their small town: In a key scene Elin shouts in desperation "varför måste vi bo i fucking jävla kuk-Åmål?" (which roughly translates to "why do we have to live in fucking bloody cock-Åmål?"). According to Moodysson, the problem with the original title started when the film was Sweden's candidate for the Academy Awards, though eventually it was not chosen as a nominee. The Hollywood industry magazine Variety refused to run an advertisement for Fucking Åmål. Thus, American distributor Strand Releasing asked for a new title. Moodysson took the new title from the song at the end of the film, by Robyn. Distributors in other native English-speaking countries then followed suit. ("Discovering Love") ("School Friends") ("Love is Love") The Czech title is based on a Lucie Bílá song of the same name, which references homosexuality. (, "Show Me Love") Hebrew: F- Åmål English: Show Me Love Reception Political controversy Even before the film was completed, it created controversy in the town of Åmål. Local politicians campaigned to get the title changed because they argued that it would show the town in an unfair way and even undermine it as an economic centre. Further pressure was brought on the makers of the film, the Film i Väst studio, who are partly financed by Swedish local authorities, including Åmål. However, the local complaints had no effect on the content or release of the film. Since the release, the town of Åmål has tried to embrace the publicity generated, despite the fact that the town's name is missing from the English title. In the early 2000s the town founded the pop music "Fucking Åmål Festival." Critical and commercial response Fucking Åmål received the highest audience figures for a Swedish film in 1998–9, with a total audience of 867,576 and a total audience for the whole of Europe of 2,100,000. Some reports outside Sweden stated that in Sweden the film had outgrossed the Hollywood film Titanic. In fact, Titanic had over twice as many viewers as Show Me Love in Sweden in 1998. Based on 43 reviews collected by the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 91% of critics gave Show Me Love a positive review. It is among the top ten of the British Film Institute list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14. The film received consistently good reviews, including the realism and credibility of its portrayal of what it is like to be a teenager in a small town in the 1990s. In addition, the efforts of the young actors were praised. Jan-Olov Andersson at Aftonbladet felt that Dahlström's and Liljeberg's imaginative appearance and interaction was "sensationally credible", and Bo Ludvigsson at Svenska Dagbladet wrote that it was "a warm, strong and confident film about the courage to be human". Ludvigsson also believed that Fucking Åmål, with its storytelling drive, leave and authenticity, was well above most of the Swedish films of recent years. Anders Hansson at Göteborgs-Posten thought that director Moodysson with fairly ordinary elements created "a film with unusual rise". Autostraddle placed it at number one on its "Top 10 Best Lesbian Movies" list. Cultural impact According to Russian singer Lena Katina, producer Ivan Shapovalov was inspired to create the pop duo t.A.T.u. after the release of this film. The track "Show Me Love" is featured in their album 200 km/h in the Wrong Lane. Soundtrack The film's soundtrack was released through Metronome Records and consists of songs in English and Swedish language. Swedish band Broder Daniel, who contributed three English language songs to Fucking Åmål, saw a spike in popularity after the film's release. The band also released an EP titled Fucking Åmål. Fucking Åmål / Musiken Från Filmen Label: Metronome Records Format: CD, compilation Country: Sweden Released: 1998 Awards and nominations |- ! rowspan="24" | 1999 | rowspan="2" | Amanda Award | Best Foreign Feature Film | Fucking Åmål, director Lukas Moodysson | | |- | Best Nordic Feature Film | Lukas Moodysson | | |- | Atlantic Film Festival | Best International Feature | Lukas Moodysson | | |- | rowspan="2" | Berlin International Film Festival | C.I.C.A.E. Award - Recommendation (Panorama) | Lukas Moodysson | | |- | Teddy Award - Best Feature Film | Lukas Moodysson | | |- | British Film Institute Awards | Sutherland Trophy - Special Mention | Lukas Moodysson | | |- | Manaki Brothers Film Festival | Special Jury Award | Ulf Brantås | | |- | Cinema Jove - Valencia International Film Festival | Golden Moon of Valencia | Lukas Moodysson | | |- | European Film Awards | Best Film | Lars Jönsson | | |- | rowspan="2" | Flanders International Film Festival Ghent | Student Jury Award | Lukas Moodysson | | |- | Grand Prix | Lukas Moodysson | | |- | rowspan="5" | Guldbagge Awards | Best Film | Lars Jönsson | | |- | Best Director | Lukas Moodysson | | |- | Best Screenplay | Lukas Moodysson | | |- | Best Actress in a Leading Role | Alexandra DahlströmRebecka Liljeberg | | |- | Best Actor in a Supporting Role | Ralph Carlsson | | |- | rowspan="4" | Karlovy Vary International Film Festival | Audience Award | Lukas Moodysson | | |- | FICC - The Don Quixote Prize | Lukas Moodysson | | |- | Special Jury Prize | Lukas Moodysson | | |- | Crystal Globe | Lukas Moodysson | | |- | rowspan="3" | Kyiv International Film Festival "Molodist" | Best Full-Length Fiction Film | Lukas Moodysson | | |- | FIPRESCI | Lukas Moodysson | | |- | Youth Jury Award - Full-Length Feature Film | Lukas Moodysson | | |- | Verzaubert International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival | Rosebud - Best Film | Lukas Moodysson | | |- ! rowspan="3" | 2000 | Bodil Awards | Best Non-American Film | Lukas Moodysson | | |- | GLAAD Media Award | Outstanding Film – Limited Release | Lukas Moodysson | | |- | International Film Festival Rotterdam | MovieZone Young Jury Award | Lukas Moodysson | | See also List of submissions to the 71st Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film List of Swedish submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film References External links Swedish teen films Swedish teen drama films 1990s coming-of-age comedy-drama films 1998 LGBT-related films 1990s romantic comedy-drama films 1990s teen comedy-drama films 1990s teen romance films 1998 films 1998 in Swedish cinema Best Film Guldbagge Award winners Coming-of-age romance films Controversies in Sweden Film controversies Films directed by Lukas Moodysson Films set in Dalsland Films shot in Trollhättan Films whose director won the Best Director Guldbagge Award Lesbian-related films LGBT-related comedy-drama films LGBT-related coming-of-age films LGBT-related romance films Swedish comedy-drama films Swedish coming-of-age films Swedish films Swedish LGBT-related films Swedish romantic comedy-drama films Swedish-language films Political controversies Teen LGBT-related films Zentropa films Teensploitation 1998 directorial debut films 1998 comedy films 1998 drama films

A factoid is either an invented or assumed statement presented as a fact, or a true but brief or trivial item of news or information. The term was coined in 1973 by American writer Norman Mailer to mean a piece of information that becomes accepted as a fact even though it is not actually true, or an invented fact believed to be true because it appears in print. Since the term's invention in 1973, it has become used to describe a brief or trivial item of news or information. Usage The term was coined by American writer Norman Mailer in his 1973 biography of Marilyn Monroe. Mailer described factoids as "facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper", and formed the word by combining the word fact and the ending -oid to mean "similar but not the same". The Washington Times described Mailer's new word as referring to "something that looks like a fact, could be a fact, but in fact is not a fact". Accordingly, factoids may give rise to, or arise from, common misconceptions and urban legends. Several decades after the term was coined by Mailer, it came to have several meanings, some of which are quite distinct from each other. In 1993, William Safire identified several contrasting senses of factoid: "factoid: accusatory: misinformation purporting to be factual; or, a phony statistic." "factoid: neutral: seemingly though not necessarily factual" "factoid: (the CNN version): a little-known bit of information; trivial but interesting data." This new sense of a factoid as a trivial but interesting fact was popularized by the CNN Headline News TV channel, which, during the 1980s and 1990s, often included such a fact under the heading "factoid" during newscasts. BBC Radio 2 presenter Steve Wright uses factoids extensively on his show. Versus factlet As a result of confusion over the meaning of factoid, some English-language style and usage guides discourage its use. William Safire in his "On Language" column advocated the use of the word factlet instead of factoid to express a brief interesting fact as well as a "little bit of arcana" but did not explain how adopting this new term would alleviate the ongoing confusion over the existing contradictory common use meanings of factoid. Safire suggested that factlet be used to designate a small or trivial bit of information that is nonetheless true or accurate. A report in The Guardian identified Safire as the writer who coined the term factlet, although Safire's 1993 column suggested factlet was already in use at that time. The Atlantic magazine agreed with Safire, and recommended factlet to signify a "small probably unimportant but interesting fact", as factoid still connoted a spurious fact. The term factlet has been used in publications such as Mother Jones, the San Jose Mercury News, and in the Reno Gazette Journal. See also Chuck Norris facts Cuboid Communal reinforcement Fake news Groupthink Humanoid Just-so story Meme Pseudoscience Talking point Truthiness Woozle effect References Communication Doubt Traditional stories

The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk is a semi-retired American single-seat, twin-engine stealth attack aircraft that was developed by Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works division and operated by the United States Air Force (USAF). It was the first operational aircraft to be designed around stealth technology. The F-117 was based on the Have Blue technology demonstrator. The Nighthawk's maiden flight took place in 1981 at Groom Lake, Nevada, and the aircraft achieved initial operating capability status in 1983. The aircraft was shrouded in secrecy until it was revealed to the public in 1988. Of the 64 F-117s built, 59 were production versions, with the other five being prototypes. The F-117 was widely publicized for its role in the Persian Gulf War of 1991. Although it was commonly referred to as the "Stealth Fighter", it was strictly a ground-attack aircraft. F-117s took part in the conflict in Yugoslavia, where one was shot down and another damaged by surface-to-air missiles (SAM) in 1999. The U.S. Air Force retired the F-117 in April 2008, primarily due to the fielding of the F-22 Raptor. Despite the type's official retirement, a portion of the fleet has been kept in airworthy condition, and Nighthawks have been observed flying since 2009. Development Background and Have Blue In 1964, Pyotr Ufimtsev, a Soviet mathematician, published a seminal paper titled Method of Edge Waves in the Physical Theory of Diffraction in the journal of the Moscow Institute for Radio Engineering, in which he showed that the strength of the radar return from an object is related to its edge configuration, not its size. Ufimtsev was extending theoretical work published by the German physicist Arnold Sommerfeld. Ufimtsev demonstrated that he could calculate the radar cross-section across a wing's surface and along its edge. The obvious and logical conclusion was that even a large aircraft could reduce its radar signature by exploiting this principle. However, the resulting design would make the aircraft aerodynamically unstable, and the state of computer technology in the early 1960s could not provide the kinds of flight computers which would later allow aircraft such as the F-117 and B-2 Spirit to stay airborne. By the 1970s, when Lockheed analyst Denys Overholser found Ufimtsev's paper, computers and software had advanced significantly, and the stage was set for the development of a stealth airplane. The F-117 was born after the Vietnam War, where increasingly sophisticated Soviet surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) had downed heavy bombers. The heavy losses inflicted by Soviet-made SAMs upon the Israeli air force in the 1973 Yom Kippur war also contributed to a 1974 Defense Science Board assessment that in case of a conflict in Central Europe, air defenses would likely prevent NATO air strikes on targets in Eastern Europe. It was a black project, an ultra-secret program for much of its life; very few people in the Pentagon knew the program even existed. The project began in 1975 with a model called the "Hopeless Diamond" (a wordplay on the Hope Diamond because of its appearance). The following year, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) issued Lockheed Skunk Works a contract to build and test two Stealth Strike Fighters, under the code name "Have Blue". These subscale aircraft incorporated jet engines of the Northrop T-38A, fly-by-wire systems of the F-16, landing gear of the A-10, and environmental systems of the C-130. By bringing together existing technology and components, Lockheed built two demonstrators under budget, at $35 million for both aircraft, and in record time. The maiden flight of the demonstrators occurred on 1 December 1977. Although both aircraft crashed during the demonstration program, test data proved positive. The success of Have Blue led the government to increase funding for stealth technology. Much of that increase was allocated towards the production of an operational stealth aircraft, the Lockheed F-117A, under the program code name "Senior Trend". Senior Trend The decision to produce the F-117A was made on 1 November 1978, and a contract was awarded to Lockheed Advanced Development Projects, popularly known as the Skunk Works, in Burbank, California. The program was led by Ben Rich, with Alan Brown as manager of the project. Rich called on Bill Schroeder, a Lockheed mathematician, and Overholser, a computer scientist, to exploit Ufimtsev's work. The three designed a computer program called "Echo", which made it possible to design an airplane with flat panels, called facets, which were arranged so as to scatter over 99% of a radar's signal energy "painting" the aircraft. The first YF-117A, serial number 79-10780, made its maiden flight from Groom Lake ("Area 51"), Nevada, on 18 June 1981, only 31 months after the full-scale development decision. The first production F-117A was delivered in 1982, and operational capability was achieved in October 1983. The 4450th Tactical Group stationed at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, were tasked with the operational development of the early F-117, and between 1981 (prior to the arrival of the first models) and 1989 they used LTV A-7 Corsair IIs for training, to bring all pilots to a common flight training baseline and later as chase planes for F-117A tests. The F-117 was secret for much of the 1980s. Many news articles discussed what they called a "F-19" stealth fighter, and the Testor Corporation produced a very inaccurate scale model. When an F-117 crashed in Sequoia National Forest in July 1986, killing the pilot and starting a fire, the Air Force established restricted airspace. Armed guards prohibited entry, including firefighters, and a helicopter gunship circled the site. All F-117 debris was replaced with remains of a F-101A Voodoo crash stored at Area 51. When another fatal crash in October 1987 occurred inside Nellis, the military again provided little information to the press. The Air Force denied the existence of the aircraft until 10 November 1988, when Assistant Secretary of Defense J. Daniel Howard displayed a grainy photograph at a Pentagon press conference, disproving the many inaccurate rumors about the shape of the "F-19". After the announcement pilots could fly the F-117 during daytime and no longer needed to be associated with the A-7, flying the T-38 supersonic trainer for travel and training instead. In April 1990, two F-117 aircraft were flown into Nellis, arriving during daylight and publicly displayed to a crowd of tens of thousands. Five Full Scale Development (FSD) aircraft were built, designated "YF-117A". The last of 59 production F-117s were delivered on 3 July 1990. As the Air Force has stated, "Streamlined management by Aeronautical Systems Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, combined breakthrough stealth technology with concurrent development and production to rapidly field the aircraft ... The F-117A program demonstrates that a stealth aircraft can be designed for reliability and maintainability." Designation The operational aircraft was officially designated "F-117A". Most modern U.S. military aircraft use post-1962 designations in which the designation "F" is usually an air-to-air fighter, "B" is usually a bomber, "A" is usually a ground-attack aircraft, etc. (Examples include the F-15, the B-2 and the A-6.) The F-117 is primarily an attack aircraft, so its "F" designation is inconsistent with the DoD system. This is an inconsistency that has been repeatedly employed by the U.S. Air Force with several of its attack aircraft since the late 1950s, including the Republic F-105 Thunderchief and General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark. A televised documentary quoted project manager Alan Brown as saying that Robert J. Dixon, a four-star Air Force general who was the head of Tactical Air Command felt that the top-notch USAF fighter pilots required to fly the new aircraft were more easily attracted to an aircraft with an "F" designation for fighter, as opposed to a bomber ("B") or attack ("A") designation. The designation "F-117" seems to indicate that it was given an official designation prior to the 1962 U.S. Tri-Service Aircraft Designation System and could be considered numerically to be a part of the earlier "Century series" of fighters. The assumption prior to the revealing of the aircraft to the public was that it would likely receive the F-19 designation as that number had not been used. However, there were no other aircraft to receive a "100" series number following the F-111. Soviet fighters obtained by the U.S. via various means under the Constant Peg program were given F-series numbers for their evaluation by U.S. pilots, and with the advent of the Teen Series fighters, most often Century Series designations. As with other exotic military aircraft types flying in the southern Nevada area, such as captured fighters, an arbitrary radio call of "117" was assigned. This same radio call had been used by the enigmatic 4477th Test and Evaluation Squadron, also known as the "Red Hats" or "Red Eagles", that often had flown expatriated MiG jet fighters in the area, but there was no relationship to the call and the formal F-19 designation then being considered by the Air Force. Apparently, use of the "117" radio call became commonplace and when Lockheed released its first flight manual (i.e., the Air Force "dash one" manual for the aircraft), F-117A was the designation printed on the cover. Design When the Air Force first approached Lockheed with the stealth concept, Skunk Works Director Kelly Johnson proposed a rounded design. He believed smoothly blended shapes offered the best combination of speed and stealth. However, his assistant, Ben Rich, showed that faceted-angle surfaces would provide a significant reduction in radar signature, and the necessary aerodynamic control could be provided with computer units. A May 1975 Skunk Works report, "Progress Report No. 2, High Stealth Conceptual Studies", showed the rounded concept that was rejected in favor of the flat-sided approach. The resulting unusual design surprised and puzzled experienced pilots. A Royal Air Force (RAF) pilot who flew it as an exchange officer stated that when he first saw a photograph of the still-secret F-117, he "promptly giggled and thought [to himself] 'this clearly can't fly. Early stealth aircraft were designed with a focus on minimal radar cross-section (RCS) rather than aerodynamic performance. Highly stealthy aircraft like the F-117 Nighthawk are aerodynamically unstable in all three aircraft principal axes and require constant flight corrections from a fly-by-wire (FBW) flight system to maintain controlled flight. It is shaped to deflect radar signals and is approximately the size of an F-15 Eagle. The single-seat Nighthawk is powered by two non-afterburning General Electric F404 turbofan engines. It is air refuelable and features a V-tail. The maximum speed is at high altitude, the max rate of climb is per minute, and service ceiling is . The cockpit was quite spacious, with ergonomic displays and controls, but the field of view was somewhat obstructed with a large blind spot to the rear. Avionics It has quadruple-redundant fly-by-wire flight controls. To lower development costs, the avionics, fly-by-wire systems, and other parts were derived from the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon, McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet and McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle. The parts were originally described as spares on budgets for these aircraft, to keep the F-117 project secret. The aircraft is equipped with sophisticated navigation and attack systems integrated into a digital avionics suite. It navigates primarily by GPS and high-accuracy inertial navigation. Missions are coordinated by an automated planning system that can automatically perform all aspects of an attack mission, including weapons release. Targets are acquired by a thermal imaging infrared system, paired with a laser rangefinder/laser designator that finds the range and designates targets for laser-guided bombs. The F-117A's split internal bay can carry of ordnance. Typical weapons are a pair of GBU-10, GBU-12, or GBU-27 laser-guided bombs, two BLU-109 penetration bombs, or two Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) GPS/INS guided stand-off bombs. To maintain its low observability, the aircraft was not fitted with its own radar; not only would an active radar be detectable through its emissions, but an inactive radar would also act as a reflector of radar energy. Stealth The F-117 has a radar cross-section of about . Among the penalties for stealth are lower engine thrust due to losses in the inlet and outlet, a very low wing aspect ratio, and a high sweep angle (50°) needed to deflect incoming radar waves to the sides. With these design considerations and no afterburner, the F-117 is limited to subsonic speeds. The F-117A carries no radar, which lowers emissions and cross-section, and whether it carries any radar detection equipment remained classified as of 2008. Its faceted shape (made from 2-dimensional flat surfaces) resulted from the limitations of the 1970s-era computer technology used to calculate its radar cross-section. Later supercomputers made it possible for subsequent aircraft like the B-2 bomber to use curved surfaces while maintaining stealth, through the use of far more computational resources to perform the additional calculations. The radar-absorbent flat sheets covering the F-117A weighed almost one ton, and were held in place by glue, with the gaps between the sheets filled with a kind of putty material called "butter". An exhaust plume contributes a significant infrared signature. The F-117 reduces IR signature with a non-circular tail pipe (a slit shape) to minimize the exhaust cross-section and maximize the mixing of hot exhaust with cool ambient air. The F-117 lacks afterburners, because the hot exhaust would increase the infrared signature, and breaking the sound barrier would produce an obvious sonic boom, as well as surface heating of the aircraft skin which also increases the infrared footprint. As a result, its performance in air combat maneuvering required in a dogfight would never match that of a dedicated fighter aircraft. This was unimportant in the case of this aircraft since it was designed to be a bomber. Passive (multistatic) radar, bistatic radar and especially multistatic radar systems detect some stealth aircraft better than conventional monostatic radars, since first-generation stealth technology (such as the F-117) reflects energy away from the transmitter's line of sight, effectively increasing the radar cross section (RCS) in other directions, which the passive radars monitor. Operational history During the program's early years, from 1984 to mid-1992, the F-117A fleet was based at Tonopah Test Range Airport, Nevada, where it served under the 4450th Tactical Group. Because the F-117 was classified during this time, the unit was officially located at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, and equipped with A-7 Corsair II aircraft. All military personnel were permanently assigned to Nellis AFB, and most personnel and their families lived in Las Vegas. This required commercial air and trucking to transport personnel between Las Vegas and Tonopah each week. The 4450th was absorbed by the 37th Tactical Fighter Wing in 1989. In 1992, the entire fleet was transferred to Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, under the command of the 49th Fighter Wing. This move also eliminated the Key Air and American Trans Air contract flights to Tonopah, which flew 22,000 passenger trips on 300 flights from Nellis to Tonopah per month. The F-117 reached initial operating capability status in 1983. The Nighthawk's pilots called themselves "Bandits". Each of the 558 Air Force pilots who have flown the F-117 has a Bandit number, such as "Bandit 52", that indicates the sequential order of their first flight in the F-117. Pilots told friends and families that they flew the Northrop F-5 in aggressor squadrons against Tactical Air Command. The F-117 has been used several times in war. Its first mission was during the United States invasion of Panama in 1989. During that invasion two F-117A Nighthawks dropped two bombs on Rio Hato airfield. During the Gulf War in 1991, the F-117 flew approximately 1,300 sorties and scored direct hits on 1,600 high-value targets in Iraq over 6,905 flight hours. Leaflet drops on Iraqi forces displayed the F-117 destroying ground targets and warned "Escape now and save yourselves". Only 229 Coalition tactical aircraft could drop and designate laser-guided bombs of which 36 F-117s represented 15.7%, and only the USAF had the I-2000 bombs intended for hardened targets. So the F-117 represented 32% of all coalition aircraft that could deliver such bombs. Initial claims of its effectiveness were later found to be overstated. initial reports of F-117s hitting 80% of their targets were later scaled back to "41–60%". On the first night, they failed to hit 40% of their assigned air-defense targets, including the Air Defense Operations Center in Baghdad, and 8 such targets remained functional out of 10 that could be assessed. In their Desert Storm white paper, the USAF stated that "the F-117 was the only airplane that the planners dared risk over downtown Baghdad" and that this area was particularly well defended. (Dozens of F-16s were routinely tasked to attack Baghdad in the first few days of the war.) In fact, most of the air defenses were on the outskirts of the city and many other aircraft hit targets in the downtown area, with minimal casualties when they attacked at night like the F-117. This meant they avoided the optically aimed anti-aircraft cannon and infrared SAMs which were the biggest threat to Coalition aircraft. The aircraft was operated in secret from Tonopah for almost a decade, but after the Gulf War the aircraft moved to Holloman in 1992—however, its integration with the USAF's non-stealth "iron jets" occurred slowly. As one senior F-117A pilot later said: Because of ongoing secrecy others continued to see the aircraft as "none of their business, a stand-alone system". The F-117A and the men and women of the 49th Fighter Wing were deployed to Southwest Asia on multiple occasions. On their first deployment, with the aid of aerial refueling, pilots flew non-stop from Holloman to Kuwait, a flight of approximately 18.5 hours. Combat over Yugoslavia One F-117 (AF ser. no. 82-0806) was lost to enemy action. It was downed during a Operation Allied Force mission against the Army of Yugoslavia on 27 March 1999. The aircraft was acquired by a fire control radar at a distance of and an altitude of . SA-3s were then launched by a Yugoslav version of the Soviet Isayev S-125 "Neva" (NATO name SA-3 "Goa") anti-aircraft missile system. The launcher was run by the 3rd Battalion of the 250th Air Defence Missile Brigade under the command of Colonel Zoltán Dani. After the explosion, the aircraft became uncontrollable, forcing the pilot to eject. The pilot was recovered six hours later by a United States Air Force Pararescue team. The stealth technology from the downed F-117 may have been acquired by Russia and China, but the United States did not attempt to destroy the wreckage because senior Pentagon officials argued that its technology was already dated and no longer important to protect. American sources state that a second F-117 was targeted and damaged during the campaign, allegedly on 30 April 1999. The aircraft returned to Spangdahlem base, but it supposedly never flew again. However, the USAF continued to use the F-117 during Allied Force. Later service and retirement The F-117 was later used in the Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001 and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. It was only operated by the U.S. Air Force. The loss in Serbia caused the USAF to create a subsection of their existing weapons school to improve tactics. More training was done with other units, and the F-117A began to participate in Red Flag exercises. Though advanced for its time, the F-117's stealthy faceted airframe required a large amount of maintenance and was eventually superseded by streamlined shapes produced with computer-aided design. Other weapon systems began to take on the F-117's roles, such as the F-22 Raptor gaining the ability to drop guided bombs. By 2005, the aircraft was used only for certain missions, such as if a pilot needed to verify that the correct target had been hit, or when minimal collateral damage was vital. The USAF had once planned to retire the F-117 in 2011, but Program Budget Decision 720 (PBD 720), dated 28 December 2005, proposed retiring it by October 2008 to free up an estimated $1.07 billion to buy more F-22s. PBD 720 called for 10 F-117s to be retired in FY2007 and the remaining 42 in FY2008, stating that other USAF planes and missiles could stealthily deliver precision ordnance, including the B-2 Spirit, F-22 and JASSM. The planned introduction of the multi-role F-35 Lightning II also contributed to the retirement decision. In late 2006, the USAF closed the F-117 formal training unit (FTU), and announced the retirement of the F-117. The first six aircraft to be retired took their last flight on 12 March 2007 after a ceremony at Holloman AFB to commemorate the aircraft's career. Brigadier General David L. Goldfein, commander of the 49th Fighter Wing, said at the ceremony, "With the launch of these great aircraft today, the circle comes to a close—their service to our nation's defense fulfilled, their mission accomplished and a job well done. We send them today to their final resting place—a home they are intimately familiar with—their first, and only, home outside of Holloman." Unlike most other USAF aircraft that are retired to Davis-Monthan AFB for scrapping, or dispersal to museums, most of the F-117s were placed in "Type 1000" storage in their original hangars at the Tonopah Test Range Airport. At Tonopah, their wings were removed and the aircraft are stored in their original climate-controlled hangars. The decommissioning occurred in eight phases, with the operational aircraft retired to Tonopah in seven waves from 13 March 2007 until the last wave's arrival on 22 April 2008. Four aircraft were kept flying beyond April by the 410th Flight Test Squadron at Palmdale for flight test. By August, two were remaining. The last F-117 (AF Serial No. 86-0831) left Palmdale to fly to Tonopah on 11 August 2008. With the last aircraft retired, the 410th was inactivated in a ceremony on 1 August 2008. Five aircraft were placed in museums, including the first four YF-117As and some remains of the F-117 shot down over Serbia. Through 2009, one F-117 had been scrapped; AF Serial No. 79-0784 was scrapped at the Palmdale test facility on 26 April 2008. It was the last F-117 at Palmdale and was scrapped to test an effective method for destroying F-117 airframes. Congress had ordered that all F-117s from 30 September 2006 onwards were to be maintained "in a condition that would allow recall of that aircraft to future service" as part of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act. By April 2016, lawmakers appeared ready to "remove the requirement that certain F-117 aircraft be maintained in a condition that would allow recall of those aircraft to future service", which would move them from storage to the aerospace maintenance and regeneration yard in Arizona to be scavenged for hard-to-find parts, or completely disassembled. On 11 September 2017, it was reported that in accordance with the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, signed into law on 23 December 2016, "the Air Force will remove four F-117s every year to fully divest them—a process known as demilitarizing aircraft". Post-retirement sightings Although officially retired, the F-117 fleet remained intact as of 2009, with photos showing the aircraft carefully mothballed. As of 2016, the retired fleet comprised over 50 airframes, with some of the aircraft being flown periodically. F-117s were spotted flying periodically from 2014 to 2019. In March 2019, it was reported that four F-117s had been secretly deployed to the Middle East in 2016 and that one had to make an emergency landing at Ali Al Salem (OKAS), Kuwait sometime late that year. In February 2019, an F-117 was observed flying through the R-2508 Special Use Airspace Complex in the vicinity of Edwards Air Force Base, escorted by two F-16 Fighting Falcons that may have been providing top cover. Closer photographs of the aircraft revealed that the tail code had been scrubbed in an attempt to remove the paint. The partially-intact code identified it as a former aircraft of the 49th Operations Group. An F-117 was also photographed in 2019 carrying unit markings previously unassociated with the aircraft—a band on the tail bearing the name Dark Knights, suggesting either an official or unofficial squadron is maintaining the Nighthawks. In July 2019, one Nighthawk in a hybrid aggressor paint scheme was spotted flying above Death Valley, trailing behind a KC-135R Stratotanker. In March 2020, a spectator recorded an F-117 flying through the "Star Wars Canyon" in Death Valley, California. On 20 May 2020, two more F-117s were sighted in a common aerial refueling area of Southern California trailing a NKC-135R Stratotanker from Edwards AFB, California. In October 2020, at least two F-117s arrived at MCAS Miramar, featuring a tail code of TR which the Nighthawks based at Tonopah Range had previously used. On 13 September 2021, a pair of F-117s landed at Fresno Yosemite International Airport in California. They were scheduled to train with the California Air National Guard F-15C/D Eagles of the 144th Fighter Wing over the next few days. One aircraft had red letters on its tail, and the other had white letters. One of the two was observed to not be fitted with radar reflectors. In January 2022, two F-117s were observed in flight in the Saline Military Operating Area. One had portions of its exterior covered in a "mirror-like coating" believed to be an experimental treatment to reduce the aircraft's infrared signature. Variants F-117N "Seahawk" The United States Navy tested the F-117 in 1984 but determined it was not suitable for carrier use. In the early 1990s, Lockheed proposed an upgraded, carrier-capable variant of the F-117 dubbed the "Seahawk" to the Navy as an alternative to the canceled A/F-X program. The unsolicited proposal was received poorly by the Department of Defense, which had little interest in the single mission capabilities of such an aircraft, particularly as it would take money away from the Joint Advanced Strike Technology program, which evolved into the Joint Strike Fighter. The new aircraft would have differed from the land-based F-117 in several ways, including the addition "of elevators, a bubble canopy, a less sharply swept wing and reconfigured tail". The "N" variant would also be re-engined to use General Electric F414 turbofans instead of the older General Electric F404s. The aircraft would be optionally fitted with hardpoints, allowing for an additional of payload, and a new ground-attack radar with air-to-air capability. In that role, the F-117N could carry AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles. F-117B After being rebuffed by the Navy, Lockheed submitted an updated proposal that included afterburning capability and a larger emphasis on the F-117N as a multi-mission aircraft, rather than just an attack aircraft. To boost interest, Lockheed also proposed an F-117B land-based variant that shared most of the F-117N capabilities. This variant was proposed to the USAF and RAF. Two RAF pilots formally evaluated the aircraft in 1986 as a reward for British help with the American bombing of Libya that year, RAF exchange officers began flying the F-117 in 1987, and the British declined an offer during the Reagan administration to purchase the aircraft. This renewed F-117N proposal was also known as the A/F-117X. Neither the F-117N nor the F-117B were ordered. Operators United States United States Air Force 4450th Tactical Group – Tonopah Test Range, Nevada 4450th Tactical Squadron (1981–1989) 4451st Tactical Squadron (1981–1989) 4453rd Test and Evaluation Squadron (1985–1989) 37th Tactical Fighter Wing/Fighter Wing – Tonopah Test Range 415th Tactical Fighter Squadron (1989–1992) 416th Tactical Fighter Squadron (1989–1992) 417th Tactical Fighter Training Squadron (1989–1992) 49th Fighter Wing – Holloman AFB, New Mexico 7th Fighter Squadron (1992–2006) 8th Fighter Squadron (1992–2008) 9th Fighter Squadron (1993–2008) 412th Test Wing – Edwards AFB, California 410th Flight Test Squadron (1993–2008) Aircraft on display United States YF-117A 79-10780 Scorpion 1 – on pedestal display on Nellis Boulevard, at the entrance to Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada (). It was put in place on 16 May 1992, the first F-117 to be made a gate guardian. 79-10781 Scorpion 2 – National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base outside Dayton, Ohio. It was delivered to the museum on 17 July 1991. 79-10782 Scorpion 3 – Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico. It was repainted to resemble the first F-117A used to drop weapons in combat. This aircraft was used for acoustics and navigation system testing. While wearing a flag painted on its bottom surface, this aircraft revealed the type's existence to high-ranking officials at Groom Lake on 14 December 1983, the first semi-public unveiling of the aircraft. It was placed on display at Holloman AFB on 5 April 2008. 79-10783 Scorpion 4 – It had been previously on display at the Blackbird Airpark Museum at Air Force Plant 42, Palmdale, California. In June 2012, Scorpion 4 was transported from Blackbird Airpark to Edwards AFB for restoration work; it is planned for the aircraft to be displayed at the Air Force Flight Test Center Museum. F-117A 80-0785 – Pole-mounted outside the Skunk Works facility at United States Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California. Hybrid airframe comprising the wreckage of 80–0785, the first production F-117A, and static test articles 778 and 779. 82-0799 Midnight Rider – Hill Aerospace Museum; Aircraft arrived at the museum on 5 August 2020; it is to be prepared and painted for display. 82-0803 Unexpected Guest – Displayed outside the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. 85-0817 Shaba – Arrived at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo on 11 December 2020 to be partially restored and put on display. 85-0819 Raven Beauty – Scheduled to be transported to the Stafford Air & Space Museum in early 2020 for preservation. 84-0827 – Stripped fuselage listed as "scrap" on a government surplus website in early 2020. Fate unknown. 85-0831 – Located at the Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum in Ashland, Nebraska, where it is scheduled for restoration and display. It served as a test aircraft at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California from 1987 to 2008. 85-0833 Black Devil – Unveiled at Palm Springs Air Museum on 3 October 2020. Under restoration and scheduled for public display in Spring 2021. Serbia F-117A 82-0806 Something Wicked – shot down over Serbia; the remains are displayed at the Museum of Aviation in Belgrade close to Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport. Nicknames The aircraft's official name is "Night Hawk", however the alternative form "Nighthawk" is frequently used. As it prioritized stealth over aerodynamics, it earned the nickname "Wobblin' Goblin" due to its alleged instability at low speeds. However, F-117 pilots have stated the nickname is undeserved. "Wobblin' (or Wobbly) Goblin" is likely a holdover from the early Have Blue / Senior Trend (FSD) days of the project when instability was a problem. In the USAF, "Goblin" (without wobbly) persists as a nickname because of the aircraft's appearance. During Operation Desert Storm, Saudis dubbed the aircraft "Shaba", which is Arabic for "Ghost". Some pilots also called the airplane the "Stinkbug". Specifications (F-117A) Notable appearances in media The Omaha Nighthawks professional American football team used the F-117 Nighthawk as its logo. The experimental Remora F-117X was featured in the 1996 film Executive Decision. See also References Notes Bibliography Further reading External links Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk. National Museum of the United States Air Force The 49th Fighter Wing at Holloman Air Force Base F-117A.com – The "Black Jet" website (a comprehensive site) F-117 article and Stealth article on Centennial of Flight web site F-117A Nighthawk page on AirAttack.com F-117A Nighthawk page on FAS.org "Filling the Stealth Gap," in Air and Space Power Journal Fall 2006 The Advent, Evolution, and New Horizons of United States Stealth Aircraft "The Secrets of Stealth" on Discovery Military Channel Austrian Radar Plots on acig.org CNN – NATO air attack shifts, aims at violence inside Kosovo – 27 March 1999 Google Maps directory of all surviving F-117s on public display Austrian article about interception of F-117 Russians admit testing F-117 lost in Yugoslavia, 2001 Flight Global article F-117 Aircraft first flown in 1981 Articles containing video clips Low-wing aircraft Relaxed-stability aircraft Stealth aircraft Twinjets 1980s United States attack aircraft V-tail aircraft

The Field ion microscope (FIM) was invented by Müller in 1951. It is a type of microscope that can be used to image the arrangement of atoms at the surface of a sharp metal tip. On October 11, 1955, Erwin Müller and his Ph.D. student, Kanwar Bahadur (Pennsylvania State University) observed individual tungsten atoms on the surface of a sharply pointed tungsten tip by cooling it to 21 K and employing helium as the imaging gas. Müller & Bahadur were the first persons to observe individual atoms directly. Introduction In FIM, a sharp (<50 nm tip radius) metal tip is produced and placed in an ultra high vacuum chamber, which is backfilled with an imaging gas such as helium or neon. The tip is cooled to cryogenic temperatures (20–100 K). A positive voltage of 5 to 10 kilovolts is applied to the tip. Gas atoms adsorbed on the tip are ionized by the strong electric field in the vicinity of the tip (thus, "field ionization"), becoming positively charged and being repelled from the tip. The curvature of the surface near the tip causes a natural magnification — ions are repelled in a direction roughly perpendicular to the surface (a "point projection" effect). A detector is placed so as to collect these repelled ions; the image formed from all the collected ions can be of sufficient resolution to image individual atoms on the tip surface. Unlike conventional microscopes, where the spatial resolution is limited by the wavelength of the particles which are used for imaging, the FIM is a projection type microscope with atomic resolution and an approximate magnification of a few million times. Design, limitations and applications FIM like Field Emission Microscopy (FEM) consists of a sharp sample tip and a fluorescent screen (now replaced by a multichannel plate) as the key elements. However, there are some essential differences as follows: The tip potential is positive. The chamber is filled with an imaging gas (typically, He or Ne at 10−5 to 10−3 Torr). The tip is cooled to low temperatures (~20-80K). Like FEM, the field strength at the tip apex is typically a few V/Å. The experimental set-up and image formation in FIM is illustrated in the accompanying figures. In FIM the presence of a strong field is critical. The imaging gas atoms (He, Ne) near the tip are polarized by the field and since the field is non-uniform the polarized atoms are attracted towards the tip surface. The imaging atoms then lose their kinetic energy performing a series of hops and accommodate to the tip temperature. Eventually, the imaging atoms are ionized by tunneling electrons into the surface and the resulting positive ions are accelerated along the field lines to the screen to form a highly magnified image of the sample tip. In FIM, the ionization takes place close to the tip, where the field is strongest. The electron that tunnels from the atom is picked up by the tip. There is a critical distance, xc, at which the tunneling probability is a maximum. This distance is typically about 0.4 nm. The very high spatial resolution and high contrast for features on the atomic scale arises from the fact that the electric field is enhanced in the vicinity of the surface atoms because of the higher local curvature. The resolution of FIM is limited by the thermal velocity of the imaging ion. Resolution of the order of 1Å (atomic resolution) can be achieved by effective cooling of the tip. Application of FIM, like FEM, is limited by the materials which can be fabricated in the shape of a sharp tip, can be used in an ultra high vacuum (UHV) environment, and can tolerate the high electrostatic fields. For these reasons, refractory metals with high melting temperature (e.g. W, Mo, Pt, Ir) are conventional objects for FIM experiments. Metal tips for FEM and FIM are prepared by electropolishing (electrochemical polishing) of thin wires. However, these tips usually contain many asperities. The final preparation procedure involves the in situ removal of these asperities by field evaporation just by raising the tip voltage. Field evaporation is a field induced process which involves the removal of atoms from the surface itself at very high field strengths and typically occurs in the range 2-5 V/Å. The effect of the field in this case is to reduce the effective binding energy of the atom to the surface and to give, in effect, a greatly increased evaporation rate relative to that expected at that temperature at zero fields. This process is self-regulating since the atoms that are at positions of high local curvature, such as adatoms or ledge atoms, are removed preferentially. The tips used in FIM is sharper (tip radius is 100~300 Å) compared to those used in FEM experiments (tip radius ~1000 Å). FIM has been used to study dynamical behavior of surfaces and the behavior of adatoms on surfaces. The problems studied include adsorption-desorption phenomena, surface diffusion of adatoms and clusters, adatom-adatom interactions, step motion, equilibrium crystal shape, etc. However, there is the possibility of the results being affected by the limited surface area (i.e. edge effects) and by the presence of large electric field. See also Atom probe Electron microscope Field emission microscopy List of surface analysis methods References K.Oura, V.G.Lifshits, A.ASaranin, A.V.Zotov and M.Katayama, Surface Science – An Introduction, (Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003). John B. Hudson, Surface Science – An Introduction, BUTTERWORTH-Heinemann 1992. External links Northwestern University Center for Atom-Probe Tomography Microscope Parts need to know. Further reading Microscopes Scientific techniques

George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and entrepreneur. Lucas is best known for creating the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises and founding Lucasfilm, Lucasfilm Games, and Industrial Light & Magic. He served as chairman of Lucasfilm before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012. Lucas is one of history's most financially successful filmmakers and has been nominated for four Academy Awards. His films are among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the North American box office, adjusted for ticket-price inflation. Lucas is considered one of the most significant figures of the 20th-century New Hollywood movement, and a pioneer of the modern blockbuster. After graduating from the University of Southern California in 1967, Lucas co-founded American Zoetrope with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas wrote and directed THX 1138 (1971), based on his student short Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which was a critical success but a financial failure. His next work as a writer-director was the film American Graffiti (1973), inspired by his youth in the early 1960s Modesto, California, and produced through the newly founded Lucasfilm. The film was critically and commercially successful and received five Academy Award nominations, including Best Director and Best Picture. Lucas's next film, the epic space opera Star Wars (1977), had a troubled production but was a surprise hit, becoming the highest-grossing film at the time, winning six Academy Awards and sparking a cultural phenomenon. Lucas produced and co-wrote the sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). With director Steven Spielberg, he created, produced, and co-wrote the Indiana Jones films Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), The Temple of Doom (1984), The Last Crusade (1989) and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). Lucas is also known for his collaboration with composer John Williams, who was recommended to him by Spielberg, and with whom he has worked for all the films in both of these franchises. He also produced and wrote a variety of films and television series through Lucasfilm between the 1970s and the 2010s. In 1997, Lucas re-released the Star Wars Trilogy as part of a special edition featuring several alterations; home media versions with further changes were released in 2004 and 2011. He returned to directing with a Star Wars prequel trilogy comprising Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005). He last collaborated on the CGI-animated television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008–2014, 2020), the war film Red Tails (2012), and the CGI film Strange Magic (2015). Early life Lucas was born and raised in Modesto, California, the son of Dorothy Ellinore Lucas (née Bomberger) and George Walton Lucas Sr., and is of German, Swiss-German, English, Scottish, and distant Dutch and French descent. His family attended Disneyland during its opening week in July 1955, and Lucas would remain enthusiastic about the park. He was interested in comics and science fiction, including television programs such as the Flash Gordon serials. Long before Lucas began making films, he yearned to be a racecar driver, and he spent most of his high school years racing on the underground circuit at fairgrounds and hanging out at garages. On June 12, 1962, a few days before his high school graduation, Lucas was driving his souped-up Autobianchi Bianchina when another driver broadsided him, flipping his car several times before it crashed into a tree; Lucas's seatbelt had snapped, ejecting him and thereby saving his life. However, his lungs were bruised from severe hemorrhaging and he required emergency medical treatment. This incident caused him to lose interest in racing as a career, but also inspired him to pursue his other interests. Lucas's father owned a stationery store, and had wanted George to work for him when he turned 18. Lucas had been planning to go to art school, and declared upon leaving home that he would be a millionaire by the age of 30. He attended Modesto Junior College, where he studied anthropology, sociology, and literature, amongst other subjects. He also began shooting with an 8 mm camera, including filming car races. At this time, Lucas and his friend John Plummer became interested in Canyon Cinema: screenings of underground, avant-garde 16 mm filmmakers like Jordan Belson, Stan Brakhage, and Bruce Conner. Lucas and Plummer also saw classic European films of the time, including Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, François Truffaut's Jules et Jim, and Federico Fellini's 8½. "That's when George really started exploring," Plummer said. Through his interest in autocross racing, Lucas met renowned cinematographer Haskell Wexler, another race enthusiast. Wexler, later to work with Lucas on several occasions, was impressed by Lucas's talent. "George had a very good eye, and he thought visually," he recalled. At Plummer's recommendation, Lucas then transferred to the University of Southern California (USC) School of Cinematic Arts. USC was one of the earliest universities to have a school devoted to motion picture film. During the years at USC, Lucas shared a dorm room with Randal Kleiser. Along with classmates such as Walter Murch, Hal Barwood, and John Milius, they became a clique of film students known as The Dirty Dozen. He also became good friends with fellow acclaimed student filmmaker and future Indiana Jones collaborator, Steven Spielberg. Lucas was deeply influenced by the Filmic Expression course taught at the school by filmmaker Lester Novros which concentrated on the non-narrative elements of Film Form like color, light, movement, space, and time. Another inspiration was the Serbian montagist (and dean of the USC Film Department) Slavko Vorkapić, a film theoretician who made stunning montage sequences for Hollywood studio features at MGM, RKO, and Paramount. Vorkapich taught the autonomous nature of the cinematic art form, emphasizing the kinetic energy inherent in motion pictures. Film career 1965–1969: Early career Lucas saw many inspiring films in class, particularly the visual films coming out of the National Film Board of Canada like Arthur Lipsett's 21-87, the French-Canadian cameraman Jean-Claude Labrecque's cinéma vérité 60 Cycles, the work of Norman McLaren, and the documentaries of Claude Jutra. Lucas fell madly in love with pure cinema and quickly became prolific at making 16 mm nonstory noncharacter visual tone poems and cinéma vérité with such titles as Look at Life, Herbie, 1:42.08, The Emperor, Anyone Lived in a Pretty (how) Town, Filmmaker, and 6-18-67. He was passionate and interested in camerawork and editing, defining himself as a filmmaker as opposed to being a director, and he loved making abstract visual films that created emotions purely through cinema. After graduating with a bachelor of fine arts in film in 1967, he tried joining the United States Air Force as an officer, but he was immediately turned down because of his numerous speeding tickets. He was later drafted by the Army for military service in Vietnam, but he was exempted from service after medical tests showed he had diabetes, the disease that killed his paternal grandfather. In 1967, Lucas re-enrolled as a USC graduate student in film production. He began working under Verna Fields for the United States Information Agency, where he met his future wife Marcia Griffin. Working as a teaching instructor for a class of U.S. Navy students who were being taught documentary cinematography, Lucas directed the short film Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, which won first prize at the 1967–68 National Student film festival. Lucas was awarded a student scholarship by Warner Bros. to observe and work on the making of a film of his choosing. The film he chose was Finian's Rainbow (1968) which was being directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who was revered among film school students of the time as a cinema graduate who had "made it" in Hollywood. In 1969, Lucas was one of the camera operators on the classic Rolling Stones concert film Gimme Shelter. 1969–1977: THX 1138, American Graffiti, and Star Wars In 1969, Lucas co-founded the studio American Zoetrope with Coppola, hoping to create a liberating environment for filmmakers to direct outside the perceived oppressive control of the Hollywood studio system. Coppola thought Lucas's Electronic Labyrinth could be adapted into his first full-length feature film, which was produced by American Zoetrope as THX 1138, but was not a success. Lucas then created his own company, Lucasfilm, Ltd., and directed the successful American Graffiti (1973). Lucas then set his sights on adapting Flash Gordon, an adventure serial from his childhood that he fondly remembered. When he was unable to obtain the rights, he set out to write an original space adventure that would eventually become Star Wars. Despite his success with his previous film, all but one studio turned Star Wars down. It was only because Alan Ladd, Jr., at 20th Century Fox liked American Graffiti that he forced through a production and distribution deal for the film, which ended up restoring Fox to financial stability after a number of flops. Star Wars was significantly influenced by samurai films of Akira Kurosawa, Spaghetti Westerns, as well as classic sword and sorcery fantasy stories. Star Wars quickly became the highest-grossing film of all-time, displaced five years later by Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. After the success of American Graffiti and prior to the beginning of filming on Star Wars, Lucas was encouraged to renegotiate for a higher fee for writing and directing Star Wars than the $150,000 agreed. He declined to do so, instead negotiating for advantage in some of the as-yet-unspecified parts of his contract with Fox, in particular, ownership of licensing and merchandising rights (for novelizations, clothing, toys, etc.) and contractual arrangements for sequels. Lucasfilm has earned hundreds of millions of dollars from licensed games, toys, and collectibles created for the franchise. The original Star Wars film went through a tumultuous production, and during editing, Lucas suffered chest pains initially feared to be a heart attack, but actually a fit of hypertension and exhaustion. The effort that Lucas exerted during post-production for the film, and its subsequent sequels, caused strains on his relationship with his wife Marcia Lucas, and was a contributing factor to their divorce at the end of the trilogy. The success of the first Star Wars film also resulted in more attention focused on Lucas, both positive and negative, attracting wealth and fame but also many people who wanted Lucas's financial backing or just to threaten him. 1977–1993: Hiatus from directing, Indiana Jones Following the release of the first Star Wars film, Lucas worked extensively as a writer and producer, including on the many Star Wars spinoffs made for film, television, and other media. Lucas acted as executive producer for the next two Star Wars films, commissioning Irvin Kershner to direct The Empire Strikes Back, and Richard Marquand to direct Return of the Jedi, while receiving a story credit on the former and sharing a screenwriting credit with Lawrence Kasdan on the latter. He also acted as story writer and executive producer on all four of the Indiana Jones films, which his colleague and good friend Steven Spielberg directed. Other successful projects where Lucas credited as executive producer and sometimes story writer in this period include Kurosawa's Kagemusha (1980), Twice Upon A Time (1983), Ewoks: Caravan of Courage (1984), Ewoks: Battle for Endor (1985), Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), Jim Henson's Labyrinth (1986), Don Bluth's The Land Before Time (1988), and the Indiana Jones television spinoff The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992–96). There were unsuccessful projects, however, including More American Graffiti (1979), Willard Huyck's Howard the Duck (1986), which was the biggest flop of Lucas's career, Ron Howard's Willow (1988), Coppola's Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), and Mel Smith's Radioland Murders (1994). The animation studio Pixar was founded in 1979 as the Graphics Group, one third of the Computer Division of Lucasfilm. Pixar's early computer graphics research resulted in groundbreaking effects in films such as Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Young Sherlock Holmes, and the group was purchased in 1986 by Steve Jobs shortly after he left Apple Computer. Jobs paid Lucas US$5 million and put US$5 million as capital into the company. The sale reflected Lucas's desire to stop the cash flow losses from his 7-year research projects associated with new entertainment technology tools, as well as his company's new focus on creating entertainment products rather than tools. As of June 1983, Lucas was worth US$60 million, but he met cash-flow difficulties following his divorce that year, concurrent with the sudden dropoff in revenues from Star Wars licenses following the theatrical run of Return of the Jedi. At this point, Lucas had no desire to return to Star Wars, and had unofficially canceled the sequel trilogy. Also in 1983, Lucas and Tomlinson Holman founded the audio company THX Ltd. The company was formerly owned by Lucasfilm and contains equipment for stereo, digital, and theatrical sound for films, and music. Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light & Magic, are the sound and visual effects subdivisions of Lucasfilm, while Lucasfilm Games, later renamed LucasArts, produces products for the gaming industry. 1993–2012: Return to directing, Star Wars and Indiana Jones Having lost much of his fortune in a divorce settlement in 1987, Lucas was reluctant to return to Star Wars. However, the prequels, which were still only a series of basic ideas partially pulled from his original drafts of "The Star Wars", continued to tantalize him with technical possibilities that would make it worthwhile to revisit his older material. When Star Wars became popular once again, in the wake of Dark Horse's comic book line and Timothy Zahn's trilogy of spin-off novels, Lucas realized that there was still a large audience. His children were older, and with the explosion of CGI technology he began to consider directing once again. By 1993, it was announced, in Variety among other sources, that Lucas would be making the prequels. He began penning more to the story, indicating that the series would be a tragic one, examining Anakin Skywalker's fall to the dark side. Lucas also began to change the status of the prequels relative to the originals; at first, they were supposed to be a "filling-in" of history tangential to the originals, but now he saw that they could form the beginning of one long story that started with Anakin's childhood and ended with his death. This was the final step towards turning the film series into a "Saga". In 1994, Lucas began work on the screenplay of the first prequel, tentatively titled Episode I: The Beginning. In 1997, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Star Wars, Lucas returned to the original trilogy and made numerous modifications using newly available digital technology, releasing them in theaters as the Star Wars Special Edition. For DVD releases in 2004 and Blu-ray releases in 2011, the trilogy received further revisions to make them congruent with the prequel trilogy. Besides the additions to the Star Wars franchise, Lucas released a Director's Cut of THX 1138 in 2004, with the film re-cut and containing a number of CGI revisions. The first Star Wars prequel was finished and released in 1999 as Episode I – The Phantom Menace, which would be the first film Lucas had directed in over two decades. Following the release of the first prequel, Lucas announced that he would also be directing the next two, and began working on Episode II. The first draft of Episode II was completed just weeks before principal photography, and Lucas hired Jonathan Hales, a writer from The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, to polish it. It was completed and released in 2002 as Attack of the Clones. The final prequel, Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, began production in 2002 and was released in 2005. Numerous fans and critics considered the prequels inferior to the original trilogy, though they were box office successes. In 2004, Lucas reflected that his transition from independent to corporate filmmaker mirrored the story of Star Wars character Darth Vader in some ways. Lucas collaborated with Jeff Nathanson as a writer of the 2008 film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, directed by Steven Spielberg. Like the Star Wars prequels, the reception was mixed, with numerous fans and critics once again considering it inferior to its predecessors. From 2008 to 2014, Lucas also served as the creator and executive producer and for a second Star Wars animated series on Cartoon Network, Star Wars: The Clone Wars which premiered with a feature film of the same name before airing its first episode. The supervising director for this series was Dave Filoni, who was chosen by Lucas and closely collaborated with him on its development. Series it bridged the events between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. The animated series also featured the last Star Wars stories in which Lucas was majorly involved. In 2012, Lucas served as executive producer for Red Tails, a war film based on the exploits of the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. He also took over direction of reshoots while director Anthony Hemingway worked on other projects. 2012–present: Semi-retirement In January 2012, Lucas announced his retirement from producing large blockbuster films and instead re-focusing his career on smaller, independently budgeted features. In June 2012, it was announced that producer Kathleen Kennedy, a long-term collaborator with Steven Spielberg and a producer of the Indiana Jones films, had been appointed as co-chair of Lucasfilm Ltd. It was reported that Kennedy would work alongside Lucas, who would remain chief executive and serve as co-chairman for at least one year, after which she would succeed him as the company's sole leader. With the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney, Lucas is currently Disney's second-largest single shareholder after the estate of Steve Jobs. Lucas worked as a creative consultant on the Star Wars sequel trilogy's first film, The Force Awakens. As creative consultant on the film, Lucas's involvement included attending early story meetings; according to Lucas, "I mostly say, 'You can't do this. You can do that.' You know, 'The cars don't have wheels. They fly with antigravity.' There's a million little pieces ... I know all that stuff." Lucas's son Jett told The Guardian that his father was "very torn" about having sold the rights to the franchise, despite having hand-picked Abrams to direct, and that his father was "there to guide" but that "he wants to let it go and become its new generation." Among the materials turned over to the production team were rough story treatments Lucas developed when he considered creating episodes VII–IX himself years earlier; in January 2015, Lucas stated that Disney had discarded his story ideas. The Force Awakens, directed by J. J. Abrams, was released on December 18, 2015. Kathleen Kennedy executive produced the film and its sequels. The new sequel trilogy was jointly produced by Lucasfilm and The Walt Disney Company, which had acquired Lucasfilm in 2012. During an interview with talk show host and journalist Charlie Rose that aired on December 24, 2015, Lucas likened his decision to sell Lucasfilm to Disney to a divorce and outlined the creative differences between him and the producers of The Force Awakens. Lucas described the previous six Star Wars films as his "children" and defended his vision for them, while criticizing The Force Awakens for having a "retro feel", saying, "I worked very hard to make them completely different, with different planets, with different spaceships – you know, to make it new." Lucas also drew some criticism and subsequently apologized for his remark likening Disney to "white slavers". In 2015, Lucas wrote the CGI film Strange Magic, his first musical. The film was produced at Skywalker Ranch. Gary Rydstrom directed the movie. At the same time the sequel trilogy was announced a fifth installment of the Indiana Jones series also entered pre-development phase with Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg set to return. Lucas originally did not specify whether the selling of Lucasfilm would affect his involvement with the film. In October 2016, Lucas announced his decision to not be involved in the story of the film but would remain an executive producer. In 2016, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the first film of a Star Wars anthology series was released. It told the story of the rebels who stole the plans for the Death Star featured in the original Star Wars film, and it was reported that Lucas liked it more than The Force Awakens. The Last Jedi, the second film in the sequel trilogy, was released in 2017; Lucas described the film as "beautifully made". Lucas has had cursory involvement with Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), the Star Wars streaming series The Mandalorian, and the premiere of the eighth season of Game of Thrones. Lucas met with J. J. Abrams before the latter began writing the script to the sequel trilogy's final film, The Rise of Skywalker, which was released in 2019. Filmmaking Collaboration with John Williams Lucas was also heavily involved and invested in the scoring process for the original Star Wars soundtrack, which was composed by John Williams, on the recommendation of his friend and colleague Steven Spielberg. Whilst initially wanting to use tracks and film music in a similar manner to 2001: A Space Odyssey, which served as the inspiration for the film, Williams advised against this and instead proposed a system of recurring themes (or leitmotifs) to enhance the story in the style of classical composers Gustav Holst, William Walton, and Igor Stravinsky; works that Lucas had used as "temp tracks" for Williams to gain inspiration from. The film, and subsequent sequels and prequels, make use of the Main Title Theme, the Force Theme (less commonly referred to as Obi Wan Kenobi's Theme), the Rebel Alliance Theme, and Princess Leia's Theme (all introduced in this film) repeatedly. Subsequent films also added to the catalogue of themes for different characters, factions, and locations. The score was released to critical acclaim and won Williams his third Academy Award for Best Original Score. The score was listed by the American Film Institute in 2005 as the greatest film score of all time. The professional relationship formed by Lucas and Williams extended through to Williams working on all of Lucas's blockbuster franchise movies: the remaining two films of the Star Wars original trilogy; all three films of prequel trilogy developed over fifteen years later; and the four (to be five) films of the Indiana Jones franchise, in which Williams reunited with his long-time collaborator Spielberg. In his collaborations with Lucas, Williams received six of his fifty-two Academy Award nominations (Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). After Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney, Williams stayed on board with the franchise, and continued to score the remaining three films of the "Skywalker saga" (The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker, for which he received a further three Oscar nominations), after which he announced his "retirement" from the series. Lucas was in attendance for a ceremony honouring Williams as the 44th recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award, the first composer to receive the honour, and gave a speech in praise of their relationship and his work. In interviews, and most famously at the 40th Anniversary Star Wars Celebration convention, Lucas has repeatedly reaffirmed the importance of Williams to the Star Wars saga, affectionately referring to him as the "secret sauce" of his movies. Philanthropy Lucas is one of the wealthiest celebrities in the world. Lucas has pledged to give half of his fortune to charity as part of an effort called The Giving Pledge led by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to persuade America's richest individuals to donate their financial wealth to charities. George Lucas Educational Foundation In 1991, The George Lucas Educational Foundation was founded as a nonprofit operating foundation to celebrate and encourage innovation in schools. The Foundation's content is available under the brand Edutopia, in an award-winning web site, social media and via documentary films. Lucas, through his foundation, was one of the leading proponents of the E-rate program in the universal service fund, which was enacted as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. On June 24, 2008, Lucas testified before the United States House of Representatives subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet as the head of his Foundation to advocate for a free wireless broadband educational network. Proceeds from the sale of Lucasfilm to Disney In 2012, Lucas sold Lucasfilm to The Walt Disney Company for a reported sum of $4.05 billion. It was widely reported at the time that Lucas intends to give the majority of the proceeds from the sale to charity. A spokesperson for Lucasfilm said, "George Lucas has expressed his intention, in the event the deal closes, to donate the majority of the proceeds to his philanthropic endeavors." Lucas also spoke on the matter: "For 41 years, the majority of my time and money has been put into the company. As I start a new chapter in my life, it is gratifying that I have the opportunity to devote more time and resources to philanthropy." Lucas Museum of Narrative Art By June 2013, Lucas was considering establishing a museum, the Lucas Cultural Arts Museum, to be built on Crissy Field near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, which would display his collection of illustrations and pop art, with an estimated value of more than $1 billion. Lucas offered to pay the estimated $300 million cost of constructing the museum, and would endow it with $400 million when it opened, eventually adding an additional $400 million to its endowment. After being unable to reach an agreement with The Presidio Trust, Lucas turned to Chicago. A potential lakefront site on Museum Campus in Chicago was proposed in May 2014. By June 2014, Chicago had been selected, pending approval of the Chicago Plan Commission, which was granted. The museum project was renamed the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. On June 24, 2016, Lucas announced that he was abandoning his plans to locate the museum in Chicago, due to a lawsuit by a local preservation group, Friends of the Parks, and would instead build the museum in California. On January 17, 2017, Lucas announced that the museum will be constructed in Exposition Park, Los Angeles, California. Other initiatives In 2005, Lucas gave US$1 million to help build the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington D.C. to commemorate American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. On September 19, 2006, the University of Southern California announced that Lucas had donated $175–180 million to his alma mater to expand the film school. It is the largest single donation to USC and the largest gift to a film school anywhere. Previous donations led to the already-existing George Lucas Instructional Building and Marcia Lucas Post-Production building. In 2013, Lucas and his wife Mellody Hobson donated $25 million to the Chicago-based not-for-profit After School Matters, of which Hobson is the chair. On April 15, 2016, it was reported that Lucas had donated between $501,000 and $1 million through the Lucas Family Foundation to the Obama Foundation, which is charged with overseeing the construction of the Barack Obama Presidential Center on Chicago's South Side. Personal life In 1969, Lucas married film editor Marcia Lou Griffin, who went on to win an Academy Award for her editing work on the original Star Wars film. They adopted a daughter, Amanda Lucas, in 1981, and divorced in 1983. Lucas subsequently adopted two more children as a single parent: daughter Katie Lucas, born in 1988, and son Jett Lucas, born in 1993. His three eldest children all appeared in the three Star Wars prequels, as did Lucas himself. Following his divorce, Lucas was in a relationship with singer Linda Ronstadt in the 1980s. Lucas began dating Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments and chair of DreamWorks Animation, in 2006. Lucas and Hobson announced their engagement in January 2013, and married on June 22, 2013, at Lucas's Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, California. They have one daughter together, born via gestational carrier in August 2013. Lucas was born and raised in a Methodist family. The religious and mythical themes in Star Wars were inspired by Lucas's interest in the writings of mythologist Joseph Campbell, and he would eventually come to identify strongly with the Eastern religious philosophies he studied and incorporated into his films, which were a major inspiration for "the Force". Lucas has come to state that his religion is "Buddhist Methodist". He resides in Marin County. Lucas is a major collector of the American illustrator and painter Norman Rockwell. A collection of 57 Rockwell paintings and drawings owned by Lucas and fellow Rockwell collector and film director Steven Spielberg were displayed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum from July 2, 2010, to January 2, 2011, in an exhibition titled Telling Stories. Lucas has said that he is a fan of Seth MacFarlane's hit TV show Family Guy. MacFarlane has said that Lucasfilm was extremely helpful when the Family Guy crew wanted to parody their works. Lucas supported Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the run-up for the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Awards and honors In 1977, Lucas was awarded the Inkpot Award. The American Film Institute awarded Lucas its Life Achievement Award on June 9, 2005. This was shortly after the release of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, about which he joked stating that, since he views the entire Star Wars series as one film, he could actually receive the award now that he had finally "gone back and finished the movie." Lucas was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Directing and Writing for American Graffiti and Star Wars. He received the Academy's Irving G. Thalberg Award in 1991. He appeared at the 79th Academy Awards ceremony in 2007 with Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola to present the Best Director award to their friend Martin Scorsese. During the speech, Spielberg and Coppola talked about the joy of winning an Oscar, making fun of Lucas, who has not won a competitive Oscar. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted Lucas in 2006, its second "Film, Television, and Media" contributor, after Spielberg. The Discovery Channel named him one of the 100 "Greatest Americans" in September 2008. Lucas served as Grand Marshal for the Tournament of Roses Parade and made the ceremonial coin toss at the Rose Bowl, New Year's Day 2007. In 2009, he was one of 13 California Hall of Fame inductees in The California Museum's yearlong exhibit. In July 2013, Lucas was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama for his contributions to American cinema. In October 2014, Lucas received Honorary Membership of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. In August 2015, Lucas was inducted as a Disney Legend, and on December 6, 2015, he was an honoree at the Kennedy Center Honors. In 2021, coinciding with Lucasfilm's 50th anniversary, an action figure of Lucas in stormtrooper disguise was released as part of Hasbro's Star Wars: The Black Series. Filmography Bibliography 1980: Alan Arnold: A Journal of the Making of "The Empire Strikes Back." . (contributor) 1983: Dale Pollock: Sky Walking: The Life and Films of George Lucas. . (contributor) 1995: George Lucas, Chris Claremont: Shadow Moon. . (story) 1996: Chris Claremont: Shadow Dawn. . (story) 1997: Laurent Bouzereau: Star Wars. The Annotated Screenplays. (contributor) . 2000: Terry Brooks: Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace (novelization, contributor), Del Rey Books, 2000: Chris Claremont: Shadow Star. . (story) 2003: R. A. Salvatore: Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (novelization, contributor), Del Rey, 2004: Matthew Stover: Shatterpoint. (novel, prologue), Del Rey, . 2005: James Luceno: Labyrinth of Evil (novel, contributor), Del Rey, 2005: Matthew Stover: Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith., Del Rey, . (novelization, contributor & line editor) 2007: J. W. Rinzler: The Making of "Star Wars". The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film. . (contributor) 2012: James Luceno: Star Wars: Darth Plagueis. novel (contributor), Del Rey, . 2020: Paul Duncan: The Star Wars Archives. 1999–2005 (contributor), Taschen, See also The Making of Star Wars References Footnotes Citations Sources Further reading External links George Lucas biography at Lucasfilm.com George Lucas at World of Business Ideas 1944 births 21st-century philanthropists AFI Life Achievement Award recipients American art collectors American billionaires American Buddhists American chief executives American Cinema Editors American cinematographers American entertainment industry businesspeople American film editors American film producers American male film actors American male novelists American male screenwriters American Methodists American science fiction writers American people of Swiss-German descent American people of English descent American people of Scottish descent American speculative fiction artists Businesspeople from California Cinema of the San Francisco Bay Area Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Film directors from California Film producers from California Giving Pledgers Golden Raspberry Award winners Inkpot Award winners Kennedy Center honorees Living people Lucasfilm people Mythopoeic writers People from Marin County, California People from Modesto, California Science fiction artists Science fiction fans Science fiction film directors Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductees Screenwriters from California Special effects people USC School of Cinematic Arts alumni United States National Medal of Arts recipients

George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American soldier, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of the Continental Army, Washington led the Patriot forces to victory in the American Revolutionary War, and presided at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which established the Constitution of the United States and a federal government. Washington has been called the "Father of the Nation" for his manifold leadership in the formative days of the country. Washington's first public office was serving as official Surveyor of Culpeper County, Virginia from 1749 to 1750. Subsequently, he received his initial military training (as well as a command with the Virginia Regiment) during the French and Indian War. He was later elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses and was named a delegate to the Continental Congress. Here he was appointed Commanding General of the Continental Army. With this title, he commanded American forces (allied with France) in the defeat and surrender of the British at the Siege of Yorktown during the American Revolutionary War. He resigned his commission after the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783. Washington played an indispensable role in adopting and ratifying the Constitution of the United States. He was then twice elected president by the Electoral College unanimously. As president, he implemented a strong, well-financed national government while remaining impartial in a fierce rivalry between cabinet members Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. During the French Revolution, he proclaimed a policy of neutrality while sanctioning the Jay Treaty. He set enduring precedents for the office of president, including the title "Mr. President", and his Farewell Address is widely regarded as a pre-eminent statement on republicanism. Washington was a slaveowner who had a complicated relationship with slavery. During his lifetime he controlled a total of over 577 slaves, who were forced to work on his farms and wherever he lived, including the President's House in Philadelphia. As president, he signed laws passed by Congress that both protected and curtailed slavery. His will said that one of his slaves, William Lee, should be freed upon his death, and that the other 123 slaves must work for his wife and be freed on her death. She freed them during her lifetime to remove the incentive to hasten her death. He endeavored to assimilate Native Americans into the Anglo-American culture but fought indigenous resistance during instances of violent conflict. He was a member of the Anglican Church and the Freemasons, and he urged broad religious freedom in his roles as general and president. Upon his death, he was eulogized by Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee as "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen". Washington has been memorialized by monuments, a federal holiday, various media, geographical locations, including the national capital, the State of Washington, stamps, and currency, and many scholars and polls rank him among the greatest U.S. presidents. In 1976 Washington was posthumously promoted to the rank of General of the Armies of the United States. Early life (1732–1752) The Washington family was a wealthy Virginia planter family that had made its fortune through land speculation and the cultivation of tobacco. Washington's great-grandfather John Washington emigrated in 1656 from Sulgrave, Northamptonshire, England, to the English colony of Virginia where he accumulated of land, including Little Hunting Creek on the Potomac River. George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, at Popes Creek in Westmoreland County, Virginia, and was the first of six children of Augustine and Mary Ball Washington. His father was a justice of the peace and a prominent public figure who had four additional children from his first marriage to Jane Butler. The family moved to Little Hunting Creek in 1735. In 1738, they moved to Ferry Farm near Fredericksburg, Virginia on the Rappahannock River. When Augustine died in 1743, Washington inherited Ferry Farm and ten slaves; his older half-brother Lawrence inherited Little Hunting Creek and renamed it Mount Vernon. Washington did not have the formal education his elder brothers received at Appleby Grammar School in England, but did attend the Lower Church School in Hartfield. He learned mathematics, trigonometry, and land surveying and became a talented draftsman and map-maker. By early adulthood, he was writing with "considerable force" and "precision"; however, his writing displayed little wit or humor. In pursuit of admiration, status, and power, he tended to attribute his shortcomings and failures to someone else's ineffectuality. Washington often visited Mount Vernon and Belvoir, the plantation that belonged to Lawrence's father-in-law William Fairfax. Fairfax became Washington's patron and surrogate father, and Washington spent a month in 1748 with a team surveying Fairfax's Shenandoah Valley property. He received a surveyor's license the following year from the College of William & Mary. Even though Washington had not served the customary apprenticeship, Fairfax appointed him surveyor of Culpeper County, Virginia, and he appeared in Culpeper County to take his oath of office July 20, 1749. He subsequently familiarized himself with the frontier region, and though he resigned from the job in 1750, he continued to do surveys west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. By 1752 he had bought almost in the Valley and owned . In 1751, Washington made his only trip abroad when he accompanied Lawrence to Barbados, hoping the climate would cure his brother's tuberculosis. Washington contracted smallpox during that trip, which immunized him and left his face slightly scarred. Lawrence died in 1752, and Washington leased Mount Vernon from his widow Anne; he inherited it outright after her death in 1761. Colonial military career (1752–1758) Lawrence Washington's service as adjutant general of the Virginia militia inspired his half-brother George to seek a commission. Virginia's lieutenant governor, Robert Dinwiddie, appointed George Washington as a major and commander of one of the four militia districts. The British and French were competing for control of the Ohio Valley. While the British were constructing forts along the Ohio River, the French were doing the same—constructing forts between the Ohio River and Lake Erie. In October 1753, Dinwiddie appointed Washington as a special envoy. He had sent George to demand French forces to vacate land that was being claimed by the British. Washington was also appointed to make peace with the Iroquois Confederacy, and to gather further intelligence about the French forces. Washington met with Half-King Tanacharison, and other Iroquois chiefs, at Logstown, and gathered information about the numbers and locations of the French forts, as well as intelligence concerning individuals taken prisoner by the French. Washington was given the nickname Conotocaurius (town destroyer or devourer of villages) by Tanacharison. The nickname had previously been given to his great-grandfather John Washington in the late seventeenth century by the Susquehannock. Washington's party reached the Ohio River in November 1753, and were intercepted by a French patrol. The party was escorted to Fort Le Boeuf, where Washington was received in a friendly manner. He delivered the British demand to vacate to the French commander Saint-Pierre, but the French refused to leave. Saint-Pierre gave Washington his official answer in a sealed envelope after a few days' delay, as well as food and extra winter clothing for his party's journey back to Virginia. Washington completed the precarious mission in 77 days, in difficult winter conditions, achieving a measure of distinction when his report was published in Virginia and in London. French and Indian War In February 1754, Dinwiddie promoted Washington to lieutenant colonel and second-in-command of the 300-strong Virginia Regiment, with orders to confront French forces at the Forks of the Ohio. Washington set out for the Forks with half the regiment in April and soon learned a French force of 1,000 had begun construction of Fort Duquesne there. In May, having set up a defensive position at Great Meadows, he learned that the French had made camp seven miles (11 km) away; he decided to take the offensive. The French detachment proved to be only about fifty men, so Washington advanced on May 28 with a small force of Virginians and Indian allies to ambush them. What took place, known as the Battle of Jumonville Glen or the "Jumonville affair", was disputed, and French forces were killed outright with muskets and hatchets. French commander Joseph Coulon de Jumonville, who carried a diplomatic message for the British to evacuate, was killed. French forces found Jumonville and some of his men dead and scalped and assumed Washington was responsible. Washington blamed his translator for not communicating the French intentions. Dinwiddie congratulated Washington for his victory over the French. This incident ignited the French and Indian War, which later became part of the larger Seven Years' War. The full Virginia Regiment joined Washington at Fort Necessity the following month with news that he had been promoted to command of the regiment and colonel upon the regimental commander's death. The regiment was reinforced by an independent company of a hundred South Carolinians led by Captain James Mackay, whose royal commission outranked that of Washington, and a conflict of command ensued. On July 3, a French force attacked with 900 men, and the ensuing battle ended in Washington's surrender. In the aftermath, Colonel James Innes took command of intercolonial forces, the Virginia Regiment was divided, and Washington was offered a captaincy which he refused, with the resignation of his commission. In 1755, Washington served voluntarily as an aide to General Edward Braddock, who led a British expedition to expel the French from Fort Duquesne and the Ohio Country. On Washington's recommendation, Braddock split the army into one main column and a lightly equipped "flying column". Suffering from a severe case of dysentery, Washington was left behind, and when he rejoined Braddock at Monongahela the French and their Indian allies ambushed the divided army. Two-thirds of the British force became casualties, including the mortally wounded Braddock. Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gage, Washington, still very ill, rallied the survivors and formed a rear guard, allowing the remnants of the force to disengage and retreat. During the engagement, he had two horses shot from under him, and his hat and coat were bullet-pierced. His conduct under fire redeemed his reputation among critics of his command in the Battle of Fort Necessity, but he was not included by the succeeding commander (Colonel Thomas Dunbar) in planning subsequent operations. The Virginia Regiment was reconstituted in August 1755, and Dinwiddie appointed Washington its commander, again with the rank of colonel. Washington clashed over seniority almost immediately, this time with John Dagworthy, another captain of superior royal rank, who commanded a detachment of Marylanders at the regiment's headquarters in Fort Cumberland. Washington, impatient for an offensive against Fort Duquesne, was convinced Braddock would have granted him a royal commission and pressed his case in February 1756 with Braddock's successor, William Shirley, and again in January 1757 with Shirley's successor, Lord Loudoun. Shirley ruled in Washington's favor only in the matter of Dagworthy; Loudoun humiliated Washington, refused him a royal commission and agreed only to relieve him of the responsibility of manning Fort Cumberland. In 1758, the Virginia Regiment was assigned to the British Forbes Expedition to capture Fort Duquesne. Washington disagreed with General John Forbes' tactics and chosen route. Forbes nevertheless made Washington a brevet brigadier general and gave him command of one of the three brigades that would assault the fort. The French abandoned the fort and the valley before the assault was launched; Washington saw only a friendly fire incident which left 14 dead and 26 injured. The war lasted another four years, and Washington resigned his commission and returned to Mount Vernon. Under Washington, the Virginia Regiment had defended of frontier against twenty Indian attacks in ten months. He increased the professionalism of the regiment as it increased from 300 to 1,000 men, and Virginia's frontier population suffered less than other colonies. Some historians have said this was Washington's "only unqualified success" during the war. Though he failed to realize a royal commission, he did gain self-confidence, leadership skills, and invaluable knowledge of British military tactics. The destructive competition Washington witnessed among colonial politicians fostered his later support of a strong central government. Marriage, civilian, and political life (1755–1775) On January 6, 1759, Washington, at age 26, married Martha Dandridge Custis, the 27-year-old widow of wealthy plantation owner Daniel Parke Custis. The marriage took place at Martha's estate; she was intelligent, gracious, and experienced in managing a planter's estate, and the couple created a happy marriage. They raised John Parke Custis (Jacky) and Martha "Patsy" Parke Custis, children from her previous marriage, and later Jacky's children Eleanor Parke Custis (Nelly) and George Washington Parke Custis (Washy). Washington's 1751 bout with smallpox is thought to have rendered him sterile, though it is equally likely that "Martha may have sustained injury during the birth of Patsy, her final child, making additional births impossible." The couple lamented not having any children together. They moved to Mount Vernon, near Alexandria, where he took up life as a planter of tobacco and wheat and emerged as a political figure. The marriage gave Washington control over Martha's one-third dower interest in the Custis estate, and he managed the remaining two-thirds for Martha's children; the estate also included 84 slaves. He became one of Virginia's wealthiest men, which increased his social standing. At Washington's urging, Governor Lord Botetourt fulfilled Dinwiddie's 1754 promise of land bounties to all-volunteer militia during the French and Indian War. In late 1770, Washington inspected the lands in the Ohio and Great Kanawha regions, and he engaged surveyor William Crawford to subdivide it. Crawford allotted to Washington; Washington told the veterans that their land was hilly and unsuitable for farming, and he agreed to purchase , leaving some feeling they had been duped. He also doubled the size of Mount Vernon to and increased its slave population to more than a hundred by 1775. Washington's political activities included supporting the candidacy of his friend George William Fairfax in his 1755 bid to represent the region in the Virginia House of Burgesses. This support led to a dispute which resulted in a physical altercation between Washington and another Virginia planter, William Payne. Washington defused the situation, including ordering officers from the Virginia Regiment to stand down. Washington apologized to Payne the following day at a tavern. Payne had been expecting to be challenged to a duel. As a respected military hero and large landowner, Washington held local offices and was elected to the Virginia provincial legislature, representing Frederick County in the House of Burgesses for seven years beginning in 1758. He plied the voters with beer, brandy, and other beverages, although he was absent while serving on the Forbes Expedition. He won the election with roughly 40 percent of the vote, defeating three other candidates with the help of several local supporters. He rarely spoke in his early legislative career, but he became a prominent critic of Britain's taxation policy and mercantilist policies towards the American colonies starting in the 1760s. By occupation, Washington was a planter, and he imported luxuries and other goods from England, paying for them by exporting tobacco. His profligate spending combined with low tobacco prices left him £1,800 in debt by 1764, prompting him to diversify his holdings. In 1765, because of erosion and other soil problems, he changed Mount Vernon's primary cash crop from tobacco to wheat and expanded operations to include corn flour milling and fishing. Washington also took time for leisure with fox hunting, fishing, dances, theater, cards, backgammon, and billiards. Washington soon was counted among the political and social elite in Virginia. From 1768 to 1775, he invited some 2,000 guests to his Mount Vernon estate, mostly those whom he considered people of rank, and was known to be exceptionally cordial toward his guests. He became more politically active in 1769, presenting legislation in the Virginia Assembly to establish an embargo on goods from Great Britain. Washington's step-daughter Patsy Custis suffered from epileptic attacks from age 12, and she died in his arms in 1773. The following day, he wrote to Burwell Bassett: "It is easier to conceive, than to describe, the distress of this Family". He canceled all business activity and remained with Martha every night for three months. Opposition to British Parliament and Crown Washington played a central role before and during the American Revolution. His disdain for the British military had begun when he was passed over for promotion into the Regular Army. Opposed to taxes imposed by the British Parliament on the Colonies without proper representation, he and other colonists were also angered by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which banned American settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains and protected the British fur trade. Washington believed the Stamp Act of 1765 was an "Act of Oppression", and he celebrated its repeal the following year. In March 1766, Parliament passed the Declaratory Act asserting that Parliamentary law superseded colonial law. In the late 1760s, the interference of the British Crown in American lucrative western land speculation spurred on the American Revolution. Washington himself was a prosperous land speculator, and in 1767, he encouraged "adventures" to acquire backcountry western lands. Washington helped lead widespread protests against the Townshend Acts passed by Parliament in 1767, and he introduced a proposal in May 1769 drafted by George Mason which called Virginians to boycott British goods; the Acts were mostly repealed in 1770. Parliament sought to punish Massachusetts colonists for their role in the Boston Tea Party in 1774 by passing the Coercive Acts, which Washington referred to as "an invasion of our rights and privileges". He said Americans must not submit to acts of tyranny since "custom and use shall make us as tame and abject slaves, as the blacks we rule over with such arbitrary sway". That July, he and George Mason drafted a list of resolutions for the Fairfax County committee which Washington chaired, and the committee adopted the Fairfax Resolves calling for a Continental Congress, and an end to the slave trade. On August 1, Washington attended the First Virginia Convention, where he was selected as a delegate to the First Continental Congress, September 5 to October 26, 1774, which he also attended. As tensions rose in 1774, he helped train county militias in Virginia and organized enforcement of the Continental Association boycott of British goods instituted by the Congress. The American Revolutionary War began on April 19, 1775, with the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the Siege of Boston. The colonists were divided over breaking away from British rule and split into two factions: Patriots who rejected British rule, and Loyalists who desired to remain subject to the King. General Thomas Gage was commander of British forces in America at the beginning of the war. Upon hearing the shocking news of the onset of war, Washington was "sobered and dismayed", and he hastily departed Mount Vernon on May 4, 1775, to join the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. Commander in chief (1775–1783) Congress created the Continental Army on June 14, 1775, and Samuel and John Adams nominated Washington to become its commander-in-chief. Washington was chosen over John Hancock because of his military experience and the belief that a Virginian would better unite the colonies. He was considered an incisive leader who kept his "ambition in check". He was unanimously elected commander in chief by Congress the next day. Washington appeared before Congress in uniform and gave an acceptance speech on June 16, declining a salary—though he was later reimbursed expenses. He was commissioned on June 19 and was roundly praised by Congressional delegates, including John Adams, who proclaimed that he was the man best suited to lead and unite the colonies. Congress appointed Washington "General & Commander in chief of the army of the United Colonies and of all the forces raised or to be raised by them", and instructed him to take charge of the siege of Boston on June 22, 1775. Congress chose his primary staff officers, including Major General Artemas Ward, Adjutant General Horatio Gates, Major General Charles Lee, Major General Philip Schuyler, Major General Nathanael Greene, Colonel Henry Knox, and Colonel Alexander Hamilton. Washington was impressed by Colonel Benedict Arnold and gave him responsibility for launching an invasion of Canada. He also engaged French and Indian War compatriot Brigadier General Daniel Morgan. Henry Knox impressed Adams with ordnance knowledge, and Washington promoted him to colonel and chief of artillery. At the start of the war, Washington opposed the recruiting of blacks, both free and enslaved, into the Continental Army. After his appointment, Washington banned their enlistment. The British saw an opportunity to divide the colonies, and the colonial governor of Virginia issued a proclamation, which promised freedom to slaves if they joined the British. Desperate for manpower by late 1777, Washington relented and overturned his ban. By the end of the war, around one-tenth of Washington's army were blacks. Following the British surrender, Washington sought to enforce terms of the preliminary Treaty of Paris (1783) by reclaiming slaves freed by the British and returning them to servitude. He arranged to make this request to Sir Guy Carleton on May 6, 1783. Instead, Carleton issued 3,000 freedom certificates and all former slaves in New York City were able to leave before the city was evacuated by the British in late November 1783. After the war Washington became the target of accusations made by General Lee involving his alleged questionable conduct as Commander in Chief during the war that were published by patriot-printer William Goddard. Goddard in a letter of May 30, 1785, had informed Washington of Lee's request to publish his account and assured him that he "...took the liberty to suppress such expressions as appeared to be the ebullitions of a disappointed & irritated mind ...". Washington replied, telling Goddard to print what he saw fit, and to let "... the impartial & dispassionate world," draw their own conclusions. Siege of Boston Early in 1775, in response to the growing rebellious movement, London sent British troops, commanded by General Thomas Gage, to occupy Boston. They set up fortifications about the city, making it impervious to attack. Various local militias surrounded the city and effectively trapped the British, resulting in a standoff. As Washington headed for Boston, word of his march preceded him, and he was greeted everywhere; gradually, he became a symbol of the Patriot cause. Upon arrival on July 2, 1775, two weeks after the Patriot defeat at nearby Bunker Hill, he set up his Cambridge, Massachusetts headquarters and inspected the new army there, only to find an undisciplined and badly outfitted militia. After consultation, he initiated Benjamin Franklin's suggested reforms—drilling the soldiers and imposing strict discipline, floggings, and incarceration. Washington ordered his officers to identify the skills of recruits to ensure military effectiveness, while removing incompetent officers. He petitioned Gage, his former superior, to release captured Patriot officers from prison and treat them humanely. In October 1775, King George III declared that the colonies were in open rebellion and relieved General Gage of command for incompetence, replacing him with General William Howe. The Continental Army, further diminished by expiring short-term enlistments, and by January 1776 reduced by half to 9,600 men, had to be supplemented with the militia, and was joined by Knox with heavy artillery captured from Fort Ticonderoga. When the Charles River froze over, Washington was eager to cross and storm Boston, but General Gates and others were opposed to untrained militia striking well-garrisoned fortifications. Washington reluctantly agreed to secure the Dorchester Heights, 100 feet above Boston, in an attempt to force the British out of the city. On March 9, under cover of darkness, Washington's troops brought up Knox's big guns and bombarded British ships in Boston harbor. On March 17, 9,000 British troops and Loyalists began a chaotic ten-day evacuation of Boston aboard 120 ships. Soon after, Washington entered the city with 500 men, with explicit orders not to plunder the city. He ordered vaccinations against smallpox to great effect, as he did later in Morristown, New Jersey. He refrained from exerting military authority in Boston, leaving civilian matters in the hands of local authorities. Invasion of Quebec (1775) The Invasion of Quebec (June 1775 – October 1776, French: Invasion du Québec) was the first major military initiative by the newly formed Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. On June 27, 1775, Congress authorized General Philip Schuyler to investigate, and, if it seemed appropriate, begin an invasion. Benedict Arnold, passed over for its command, went to Boston and convinced General George Washington to send a supporting force to Quebec City under his command. The objective of the campaign was to seize the Province of Quebec (part of modern-day Canada) from Great Britain, and persuade French-speaking Canadiens to join the revolution on the side of the Thirteen Colonies. One expedition left Fort Ticonderoga under Richard Montgomery, besieged and captured Fort St. Johns, and very nearly captured British General Guy Carleton when taking Montreal. The other expedition, under Benedict Arnold, left Cambridge, Massachusetts and traveled with great difficulty through the wilderness of Maine to Quebec City. The two forces joined there, but they were defeated at the Battle of Quebec in December 1775. Battle of Long Island Washington then proceeded to New York City, arriving on April 13, 1776, and began constructing fortifications to thwart the expected British attack. He ordered his occupying forces to treat civilians and their property with respect, to avoid the abuses which Bostonian citizens suffered at the hands of British troops during their occupation. A plot to assassinate or capture him was discovered and thwarted, resulting in the arrest of 98 people involved or complicit (56 of which were from Long Island (Kings (Brooklyn) and Queens counties), including the Loyalist Mayor of New York David Mathews. Washington's bodyguard, Thomas Hickey, was hanged for mutiny and sedition. General Howe transported his resupplied army, with the British fleet, from Halifax to New York, knowing the city was key to securing the continent. George Germain, who ran the British war effort in England, believed it could be won with one "decisive blow". The British forces, including more than a hundred ships and thousands of troops, began arriving on Staten Island on July2 to lay siege to the city. After the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, Washington informed his troops in his general orders of July9 that Congress had declared the united colonies to be "free and independent states". Howe's troop strength totaled 32,000 regulars and Hessians auxiliaries, and Washington's consisted of 23,000, mostly raw recruits and militia. In August, Howe landed 20,000 troops at Gravesend, Brooklyn, and approached Washington's fortifications, as George III proclaimed the rebellious American colonists to be traitors. Washington, opposing his generals, chose to fight, based upon inaccurate information that Howe's army had only 8,000-plus troops. In the Battle of Long Island, Howe assaulted Washington's flank and inflicted 1,500 Patriot casualties, the British suffering 400. Washington retreated, instructing General William Heath to acquisition river craft in the area. On August 30, General William Alexander held off the British and gave cover while the army crossed the East River under darkness to Manhattan Island without loss of life or materiel, although Alexander was captured. Howe, emboldened by his Long Island victory, dispatched Washington as "George Washington, Esq." in futility to negotiate peace. Washington declined, demanding to be addressed with diplomatic protocol, as general and fellow belligerent, not as a "rebel", lest his men are hanged as such if captured. The Royal Navy bombarded the unstable earthworks on lower Manhattan Island. Washington, with misgivings, heeded the advice of Generals Greene and Putnam to defend Fort Washington. They were unable to hold it, and Washington abandoned it despite General Lee's objections, as his army retired north to the White Plains. Howe's pursuit forced Washington to retreat across the Hudson River to Fort Lee to avoid encirclement. Howe landed his troops on Manhattan in November and captured Fort Washington, inflicting high casualties on the Americans. Washington was responsible for delaying the retreat, though he blamed Congress and General Greene. Loyalists in New York considered Howe a liberator and spread a rumor that Washington had set fire to the city. Patriot morale reached its lowest when Lee was captured. Now reduced to 5,400 troops, Washington's army retreated through New Jersey, and Howe broke off pursuit, delaying his advance on Philadelphia, and set up winter quarters in New York. Crossing the Delaware, Trenton, and Princeton Washington crossed the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, where Lee's replacement John Sullivan joined him with 2,000 more troops. The future of the Continental Army was in doubt for lack of supplies, a harsh winter, expiring enlistments, and desertions. Washington was disappointed that many New Jersey residents were Loyalists or skeptical about the prospect of independence. Howe split up his British Army and posted a Hessian garrison at Trenton to hold western New Jersey and the east shore of the Delaware, but the army appeared complacent, and Washington and his generals devised a surprise attack on the Hessians at Trenton, which he codenamed "Victory or Death". The army was to cross the Delaware River to Trenton in three divisions: one led by Washington (2,400 troops), another by General James Ewing (700), and the third by Colonel John Cadwalader (1,500). The force was to then split, with Washington taking the Pennington Road and General Sullivan traveling south on the river's edge. Washington first ordered a 60-mile search for Durham boats to transport his army, and he ordered the destruction of vessels that could be used by the British. Washington crossed the Delaware River on Christmas night, December 25, 1776, while he personally risked capture staking out the Jersey shoreline. His men followed across the ice-obstructed river in sleet and snow from McConkey's Ferry, with 40 men per vessel. The wind churned up the waters, and they were pelted with hail, but by 3:00a.m. on December 26, they made it across with no losses. Henry Knox was delayed, managing frightened horses and about 18 field guns on flat-bottomed ferries. Cadwalader and Ewing failed to cross due to the ice and heavy currents, and awaiting Washington doubted his planned attack on Trenton. Once Knox arrived, Washington proceeded to Trenton to take only his troops against the Hessians, rather than risk being spotted returning his army to Pennsylvania. The troops spotted Hessian positions a mile from Trenton, so Washington split his force into two columns, rallying his men: "Soldiers keep by your officers. For God's sake, keep by your officers." The two columns were separated at the Birmingham crossroads. General Nathanael Greene's column took the upper Ferry Road, led by Washington, and General John Sullivan's column advanced on River Road. (See map.) The Americans marched in sleet and snowfall. Many were shoeless with bloodied feet, and two died of exposure. At sunrise, Washington led them in a surprise attack on the Hessians, aided by Major General Knox and artillery. The Hessians had 22 killed (including Colonel Johann Rall), 83 wounded, and 850 captured with supplies. Washington retreated across Delaware River to Pennsylvania and returned to New Jersey on January 3, 1777, launching an attack on British regulars at Princeton, with 40 Americans killed or wounded and 273 British killed or captured. American Generals Hugh Mercer and John Cadwalader were being driven back by the British when Mercer was mortally wounded, then Washington arrived and led the men in a counterattack which advanced to within of the British line. Some British troops retreated after a brief stand, while others took refuge in Nassau Hall, which became the target of Colonel Alexander Hamilton's cannons. Washington's troops charged, the British surrendered in less than an hour, and 194 soldiers laid down their arms. Howe retreated to New York City where his army remained inactive until early the next year. Washington's depleted Continental Army took up winter headquarters in Morristown, New Jersey while disrupting British supply lines and expelling them from parts of New Jersey. Washington later said the British could have successfully counterattacked his encampment before his troops were dug in. The victories at Trenton and Princeton by Washington revived Patriot morale and changed the course of the war. The British still controlled New York, and many Patriot soldiers did not re-enlist or deserted after the harsh winter campaign. Congress instituted greater rewards for re-enlisting and punishments for desertion to effect greater troop numbers. Strategically, Washington's victories were pivotal for the Revolution and quashed the British strategy of showing overwhelming force followed by offering generous terms. In February 1777, word reached London of the American victories at Trenton and Princeton, and the British realized the Patriots were in a position to demand unconditional independence. Brandywine, Germantown, and Saratoga In July 1777, British General John Burgoyne led the Saratoga campaign south from Quebec through Lake Champlain and recaptured Fort Ticonderoga intending to divide New England, including control of the Hudson River. However, General Howe in British-occupied New York blundered, taking his army south to Philadelphia rather than up the Hudson River to join Burgoyne near Albany. Meanwhile, Washington and Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette rushed to Philadelphia to engage Howe and were shocked to learn of Burgoyne's progress in upstate New York, where the Patriots were led by General Philip Schuyler and successor Horatio Gates. Washington's army of less experienced men were defeated in the pitched battles at Philadelphia. Howe outmaneuvered Washington at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777, and marched unopposed into the nation's capital at Philadelphia. A Patriot attack failed against the British at Germantown in October. Major General Thomas Conway prompted some members of Congress (referred to as the Conway Cabal) to consider removing Washington from command because of the losses incurred at Philadelphia. Washington's supporters resisted, and the matter was finally dropped after much deliberation. Once the plot was exposed, Conway wrote an apology to Washington, resigned, and returned to France. Washington was concerned with Howe's movements during the Saratoga campaign to the north, and he was also aware that Burgoyne was moving south toward Saratoga from Quebec. Washington took some risks to support Gates' army, sending reinforcements north with Generals Benedict Arnold, his most aggressive field commander, and Benjamin Lincoln. On October 7, 1777, Burgoyne tried to take Bemis Heights but was isolated from support by Howe. He was forced to retreat to Saratoga and ultimately surrendered after the Battles of Saratoga. As Washington suspected, Gates' victory emboldened his critics. Biographer John Alden maintains, "It was inevitable that the defeats of Washington's forces and the concurrent victory of the forces in upper New York should be compared." The admiration for Washington was waning, including little credit from John Adams. British commander Howe resigned in May 1778, left America forever, and was replaced by Sir Henry Clinton. Valley Forge and Monmouth Washington's army of 11,000 went into winter quarters at Valley Forge north of Philadelphia in December 1777. They suffered between 2,000 and 3,000 deaths in the extreme cold over six months, mostly from disease and lack of food, clothing, and shelter. Meanwhile, the British were comfortably quartered in Philadelphia, paying for supplies in pounds sterling, while Washington struggled with a devalued American paper currency. The woodlands were soon exhausted of game, and by February, lowered morale and increased desertions ensued. Washington made repeated petitions to the Continental Congress for provisions. He received a congressional delegation to check the Army's conditions and expressed the urgency of the situation, proclaiming: "Something must be done. Important alterations must be made." He recommended that Congress expedite supplies, and Congress agreed to strengthen and fund the army's supply lines by reorganizing the commissary department. By late February, supplies began arriving. Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben's incessant drilling soon transformed Washington's recruits into a disciplined fighting force, and the revitalized army emerged from Valley Forge early the following year. Washington promoted Von Steuben to Major General and made him chief of staff. In early 1778, the French responded to Burgoyne's defeat and entered into a Treaty of Alliance with the Americans. The Continental Congress ratified the treaty in May, which amounted to a French declaration of war against Britain. The British evacuated Philadelphia for New York that June and Washington summoned a war council of American and French Generals. He chose a partial attack on the retreating British at the Battle of Monmouth; the British were commanded by Howe's successor General Henry Clinton. Generals Charles Lee and Lafayette moved with 4,000 men, without Washington's knowledge, and bungled their first attack on June 28. Washington relieved Lee and achieved a draw after an expansive battle. At nightfall, the British continued their retreat to New York, and Washington moved his army outside the city. Monmouth was Washington's last battle in the North; he valued the safety of his army more than towns with little value to the British. West Point espionage Washington became "America's first spymaster" by designing an espionage system against the British. In 1778, Major Benjamin Tallmadge formed the Culper Ring at Washington's direction to covertly collect information about the British in New York. Washington had disregarded incidents of disloyalty by Benedict Arnold, who had distinguished himself in many battles. During mid-1780, Arnold began supplying British spymaster John André with sensitive information intended to compromise Washington and capture West Point, a key American defensive position on the Hudson River. Historians have noted as possible reasons for Arnold's treachery his anger at losing promotions to junior officers, or repeated slights from Congress. He was also deeply in debt, profiteering from the war, and disappointed by Washington's lack of support during his eventual court-martial. Arnold repeatedly asked for command of West Point, and Washington finally agreed in August. Arnold met André on September 21, giving him plans to take over the garrison. Militia forces captured André and discovered the plans, but Arnold escaped to New York. Washington recalled the commanders positioned under Arnold at key points around the fort to prevent any complicity, but he did not suspect Arnold's wife Peggy. Washington assumed personal command at West Point and reorganized its defenses. André's trial for espionage ended in a death sentence, and Washington offered to return him to the British in exchange for Arnold, but Clinton refused. André was hanged on October 2, 1780, despite his last request being to face a firing squad, to deter other spies. Southern theater and Yorktown In late 1778, General Clinton shipped 3,000 troops from New York to Georgia and launched a Southern invasion against Savannah, reinforced by 2,000 British and Loyalist troops. They repelled an attack by Patriots and French naval forces, which bolstered the British war effort. In mid-1779, Washington attacked Iroquois warriors of the Six Nations to force Britain's Indian allies out of New York, from which they had assaulted New England towns. In response, Indian warriors joined with Loyalist rangers led by Walter Butler and killed more than 200 frontiersmen in June, laying waste to the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania. Washington retaliated by ordering General John Sullivan to lead an expedition to effect "the total destruction and devastation" of Iroquois villages and take their women and children hostage. Those who managed to escape fled to Canada. Washington's troops went into quarters at Morristown, New Jersey during the winter of 1779–1780 and suffered their worst winter of the war, with temperatures well below freezing. New York Harbor was frozen over, snow and ice covered the ground for weeks, and the troops again lacked provisions. Clinton assembled 12,500 troops and attacked Charlestown, South Carolina in January 1780, defeating General Benjamin Lincoln who had only 5,100 Continental troops. The British went on to occupy the South Carolina Piedmont in June, with no Patriot resistance. Clinton returned to New York and left 8,000 troops commanded by General Charles Cornwallis. Congress replaced Lincoln with Horatio Gates; he failed in South Carolina and was replaced by Washington's choice of Nathaniel Greene, but the British already had the South in their grasp. Washington was reinvigorated, however, when Lafayette returned from France with more ships, men, and supplies, and 5,000 veteran French troops led by Marshal Rochambeau arrived at Newport, Rhode Island in July 1780. French naval forces then landed, led by Admiral Grasse, and Washington encouraged Rochambeau to move his fleet south to launch a joint land and naval attack on Arnold's troops. Washington's army went into winter quarters at New Windsor, New York in December 1780, and Washington urged Congress and state officials to expedite provisions in hopes that the army would not "continue to struggle under the same difficulties they have hitherto endured". On March 1, 1781, Congress ratified the Articles of Confederation, but the government that took effect on March2 did not have the power to levy taxes, and it loosely held the states together. General Clinton sent Benedict Arnold, now a British Brigadier General with 1,700 troops, to Virginia to capture Portsmouth and conduct raids on Patriot forces from there; Washington responded by sending Lafayette south to counter Arnold's efforts. Washington initially hoped to bring the fight to New York, drawing off British forces from Virginia and ending the war there, but Rochambeau advised Grasse that Cornwallis in Virginia was the better target. Grasse's fleet arrived off the Virginia coast, and Washington saw the advantage. He made a feint towards Clinton in New York, then headed south to Virginia. The Siege of Yorktown was a decisive Allied victory by the combined forces of the Continental Army commanded by General Washington, the French Army commanded by the General Comte de Rochambeau, and the French Navy commanded by Admiral de Grasse, in the defeat of Cornwallis' British forces. On August 19, the march to Yorktown led by Washington and Rochambeau began, which is known now as the "celebrated march". Washington was in command of an army of 7,800 Frenchmen, 3,100 militia, and 8,000 Continentals. Not well experienced in siege warfare, Washington often referred to the judgment of General Rochambeau and used his advice about how to proceed; however, Rochambeau never challenged Washington's authority as the battle's commanding officer. By late September, Patriot-French forces surrounded Yorktown, trapped the British army, and prevented British reinforcements from Clinton in the North, while the French navy emerged victorious at the Battle of the Chesapeake. The final American offensive was begun with a shot fired by Washington. The siege ended with a British surrender on October 19, 1781; over 7,000 British soldiers were made prisoners of war, in the last major land battle of the American Revolutionary War. Washington negotiated the terms of surrender for two days, and the official signing ceremony took place on October 19; Cornwallis claimed illness and was absent, sending General Charles O'Hara as his proxy. As a gesture of goodwill, Washington held a dinner for the American, French, and British generals, all of whom fraternized on friendly terms and identified with one another as members of the same professional military caste. After the surrender at Yorktown, a situation developed that threatened relations between the newly independent America and Britain. Following a series of retributive executions between Patriots and Loyalists, Washington, on May 18, 1782, wrote in a letter to General Moses Hazen that a British captain would be executed in retaliation for the execution of Joshua Huddy, a popular Patriot leader, who was hanged at the direction of the Loyalist Richard Lippincott. Washington wanted Lippincott himself to be executed but was rebuffed. Subsequently, Charles Asgill was chosen instead, by a drawing of lots from a hat. This was a violation of the 14th article of the Yorktown Articles of Capitulation, which protected prisoners of war from acts of retaliation. Later, Washington's feelings on matters changed and in a letter of November 13, 1782, to Asgill, he acknowledged Asgill's letter and situation, expressing his desire not to see any harm come to him. After much consideration between the Continental Congress, Alexander Hamilton, Washington, and appeals from the French Crown, Asgill was finally released, where Washington issued Asgill a pass that allowed his passage to New York. Demobilization and resignation When peace negotiations began in April 1782, both the British and French began gradually evacuating their forces. The American treasury was empty, unpaid, and mutinous soldiers forced the adjournment of Congress, and Washington dispelled unrest by suppressing the Newburgh Conspiracy in March 1783; Congress promised officers a five-year bonus. Washington submitted an account of $450,000 in expenses which he had advanced to the army. The account was settled, though it was allegedly vague about large sums and included expenses his wife had incurred through visits to his headquarters. The following month, a Congressional committee led by Alexander Hamilton began adapting the army for peacetime. In August 1783, Washington gave the Army's perspective to the committee in his Sentiments on a Peace Establishment. He advised Congress to keep a standing army, create a "national militia" of separate state units, and establish a navy and a national military academy. The Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783, and Great Britain officially recognized the independence of the United States. Washington then disbanded his army, giving a farewell address to his soldiers on November 2. During this time, Washington oversaw the evacuation of British forces in New York and was greeted by parades and celebrations. There he announced that Colonel Henry Knox had been promoted commander-in-chief. Washington and Governor George Clinton took formal possession of the city on November 25. In early December 1783, Washington bade farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern and resigned as commander-in-chief soon thereafter, refuting Loyalist predictions that he would not relinquish his military command. In a final appearance in uniform, he gave a statement to the Congress: "I consider it an indispensable duty to close this last solemn act of my official life, by commending the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendence of them, to his holy keeping." Washington's resignation was acclaimed at home and abroad and showed a skeptical world that the new republic would not degenerate into chaos. The same month, Washington was appointed president-general of the Society of the Cincinnati, a newly established hereditary fraternity of Revolutionary War officers. He served in this capacity for the remainder of his life. Early republic (1783–1789) Return to Mount Vernon Washington was longing to return home after spending just ten days at Mount Vernon out of years of war. He arrived on Christmas Eve, delighted to be "free of the bustle of a camp and the busy scenes of public life". He was a celebrity and was fêted during a visit to his mother at Fredericksburg in February 1784, and he received a constant stream of visitors wishing to pay their respects to him at Mount Vernon. Washington reactivated his interests in the Great Dismal Swamp and Potomac canal projects begun before the war, though neither paid him any dividends, and he undertook a 34-day, 680-mile (1090 km) trip to check on his land holdings in the Ohio Country. He oversaw the completion of the remodeling work at Mount Vernon, which transformed his residence into the mansion that survives to this day—although his financial situation was not strong. Creditors paid him in depreciated wartime currency, and he owed significant amounts in taxes and wages. Mount Vernon had made no profit during his absence, and he saw persistently poor crop yields due to pestilence and poor weather. His estate recorded its eleventh year running at a deficit in 1787, and there was little prospect of improvement. Washington undertook a new landscaping plan and succeeded in cultivating a range of fast-growing trees and shrubs that were native to North America. He also began breeding mules after having been gifted a Spanish jack by King Charles III of Spain in 1784. There were few mules in the United States at that time, and he believed that properly bred mules would revolutionize agriculture and transportation. Constitutional Convention of 1787 Before returning to private life in June 1783, Washington called for a strong union. Though he was concerned that he might be criticized for meddling in civil matters, he sent a circular letter to all the states, maintaining that the Articles of Confederation was no more than "a rope of sand" linking the states. He believed the nation was on the verge of "anarchy and confusion", was vulnerable to foreign intervention, and that a national constitution would unify the states under a strong central government. When Shays' Rebellion erupted in Massachusetts on August 29, 1786, over taxation, Washington was further convinced that a national constitution was needed. Some nationalists feared that the new republic had descended into lawlessness, and they met together on September 11, 1786, at Annapolis to ask Congress to revise the Articles of Confederation. One of their biggest efforts, however, was getting Washington to attend. Congress agreed to a Constitutional Convention to be held in Philadelphia in Spring 1787, and each state was to send delegates. On December 4, 1786, Washington was chosen to lead the Virginia delegation, but he declined on December 21. He had concerns about the legality of the convention and consulted James Madison, Henry Knox, and others. They persuaded him to attend it, however, as his presence might induce reluctant states to send delegates and smooth the way for the ratification process. On March 28, Washington told Governor Edmund Randolph that he would attend the convention but made it clear that he was urged to attend. Washington arrived in Philadelphia on May 9, 1787, though a quorum was not attained until Friday, May 25. Benjamin Franklin nominated Washington to preside over the convention, and he was unanimously elected to serve as president general. The convention's state-mandated purpose was to revise the Articles of Confederation with "all such alterations and further provisions" required to improve them, and the new government would be established when the resulting document was "duly confirmed by the several states". Governor Edmund Randolph of Virginia introduced Madison's Virginia Plan on May 27, the third day of the convention. It called for an entirely new constitution and a sovereign national government, which Washington highly recommended. Washington wrote Alexander Hamilton on July 10: "I almost despair of seeing a favorable issue to the proceedings of our convention and do therefore repent having had any agency in the business." Nevertheless, he lent his prestige to the goodwill and work of the other delegates. He unsuccessfully lobbied many to support ratification of the Constitution, such as anti-federalist Patrick Henry; Washington told him "the adoption of it under the present circumstances of the Union is in my opinion desirable" and declared the alternative would be anarchy. Washington and Madison then spent four days at Mount Vernon evaluating the new government's transition. Chancellor of William & Mary In 1788, the Board of Visitors of the College of William & Mary decided to re-establish the position of Chancellor, and elected Washington to the office on January 18. The College Rector Samuel Griffin wrote to Washington inviting him to the post, and in a letter dated April 30, 1788, Washington accepted the position of the 14th Chancellor of the College of William & Mary. He continued to serve in the post through his presidency until his death on December 14, 1799. First presidential election The delegates to the Convention anticipated a Washington presidency and left it to him to define the office once elected. The state electors under the Constitution voted for the president on February 4, 1789, and Washington suspected that most republicans had not voted for him. The mandated March4 date passed without a Congressional quorum to count the votes, but a quorum was reached on April 5. The votes were tallied the next day, and Congressional Secretary Charles Thomson was sent to Mount Vernon to tell Washington he had been elected president. Washington won the majority of every state's electoral votes; John Adams received the next highest number of votes and therefore became vice president. Washington had "anxious and painful sensations" about leaving the "domestic felicity" of Mount Vernon, but departed for New York City on April 16 to be inaugurated. Presidency (1789–1797) Washington was inaugurated on April 30, 1789, taking the oath of office at Federal Hall in New York City. His coach was led by militia and a marching band and followed by statesmen and foreign dignitaries in an inaugural parade, with a crowd of 10,000. Chancellor Robert R. Livingston administered the oath, using a Bible provided by the Masons, after which the militia fired a 13-gun salute. Washington read a speech in the Senate Chamber, asking "that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations—and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, consecrate the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States". Though he wished to serve without a salary, Congress insisted adamantly that he accept it, later providing Washington $25,000 per year to defray costs of the presidency. Washington wrote to James Madison: "As the first of everything in our situation will serve to establish a precedent, it is devoutly wished on my part that these precedents be fixed on true principles." To that end, he preferred the title "Mr. President" over more majestic names proposed by the Senate, including "His Excellency" and "His Highness the President". His executive precedents included the inaugural address, messages to Congress, and the cabinet form of the executive branch. Washington had planned to resign after his first term, but the political strife in the nation convinced him he should remain in office. He was an able administrator and a judge of talent and character, and he regularly talked with department heads to get their advice. He tolerated opposing views, despite fears that a democratic system would lead to political violence, and he conducted a smooth transition of power to his successor. He remained non-partisan throughout his presidency and opposed the divisiveness of political parties, but he favored a strong central government, was sympathetic to a Federalist form of government, and leery of the Republican opposition. Washington dealt with major problems. The old Confederation lacked the powers to handle its workload and had weak leadership, no executive, a small bureaucracy of clerks, a large debt, worthless paper money, and no power to establish taxes. He had the task of assembling an executive department and relied on Tobias Lear for advice selecting its officers. Great Britain refused to relinquish its forts in the American West, and Barbary pirates preyed on American merchant ships in the Mediterranean at a time when the United States did not even have a navy. Cabinet and executive departments Congress created executive departments in 1789, including the State Department in July, the Department of War in August, and the Treasury Department in September. Washington appointed fellow Virginian Edmund Randolph as Attorney General, Samuel Osgood as Postmaster General, Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State, and Henry Knox as Secretary of War. Finally, he appointed Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury. Washington's cabinet became a consulting and advisory body, not mandated by the Constitution. Washington's cabinet members formed rival parties with sharply opposing views, most fiercely illustrated between Hamilton and Jefferson. Washington restricted cabinet discussions to topics of his choosing, without participating in the debate. He occasionally requested cabinet opinions in writing and expected department heads to agreeably carry out his decisions. Domestic issues Washington was apolitical and opposed the formation of parties, suspecting that conflict would undermine republicanism. He exercised great restraint in using his veto power, writing that "I give my Signature to many Bills with which my Judgment is at variance…." His closest advisors formed two factions, portending the First Party System. Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton formed the Federalist Party to promote national credit and a financially powerful nation. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson opposed Hamilton's agenda and founded the Jeffersonian Republicans. Washington favored Hamilton's agenda, however, and it ultimately went into effect—resulting in bitter controversy. Washington proclaimed November 26 as a day of Thanksgiving to encourage national unity. "It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor." He spent that day fasting and visiting debtors in prison to provide them with food and beer. African Americans In response to two antislavery petitions that were presented to Congress in 1790, slaveholders in Georgia and South Carolina objected and threatened to "blow the trumpet of civil war". Washington and Congress responded with a series of racist measures: naturalized citizenship was denied to black immigrants; blacks were barred from serving in state militias; the Southwest Territory that would soon become the state of Tennessee was permitted to maintain slavery; and two more slave states were admitted (Kentucky in 1792, and Tennessee in 1796). On February 12, 1793, Washington signed into law the Fugitive Slave Act, which overrode state laws and courts, allowing agents to cross state lines to capture and return escaped slaves. Many free blacks in the north decried the law believing it would allow bounty hunting and the kidnappings of blacks. The Fugitive Slave Act gave effect to the Constitution's Fugitive Slave Clause, and the Act was passed overwhelmingly in Congress (e.g. the vote was 48 to 7 in the House). On the anti-slavery side of the ledger, in 1789 Washington signed a reenactment of the Northwest Ordinance which had freed all slaves brought after 1787 into a vast expanse of federal territory north of the Ohio River, except for slaves escaping from slave states. That 1787 law lapsed when the new U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1789. The Slave Trade Act of 1794, which sharply limited American involvement in the Atlantic slave trade, was also signed by Washington. And, Congress acted on February 18, 1791, to admit the free state of Vermont into the Union as the 14th state as of March 4, 1791. National Bank Washington's first term was largely devoted to economic concerns, in which Hamilton had devised various plans to address matters. The establishment of public credit became a primary challenge for the federal government. Hamilton submitted a report to a deadlocked Congress, and he, Madison, and Jefferson reached the Compromise of 1790 in which Jefferson agreed to Hamilton's debt proposals in exchange for moving the nation's capital temporarily to Philadelphia and then south near Georgetown on the Potomac River. The terms were legislated in the Funding Act of 1790 and the Residence Act, both of which Washington signed into law. Congress authorized the assumption and payment of the nation's debts, with funding provided by customs duties and excise taxes. Hamilton created controversy among Cabinet members by advocating establishing the First Bank of the United States. Madison and Jefferson objected, but the bank easily passed Congress. Jefferson and Randolph insisted that the new bank was beyond the authority granted by the constitution, as Hamilton believed. Washington sided with Hamilton and signed the legislation on February 25, and the rift became openly hostile between Hamilton and Jefferson. The nation's first financial crisis occurred in March 1792. Hamilton's Federalists exploited large loans to gain control of U.S. debt securities, causing a run on the national bank; the markets returned to normal by mid-April. Jefferson believed Hamilton was part of the scheme, despite Hamilton's efforts to ameliorate, and Washington again found himself in the middle of a feud. Jefferson–Hamilton feud Jefferson and Hamilton adopted diametrically opposed political principles. Hamilton believed in a strong national government requiring a national bank and foreign loans to function, while Jefferson believed the states and the farm element should primarily direct the government; he also resented the idea of banks and foreign loans. To Washington's dismay, the two men persistently entered into disputes and infighting. Hamilton demanded that Jefferson resign if he could not support Washington, and Jefferson told Washington that Hamilton's fiscal system would lead to the overthrow of the Republic. Washington urged them to call a truce for the nation's sake, but they ignored him. Washington reversed his decision to retire after his first term to minimize party strife, but the feud continued after his re-election. Jefferson's political actions, his support of Freneau's National Gazette, and his attempt to undermine Hamilton nearly led Washington to dismiss him from the cabinet; Jefferson ultimately resigned his position in December 1793, and Washington forsook him from that time on. The feud led to the well-defined Federalist and Republican parties, and party affiliation became necessary for election to Congress by 1794. Washington remained aloof from congressional attacks on Hamilton, but he did not publicly protect him, either. The Hamilton–Reynolds sex scandal opened Hamilton to disgrace, but Washington continued to hold him in "very high esteem" as the dominant force in establishing federal law and government. Whiskey Rebellion In March 1791, at Hamilton's urging, with support from Madison, Congress imposed an excise tax on distilled spirits to help curtail the national debt, which took effect in July. Grain farmers strongly protested in Pennsylvania's frontier districts; they argued that they were unrepresented and were shouldering too much of the debt, comparing their situation to excessive British taxation before the Revolutionary War. On August 2, Washington assembled his cabinet to discuss how to deal with the situation. Unlike Washington, who had reservations about using force, Hamilton had long waited for such a situation and was eager to suppress the rebellion by using federal authority and force. Not wanting to involve the federal government if possible, Washington called on Pennsylvania state officials to take the initiative, but they declined to take military action. On August 7, Washington issued his first proclamation for calling up state militias. After appealing for peace, he reminded the protestors that, unlike the rule of the British crown, the Federal law was issued by state-elected representatives. Threats and violence against tax collectors, however, escalated into defiance against federal authority in 1794 and gave rise to the Whiskey Rebellion. Washington issued a final proclamation on September 25, threatening the use of military force to no avail. The federal army was not up to the task, so Washington invoked the Militia Act of 1792 to summon state militias. Governors sent troops, initially commanded by Washington, who gave the command to Light-Horse Harry Lee to lead them into the rebellious districts. They took 150 prisoners, and the remaining rebels dispersed without further fighting. Two of the prisoners were condemned to death, but Washington exercised his Constitutional authority for the first time and pardoned them. Washington's forceful action demonstrated that the new government could protect itself and its tax collectors. This represented the first use of federal military force against the states and citizens, and remains the only time an incumbent president has commanded troops in the field. Washington justified his action against "certain self-created societies", which he regarded as "subversive organizations" that threatened the national union. He did not dispute their right to protest, but he insisted that their dissent must not violate federal law. Congress agreed and extended their congratulations to him; only Madison and Jefferson expressed indifference. Foreign affairs In April 1792, the French Revolutionary Wars began between Great Britain and France, and Washington declared America's neutrality. The revolutionary government of France sent diplomat Citizen Genêt to America, and he was welcomed with great enthusiasm. He created a network of new Democratic-Republican Societies promoting France's interests, but Washington denounced them and demanded that the French recall Genêt. The National Assembly of France granted Washington honorary French citizenship on August 26, 1792, during the early stages of the French Revolution. Hamilton formulated the Jay Treaty to normalize trade relations with Great Britain while removing them from western forts, and also to resolve financial debts remaining from the Revolution. Chief Justice John Jay acted as Washington's negotiator and signed the treaty on November 19, 1794; critical Jeffersonians, however, supported France. Washington deliberated, then supported the treaty because it avoided war with Britain, but was disappointed that its provisions favored Britain. He mobilized public opinion and secured ratification in the Senate but faced frequent public criticism. The British agreed to abandon their forts around the Great Lakes, and the United States modified the boundary with Canada. The government liquidated numerous pre-Revolutionary debts, and the British opened the British West Indies to American trade. The treaty secured peace with Britain and a decade of prosperous trade. Jefferson claimed that it angered France and "invited rather than avoided" war. Relations with France deteriorated afterward, leaving succeeding president John Adams with prospective war. James Monroe was the American Minister to France, but Washington recalled him for his opposition to the Treaty. The French refused to accept his replacement Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and the French Directory declared the authority to seize American ships two days before Washington's term ended. Native American affairs Ron Chernow describes Washington as always trying to be even-handed in dealing with the Natives. He states that Washington hoped they would abandon their itinerant hunting life and adapt to fixed agricultural communities in the manner of white settlers. He also maintains that Washington never advocated outright confiscation of tribal land or the forcible removal of tribes and that he berated American settlers who abused natives, admitting that he held out no hope for pacific relations with the natives as long as "frontier settlers entertain the opinion that there is not the same crime (or indeed no crime at all) in killing a native as in killing a white man." By contrast, Colin G. Calloway writes that "Washington had a lifelong obsession with getting Indian land, either for himself or for his nation, and initiated policies and campaigns that had devastating effects in Indian country." "The growth of the nation," Galloway has stated, "demanded the dispossession of Indian people. Washington hoped the process could be bloodless and that Indian people would give up their lands for a "fair" price and move away. But if Indians refused and resisted, as they often did, he felt he had no choice but to "extirpate" them and that the expeditions he sent to destroy Indian towns were therefore entirely justified." During the Fall of 1789, Washington had to contend with the British refusing to evacuate their forts in the Northwest frontier and their concerted efforts to incite hostile Indian tribes to attack American settlers. The Northwest tribes under Miami chief Little Turtle allied with the British Army to resist American expansion, and killed 1,500 settlers between 1783 and 1790. As documented by Harless (2018), Washington declared that "The Government of the United States are determined that their Administration of Indian Affairs shall be directed entirely by the great principles of Justice and humanity", and provided that treaties should negotiate their land interests. The administration regarded powerful tribes as foreign nations, and Washington even smoked a peace pipe and drank wine with them at the Philadelphia presidential house. He made numerous attempts to conciliate them; he equated killing indigenous peoples with killing whites and sought to integrate them into European-American culture. Secretary of War Henry Knox also attempted to encourage agriculture among the tribes. In the Southwest, negotiations failed between federal commissioners and raiding Indian tribes seeking retribution. Washington invited Creek Chief Alexander McGillivray and 24 leading chiefs to New York to negotiate a treaty and treated them like foreign dignitaries. Knox and McGillivray concluded the Treaty of New York on August 7, 1790, in Federal Hall, which provided the tribes with agricultural supplies and McGillivray with a rank of Brigadier General Army and a salary of $1,500. In 1790, Washington sent Brigadier General Josiah Harmar to pacify the Northwest tribes, but Little Turtle routed him twice and forced him to withdraw. The Western Confederacy of tribes used guerrilla tactics and were an effective force against the sparsely manned American Army. Washington sent Major General Arthur St. Clair from Fort Washington on an expedition to restore peace in the territory in 1791. On November 4, St. Clair's forces were ambushed and soundly defeated by tribal forces with few survivors, despite Washington's warning of surprise attacks. Washington was outraged over what he viewed to be excessive Native American brutality and execution of captives, including women and children. St. Clair resigned his commission, and Washington replaced him with the Revolutionary War hero General Anthony Wayne. From 1792 to 1793, Wayne instructed his troops on Native American warfare tactics and instilled discipline which was lacking under St. Clair. In August 1794, Washington sent Wayne into tribal territory with authority to drive them out by burning their villages and crops in the Maumee Valley. On August 24, the American army under Wayne's leadership defeated the western confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, and the Treaty of Greenville in August 1795 opened up two-thirds of the Ohio Country for American settlement. Second term Originally, Washington had planned to retire after his first term, while many Americans could not imagine anyone else taking his place. After nearly four years as president, and dealing with the infighting in his own cabinet and with partisan critics, Washington showed little enthusiasm in running for a second term, while Martha also wanted him not to run. James Madison urged him not to retire, that his absence would only allow the dangerous political rift in his cabinet and the House to worsen. Jefferson also pleaded with him not to retire and agreed to drop his attacks on Hamilton, or he would also retire if Washington did. Hamilton maintained that Washington's absence would be "deplored as the greatest evil" to the country at this time. Washington's close nephew George Augustine Washington, his manager at Mount Vernon, was critically ill and had to be replaced, further increasing Washington's desire to retire and return to Mount Vernon. When the election of 1792 neared, Washington did not publicly announce his presidential candidacy. Still, he silently consented to run to prevent a further political-personal rift in his cabinet. The Electoral College unanimously elected him president on February 13, 1793, and John Adams as vice president by a vote of 77 to 50. Washington, with nominal fanfare, arrived alone at his inauguration in his carriage. Sworn into office by Associate Justice William Cushing on March 4, 1793, in the Senate Chamber of Congress Hall in Philadelphia, Washington gave a brief address and then immediately retired to his Philadelphia presidential house, weary of office and in poor health. On April 22, 1793, during the French Revolution, Washington issued his famous Neutrality Proclamation and was resolved to pursue "a conduct friendly and impartial toward the belligerent Powers" while he warned Americans not to intervene in the international conflict. Although Washington recognized France's revolutionary government, he would eventually ask French minister to America Citizen Genêt be recalled over the Citizen Genêt Affair. Genêt was a diplomatic troublemaker who was openly hostile toward Washington's neutrality policy. He procured four American ships as privateers to strike at Spanish forces (British allies) in Florida while organizing militias to strike at other British possessions. However, his efforts failed to draw America into the foreign campaigns during Washington's presidency. On July 31, 1793, Jefferson submitted his resignation from Washington's cabinet. Washington signed the Naval Act of 1794 and commissioned the first six federal frigates to combat Barbary pirates. In January 1795, Hamilton, who desired more income for his family, resigned office and was replaced by Washington appointment Oliver Wolcott, Jr. Washington and Hamilton remained friends. However, Washington's relationship with his Secretary of War Henry Knox deteriorated. Knox resigned office on the rumor he profited from construction contracts on U.S. Frigates. In the final months of his presidency, Washington was assailed by his political foes and a partisan press who accused him of being ambitious and greedy, while he argued that he had taken no salary during the war and had risked his life in battle. He regarded the press as a disuniting, "diabolical" force of falsehoods, sentiments that he expressed in his Farewell Address. At the end of his second term, Washington retired for personal and political reasons, dismayed with personal attacks, and to ensure that a truly contested presidential election could be held. He did not feel bound to a two-term limit, but his retirement set a significant precedent. Washington is often credited with setting the principle of a two-term presidency, but it was Thomas Jefferson who first refused to run for a third term on political grounds. Farewell Address In 1796, Washington declined to run for a third term of office, believing his death in office would create an image of a lifetime appointment. The precedent of a two-term limit was created by his retirement from office. In May 1792, in anticipation of his retirement, Washington instructed James Madison to prepare a "valedictory address", an initial draft of which was entitled the "Farewell Address". In May 1796, Washington sent the manuscript to his Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton who did an extensive rewrite, while Washington provided final edits. On September 19, 1796, David Claypoole's American Daily Advertiser published the final version of the address. Washington stressed that national identity was paramount, while a united America would safeguard freedom and prosperity. He warned the nation of three eminent dangers: regionalism, partisanship, and foreign entanglements, and said the "name of AMERICAN, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations." Washington called for men to move beyond partisanship for the common good, stressing that the United States must concentrate on its own interests. He warned against foreign alliances and their influence in domestic affairs, and bitter partisanship and the dangers of political parties. He counseled friendship and commerce with all nations, but advised against involvement in European wars. He stressed the importance of religion, asserting that "religion and morality are indispensable supports" in a republic. Washington's address favored Hamilton's Federalist ideology and economic policies. Washington closed the address by reflecting on his legacy: After initial publication, many Republicans, including Madison, criticized the Address and believed it was an anti-French campaign document. Madison believed Washington was strongly pro-British. Madison also was suspicious of who authored the Address. In 1839, Washington biographer Jared Sparks maintained that Washington's "...Farewell Address was printed and published with the laws, by order of the legislatures, as an evidence of the value they attached to its political precepts, and of their affection for its author." In 1972, Washington scholar James Flexner referred to the Farewell Address as receiving as much acclaim as Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence and Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. In 2010, historian Ron Chernow reported the Farewell Address proved to be one of the most influential statements on Republicanism. Post-presidency (1797–1799) Retirement Washington retired to Mount Vernon in March 1797 and devoted time to his plantations and other business interests, including his distillery. His plantation operations were only minimally profitable, and his lands in the west (Piedmont) were under Indian attacks and yielded little income, with the squatters there refusing to pay rent. He attempted to sell these but without success. He became an even more committed Federalist. He vocally supported the Alien and Sedition Acts and convinced Federalist John Marshall to run for Congress to weaken the Jeffersonian hold on Virginia. Washington grew restless in retirement, prompted by tensions with France, and he wrote to Secretary of War James McHenry offering to organize President Adams' army. In a continuation of the French Revolutionary Wars, French privateers began seizing American ships in 1798, and relations deteriorated with France and led to the "Quasi-War". Without consulting Washington, Adams nominated him for a lieutenant general commission on July 4, 1798, and the position of commander-in-chief of the armies. Washington chose to accept, replacing James Wilkinson, and he served as the commanding general from July 13, 1798, until his death 17 months later. He participated in planning for a provisional army, but he avoided involvement in details. In advising McHenry of potential officers for the army, he appeared to make a complete break with Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans: "you could as soon scrub the blackamoor white, as to change the principles of a profest Democrat; and that he will leave nothing unattempted to overturn the government of this country." Washington delegated the active leadership of the army to Hamilton, a major general. No army invaded the United States during this period, and Washington did not assume a field command. Washington was known to be rich because of the well-known "glorified façade of wealth and grandeur" at Mount Vernon, but nearly all his wealth was in the form of land and slaves rather than ready cash. To supplement his income, he erected a distillery for substantial whiskey production. Historians estimate that the estate was worth about $1million in 1799 dollars, . He bought land parcels to spur development around the new Federal City named in his honor, and he sold individual lots to middle-income investors rather than multiple lots to large investors, believing they would more likely commit to making improvements. Final days and death On December 12, 1799, Washington inspected his farms on horseback. He returned home late and had guests over for dinner. He had a sore throat the next day but was well enough to mark trees for cutting. That evening, he complained of chest congestion but was still cheerful. On Saturday, he awoke to an inflamed throat and difficulty breathing, so he ordered estate overseer George Rawlins to remove nearly a pint of his blood; bloodletting was a common practice of the time. His family summoned Doctors James Craik, Gustavus Richard Brown, and Elisha C. Dick. (Dr. William Thornton arrived some hours after Washington died.) Dr. Brown thought Washington had quinsy; Dr. Dick thought the condition was a more serious "violent inflammation of the throat". They continued the process of bloodletting to approximately five pints, and Washington's condition deteriorated further. Dr. Dick proposed a tracheotomy, but the others were not familiar with that procedure and therefore disapproved. Washington instructed Brown and Dick to leave the room, while he assured Craik, "Doctor, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go." Washington's death came more swiftly than expected. On his deathbed, he instructed his private secretary Tobias Lear to wait three days before his burial, out of fear of being entombed alive. According to Lear, he died peacefully between 10 and 11 p.m. on December 14, 1799, with Martha seated at the foot of his bed. His last words were "'Tis well", from his conversation with Lear about his burial. He was 67. Congress immediately adjourned for the day upon news of Washington's death, and the Speaker's chair was shrouded in black the next morning. The funeral was held four days after his death on December 18, 1799, at Mount Vernon, where his body was interred. Cavalry and foot soldiers led the procession, and six colonels served as the pallbearers. The Mount Vernon funeral service was restricted mostly to family and friends. Reverend Thomas Davis read the funeral service by the vault with a brief address, followed by a ceremony performed by various members of Washington's Masonic lodge in Alexandria, Virginia. Congress chose Light-Horse Harry Lee to deliver the eulogy. Word of his death traveled slowly; church bells rang in the cities, and many places of business closed. People worldwide admired Washington and were saddened by his death, and memorial processions were held in major cities of the United States. Martha wore a black mourning cape for one year, and she burned their correspondence to protect their privacy. Only five letters between the couple are known to have survived: two from Martha to George and three from him to her. The diagnosis of Washington's illness and the immediate cause of his death have been subjects of debate since the day he died. The published account of Drs. Craik and Brown stated that his symptoms had been consistent with cynanche trachealis (tracheal inflammation), a term of that period used to describe severe inflammation of the upper windpipe, including quinsy. Accusations have persisted since Washington's death concerning medical malpractice, with some believing he had been bled to death. Various modern medical authors have speculated that he died from a severe case of epiglottitis complicated by the given treatments, most notably the massive blood loss which almost certainly caused hypovolemic shock. Burial, net worth, and aftermath Washington was buried in the old Washington family vault at Mount Vernon, situated on a grassy slope overspread with willow, juniper, cypress, and chestnut trees. It contained the remains of his brother Lawrence and other family members, but the decrepit brick vault needed repair, prompting Washington to leave instructions in his will for the construction of a new vault. Washington's estate at the time of his death was worth an estimated $780,000 in 1799, approximately equivalent to $17.82million in 2021. Washington's peak net worth was $587.0 million, including his 300 slaves. Washington held title to more than 65,000 acres of land in 37 different locations. In 1830, a disgruntled ex-employee of the estate attempted to steal what he thought was Washington's skull, prompting the construction of a more secure vault. The next year, the new vault was constructed at Mount Vernon to receive the remains of George and Martha and other relatives. In 1832, a joint Congressional committee debated moving his body from Mount Vernon to a crypt in the Capitol. The crypt had been built by architect Charles Bulfinch in the 1820s during the reconstruction of the burned-out capital, after the Burning of Washington by the British during the War of 1812. Southern opposition was intense, antagonized by an ever-growing rift between North and South; many were concerned that Washington's remains could end up on "a shore foreign to his native soil" if the country became divided, and Washington's remains stayed in Mount Vernon. On October 7, 1837, Washington's remains were placed, still in the original lead coffin, within a marble sarcophagus designed by William Strickland and constructed by John Struthers earlier that year. The sarcophagus was sealed and encased with planks, and an outer vault was constructed around it. The outer vault has the sarcophagi of both George and Martha Washington; the inner vault has the remains of other Washington family members and relatives. Personal life Washington was somewhat reserved in personality, but he generally had a strong presence among others. He made speeches and announcements when required, but he was not a noted orator or debater. He was taller than most of his contemporaries; accounts of his height vary from to tall, he weighed between as an adult, and he was known for his great strength. He had grey-blue eyes and reddish-brown hair which he wore powdered in the fashion of the day. He had a rugged and dominating presence, which garnered respect from his peers. He bought William Lee on May 27, 1768, and he was Washington's valet for 20 years. He was the only slave freed immediately in Washington's will. Washington frequently suffered from severe tooth decay and ultimately lost all his teeth but one. He had several sets of false teeth, which he wore during his presidency, made using a variety of materials including both animal and human teeth, but wood was not used despite common lore. These dental problems left him in constant pain, for which he took laudanum. As a public figure, he relied upon the strict confidence of his dentist. Washington was a talented equestrian early in life. He collected thoroughbreds at Mount Vernon, and his two favorite horses were Blueskin and Nelson. Fellow Virginian Thomas Jefferson said Washington was "the best horseman of his age and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback"; he also hunted foxes, deer, ducks, and other game. He was an excellent dancer and attended the theater frequently. He drank in moderation but was morally opposed to excessive drinking, smoking tobacco, gambling, and profanity. Religion and Freemasonry Washington was descended from Anglican minister Lawrence Washington (his great-great-grandfather), whose troubles with the Church of England may have prompted his heirs to emigrate to America. Washington was baptized as an infant in April 1732 and became a devoted member of the Church of England (the Anglican Church). He served more than 20 years as a vestryman and churchwarden for Fairfax Parish and Truro Parish, Virginia. He privately prayed and read the Bible daily, and he publicly encouraged people and the nation to pray. He may have taken communion on a regular basis prior to the Revolutionary War, but he did not do so following the war, for which he was admonished by Pastor James Abercrombie. Washington believed in a "wise, inscrutable, and irresistible" Creator God who was active in the Universe, contrary to deistic thought. He referred to God by the Enlightenment terms Providence, the Creator, or the Almighty, and also as the Divine Author or the Supreme Being. He believed in a divine power who watched over battlefields, was involved in the outcome of war, was protecting his life, and was involved in American politics—and specifically in the creation of the United States. Modern historian Ron Chernow has posited that Washington avoided evangelistic Christianity or hellfire-and-brimstone speech along with communion and anything inclined to "flaunt his religiosity". Chernow has also said Washington "never used his religion as a device for partisan purposes or in official undertakings". No mention of Jesus Christ appears in his private correspondence, and such references are rare in his public writings. He frequently quoted from the Bible or paraphrased it, and often referred to the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. There is debate on whether he is best classed as a Christian or a theistic rationalist—or both. Washington emphasized religious toleration in a nation with numerous denominations and religions. He publicly attended services of different Christian denominations and prohibited anti-Catholic celebrations in the Army. He engaged workers at Mount Vernon without regard for religious belief or affiliation. While president, he acknowledged major religious sects and gave speeches on religious toleration. He was distinctly rooted in the ideas, values, and modes of thinking of the Enlightenment, but he harbored no contempt of organized Christianity and its clergy, "being no bigot myself to any mode of worship". In 1793, speaking to members of the New Church in Baltimore, Washington proclaimed, "We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition." Freemasonry was a widely accepted institution in the late 18th century, known for advocating moral teachings. Washington was attracted to the Masons' dedication to the Enlightenment principles of rationality, reason, and brotherhood. The American Masonic lodges did not share the anti-clerical perspective of the controversial European lodges. A Masonic lodge was established in Fredericksburg in September 1752, and Washington was initiated two months later at the age of 20 as one of its first Entered Apprentices. Within a year, he progressed through its ranks to become a Master Mason. Washington had high regard for the Masonic Order, but his personal lodge attendance was sporadic. In 1777, a convention of Virginia lodges asked him to be the Grand Master of the newly established Grand Lodge of Virginia, but he declined due to his commitments leading the Continental Army. After 1782, he frequently corresponded with Masonic lodges and members, and he was listed as Master in the Virginia charter of Alexandria Lodge No. 22 in 1788. Slavery In Washington's lifetime, slavery was deeply ingrained in the economic and social fabric of Virginia. Slavery was legal in all of the Thirteen Colonies prior to the American Revolution. Washington's slaves Washington owned and rented enslaved African Americans, and during his lifetime over 577 slaves lived and worked at Mount Vernon. He acquired them through inheritance, gaining control of 84 dower slaves upon his marriage to Martha, and purchased at least 71 slaves between 1752 and 1773. From 1786 he rented slaves, at his death he was renting 41. His early views on slavery were no different from any Virginia planter of the time. From the 1760s his attitudes underwent a slow evolution. The first doubts were prompted by his transition from tobacco to grain crops, which left him with a costly surplus of slaves, causing him to question the system's economic efficiency. His growing disillusionment with the institution was spurred by the principles of the American Revolution and revolutionary friends such as Lafayette and Hamilton. Most historians agree the Revolution was central to the evolution of Washington's attitudes on slavery; "After 1783", Kenneth Morgan writes, "...[Washington] began to express inner tensions about the problem of slavery more frequently, though always in private..." The many contemporary reports of slave treatment at Mount Vernon are varied and conflicting. Historian Kenneth Morgan (2000) maintains that Washington was frugal on spending for clothes and bedding for his slaves, and only provided them with just enough food, and that he maintained strict control over his slaves, instructing his overseers to keep them working hard from dawn to dusk year-round. However, historian Dorothy Twohig (2001) said: "Food, clothing, and housing seem to have been at least adequate". Washington faced growing debts involved with the costs of supporting slaves. He held an "engrained sense of racial superiority" towards African Americans but harbored no ill feelings toward them. Some enslaved families worked at different locations on the plantation but were allowed to visit one another on their days off. Washington's slaves received two hours off for meals during the workday and were given time off on Sundays and religious holidays. Some accounts report that Washington opposed flogging but at times sanctioned its use, generally as a last resort, on both men and women slaves. Washington used both reward and punishment to encourage discipline and productivity in his slaves. He tried appealing to an individual's sense of pride, gave better blankets and clothing to the "most deserving", and motivated his slaves with cash rewards. He believed "watchfulness and admonition" to be often better deterrents against transgressions but would punish those who "will not do their duty by fair means". Punishment ranged in severity from demotion back to fieldwork, through whipping and beatings, to permanent separation from friends and family by sale. Historian Ron Chernow maintains that overseers were required to warn slaves before resorting to the lash and required Washington's written permission before whipping, though his extended absences did not always permit this. Washington remained dependent on slave labor to work his farms and negotiated the purchase of more slaves in 1786 and 1787. Washington brought several of his slaves with him and his family to the federal capital during his presidency. When the capital moved from New York City to Philadelphia in 1791, the president began rotating his slave household staff periodically between the capital and Mount Vernon. This was done deliberately to circumvent Pennsylvania's Slavery Abolition Act, which, in part, automatically freed any slave who moved to the state and lived there for more than six months. In May 1796, Martha's personal and favorite slave Oney Judge escaped to Portsmouth. At Martha's behest, Washington attempted to capture Ona, using a Treasury agent, but this effort failed. In February 1797, Washington's personal slave Hercules escaped to Philadelphia and was never found. In February 1786, Washington took a census of Mount Vernon and recorded 224 slaves. By 1799, slaves at Mount Vernon totaled 317, including 143 children. Washington owned 124 slaves, leased 40, and held 153 for his wife's dower interest. Washington supported many slaves who were too young or too old to work, greatly increasing Mount Vernon's slave population and causing the plantation to operate at a loss. Abolition and manumission Based on his letters, diary, documents, accounts from colleagues, employees, friends, and visitors, Washington slowly developed a cautious sympathy toward abolitionism that eventually ended with his will freeing his military/war valet Billy Lee, and then subsequently freeing the rest of his personally-owned slaves outright upon Martha's death. As president, he remained publicly silent on the topic of slavery, believing it was a nationally divisive issue which could destroy the union. During the American Revolutionary War, Washington began to change his views on slavery. In a 1778 letter to Lund Washington, he made clear his desire "to get quit of Negroes" when discussing the exchange of slaves for the land he wanted to buy. The next year, Washington stated his intention not to separate enslaved families as a result of "a change of masters". During the 1780s, Washington privately expressed his support for the gradual emancipation of slaves. Between 1783 and 1786, he gave moral support to a plan proposed by Lafayette to purchase land and free slaves to work on it, but declined to participate in the experiment. Washington privately expressed support for emancipation to prominent Methodists Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury in 1785 but declined to sign their petition. In personal correspondence the next year, he made clear his desire to see the institution of slavery ended by a gradual legislative process, a view that correlated with the mainstream antislavery literature published in the 1780s that Washington possessed. He significantly reduced his purchases of slaves after the war but continued to acquire them in small numbers. In 1788, Washington declined a suggestion from a leading French abolitionist, Jacques Brissot, to establish an abolitionist society in Virginia, stating that although he supported the idea, the time was not yet right to confront the issue. The historian Henry Wiencek (2003) believes, based on a remark that appears in the notebook of his biographer David Humphreys, that Washington considered making a public statement by freeing his slaves on the eve of his presidency in 1789. The historian Philip D. Morgan (2005) disagrees, believing the remark was a "private expression of remorse" at his inability to free his slaves. Other historians agree with Morgan that Washington was determined not to risk national unity over an issue as divisive as slavery. Washington never responded to any of the antislavery petitions he received, and the subject was not mentioned in either his last address to Congress or his Farewell Address. The first clear indication that Washington seriously intended to free his slaves appears in a letter written to his secretary, Tobias Lear, in 1794. Washington instructed Lear to find buyers for his land in western Virginia, explaining in a private coda that he was doing so "to liberate a certain species of property which I possess, very repugnantly to my own feelings". The plan, along with others Washington considered in 1795 and 1796, could not be realized because he failed to find buyers for his land, his reluctance to break up slave families, and the refusal of the Custis heirs to help prevent such separations by freeing their dower slaves at the same time. On July 9, 1799, Washington finished making his last will; the longest provision concerned slavery. All his slaves were to be freed after the death of his wife, Martha. Washington said he did not free them immediately because his slaves intermarried with his wife's dower slaves. He forbade their sale or transportation out of Virginia. His will provided that old and young freed people be taken care of indefinitely; younger ones were to be taught to read and write and placed in suitable occupations. Washington freed more than 160 slaves, including about 25 he had acquired from his wife's brother Bartholomew Dandridge in payment of a debt. He was among the few large slave-holding Virginians during the Revolutionary Era who emancipated their slaves. On January 1, 1801, one year after George Washington's death, Martha Washington signed an order to free his slaves. Many of them, having never strayed far from Mount Vernon, were naturally reluctant to try their luck elsewhere; others refused to abandon spouses or children still held as dower slaves (the Custis estate) and also stayed with or near Martha. Following George Washington's instructions in his will, funds were used to feed and clothe the young, aged, and infirm slaves until the early 1830s. Historical reputation and legacy Washington's legacy endures as one of the most influential in American history since he served as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, a hero of the Revolution, and the first president of the United States. Various historians maintain that he also was a dominant factor in America's founding, the Revolutionary War, and the Constitutional Convention. Revolutionary War comrade Light-Horse Harry Lee eulogized him as "First in war—first in peace—and first in the hearts of his countrymen". Lee's words became the hallmark by which Washington's reputation was impressed upon the American memory, with some biographers regarding him as the great exemplar of republicanism. He set many precedents for the national government and the presidency in particular, and he was called the "Father of His Country" as early as 1778. In 1879, Congress proclaimed Washington's Birthday to be a federal holiday. Twentieth-century biographer Douglas Southall Freeman concluded, "The great big thing stamped across that man is character." Modern historian David Hackett Fischer has expanded upon Freeman's assessment, defining Washington's character as "integrity, self-discipline, courage, absolute honesty, resolve, and decision, but also forbearance, decency, and respect for others". Washington became an international symbol for liberation and nationalism as the leader of the first successful revolution against a colonial empire. The Federalists made him the symbol of their party, but the Jeffersonians continued to distrust his influence for many years and delayed building the Washington Monument. Washington was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on January 31, 1781, before he had even begun his presidency. He was posthumously appointed to the grade of General of the Armies of the United States during the United States Bicentennial to ensure he would never be outranked; this was accomplished by the congressional joint resolution Public Law 94-479 passed on January 19, 1976, with an effective appointment date of July 4, 1976. On March 13, 1978, Washington was militarily promoted to the rank of General of the Armies. Parson Weems wrote a hagiographic biography in 1809 to honor Washington. Historian Ron Chernow maintains that Weems attempted to humanize Washington, making him look less stern, and to inspire "patriotism and morality" and to foster "enduring myths", such as Washington's refusal to lie about damaging his father's cherry tree. Weems' accounts have never been proven or disproven. Historian John Ferling, however, maintains that Washington remains the only founder and president ever to be referred to as "godlike", and points out that his character has been the most scrutinized by historians, past and present. Historian Gordon S. Wood concludes that "the greatest act of his life, the one that gave him his greatest fame, was his resignation as commander-in-chief of the American forces." Chernow suggests that Washington was "burdened by public life" and divided by "unacknowledged ambition mingled with self-doubt". A 1993 review of presidential polls and surveys consistently ranked Washington number 4, 3, or2 among presidents. A 2018 Siena College Research Institute survey ranked him number1 among presidents. In the 21st century, Washington's reputation has been critically scrutinized. Along with various other Founding Fathers, he has been condemned for holding enslaved human beings. Though he expressed the desire to see the abolition of slavery come through legislation, he did not initiate or support any initiatives for bringing about its end. This has led to calls from some activists to remove his name from public buildings and his statue from public spaces. Nonetheless, Washington maintains his place among the highest-ranked U.S. Presidents, listed second (after Lincoln) in a 2021 C-SPAN poll. Memorials Jared Sparks began collecting and publishing Washington's documentary record in the 1830s in Life and Writings of George Washington (12 vols., 1834–1837). The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745–1799 (1931–1944) is a 39-volume set edited by John Clement Fitzpatrick, whom the George Washington Bicentennial Commission commissioned. It contains more than 17,000 letters and documents and is available online from the University of Virginia. Educational institutions Numerous secondary schools are named in honor of Washington, as are many universities, including George Washington University and Washington University in St. Louis. Places and monuments Many places and monuments have been named in honor of Washington, most notably the capital of the United States, Washington, D.C. The state of Washington is the only US state to be named after a president. Washington appears as one of four U.S. presidents in a colossal statue by Gutzon Borglum on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Currency and postage George Washington appears on contemporary U.S. currency, including the one-dollar bill, the Presidential one-dollar coin and the quarter-dollar coin (the Washington quarter). Washington and Benjamin Franklin appeared on the nation's first postage stamps in 1847. Washington has since appeared on many postage issues, more than any other person. See also British Army during the American Revolutionary War List of American Revolutionary War battles List of Continental Forces in the American Revolutionary War Timeline of the American Revolution Founders Online References Notes Citations Bibliography Print sources Primary sources Online sources Further reading (Volume 1: Containing the debates in Massachusetts and New York) External links Copies of the wills of General George Washington: the first president of the United States and of Martha Washington, his wife (1904), edited by E. R. Holbrook George Washington Personal Manuscripts George Washington Resources at the University of Virginia Library George Washington's Speeches: Quote-search-tool Original Digitized Letters of George Washington Shapell Manuscript Foundation The Papers of George Washington, subset of Founders Online from the National Archives Washington & the American Revolution, BBC Radio4 discussion with Carol Berkin, Simon Middleton & Colin Bonwick (In Our Time, June 24, 2004) Guide to the George Washington Collection 1776–1792 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center 1732 births 1799 deaths Washington family People from Mount Vernon, Virginia People from Westmoreland County, Virginia 18th-century American Episcopalians 18th-century American politicians 18th-century American writers 18th-century presidents of the United States 18th-century United States Army personnel American cartographers American foreign policy writers American Freemasons American male non-fiction writers American military personnel of the Seven Years' War American militia officers American people of English descent American planters American rebels American slave owners American surveyors British America army officers Burials at Mount Vernon Candidates in the 1789 United States presidential election Candidates in the 1792 United States presidential election Chancellors of the College of William & Mary Commanders in chief Commanding Generals of the United States Army Congressional Gold Medal recipients Continental Army generals Continental Army officers from Virginia Continental Congressmen from Virginia Deaths from respiratory disease Episcopalians from Virginia Farmers from Virginia Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Free speech activists Hall of Fame for Great Americans inductees House of Burgesses members Members of the American Philosophical Society People of the American Enlightenment People of Virginia in the French and Indian War Presidents of the United States Signers of the Continental Association Signers of the United States Constitution United States Army generals Virginia Independents Virginia militiamen in the American Revolution Washington and Lee University people Washington College people

Little is known of the history of Gabon prior to European contact. Bantu migrants settled the area beginning in the 14th century. Portuguese explorers and traders arrived in the area in the late 15th century. The coast subsequently became a center of the transatlantic slave trade with European slave traders arriving to the region in the 16th century. In 1839 and 1841, France established a protectorate over the coast. In 1849, captives released from a captured slave ship founded Libreville. In 1862–1887, France expanded its control including the interior of the state, and took full sovereignty. In 1910 Gabon became part of French Equatorial Africa and in 1960, Gabon became independent. At the time of Gabon's independence, two principal political parties existed: the Gabonese Democratic Bloc (BDG), led by Léon M'Ba, and the Gabonese Democratic and Social Union (UDSG), led by Jean-Hilaire Aubame. In the first post-independence election, held under a parliamentary system, neither party was able to win a majority; the leaders subsequently agreed against a two-party system and ran with a single list of candidates. In the February 1961 election, held under the new presidential system, M'Ba became president and Aubame became foreign minister. The single-party solution disintegrated in 1963, and there was a single-day bloodless coup in 1964. In March 1967, Leon M'Ba and Omar Bongo were elected president and vice president. M'Ba died later that year. Bongo declared Gabon a one-party state, dissolved the BDG and established the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG). Sweeping political reforms in 1990 led to a new constitution, and the PDG garnered a large majority in the country's first multi-party elections in 30 years. Despite discontent from opposition parties, Bongo remained president until his death in 2009. Early history The societies of the indigenous Pygmies were largely displaced from about AD 1000 onwards by migrating Bantu peoples from the north, such as the Fang. Little is known of tribal life before European contact, but tribal art suggests a rich cultural heritage. Gabon's first confirmed European visitors were Portuguese explorers and traders who arrived in the late 15th century. At this time, the southern coast was controlled by the Kingdom of Loango. The Portuguese settled on the offshore islands of São Tomé, Príncipe, and Fernando Pó, but were regular visitors to the coast. They named the Gabon region after the Portuguese word gabão — a coat with sleeve and hood resembling the shape of the Komo River estuary. More European merchants came to the region in the 16th century, trading for slaves, ivory and tropical woods. French colonial period In 1838 and 1841, France established a protectorate over the coastal regions of Gabon by treaties with Gabonese coastal chiefs. American missionaries from New England established a mission at the mouth of the Komo River in 1842. In 1849, the French authorities captured an illegal slave ship and freed the captives on board. The captives were released near the mission station, where they founded a settlement which was called Libreville (French for "free town") French explorers penetrated Gabon's dense jungles between 1862 and 1887. The most famous, Savorgnan de Brazza, used Gabonese bearers and guides in his search for the headwaters of the Congo river. France occupied Gabon in 1885, but did not administer it until 1903. Gabon's first political party, the Jeunesse Gabonais, was founded around 1922. In 1910 Gabon became one of the four territories of French Equatorial Africa. On 15 July 1960 France agreed to Gabon becoming fully independent. On 17 August 1960 Gabon became an independent country. Independence At the time of Gabon's independence in 1960, two principal political parties existed: the Gabonese Democratic Bloc (BDG), led by Léon M'Ba, and the Gabonese Democratic and Social Union (UDSG), led by Jean-Hilaire Aubame. In the first post-independence election, held under a parliamentary system, neither party was able to win a majority. The BDG obtained support from three of the four independent legislative deputies, and M'Ba was named Prime Minister. Soon after concluding that Gabon had an insufficient number of people for a two-party system, the two party leaders agreed on a single list of candidates. In the February 1961 election, held under the new presidential system, M'Ba became president and Aubame became foreign minister. This one-party system appeared to work until February 1963, when the larger BDG element forced the UDSG members to choose between a merger of the parties or resignation. The UDSG cabinet ministers resigned, and M'Ba called an election for February 1964 and a reduced number of National Assembly deputies (from 67 to 47). The UDSG failed to muster a list of candidates able to meet the requirements of the electoral decrees. When the BDG appeared likely to win the election by default, the Gabonese military toppled M'Ba in a bloodless coup on 18 February 1964. French troops re-established his government the next day. Elections were held in April 1964 with many opposition participants. BDG-supported candidates won 31 seats and the opposition 16. Late in 1966, the constitution was revised to provide for automatic succession of the vice president should the president die in office. In March 1967, Leon M'Ba and Omar Bongo (then known as Albert Bongo) were elected President and Vice President, with the BDG winning all 47 seats in the National Assembly. M'Ba died later that year, and Omar Bongo became president. In March 1968 Bongo declared Gabon a one-party state by dissolving the BDG and establishing a new party: the Gabonese Democratic Party (Parti Démocratique Gabonais) (PDG). He invited all Gabonese, regardless of previous political affiliation, to participate. Bongo was elected President in February 1973; in April 1975, the office of vice president was abolished and replaced by the office of prime minister, who had no right to automatic succession. Bongo was re-elected president in December 1979 and November 1986 to 7-year terms. Using the PDG as a tool to submerge the regional and tribal rivalries that divided Gabonese politics in the past, Bongo sought to forge a single national movement in support of the government's development policies. Economic discontent and a desire for political liberalization provoked violent demonstrations and strikes by students and workers in early 1990. In response to worker grievances, Bongo negotiated on a sector-by-sector basis, making significant wage concessions. In addition, he promised to open up the PDG and to organize a national political conference in March–April 1990 to discuss Gabon's future political system. The PDG and 74 political organizations attended the conference. Participants essentially divided into two loose coalitions, the ruling PDG and its allies, and the United Front of Opposition Associations and Parties, consisting of the breakaway Morena Fundamental and the Gabonese Progress Party. The April 1990 conference approved sweeping political reforms, including creation of a national Senate, decentralization of the budgetary process, freedom of assembly and press, and cancellation of the exit visa requirement. In an attempt to guide the political system's transformation to multiparty democracy, Bongo resigned as PDG chairman and created a transitional government headed by a new Prime Minister, Casimir Oyé-Mba. The Gabonese Social Democratic Grouping (RSDG), as the resulting government was called, was smaller than the previous government and included representatives from several opposition parties in its cabinet. The RSDG drafted a provisional constitution in May 1990 that provided a basic bill of rights and an independent judiciary but retained strong executive powers for the president. After further review by a constitutional committee and the National Assembly, this document came into force in March 1991. Under the 1991 constitution, in the event of the president's death, the Prime Minister, the National Assembly president, and the defense minister were to share power until a new election could be held. Opposition to the PDG continued, however, and in September 1990, two coup d'état attempts were uncovered and aborted. Despite anti-government demonstrations after the untimely death of an opposition leader, the first multiparty National Assembly elections in almost 30 years took place in September–October 1990, with the PDG garnering a large majority. Following President Bongo's re-election in December 1993 with 51% of the vote, opposition candidates refused to validate the election results. Serious civil disturbances led to an agreement between the government and opposition factions to work toward a political settlement. These talks led to the Paris Accords in November 1994, under which several opposition figures were included in a government of national unity, and constitutional reforms were approved in a referendum in 1995. This arrangement soon broke down, however, and the 1996 and 1997 legislative and municipal elections provided the background for renewed partisan politics. The PDG won a landslide victory in the legislative election, but several major cities, including Libreville, elected opposition mayors during the 1997 local election. Modern times President Bongo coasted to easy re-elections in December 1998 and November 2005, with large majorities of the vote against a divided opposition. While Bongo's major opponents rejected the outcome as fraudulent, some international observers characterized the results as representative despite any perceived irregularities. Legislative elections held in 2001–2002, which were boycotted by a number of smaller opposition parties and were widely criticized for their administrative weaknesses, produced a National Assembly almost completely dominated by the PDG and allied independents. Omar Bongo died at a Spanish hospital on 8 June 2009. His son Ali Bongo Ondimba was elected president in the August 2009 presidential election. He was re-elected in August 2016, in elections marred by numerous irregularities, arrests, human rights violations and post-election violence. On 24 October 2018, Ali Bongo Ondimbao was hospitalized in Riyadh for an undisclosed illness. On 29 November 2018 Bongo was transferred to a military hospital in Rabat to continue recovery. On 9 December 2018 it was reported by Gabon's Vice President Moussavou that Bongo suffered a stroke in Riyadh and has since left the hospital in Rabat and is currently recovering at a private residence in Rabat. Since 24 October 2018 Bongo has not been seen in public and due to lack of evidence that he is either alive or dead many have speculated if he is truly alive or not. On 1 January 2019 Bongo gave his first public address via a video posted to social media since falling ill in October 2018 putting to rest any rumors he was dead. On 7 January 2019, soldiers in Gabon launched an unsuccessful coup d’etat attempt. On May 11, 2021, a Commonwealth delegation visited Gabon as Ali Bongo visited London to meet with the secretary general of the organization, which brings together 54 English-speaking countries. President Bongo expressed Gabon's willingness to join the Commonwealth. See also History of Africa List of heads of government of Gabon List of heads of state of Gabon Politics of Gabon Libreville history and timeline References Petringa, Maria (2006), Brazza, A Life for Africa. Schilling, Heinar (1937), Germanisches Leben, Koehler and Amelang, Leipzig, Germany. Bibliography External links WWW-VL History Index of Gabon A detailed history Background Note: Gabon Gabon French Equatorial Africa

Communications in Gibraltar comprise a wide range of telephony systems (both fixed-line and mobile), Internet access, broadcasting (radio and television) and satellite control. There is also printed and online media. Regulation of telecommunications and broadcasting are the responsibility of the Gibraltar Regulatory Authority (GRA), established by means of the Gibraltar Regulatory Authority Act in 2000. Telecommunications History The first submarine telegraph cable started its operation in Gibraltar in 1870. Gibraltar was a landing point of the long-range submarine cable that from Porthcurno, in the United Kingdom ran to Lisbon, Gibraltar, Malta, Alexandria, Suez, Aden, Bombay, over land to the east coast of India, then on to Penang, Malacca, Singapore, Batavia (current Jakarta), to finally reach Darwin, Australia. It was the first direct link between Australia and Great Britain. The company that laid the first part of the cable took the name of Falmouth, Gibraltar and Malta Telegraph Company and had been founded in 1869. This company later operated as the Eastern Telegraph Company from Mount Pleasant in Gibraltar and eventually became Cable & Wireless. The first telephones were introduced to Gibraltar in 1886 by a private company which was later taken over by the colonial authorities. The first wireless message was transmitted to Gibraltar in 1903. Since 1926, the telephone service was operated by the City Council. An automatic exchange was installed in the last floor of the City Hall. On 4 April 1927, following an agreement signed between the Compañía Telefónica Nacional de España, the Spanish incumbent telecommunications operator, and the Gibraltar City Council, direct communications between Spain and Gibraltar were established. Upon the approval of the 1969 Constitution and the dissolution of the City Council, the telephone service was transferred to the newly formed Government of Gibraltar. In the 1970s there were three generations of automatic telephone exchange equipment in use with four and five digit numbers. The volume of calls grew and a System X digital exchange was installed. Until 1990, all telephone services were operated by the Gibraltar Government Telephone Department. International circuits were provided by Cable & Wireless, present in Gibraltar since 1870 as the Falmouth, Malta, Gibraltar Telegraph Company. However, Cable & Wireless left Gibraltar in 1987. On 1 January 1988, British Telecom (BT) and the Government of Gibraltar formed a joint venture company called Gibraltar Telecommunications International Ltd (known by its commercial brand Gibtel) to operate Gibraltar's international telecommunications services. Gibtel was subsequently granted a licence to offer mobile telephony introducing a GSM900 network. In 1990, the Government decided to privatise its Telephone Department and therefore entered into a joint venture with Nynex of the United States. Gibraltar Nynex Communications Ltd (GNC) became responsible for fixed-line telephony. GNC was the first acquisition of Nynex outside the Americas. In 1997, GNC, through its wholly owned subsidiary, GNC Networks, commenced Internet services. GNC Networks was later renamed GibConnect. ADSL services were introduced in 2002. In 2001, BT sold its 50% stake in Gibtel to GNC. Both companies subsequently merged to form Gibtelecom, a joint venture between the Government of Gibraltar and Nynex's successor company, Verizon. The name Gibtelecom begun to be used in July 2002, and as of 1 October 2003 this name was formally adopted by the company (which up until then was still Gibraltar Nynex Communications). In April 2007, Verizon sold its shares to Telekom Slovenije which is the incumbent telecommunications operator in Slovenia and is quoted on the Ljubljana Stock Exchange. Infrastructure Telephones – Numbers in use: 25,000 (2006) Telephones – mobile cellular: 15,000 (2006) The telecommunications infrastructure in Gibraltar is modelled on that of the UK; for example; the ringing tone of fixed telephone lines is identical to that of the UK, although that of mobile phones may resemble that of mainland Europe, with long tones. Telephone jacks are also British Standard BS 6312, as opposed to the RJ11 versions found in other parts of Europe and the world. Numbering plan Calling code: +350 Telecom dispute Telecommunication services in Gibraltar were subject to Spanish restrictions until 10 February 2007. Subsequent to the resolution of the dispute, the Gibraltar telephone numbering plan has been increased to eight digits for land lines, adding a prefix of 200 to the existing Gibtelecom five digit numbers which is required to be dialled from October 2008. Gibtelecom was also prevented from having roaming agreements with Spanish GSM networks so its mobile phones did not operate in Spain. Gibtelecom had roaming arrangements with local GSM networks in most other countries. After the Córdoba Agreement, Gibtel (Gibtelecom's mobile service) could roam on Spanish network Movistar (Telefónica). As of recent customers can now roam on Vodafone and Yoigo. Orange still (September 2008) identifies as AMENA and does not allow Gibraltar phones to register. Fixed line services In the 1980s there was a shortage of local line capacity on the existing crossbar exchange, which itself had replaced the relay and Strowger switch exchanges and a modern digital System/X switch was installed. Cable and Wireless, who provided international circuits installed a satellite earth station which made International Subscriber Dialling possible. When the frontier with Spain was re-opened, telephone and telex circuits cut by General Franco were re-established. Subsequently, fibre links into the FLAG cable system (which had a landing point in Estepona, about 50 km from Gibraltar) were established and along with microwave links to Morocco giving Gibraltar a resilient communications infrastructure. Gibtelecom is also a partner in the EIG cable system, which will have a landing point in Gibraltar. Provision for Local Loop Unbundling was introduced in Gibraltar, under the 2006 Communications Act, similar to the UK's 2003 Communications Act. Earlier in December 2005, the European Commission initiated the second stage of infringement proceedings against the British Government relating to Gibraltar's failure to transpose five European Union directives on electronic communications, but these were closed after the relevant legislation was passed into law by the then House of Assembly in June 2006. Fixed line numbers are now eight digits, with Gibtelecom numbers being prefixed with 200. A second operator, CTS Gibraltar Limited, provided fixed line services beginning with the prefix 216, but closed down in early 2013. Mobile network GSM Network Identifiers : GIBTEL Gibraltar Telecommunications International Limited (Gibtel) (now Gibtelecom) introduced mobile phones in Gibraltar using a GSM900 network. The new GPRS network installed by the Scandinavian company allows faster and permanent connectivity for all mobile users, as well as providing high-speed picture and video messaging for owners of the new range of multi-purpose hand-sets. Gibtelecom operates 3G & 4G networks. CTS ceased providing 3G services in early 2013. A new provider, Shine Mobile, launched on 23 September 2013. On 12 May 2016 the Company posted a notice on its website [www.shinemobile.gi] saying that "As from 18/05/2016, our services are going to be SUSPENDED; therefore your Shine line will NOT be operational." It was said that was to facilitate working on upgrading infrastructure, but as of 29 May 2016 the service is still down. Suspending service with less than a week's notice, suggests this may not have just been related to upgrading infrastructure which presumably would have been in the planning stage for more than six days. Shine Mobile will not be back. Broadcasting Television Television stations: 1 (plus three low-power repeaters) (2002) Television licences: 7,452 (2002) Requirement abolished (2007). GBC Television is operated by the Gibraltar Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) is transmitted on VHF Channel 12 with UHF repeaters on 56 and 53. Until 1999, GBC retransmitted BBC Prime, but was relaunched as a community-based service focusing on local news and other items of local interest. GBC programming starts at around 19:30 and finishes before midnight with the most popular programme being the local news bulletin, News Watch at 20:30. During the day fillers and the sound of GBC radio are transmitted. The station was funded by a mix of advertising, government funding, and an annual television licence fee. In June 2006, the licence was abolished by the Government. A new general manager was appointed in 2010 with a mandate to develop the station to meet future requirements of the community. The majority of homes also have access to satellite television with mostly United Kingdom channels. Gibraltar also receives Spanish national digital television and radio stations, as well as Spanish digital regional (from Andalusia) and local stations (from the Campo de Gibraltar area). Radio Radio stations: AM 1, FM 4, DAB+, Internet 2 (2019) Radios: 37,000 (1997) – Radio licences now discontinued The Gibraltar Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) operates Radio Gibraltar on both FM and AM, broadcasting a mix of local programming in English and Spanish, and retransmissions of the BBC World Service. In December 2005, GBC started internet streaming of its radio service, and in 2009 the daily Newswatch programme became available as video on demand. These services along with an up-to-date programme guide for GBC television and radio, can be found on the website. The British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) operates two radio stations on FM, BFBS1 and BFBS2 and a private cable television network. BFBS1 and 2 are also available on the Internet streamed from the UK. On 1 October 2018, Rock Radio – Gibraltar's Hit Music Station was launched. Rock Radio is Gibraltar's first and only independent commercial radio station, the first to launch in over 50 years. The station transmits live from the top of the Rock on 99.2 FM, DAB+ and online. Amateur radio Callsigns: ZB0x (VHF only), ZB2xx (Full), ZB3x (novice) + special event stations Amateur radio started in Gibraltar shortly after the Second World War. The Gibraltar Amateur Radio Society (GARS) is a small but active society representing the interests of Amateur Radio both locally and internationally as a full International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) member society. Each year for Gibraltar National Week amateur radio operators can use the ZG prefix instead of ZB. Special event stations are licensed by the GRA for example the Lighthouse Activity Weekend uses ZB2LGT. Internet Country code (top-level domain): .gi Internet service providers (ISPs): 4 Gibnet Limited, a private company, began Internet services in January 1996, with a 64 kbit/s circuit to Spain. In 2005 it merged with Broadband Gibraltar Limited to form Sapphire Networks Limited. Sapphire have their own redundant fibre and microwave infrastructure into and around Gibraltar. Sapphire uses the Gibtelecom ADSL concentrator to reach customers that are outside their own network, and sells high-bandwidth Internet services and Internet connectivity, competing directly with Gibtelecom. GNC Networks, a wholly owned subsidiary of Gibraltar Nynex Communications, commenced services in 1997. GNC Networks was renamed Gibconnect and the parent company became Gibraltar Telecommunications International Limited, which is referred to as Gibtelecom, in 2002. ADSL services were introduced in 2002, by 2005, there were several thousand users. The company is co-owned by the Government of Gibraltar and Slovenia Telecom. In 2000, the Gibraltar Regulatory Authority issued Ladbrokes, who then operated Gibraltar's biggest call centre, with a licence to establish their own internet services. Under this Advanced Business Communications (Europe) began operating on the rock. The company applied for a licence in their own right. The GRA eventually denied ABC (Europe) a licence. Ladbrokes scaled down their Gibraltar operations and their 'Internet permit' was not renewed. ABC ceased their Gibraltar operations in early 2002. CTS Gibraltar Limited launched a WiMax service in 2008, competing against the established ADSL providers. It then expanded into ADSL for nearby housing estates, and set up a rival UTMS service. CTS was closed down in early 2013 due to significant debts owed to government authorities and other creditors. Shine Mobile, launched in September 2013, has obtained a licence for broadband services, which it planned to introduce, but the company closed down. In 2013, GibFibreSpeed Ltd, trading under A.J. Sheriff Electrical Ltd, obtained a broadband licence. GibFibreSpeed is Gibraltar's first communications provider to offer Fibre to the Home (FTTH) broadband services. Since 2013, GibFibreSpeed has been upgrading its own independent all-fibre network and preparing for the launch of broadband services, it has since opened its stores and has planned to begin offering broadband in early 2015. Printed media Newspapers The largest and most frequently published newspaper is the Gibraltar Chronicle, Gibraltar's oldest established daily newspaper and the world's second oldest English language newspaper to have been in print continuously with daily editions six days a week. Panorama is published on weekdays, and 7 Days, The New People, and Gibsport are weekly. Other newspapers such as the weekly El Faro de Gibraltar, are published in Spanish. Defunct newspapers include El Calpense, a Spanish-language newspaper that was published in Gibraltar between 1868 and 1982. In the 1960s it became a weekly newspaper. When the border between Spain and Gibraltar was eventually closed by the Spanish dictator in 1969, the newspaper changed its ownership and begun to be published in English. It later closed in 1982. Also, El Anunciador was a Spanish-language newspaper that was published between 1885 and 1940. Magazines Gibraltar has two prominent monthly magazines; Gibraltar Insight and the Gibraltar Magazine. EuropeAxess Media, in liaison with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Gibraltar, also publishes a monthly magazine: Upon This Rock Globe magazine also appears monthly, having first started as a bi-lingual publication which produced two versions of each of its articles – one in English and the other in Spanish. Over time, Globe phased out the Spanish language element and is now an English language monthly aimed at Gibraltar and the Campo de Gibraltar. B magazine is Gibraltar's first locally produced magazine aimed at women. It appears monthly and its contents include fashion, advice, health, weddings and similar features geared at young women. The publication also features a Social spotlight section composed of photos depicting eventsand fundraisers. Online Media Various online news outlets covering general news exist such as online editions of the Gibraltar Broadcasting Corporation, and the Gibraltar Chronicle. Independent online media include Your Gibraltar TV and sports news outlets such as GibFootballTalk. See also Telecom dispute between Gibraltar and Spain References External links Gibraltar Broadcasting Corporation (Internet-streamed radio) BFBS Radio in Gibraltar Gibraltar Regulatory Authority Gibtelecom Sapphire Networks Amateur Radio in Gibraltar

Grenada is an island country located between the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean, north of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located at . There are no large inland bodies of water on the island, which consists entirely of the state of Grenada. The coastline is 121 km long. The island has 15 constituencies and speaks English and Grenadian Creole. It is volcanic in origin and its topography is mountainous. Natural resources include timber, tropical fruit and deepwater harbours. Grenada and its largely uninhabited outlying territories are the most southerly of the Windward Islands. The Grenadine Islands chain consists of some 600 islets; those south of the Martinique Channel belong to Grenada, while those north of the channel are part of the nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Located about 160 kilometers north of Venezuela, at approximately 12° north latitude and 61° west longitude, Grenada and its territories occupy a small area of 433 square kilometers. Grenada, known as the Spice Isle because of its production of nutmeg and mace, is the largest at 310 square kilometers, or about the size of the city of Detroit. The island is oval shaped and framed by a jagged southern coastline; its maximum width is thirty-four kilometers, and its maximum length is nineteen kilometers. St. George's, the capital and the nation's most important harbour, is favorably situated near a lagoon on the southwestern coast. Of all the islands belonging to Grenada, only two are of consequence: Carriacou, with a population of a few thousand, and its neighbour Petit Martinique, roughly 40 kilometers northeast of Grenada and populated by some 700 inhabitants. Terrain Part of the volcanic chain in the Lesser Antilles arc, Grenada and its possessions generally vary in elevation from under 300 meters to over 600 meters above sea level. Grenada is more rugged and densely foliated than its outlying possessions, but other geographical conditions are more similar. Grenada's landmass rises from a narrow, coastal plain in a generally north–south trending axis of ridges and narrow valleys. Mount St. Catherine is the highest peak at 840 meters. Although many of the rocks and soils are of volcanic origin, the volcanic cones dotting Grenada are long dormant. The only known active volcano in the area is Kick 'em Jenny, just north between Grenada and Carriacou. Some of the drainage features on Grenada remain from its volcanic past. There are a few crater lakes, the largest of which is Grand Etang. The swift upper reaches of rivers, which occasionally overflow and cause flooding and landslides, generally cut deeply into the conic slopes. By contrast, many of the water courses in the lowlands tend to be sluggish and meandering. Table of Islands Climate The Grenadian climate is tropical, tempered by northeast trade winds. The abundance of water is primarily caused by the tropical, wet climate. Yearly precipitation, largely generated by the warm and moisture-laden northeasterly trade winds, varies from more than on the windward mountainsides to less than in the lowlands. The greatest monthly totals are recorded throughout Grenada from June through November, the months when tropical storms and hurricanes are most likely to occur. Rainfall is less pronounced from December through May, when the equatorial low-pressure system moves south. Similarly, the highest humidities, usually close to 80 percent, are recorded during the rainy months, and values from 68 to 78 percent are registered during the drier period. Temperatures averaging are constant throughout the year, however, with slightly higher readings in the lowlands. Nevertheless, diurnal ranges within a 24-hour period are appreciable: between during the day and between at night. Statistics Area Total: 348.5 km² Land: 344 km² Maritime claims Territorial sea: Exclusive economic zone: and Land use Arable land: 8.82% Permanent crops: 20.59% Other: 70.59% (2012 est.) Irrigated land 2.19 km² (2003) Natural hazards Lies on edge of hurricane belt; hurricane season lasts from June to November Extreme points Northernmost point – Gun Point, Carriacou Northernmost point (Grenada only) - Tanga Langue, Saint Patrick Parish Easternmost point – east coast of Petite Martinique island Easternmost point (Grenada only) - Artiste Point, Saint Andrew Parish Southernmost point – Glover Island, Saint George Parish Southernmost point (Grenada only) - Prickly Point, Saint George Parish Westernmost point – Point Salines, Saint George Parish Highest point – Mount Saint Catherine: 840 m Lowest point – Caribbean Sea: 0 m Environment - international agreements Party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Law of the Sea, Ozone Layer Protection, Whaling Geography - note The administration of the islands of the Grenadines group is divided between Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (northern Grenadines) and Grenada (southern Grenadines) See also Grenadines List of cities in Grenada List of islands of Grenada List of rivers of Grenada List of volcanoes in Grenada Parishes of Grenada Notes References External links Grenada geography-related lists Islands Subdivisions of Grenada

Transport in Guinea is composed by a variety of systems that people in the country use to get around as well as to and from domestic and international destinations. The railway from Conakry to Kankan ceased operating in the mid-1980s. Most vehicles in Guinea are 20+ years old, and cabs are any four-door vehicle which the owner has designated as being for hire. Domestic air services are intermittent. Conakry International Airport is the largest airport in the country, with flights to other cities in Africa as well as to Europe. Locals, nearly entirely without vehicles of their own, rely upon these taxis (which charge per seat) and small buses to take them around town and across the country. There is some river traffic on the Niger and Milo rivers. Horses and donkeys pull carts, primarily to transport construction materials. Iron mining at Simandou (South) in the southeast beginning in 2007 and at Kalia in the east is likely to result in the construction of a new heavy-duty standard gauge railway and deepwater port. Iron mining at Simandou (North) will load to a new port near Buchanan, Liberia, in exchange for which rehabilitation of the Conakry to Kankan line will occur. Railways total: 1,086 km standard gauge: 279 km gauge metre gauge: 807 km gauge (includes 662 km in common carrier service from Kankan to Conakry) The lines do not all connect. Cities served by rail Santou - Dapilo This 125 km long Standard Gauge railway connects bauxite mines at Boffa with a new port at Boké, both places in the north of Guinea. A Joint Venture has already launched the $US 3bn Boffa – Boké Project which a 125km line from the Dapilon River Terminal to new mining areas of Santou II and Houda. There are 2 tunnels. This line opened in 28-06-2021. See: Boffa-Boke Railway Northern line This line is gauge (standard gauge) and carries about per annum. Port Kamsar - port Boké Crossing with proposed B B line. Both 1435mm gauge. By bridge or by level crossing. Rail Sangarédi - bauxite mine Central line This line is gauge and head off in a northwestern direction. Conakry - capital and port. Dubréka Fria - bauxite mine Southern line This line is gauge. Conversion to gauge has been proposed. Conakry - capital and port. Kindia - provincial capital. Kolèntèn Konkouré - several km north of railway Mamou - provincial capital Kégnégo Dabola - junction and break of gauge Bissikrima Cisséla - Kouroussa - bridge over Niger River Kankan - terminus and provincial capital. This line is . Dabola - junction and break of gauge Tougué - bauxite South Western line This line is and parallels the Southern line. Conakry - capital and port. Rail Map (red dots) Rail Map (gray lines) Kindia - bauxite mine. Proposed South Trans-Guinean Railway The heavy duty Transguinean Railways is about 650 km long and would be (standard gauge). It goes from iron ore mines in the south east and bauxite mines in the north to a new port a Matakong. Matakong - Deep water port Forécariah Madina Woula - way station Bambafouga - junction Marela - way station Faranah Tiro Kissidougou - way station Macenta Koule Nzerekore Lola Simandou iron ore deposit near Diéké Nimba - iron ore Pontiola - bauxite Tougué - branch terminus - bauxite Timeline 2019 Télimélé - Boffa 2008 July 2008 - wobbles over Simandou leases four ex-Croatian locomotives refurbished and regauged in Russia 1994 Progress Statistics Length Highways total: 30,500 km paved: 5,033 km unpaved: 25,467 km (1996 est.) The Trans–West African Coastal Highway crosses Guinea, connecting it to Bissau (Guinea-Bissau), and when construction in Sierra Leone and Liberia is complete, to a total of 13 other nations of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Waterways 1,295 km navigable by shallow-draft native craft Ports and harbors Boké, Conakry, Kamsar Merchant marine none (1999 est.) Airports 15 (1999 est.) Airports - with paved runways total: 5 over 3,047 m: 1 2,438 to 3,047 m: 1 1,524 to 2,437 m: 3 (1999 est.) The airport code for the capital, Conakry, is CKY. Airports - with unpaved runways total: 10 1,524 to 2,437 m: 5 914 to 1,523 m: 4 under 914 m: 1 (1999 est.) See also Economy of Guinea References External links Google maps Conakry International Airport, Conakry, Guinea Aviation Safety CKY Guinea AZ World Airports Guinea

George Hoyt Whipple (August 28, 1878 – February 1, 1976) was an American physician, pathologist, biomedical researcher, and medical school educator and administrator. Whipple shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1934 with George Richards Minot and William Parry Murphy "for their discoveries concerning liver therapy in cases of anemia". This makes Whipple the first of several Nobel laureates affiliated with the University of Rochester. Early life Whipple was born to Ashley Cooper Whipple and Frances Anna Hoyt in Ashland, New Hampshire. Ashley Cooper Whipple was a physician, and his father (George's paternal grandfather) was a physician and President of the New Hampshire Medical Society. Whipple's father died from pneumonia or typhoid fever when George was just shy two years old. His maternal grandfather also died when Whipple was two years old, and his paternal grandfather died a year later. This left Whipple to be raised by his mother, Frances, and grandmother, Frances Moody Hoyt, who impressed on him the value of hard work and education. Whipple attended Andover prep school and began attending Yale University as an undergraduate in 1896, earning A.B. degree in 1900. During these years, he developed as an outdoorsman, an affinity he would hold lifelong. He wrote in his autobiography about growing up in a lake district, "I feel very fortunate that I grew up in the country...I became interested in wild life and camping, also hiking, snowshoeing, skating, bob sledding, canoeing, fishing, hunting—all this was an essential part of my life". He even credited his love for the outdoors as a contributor to his successes in work, study, and teaching. In the summers of prep school and undergrad, he worked at a drugstore and at Squam Lake and Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire providing help and ferry services to the tourists and campers. Of his summer experiences, Whipple said, "I sometimes think I learned as much during the summer work periods as during the school terms." Education As an undergraduate, he became a member of Beta Theta Pi fraternity, and proved to be a prize-winning gymnast, oarsman, and an outstanding science student. His excellence in science was exemplified by his election to Sigma Xi honor society and graduation with senior honors. The interactions Whipple had with biochemists Russell Henry Chittenden and Lafayette Mendel during his senior year at Yale left an indelible mark on his life and career. In his autobiography, Whipple describes Mendel as "an unusual man who exerted a strong influence on me ... work with him was exciting and never to be forgotten". With a shortage of funds to finance further education, Whipple took a year off after graduating Yale. During this year, he worked at Dr. Holbrook Military School in Ossining, New York teaching mathematics and science, and serving as an athletic coach. In 1901, under the advice, persuasion, and guidance of his mother, Whipple attended medical school at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He received his M.D. degree in 1905. To gain experience and subsidize his medical school studies, Whipple applied for and was accepted to a teaching assistantship in John J. Abel's Department of Physiological Chemistry. Later, his performance in his first year anatomy course earned him a second-year appointment as a student instructor in anatomy. During this time, his interest in histology developed. Under the mentorship of William Welch, Eugene Opie, and William McCallum, Whipple was inspired to correlate clinical illness and disease, to the tissue findings discovered on autopsy. Together, McCallum and Welch conspired to offer Whipple a position as junior member of the pathology department with the hope it would lead to Whipple become a pediatric pathologist. Ultimately, Whipple accepted the position which shaped his career aspirations to become a pathologist. Career In 1905, Whipple joined the pathology department at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine as an assistant in pathology. He was promoted successively to Assistant, Instructor, Associate and Associate Professor in pathology until he left in 1914. During this time, he spent a year in Panama at Ancon Hospital as a pathologist. In Panama, he worked with Samuel Darling, a resident pathologist, and General Gorgas to gain experience in tropical diseases. This experience afforded him the opportunity to study massive hemolysis associated with blackwater fever. Before returning to Johns Hopkins School of Medicine after his time in Panama, Whipple traveled to Europe and spent time in the laboratories of Krehl and Morawitz in Heidelberg, where he learned about anemia in rabbits. In 1911, Whipple went to Vienna to study hepatic portal vein blood flow and its effects on hepatic functions in the dog with Hans Meyer. In 1914, at 34 years old, Whipple married Katherine Ball Waring of Charleston, South Carolina. They had two children. He was also appointed Professor of Research Medicine, and Director of the Hooper Foundation for Medical Research at the University of California San Francisco medical school. He was dean of that medical school in 1920 and 1921. In 1921, through the persistence of University of Rochester President Benjamin Rush Rhees, Whipple agreed to become a Professor and Chairman of Pathology, and the founding Dean of the yet-to-be-built medical school (URMC). Rhees was so determined to recruit Whipple, he personally flew to UC San Francisco to offer him the opportunity to build the medical school from the ground up. Whipple found this offer attractive because it would fulfil his passion to create a program which fostered an exchange between clinical and preclinical disciplines. His vision for the school included housing the medical school and hospital at the same site to facilitate this exchange. The first students entered URMC in 1925. Retirement In 1953, at 75 years old, Whipple retired from the Deanship, and retirement from the University would follow in 1955. He was remembered as a superb teacher. In his autobiography, A Dozen Doctors, Whipple wrote, "I would be remembered as a teacher". He spent his retirement years dabbling in pathology department and medical school activities at the University of Rochester, but returned to his outdoors-man roots, filling his time with pheasant hunting, salmon fishing on the Margaree River, and tarpon fishing off the coast in Florida. Whipple died in 1976 at the age of 97 and his ashes were scattered in Rochester's Mount Hope Cemetery. Though he was not related to Allen Whipple, who described the Whipple procedure and Whipple's triad, the two were lifelong friends. The Whipples also had a deep friendship with George Eastman, founder of Rochester-based Eastman Kodak. Whipple's research Over the course of his career, Whipple authored or co-authored more than 300 publications. Whipple's research interests during his career primarily included anemia and the physiology and pathology of the liver. But he also researched and made significant contributions to tuberculosis, pancreatitis, chloroform poisoning in animals, the metabolism of bile pigments and iron, the constituents of the bile, and the regeneration of plasma protein, protein metabolism, and the stroma of the red blood cells. One of his first publications described the role of the lungs, lymphatic system, and gastrointestinal tract in the spread of tubercle bacillus causing tuberculosis. Another one of his early publications described autopsy results from a patient with an accumulation of fatty acids in the walls of the small intestine and lymph nodes. He named this abnormality lipodystrophia intestinalis (intestinal lipodystrophy), and correctly pointed to the bacterial cause of the lipid deposits, resulting in the disease being named Whipple's disease. When Whipple first joined Johns Hopkins School of Medicine as an assistant, he worked under William H. Welch, focusing on the repair and regeneration of liver cells. His research in dogs demonstrated that liver cells had an almost unlimited ability to regenerate. Through his chloroform liver injury studies, Whipple demonstrated that the liver was the site of fibrinogen synthesis. His research elucidated the route by which bile pigments enter circulation and produce jaundice in various parts of the body. Later, he studied bile pigments and their production outside the liver by way of bile fistulas at the Hooper Foundation at UC San Francisco. His interests soon extended to understanding the production of hemoglobin to gain a better understand of how it is metabolized into bile pigments. Co-authored with Hooper, Whipple published 12 papers, from 1915–1917, reporting the following: Bile pigment bilirubin was a breakdown product of muscle hemoglobin, though red blood cell hemoglobin was the major normal source. Bile pigment was not reabsorbed and reused in the production of new red blood cells. The heme moiety of hemoglobin could be converted to bilirubin in both the pleural and peritoneal cavities, in addition to the liver. Normal liver function was essential for the excretion of bilirubin. The curve of red blood cell regeneration in anemia, as influenced by dietary factors, like sugar, amino acids and starvation. At the University of Rochester, Whipple's research focus became studying the various factors in diets which contributed to recovery of long-term anemia, particularly in anemic dogs. Along with his research assistant, Frieda Robscheit-Robbins (formally Frieda Robbins), they co-authored 21 publications, from 1925–1930, reporting the following: Circulating plasma and hemoglobin volumes The effects of dietary and other factors on bile salt production and secretion Measurements of blood fibrinogen The effects of diet, hemorrhage, liver injury, and other factors on plasma fibrinogen levels Blood regeneration following simple anemia Whipple and Robscheit-Robbins were regarded as having one of the "great creative partnerships in medicine". In his landmark studies, published as a series "Blood Regeneration in Severe Anemia" beginning in 1925, Whipple demonstrated that raw liver fed to anemic dogs was the most effective diet additive for reversing the anemia by boosting the production of red blood cells. He would go on to show that foods derived from animal tissue, and cooked apricots also had a positive effect of increasing red blood cells during anemia. Based on these data, Whipple associated the iron content in these dietary factors to the potency of red blood cell regeneration. This data led directly to successful liver treatment of pernicious anemia by George R. Minot and William P. Murphy, despite the main therapeutic mechanism being through B12 rather than iron. This was a remarkable discovery since previously, pernicious anemia was invariably fatal at a young age. For his contribution to this body of work, he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1934 along with Minot and Murphy. In 1937, Whipple collaborated with William B. Hawkins to determine the life-span of the red blood cell in dogs. Simultaneously, with the advent of radioactive iron, Whipple, Paul F. Hahn, and William F. Bale collaborated to study iron absorption and utilization. They demonstrated that iron absorption was highly regulated in the small intestine and was influenced by the amount of iron stores in the body. They also demonstrated that insignificant amounts of iron were normally excreted or lost in the urine, feces, or bile. During this time, Whipple also formulated his theory on "the dynamic equilibrium between blood and tissue proteins" based on earlier plasmapheresis experiments he had performed (in the early 1930s) which demonstrated the importance of dietary protein on production of plasma proteins. This formed the foundation of research into mammalian protein metabolism, and led Rudolf Schoenheimer to write The Dynamic State of the Body Constituents, marking the modern era of biochemistry and biology. Between 1939 and 1943 Leon L. Miller and Whipple collaborated to study the hepato-toxic effects of chloroform anesthesia on dogs. They found that dogs in a protein depleted state sustained lethal liver injury from within anesthesia fifteen minutes; but that feeding these depleted dogs a protein rich meal, particularly rich in L-methionine or L-cystine, prior to anesthesia was protective. This and other studies, led Whipple to the conclusion that S-containing amino acids are protective against liver against toxic agents. During World War II, Whipple tested combinations of dietary amino acids, administered, orally or parenterally, and their effects on plasma protein synthesis. He was able to characterize amino acid mixtures that could satisfy the metabolic requirements necessary to maintain weight, nitrogen balance, and plasma protein and hemoglobin regeneration in the dog. This would ultimately led to human clinical trials which demonstrated that these amino acid mixtures, along with enzymatic digest of casein, could sustain nourishment in patients who could not intake nutrients through the normal gastrointestinal route for extended periods. Intravenous nutrition, referred to as parenteral nutrition, is routinely used today. Nobel Prize, honors and distinctions Whipple shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1934 with George R. Minot and William P. Murphy "for their discoveries concerning liver therapy in cases of anemia". In presenting the Nobel Prize, Professor I. Holmgren of the Nobel committee observed that "Of the three prize winners, it was Whipple who first occupied himself with the investigations for which the prize is now awarded. ... Whipple's experiments were planned exceedingly well, and carried out very accurately, and consequently their results can lay claim to absolute reliability. These investigations and results of Whipple's gave Minot and Murphy the idea that an experiment could be made to see whether favorable results might also be obtained in the case of pernicious anemia...by making use of the foods of the kind that Whipple had found to yield favorable results in his experiments regarding anemia from loss of blood." Whipple received honorary doctorates from several American and international Universities, including the Universities of Athens and Glasgow. In 1930, along with Minot, he received the Popular Science Monthly Gold Medal and Annual Award. In 1934, he was awarded the William Wood Gerhard Gold Medal of the Pathological Society of Philadelphia. He also was a member of the following organizations: Rockefeller Foundation, Trustee Association of Physicians in Vienna, Corresponding Member Royal Society of Physicians in Budapest European Society of Haematology British Medical Association, Foreign Corresponding Member. Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Honorary Member American Philosophical Society, Honorary Member Society of Experimental Biology and Medicine, Honorary Member Board of Scientific Directors of the Rockefeller Institute, Member Board of Trustees of the Rockefeller Institute, Member; Vice-Chairman; and Trustee Emeritus See also Whipple House (Ashland, New Hampshire), his birthplace New Hampshire Historical Marker No. 100: George Hoyt Whipple Further reading References External links including the Nobel Lecture, December 12, 1934 Hemoglobin Regeneration as Influenced by Diet and Other Factors Other biography 1878 births 1976 deaths Burials at Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester) Johns Hopkins University alumni Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine American Nobel laureates People from Ashland, New Hampshire Phillips Academy alumni American pathologists Yale University alumni University of California, San Francisco faculty

George Raymond Richard Martin (born George Raymond Martin; September 20, 1948), also known as GRRM, is an American novelist, screenwriter, television producer and short story writer. He is the author of the series of epic fantasy novels A Song of Ice and Fire, which were adapted into the Emmy Award-winning HBO series Game of Thrones (2011–2019). He also helped create the Wild Cards anthology series, and contributed worldbuilding for the 2022 video game Elden Ring. In 2005, Lev Grossman of Time called Martin "the American Tolkien", and in 2011, he was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. Early life George Raymond Martin (he adopted the confirmation name Richard at 13 years old) was born on September 20, 1948, in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of longshoreman Raymond Collins Martin and Margaret Brady Martin. His mother's family had once been wealthy, owning a successful construction business, but lost it all in the Great Depression, something Martin was reminded about every day when he passed what used to be his family's dock and house. It made him feel that even if they were poor, they came from greatness that had been taken away from them. He has two younger sisters, Darleen and Janet. His mother was of half Irish ancestry. He also acknowledges French, English, Welsh and German roots, which were confirmed on the television series Finding Your Roots. However, while he also believed he was a quarter Italian because of who he was told was his paternal grandfather, a DNA test on the show confirmed his Irish and other ancestries but excluded any Italian ancestry, showing instead he is approximately a quarter Ashkenazi Jewish. The family first lived in a house on Broadway belonging to Martin's great-grandmother. In 1953, they moved to a federal housing project near the Bayonne docks. During Martin's childhood, his world consisted predominantly of "First Street to Fifth Street", between his grade school and his home; this limited world made him want to travel and experience other places, but the only way of doing so was through his imagination, and he became a voracious reader. Martin began writing and selling monster stories for pennies to other neighborhood children, dramatic readings included. He also wrote stories about a mythical kingdom populated by his pet turtles; the turtles died frequently in their toy castle, so he decided they were killing each other off in "sinister plots". Martin had a habit of starting "endless stories" that he never completed, as they did not turn out as well on paper as he had imagined them. Martin attended Mary Jane Donohoe School and later Marist High School. While there he became an avid comic book fan, developing a strong interest in the superheroes being published by Marvel Comics, and later credited Stan Lee for being one of his greatest literary influences; "Maybe Stan Lee is the greatest literary influence on me, even more than Shakespeare or Tolkien." A letter Martin wrote to the editor of Fantastic Four was printed in issue No. 20 (November 1963); it was the first of many sent, e.g., Fantastic Four #32, #34, and others. Fans who read his letters wrote him letters in turn, and through such contacts, Martin joined the fledgling comics fandom of the era, writing fiction for various fanzines; he bought the first ticket to the world's first Comic-Con, held in New York in 1964. In 1965, Martin won comic fandom's Alley Award for Best Fan Fiction for his prose superhero story "Powerman vs. The Blue Barrier". In 1970, Martin earned a B.S. in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in Evanston, Illinois, graduating summa cum laude; he went on to complete his M.S. in Journalism in 1971, also from Medill. Eligible for the draft during the Vietnam War, to which he objected, Martin applied for and obtained conscientious objector status; he instead did alternative service work for two years (1972–1974) as a VISTA volunteer, attached to the Cook County Legal Assistance Foundation. Career Early writing career Martin began selling science fiction short stories professionally in 1970, at age 21. His first sale was "The Hero", sold to Galaxy magazine and published in its February 1971 issue; other sales soon followed. His first story to be nominated for the Hugo Award and Nebula Awards was "With Morning Comes Mistfall", published in 1973 in Analog magazine. In 1975 his story "...for a single yesterday" about a post-apocalyptic timetripper was selected for inclusion in Epoch, a science fiction anthology edited by Roger Elwood and Robert Silverberg. His first novel, Dying of the Light, was completed in 1976 right before he moved to Dubuque and published in 1977. That same year the enormous success of Star Wars had a huge impact on the publishing industry and science fiction, and he sold the novel for the same amount he would make in three years of teaching. The short stories he was able to sell in his early 20s gave him some profit, but not enough to pay his bills, which prevented him from becoming the full-time writer he wanted to be. The need for a day job occurred simultaneously with the American chess craze which followed Bobby Fischer's victory in the 1972 world chess championship. Martin's own chess skills and experience allowed him to be hired as a tournament director for the Continental Chess Association that ran chess tournaments on the weekends. This gave him a sufficient income, and because the tournaments only ran on Saturdays and Sundays, it allowed him to work as a writer five days a week from 1973 to 1976. When the chess bubble subsequently burst and no longer provided an income, he had become much better established as a writer. Teaching In the mid-1970s, Martin met English professor George Guthridge from Dubuque, Iowa, at a science fiction convention in Milwaukee. Martin persuaded Guthridge (who later said that at that time he despised science fiction and fantasy) not only to give speculative fiction a second look, but to write in the field himself. Guthridge has since been a finalist for the Hugo Award and twice for the Nebula Award for science fiction and fantasy. In 1998, Guthridge and Janet Berliner won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in the Novel for their Children of the Dusk. In turn, Guthridge helped Martin in finding a job at Clarke University (then Clarke College). Martin "wasn't making enough money to stay alive" from writing and the chess tournaments, says Guthridge. From 1976 to 1978, Martin was an English and journalism instructor at Clarke, and he became Writer In Residence at the college from 1978 to 1979. Concentration on writing While he enjoyed teaching, the sudden death of friend and fellow author Tom Reamy in late 1977 made Martin reevaluate his own life, and he eventually decided to try to become a full-time writer. When his wife graduated from Clarke in 1979, he resigned from his job, and being tired of the hard winters in Dubuque, they moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1979, which they had "fallen in love with" after a visit the year before on their way to the worldcon in Phoenix. Martin is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA); he served as the organization's Southwest Regional Director from 1977 to 1979, and as its vice-president from 1996 to 1998. In 1976, for Kansas City's MidAmeriCon, the 34th World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), Martin and his friend and fellow writer-editor Gardner Dozois conceived of and organized the first Hugo Losers' Party for the benefit of all past and present Hugo-losing writers on the evening following the convention's Hugo Awards ceremony. Martin was nominated for two Hugos that year but lost both awards, for the novelette "...and Seven Times Never Kill Man" and the novella The Storms of Windhaven, co-written with Lisa Tuttle. Although Martin often writes fantasy or horror, a number of his earlier works are science fiction tales occurring in a loosely defined future history, known informally as "The Thousand Worlds" or "The Manrealm". In 2017, Martin recalled that he had started writing science fiction-horror hybrids in the late 1970s to disprove a statement from a critic claiming that science fiction and horror were opposites and therefore incompatible. Martin considered Sandkings (1979) the best known of these. Another was the novella Nightflyers (1980), whose screen and television rights were purchased by Vista in 1984, which produced a 1987 film adaptation, Nightflyers, with a screenplay co-written by Martin. Martin was unhappy about having to cut plot elements in order to accommodate the film's small budget. While not a hit at theatres, Martin believes that the film saved his career, and that everything he has written since exists in large part because of it. He has also written at least one piece of political-military fiction, "Night of the Vampyres", collected in Harry Turtledove's anthology The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century (2001). In 1982, Martin published a vampire novel titled Fevre Dream set in the 19th century on the Mississippi River. Unlike traditional vampire novels, in Fevre Dream vampires are not supernatural creatures, but are rather a different species related to humans created by evolution with superhuman powers. Critic Don D'Amassa has praised Fevre Dream for its strong 19th century atmosphere and wrote: "This is without question one of the greatest vampire novels of all time". Martin followed up Fevre Dream with another horror novel, The Armageddon Rag (1983). The unexpected commercial failure of The Armageddon Rag "essentially destroyed my career as a novelist at the time", he recalled, and made him consider going into real estate instead. In 1984, the new editor of Baen Books, Betsy Mitchell, called Martin to ask him if he had considered doing a collection of Haviland Tuf adventures. Martin, who had several favorite series characters like Solomon Kane, Elric, Nicholas van Rijn and Magnus Ridolph, had made an attempt to create such a character on his own in the 1970s with his Tuf stories. He was interested, but was too occupied with the writing of his next book, the never-completed novel Black and White and Red All Over, which occupied most of his writing time the same year. But after the failure of The Armageddon Rag, all editors rejected his upcoming novel, and desperate for money, he accepted Mitchell's offer and wrote some more Tuf stories which were collected in Tuf Voyaging, which sold well enough for Mitchell to suggest a sequel. Martin was willing and agreed to do it, but before he got started he got an offer from Hollywood, where producer Philip DeGuere Jr. wanted to adapt The Armageddon Rag into a film. The film adaptation did not happen, but they stayed in touch, and when DeGuere became the producer for the revival of The Twilight Zone, Martin was offered a job as a writer. Working for television paid a lot better than writing literature, so he decided to move to Hollywood to seek a new career. At first he worked as staff writer for the show, and then as an executive story consultant. After the CBS series was cancelled, Martin migrated over to the already-underway satirical science fiction series Max Headroom. He worked on scripts and created the show's "Ped Xing" character. However, before his scripts could go into production, the ABC show was cancelled in the middle of its second season. Martin was hired as a writer-producer on the new dramatic fantasy series Beauty and the Beast; in 1989, he became the show's co-supervising producer and wrote 14 of its episodes. In 1987, Martin published a collection of short horror stories in Portraits of His Children. During this same period, Martin continued working in print media as a book-series editor, this time overseeing the development of the multi-author Wild Cards book series, which takes place in a shared universe in which a small slice of post–World War II humanity gains superpowers after the release of an alien-engineered virus; new titles are published in the ongoing series from Tor Books. In Second Person, Martin "gives a personal account of the close-knit role-playing game (RPG) culture that gave rise to his Wild Cards shared-world anthologies". An important element in the creation of the multiple author series was a campaign of Chaosium's role-playing game Superworld (1983) that Martin ran in Albuquerque. Admitting he became completely obsessed with the game, he stopped writing literature for most of 1983, which he refers to as his "lost year", but his shrinking bank accounts made him realize he had to come up with something, and got the idea that perhaps the stories and characters created in Superworld could somehow become profitable. Martin's own contributions to Wild Cards have included Thomas Tudbury, "The Great and Powerful Turtle", a powerful psychokinetic whose flying "shell" consisted of an armored VW Beetle. , 21 Wild Cards volumes had been published in the series; earlier that same year, Martin signed the contract for the 22nd volume, Low Ball (2014), published by Tor Books. In early 2012, Martin signed another Tor contract for the 23rd Wild Cards volume, High Stakes, which was released in August 2016. In August 2016 Martin announced that Universal Cable Productions had acquired the rights to adapt the Wild Cards novels into a television series. A Song of Ice and Fire In 1991, Martin briefly returned to writing novels. He had grown frustrated that his TV pilots and screenplays were not getting made and that TV-related production limitations like budgets and episode lengths were forcing him to cut characters and trim battle scenes. This pushed Martin back towards writing books, where he did not have to worry about compromising his imagination. Admiring the works of J. R. R. Tolkien in his childhood, he wanted to write an epic fantasy, though he did not have any specific ideas. His epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire, was inspired by the Wars of the Roses, The Accursed Kings and Ivanhoe. Though Martin originally conceptualized it as being three volumes, it is currently slated to comprise seven. The first, A Game of Thrones, was published in 1996, followed by A Clash of Kings in 1998 and A Storm of Swords in 2000. In November 2005, A Feast for Crows, the fourth novel in this series, became The New York Times No. 1 Bestseller. The fifth book, A Dance with Dragons, was published July 12, 2011, and became an international bestseller, including achieving a No. 1 spot on the New York Times Bestseller List and many others; it remained on the New York Times list for 88 weeks. In 2012, A Dance With Dragons made the final ballot for science fiction and fantasy's Hugo Award, World Fantasy Award, Locus Poll Award, and the British Fantasy Award; the novel went on to win the Locus Poll Award for Best Fantasy Novel. Two more novels are planned in the series: The Winds of Winter and the final volume A Dream of Spring. On April 25, 2018, Martin announced the release date of his new book, Fire & Blood, dealing with the history of House Targaryen, which was released on November 20, 2018. Should Martin die before finishing the A Song of Ice and Fire series, former collaborators have said that they will not conclude the series for him. HBO adaptation HBO Productions purchased the television rights for the A Song of Ice and Fire series in 2007 and began airing the fantasy series on their US premium cable channel on April 17, 2011. Titled Game of Thrones, it ran weekly for ten episodes, each approximately an hour long. Although busy completing A Dance With Dragons and other projects, George R. R. Martin was heavily involved in the production of the television series adaptation of his books. Martin's involvement included the selection of a production team and participation in scriptwriting; the opening credits list him as a co-executive producer of the series. The series was renewed shortly after the first episode aired. The first season was nominated for 13 Emmy Awards, ultimately winning two: one for its opening title credits, and one for Peter Dinklage as Best Supporting Actor. The first season was also nominated for a 2012 Hugo Award, fantasy and science fiction's oldest award, presented by the World Science Fiction Society each year at the annual Worldcon; the show went on to win the 2012 Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form, at Chicon 7, the 70th World Science Fiction Convention. Martin took home one of the three Hugo Award trophies awarded in that collaborative category, the other two going to Game of Thrones show-runners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. The second season, based on the second A Song of Ice and Fire novel A Clash of Kings, began airing on HBO in the US on April 1, 2012. The second season was nominated for 12 Emmy Awards, including another Supporting Actor nomination for Dinklage. It went on to win six of those Emmys in the Technical Arts categories, which were awarded the week before the regular televised 2012 awards show. The second-season episode "Blackwater", written by Martin, was nominated the following year for the 2013 Hugo Award in the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form category; that episode went on to win the Hugo Award at LoneStarCon 3, the 71st World Science Fiction Convention. In addition to Martin, show-runners Benioff and Weiss (who contributed several scenes to the final screenplay) and episode director Neil Marshal (who expanded the scope of the episode on set) received Hugo statuettes. Seasons 5 and 6 each won a dozen Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Drama Series. By the end of 2016, all seasons up to season 6 (which premiered on April 24, 2016) had been aired on HBO and all seasons had been released on DVD and/or Blu-ray for home viewing (see List of Game of Thrones episodes). The company confirmed on July 18, 2016, that season 7 would consist of seven episodes instead of the usual ten, and would premiere later than usual, in mid-2017, because of the later filming schedule. This was necessary in order to be shooting during the winter season in Europe. Season 7 was expected to air in mid 2017. The first footage from the season was revealed in a new promotional video that featured clips from its new and returning original shows for the coming year on November 28, 2016, showcasing Jon Snow, Sansa Stark and Arya Stark. Like the previous season, it would largely consist of original content not found in Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, but also adapts material from the upcoming sixth and seventh novels: The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring. For season 8, in November 2016, President of Programming Casey Bloys indicated that he had had preliminary discussions about a prequel spinoff to the Game of Thrones series with Martin. In May 2017, HBO commissioned five screenwriters – Max Borenstein, Jane Goldman, Brian Helgeland, Carly Wray and Bryan Cogman – to develop individual spin-offs. All of the writers are to be working individually with Martin. According to Casey Bloys, Martin is co-writing two of the four announced scripts. The first episode of season 8 was broadcast on April 14, 2019. This season had a total of six episodes. Themes Martin's work has been described as having "complex story lines, fascinating characters, great dialogue, perfect pacing" by literary critic Jeff VanderMeer. Dana Jennings of the New York Times described Martin's work as "fantasy for grown ups" and Lev Grossman wrote that it was dark and cynical. Martin's first novel, Dying of the Light, set the tone for some of his future work; it unfolds on a mostly abandoned planet that is slowly becoming uninhabitable as it moves away from its sun. This story has a strong sense of melancholy. His characters are often unhappy or, at least, unsatisfied, in many cases holding on to idealisms in spite of an otherwise chaotic and ruthless world, and often troubled by their own self-seeking or violent actions, even as they undertake them. Many have elements of tragic heroes or antiheroes in them; reviewer T. M. Wagner writes: "Let it never be said Martin doesn't share Shakespeare's fondness for the senselessly tragic." The overall gloominess of A Song of Ice and Fire can be an obstacle for some readers; the Inchoatus Group writes that, "If this absence of joy is going to trouble you, or you're looking for something more affirming, then you should probably seek elsewhere." However, for many fans, it is precisely this level of "realness" and "completeness"–including many characters' imperfections, moral and ethical ambiguity, and (often sudden) consequential plot twists that is endearing about Martin's work. Many find that this is what makes the series' story arcs compelling enough to keep following despite its sheer brutality and intricately messy and interwoven plotlines; as TM Wagner points out:There's great tragedy here, but there's also excitement, humor, heroism even in weaklings, nobility even in villains, and, now and then, a taste of justice after all. It's a rare gift when a writer can invest his story with that much humanity.Martin's characters are multifaceted, each with intricate pasts, aspirations, and ambitions. Publishers Weekly writes of his ongoing epic fantasy A Song of Ice and Fire: "The complexity of characters such as Daenerys, Arya and the Kingslayer will keep readers turning even the vast number of pages contained in this volume, for the author, like Tolkien or Jordan, makes us care about their fates." Misfortune, injury, and death (including false death and reanimation) often befall major or minor characters, no matter how attached the reader has become. Martin has described his penchant for killing off important characters as being necessary for the story's depth: "when my characters are in danger, I want you to be afraid to turn the page, (so) you need to show right from the beginning that you're playing for keeps". In distinguishing his work from others, Martin makes a point of emphasizing realism and plausible social dynamics above an over-reliance on magic and a simplistic "good versus evil" dichotomy, for which contemporary fantasy writing is often criticized. Notably, Martin's work makes a sharp departure from the prevalent "heroic knights and chivalry" schema that has become a mainstay in fantasy as derived from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. He specifically critiques the oversimplification of Tolkien's themes and devices by imitators in ways that he has humorously described as "Disneyland Middle Ages", which gloss over or ignore major differences between medieval and modern societies, particularly social structures, ways of living, and political arrangements. Martin has been described as "the American Tolkien" by literary critics. While Martin finds inspiration in Tolkien's legacy, he aims to go beyond what he sees as Tolkien's "medieval philosophy" of "if the king was a good man, the land would prosper" to delve into the complexities, ambiguities, and vagaries of real-life power: "We look at real history and it's not that simple ... Just having good intentions doesn't make you a wise king." Per this fact Martin has been credited with the rise of grimdark fantasy, a modern form of an "anti-Tolkien" approach to fantasy writing which, according to British science fiction and fantasy novelist Adam Roberts, is characterized by its reaction to Tolkien's idealism even though it owes a lot to Tolkien's work. The Canadian fantasy writer R. Scott Bakker "says he wouldn't have been able to publish his fantasy novels without the success George R. R. Martin achieved first". Similarly, Mark Lawrence, author of Prince of Thorns, was inspired by Martin and impressed by his Red Wedding scene. The author makes a point of grounding his work on a foundation of historical fiction, which he channels to evoke important social and political elements of primarily the European medieval era that differ markedly from elements of modern times, including the multigenerational, rigid, and often brutally consequential nature of the hierarchical class system of feudal societies that is in many cases overlooked in fantasy writing. Even as A Song of Ice and Fire is a fantasy series that employs magic and the surreal as central to the genre, Martin is keen to ensure that magic is merely one element of many that moves his work forward, not a generic deus ex machina that is itself the focus of his stories, which is something he has been very conscious about since reading Tolkien; "If you look at The Lord of the Rings, what strikes you, it certainly struck me, is that although the world is infused with this great sense of magic, there is very little onstage magic. So you have a sense of magic, but it's kept under very tight control, and I really took that to heart when I was starting my own series." Martin's ultimate aim is an exploration of the internal conflicts that define the human condition, which, in deriving inspiration from William Faulkner, he ultimately describes as the only reason to read any literature, regardless of genre. In 2018, Martin called The Lord of the Rings, The Great Gatsby, Gone with the Wind, Great Expectations, Lonesome Dove, Catch-22, and Charlotte's Web "favorites all, towering masterpieces, books that changed my life". Producing In 2017, Martin confirmed he would serve as an executive producer of the HBO television series adaptation of the 2010 science fantasy novel Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor. Martin also contributed to the 2022 video game titled Elden Ring, writing the worldbuilding aspects for it. In February 2021, it was reported that Martin and Kalinda Vazquez were developing a TV adaptation of Roadmarks by Roger Zelazny, which Martin pitched to HBO in 2020. Martin will be an executive producer, Vazquez the showrunner, writer and executive producer. In March 2021, he signed an overall deal with HBO. Martin will serve as an executive producer of the Peacock TV adaptation in development of his Wild Cards book series, together with Melinda M. Snodgrass and Vince Gerardis, Martin's manager. He will serve as an executive producer of the 2022 AMC series Dark Winds based on Tony Hillerman's Leaphorn & Chee books, together with the creator Graham Roland, the showrunner Vince Calandra, the lead Zahn McClarnon, Kiowa Gordon, Chris Eyre, Robert Redford, Tina Elmo and Vince Gerardis. In 2021, Martin served as one of the producers of the short film Night of the Cooters based on the eponymous short story by Howard Waldrop. Relationship with fans Martin actively contributes to his blog, Not a Blog; in April 2018 he moved his blog from Livejournal to his own website. Martin's official fan club is the "Brotherhood Without Banners", which has a regular posting board at the Forum of the website westeros.org, which is focused on his A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series. At the annual World Science Fiction Convention every year, the Brotherhood Without Banners hosts a large, on-going hospitality suite that is open to all members of the Worldcon. Martin is opposed to fan fiction, which he views as copyright infringement and a bad exercise for aspiring writers in terms of developing skills in worldbuilding and character development. Conventions Martin is known for his regular attendance at science fiction conventions and comics conventions, and his accessibility to fans. In the early 1980s, critic and writer Thomas Disch identified Martin as a member of the "Labor Day Group", writers who regularly congregated at the annual Worldcon, usually held on or around the Labor Day weekend. Since the early 1970s, he has also attended regional science fiction conventions; further, since 1986, Martin has participated annually in Albuquerque's smaller regional convention Bubonicon, near his New Mexico home. He was the Guest of Honor at the 61st World Science Fiction Convention in Toronto, held in 2003. In December 2016, Martin was a key speaker at the Guadalajara International Book Fair 2016 in Mexico where the author provided hints about the next two books in the series A Song of Ice and Fire. In 2020, Martin gave a speech at the Hugo Awards event in which he mispronounced several names, including that of R. F. Kuang, which she considered a microaggression. Martin later apologized for mispronouncing the names. Criticism Martin has been criticized by some of his readers for the long periods between books in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, notably the six-year gap between the fourth volume, A Feast for Crows (2005), and the fifth volume, A Dance with Dragons (2011). In 2010, Martin had responded to fan criticisms by saying he was unwilling to write only his A Song of Ice and Fire series, noting that working on other prose and compiling and editing different book projects have always been part of his working process. Writer Neil Gaiman famously wrote on his blog in 2009 to a critic of Martin's pace, "George R. R. Martin is not your bitch". Gaiman later went on to state that writers are not machines and that they have every right to work on other projects if they want to. Personal life In the early 1970s, Martin was in a relationship with fellow science fiction/fantasy author Lisa Tuttle, with whom he co-wrote Windhaven. While attending an East Coast science fiction convention he met his first wife, Gale Burnick; they were married in 1975. The marriage ended in divorce in 1979, without issue, just before they were meant to move to Santa Fe together. Instead he settled there alone from December that same year until September 1981, when what would be his longtime partner Parris McBride moved in with him. On February 15, 2011, Martin married Parris during a small ceremony at their Santa Fe home. On August 19, 2011, they held a larger wedding ceremony and reception at Renovation, the 69th World Science Fiction Convention. He and McBride are supporters of the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary in New Mexico. In early 2013, he purchased Santa Fe's Jean Cocteau Cinema and Coffee House, which had been closed since 2006. He had the property completely restored, including both its original 35 mm capability to which was added digital projection and sound; the Cocteau officially reopened for business on August 9, 2013. In 2019, he opened a bookstore named Beastly Books, after Beauty and the Beast, next to Jean Cocteau. Martin has also supported Meow Wolf, an arts collective in Santa Fe, having pledged $2.7 million towards a new art-space in January 2015. In response to a question on his religious views, Martin replied: "I suppose I'm a lapsed Catholic. You would consider me an atheist or agnostic. I find religion and spirituality fascinating. I would like to believe this isn't the end and there's something more, but I can't convince the rational part of me that makes any sense whatsoever." Martin is a fan of the New York Jets, the New York Giants and the New York Mets. He is also a fan of the Grateful Dead, and says that the band's music may have influenced his work. Martin made a guest appearance as himself in an episode, "El Skeletorito", of the Adult Swim show Robot Chicken. He also appeared in SyFy's Z Nation as a zombie version of himself in season two's "The Collector", where he is still signing copies of his new novel. In Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!, he is killed when watching a movie at the theatre. Philanthropy In 2014, Martin launched a campaign on Prizeo to raise funds for Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary and the Food Depot of Santa Fe. As part of the campaign, Martin offered one donor the chance to accompany him on a trip to the wolf sanctuary, including a helicopter ride and dinner. Martin also offered those donating $20,000 or more the opportunity to have a character named after them and "killed off" in an upcoming A Song of Ice and Fire novel. The campaign garnered media attention and raised a total of $502,549. In 2017, Martin announced that he was funding The Miskatonic Scholarship. The Miskatonic Scholarship allows a writer of Lovecraftian cosmic horror to attend the Odyssey workshop, a six-week writing workshop held at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. Politics Growing up, Martin avoided the draft to the Vietnam War by being a conscientious objector and did two years of alternative service. He generally opposes war and thought the Vietnam War was a "terrible mistake for America". He has also written against the glory of war and tries to describe war realistically in his books. While he did not endorse Barack Obama in 2008, Martin endorsed him for re-election in 2012 calling Obama the most intelligent president since Jimmy Carter. In 2014, Martin endorsed Democratic Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico. In the midst of pressure to pull the 2014 feature film The Interview from theaters, the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which has been owned by Martin since 2013, decided to show the film. Theater manager Jon Bowman told the Santa Fe New Mexican: "Martin feels strongly about the First Amendment and the idea of artists having the ability to speak their minds and not having to worry about being targets." On November 20, 2015, writing on his LiveJournal blog, Martin advocated for allowing Syrian refugees into the United States. Immediately following Bernie Sanders' defeat in the U.S. Democratic primary election, he supported Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the general 2016 United States presidential election, and criticized Donald Trump during the election and following her defeat, commenting that Trump would "become the worst president in American history". In May 2019, Martin endorsed Joe Biden for president in 2020. Awards 1975 Hugo Award for Best Novella for "A Song for Lya" 1976 Locus Award for Best Novella for The Storms of Windhaven (with Lisa Tuttle) 1977 Locus Award for Best Author Collection for A Song for Lya and Other Stories 1979 Nebula Award for Best Novelette for "Sandkings" 1980 Hugo Award for Best Novelette for "Sandkings" (This is Martin's only story to win both a Hugo and a Nebula.) 1980 Hugo Award for Best Short Story for "The Way of Cross and Dragon" 1980 Locus Award for Best Short Story for The Way of Cross and Dragon 1980 Locus Award for Best Novelette for Sandkings 1981 Locus Award for Best Novella for Nightflyers 1982 Locus Award for Best Single Author Collection for Sandkings 1982 Locus Award for Best Novelette for Guardians 1984 Locus Award for Best Novelette for The Monkey Treatment 1985 Nebula Award for Best Novelette for "Portraits of His Children" 1988 Inkpot Award 1988 Bram Stoker Award for Long Fiction for "The Pear-Shaped Man" 1989 World Fantasy Award for Best Novella for "The Skin Trade" 1997 Hugo Award for Best Novella for "Blood of the Dragon" 1997 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel for A Game of Thrones 1999 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel for A Clash of Kings 2001 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel for A Storm of Swords 2003 Premio Ignotus for Best Foreign Novel for A Game of Thrones 2004 Premio Ignotus for Best Foreign Novel for A Clash of Kings 2006 Premio Ignotus for Best Foreign Novel for A Storm of Swords 2011 Locus Award for Best Original Anthology for Warriors (co-edited with Gardner Dozois) 2011 Goodreads Choice Award Best Fantasy for A Dance with Dragons Declared by Time "One of the Most Influential People of 2011" 2012 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel for A Dance with Dragons 2012 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form for Game of Thrones, Season 1 (co-executive producer) 2012 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement 2013 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form for Game of Thrones, Season 2, Episode 9, "Blackwater" (screenwriter) 2014 Locus Award for Best Original Anthology for Old Mars (co-edited with Gardner Dozois) 2014 World Fantasy Award for Best Original Anthology for Dangerous Women (co-edited with Gardner Dozois) 2015 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series — Game of Thrones, Season 5 (co-executive producer) 2015 Northwestern University Medill Hall of Achievement Award 2015 Locus Award for Best Original Anthology for Rogues (co-edited with Gardner Dozois) 2016 Locus Award for Best Original Anthology for Old Venus (co-edited with Gardner Dozois) 2016 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series — Game of Thrones, Season 6 (co-executive producer) 2018 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series — Game of Thrones, Season 7 (co-executive producer) 2019 New Jersey Hall of Fame induction 2019 An Post International Recognition Award 2019 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series — Game of Thrones, Season 8 (co-executive producer) 2021 Honorary Doctorate, Northwestern University Nominations 1988 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series for Beauty and the Beast (as producer) 1989 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series for Beauty and the Beast (as producer) 1997 Nebula Award for Best Novel for A Game of Thrones 1999 Nebula Award for Best Novel for A Clash of Kings 2001 Nebula Award for Best Novel for A Storm of Swords 2001 Hugo Award for Best Novel for A Storm of Swords 2006 Hugo Award for Best Novel for A Feast for Crows 2006 Quill Award for A Feast for Crows British Fantasy Award for A Feast for Crows 2011 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series for Game of Thrones, Season 1 (co-executive producer) 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novel for A Dance with Dragons 2012 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series for Game of Thrones, Season 2 (co-executive producer) 2013 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series for Game of Thrones, Season 3 (co-executive producer) 2014 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series for Game of Thrones, Season 4 (co-executive producer) Bibliography Editor New Voices in Science Fiction (1977: new stories by the John W. Campbell Award winners) New Voices in Science Fiction 2 (1979: more new stories by the John W. Campbell Award winners) New Voices in Science Fiction 3 (1980: more new stories by the John W. Campbell Award winners) New Voices in Science Fiction 4 (1981: more new stories by the John W. Campbell Award winners) The Science Fiction Weight Loss Book (1983) edited with Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg ("Stories by the Great Science Fiction Writers on Fat, Thin, and Everything in Between") The John W. Campbell Awards, Volume 5 (1984, continuation of the New Voices in Science Fiction series) Night Visions 3 (1986) Wild Cards series editor (also contributor to many volumes) Wild Cards (1987; contents expanded in 2010 edition with three new stories/authors) Wild Cards II: Aces High (1987) Wild Cards III: Jokers Wild (1987) Wild Cards IV: Aces Abroad (1988; Book I of the Puppetman Quartet; contents expanded in 2015 edition with two new stories/authors) Wild Cards V: Down & Dirty (1988; Book II of the Puppetman Quartet) Wild Cards VI: Ace in the Hole (1990; Book III of the Puppetman Quartet) Wild Cards VII: Dead Man's Hand (1990; Book IV of the Puppetman Quartet) Wild Cards VIII: One-Eyed Jacks (1991; Book I of the Rox Triad) Wild Cards IX: Jokertown Shuffle (1991; Book II of the Rox Triad) Wild Cards X: Double Solitaire (1992) Wild Cards XI: Dealer's Choice (1992; Book III of the Rox Triad) Wild Cards XII: Turn of the Cards (1993) Wild Cards XIII: Card Sharks (1993; Book I of the Card Shark Triad) Wild Cards XIV: Marked Cards (1994; Book II of the Card Shark Triad) Wild Cards XV: Black Trump (1995; Book III of the Card Shark Triad) Wild Cards XVI: Deuces Down (2002) Wild Cards XVII: Death Draws Five (2006; solo novel by John J. Miller) Wild Cards XVIII: Inside Straight (2008; Book I of The Committee triad) Wild Cards XIX: Busted Flush (2008; Book II of The Committee triad) Wild Cards XX: Suicide Kings (2009; Book III of The Committee triad) Wild Cards XXI: Fort Freak (2011; Book I of the Mean Streets Triad) Wild Cards XXII: Lowball (2014; Book II of the Mean Streets Triad) Wild Cards XXIII: High Stakes (2016; Book III of the Mean Streets Triad) Wild Cards XXIV: Mississippi Roll (2017; Book I of the American Triad) Wild Cards XXV: Low Chicago (2018; Book II of the American Triad) Wild Cards XXVI: Texas Hold 'Em (2018; Book III of the American Triad) Wild Cards XXVII: Knaves Over Queens (2019; Book I of the British Arc) Wild Cards XXVIII: Three Kings (2020; Book II of the British Arc) Wild Cards XXIX: Joker Moon (2021) Wild Cards XXX: Full House (2022) Wild Cards XXXI: Pairing Up (TBA) Cross-genre anthologies edited (with Gardner Dozois) Songs of the Dying Earth (2009; a tribute anthology to Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, first published by Subterranean Press) Warriors (2010; a cross-genre anthology featuring stories about war and warriors; winner of the 2011 Locus Poll Award for Best Original Anthology) Songs of Love and Death (2010; a cross-genre anthology featuring stories of romance in fantasy and science fiction settings, originally entitled Star Crossed Lovers) Down These Strange Streets (2011; a cross-genre anthology that blends classic detective stories with fantasy and science fiction) Old Mars (2013; a science fiction anthology featuring all new, retro-themed stories about the Red Planet) Dangerous Women (2013; a cross-genre anthology focusing on women warriors and strong female characters, originally titled Femmes Fatale) Rogues (2014; a cross-genre anthology featuring new stories about assorted rogues) Old Venus (2015 publication; an anthology of all new, retro-themed Venus science fiction stories) Filmography Film Television Video games References External links George R. R. Martin at the Encyclopedia of Fantasy George R. R. Martin at the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction 1948 births Living people 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American agnostics American bloggers American conscientious objectors American entertainment industry businesspeople American fantasy writers American horror writers American science fiction writers American television writers American people of English descent American people of French descent American people of German descent American people of Irish descent American people of Jewish descent Hugo Award-winning writers Inkpot Award winners Nebula Award winners World Fantasy Award-winning writers New Mexico Democrats American male television writers Medill School of Journalism alumni Writers from Bayonne, New Jersey Writers from Santa Fe, New Mexico People from Bernalillo County, New Mexico Science fiction fans Former Roman Catholics Clarke University faculty Theatre owners American male novelists American male screenwriters American male short story writers 20th-century American short story writers 21st-century American short story writers Novelists from New Jersey Novelists from New Mexico Screenwriters from New Mexico American male bloggers Weird fiction writers 20th-century American male writers Television producers from New Jersey

A gopher, also known as a "pocket gopher" (family Geomyidae), is a burrowing rodent native to North America and Central America. Gopher may also refer to: Nature Some species of ground squirrels (tribe Marmotini) of North America, particularly those formerly classified as Spermophilus, are informally referred to as "gophers" Gopher snake – common name of several species of genus Pituophis endemic to west or southwest of North America Gopher tortoise (genus Gopherus), distributed in North America Gopher wood, of unclear meaning, mentioned in the Bible as the building material for Noah's ark Gopher Plant or Paper Spurge (Euphorbia lathyris) Entertainment Gophers!, a British children's television programme "Gopher", real name Burl Smith, a character on TV show The Love Boat Gopher (Winnie-the-Pooh), a character in Walt Disney's Winnie The Pooh franchise Technology The SA-13 "Gopher", or 9K35 Strela-10, a Soviet surface-to-air missile system Gopher (protocol), an early distributed hypertext protocol Go gopher, a mascot of Go programming language Slang term for a mobility scooter Other Minnesota, the "Gopher State" Minnesota Golden Gophers, University of Minnesota sports teams Gopher (train), a passenger train operated by the Great Northern Railway, USA Gopher (video game), an Atari 2600 game Gofer, also spelled "gopher", an errand-runner Gopher Gang, early 20th-century New York street gang See also Gofer (disambiguation) Gaufre, French term for a flat cake similar to waffles

Google Search (also known simply as Google), is a search engine provided by Google. Handling more than 3.5 billion searches per day, it has a 92% share of the global search engine market. It is also the most-visited website in the world. The order of search results returned by Google is based, in part, on a priority rank system called "PageRank". Google Search also provides many different options for customized searches, using symbols to include, exclude, specify or require certain search behavior, and offers specialized interactive experiences, such as flight status and package tracking, weather forecasts, currency, unit, and time conversions, word definitions, and more. The main purpose of Google Search is to search for text in publicly accessible documents offered by web servers, as opposed to other data, such as images or data contained in databases. It was originally developed in 1997 by Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Scott Hassan. In June 2011, Google introduced "Google Voice Search" to search for spoken, rather than typed, words. In May 2012, Google introduced a Knowledge Graph semantic search feature in the U.S. Analysis of the frequency of search terms may indicate economic, social and health trends. Data about the frequency of use of search terms on Google can be openly inquired via Google Trends and have been shown to correlate with flu outbreaks and unemployment levels, and provide the information faster than traditional reporting methods and surveys. As of mid-2016, Google's search engine has begun to rely on deep neural networks. Search indexing Google indexes hundreds of terabytes of information from web pages. For websites that are currently down or otherwise not available, Google provides links to cached versions of the site, formed by the search engine's latest indexing of that page. Additionally, Google indexes some file types, being able to show users PDFs, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, certain Flash multimedia content, and plain text files. Users can also activate "SafeSearch", a filtering technology aimed at preventing explicit and pornographic content from appearing in search results. Despite Google search's immense index, sources generally assume that Google is only indexing less than 5% of the total Internet, with the rest belonging to the deep web, inaccessible through its search tools. In 2012, Google changed its search indexing tools to demote sites that had been accused of piracy. In October 2016, Gary Illyes, a webmaster trends analyst with Google, announced that the search engine would be making a separate, primary web index dedicated for mobile devices, with a secondary, less up-to-date index for desktop use. The change was a response to the continued growth in mobile usage, and a push for web developers to adopt a mobile-friendly version of their websites. In December 2017, Google began rolling out the change, having already done so for multiple websites. "Caffeine" search architecture upgrade In August 2009, Google invited web developers to test a new search architecture, codenamed "Caffeine", and give their feedback. The new architecture provided no visual differences in the user interface, but added significant speed improvements and a new "under-the-hood" indexing infrastructure. The move was interpreted in some quarters as a response to Microsoft's recent release of an upgraded version of its own search service, renamed Bing, as well as the launch of Wolfram Alpha, a new search engine based on "computational knowledge". Google announced completion of "Caffeine" on June 8, 2010, claiming 50% fresher results due to continuous updating of its index. With "Caffeine", Google moved its back-end indexing system away from MapReduce and onto Bigtable, the company's distributed database platform. "Medic" search algorithm update In August 2018, Danny Sullivan from Google announced a broad core algorithm update. As per current analysis done by the industry leaders Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Land, the update was to drop down the medical and health-related websites that were not user friendly and were not providing good user experience. This is why the industry experts named it "Medic". Google reserves very high standards for YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) pages. This is because misinformation can affect users financially, physically, or emotionally. Therefore, the update targeted particularly those YMYL pages that have low-quality content and misinformation. This resulted in the algorithm targeting health and medical-related websites more than others. However, many other websites from other industries were also negatively affected. Performing a search Google Search consists of a series of localized websites. The largest of those, the google.com site, is the top most-visited website in the world. Some of its features include a definition link for most searches including dictionary words, the number of results you got on your search, links to other searches (e.g. for words that Google believes to be misspelled, it provides a link to the search results using its proposed spelling), and many more. Search syntax Google search accepts queries as normal text, as well as individual keywords. It automatically corrects misspelled words, and yields the same results regardless of capitalization. For more customized results, one can use a wide variety of operators, including, but not limited to: OR – Search for webpages containing one of two similar queries, such as marathon OR race - (minus sign) – Exclude a word or a phrase, so that "apple -tree" searches where word "tree" is not used "" – Force inclusion of a word or a phrase, such as "tallest building" * – Placeholder symbol allowing for any substitute words in the context of the query, such as "largest * in the world" .. – Search within a range of numbers, such as "camera $50..$100" site: – Search within a specific website, such as "site:youtube.com" define: – See a definition of a word, such as "define:phrase" stocks: – See the stock price of investments, such as "stocks:googl" related: – Find webpages related to specific URL addresses, such as "related:www.wikipedia.org" cache: – Highlights the search-words within the cached pages, so that "cache:www.google.com xxx" shows cached content with word "xxx" highlighted. @ – Search for a specific word on social media networks, such as "@twitter" Query expansion Google applies query expansion to submitted search queries, using techniques to deliver results that it considers "smarter" than the query users actually submitted. This technique involves several steps, including: Word stemming – Certain words can be reduced so other, similar terms, are also found in results, so that "translator" can also search for "translation" Acronyms – Searching for abbreviations can also return results about the name in its full length, so that "NATO" can show results for "North Atlantic Treaty Organization" Misspellings – Google will often suggest correct spellings for misspelled words Synonyms – In most cases where a word is incorrectly used in a phrase or sentence, Google search will show results based on the correct synonym Translations – The search engine can, in some instances, suggest results for specific words in a different language Ignoring words – In some search queries containing extraneous or insignificant words, Google search will simply drop those specific words from the query In 2008, Google started to give users autocompleted search suggestions in a list below the search bar while typing, originally with the approximate result count previewed for each listed search suggestion. "I'm Feeling Lucky" Google's homepage includes a button labeled "I'm Feeling Lucky". This feature originally allowed users to type in their search query, click the button and be taken directly to the first result, bypassing the search results page. With the 2010 announcement of Google Instant, an automatic feature that immediately displays relevant results as users are typing in their query, the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button disappears, requiring that users opt-out of Instant results through search settings to keep using the "I'm Feeling Lucky" functionality. In 2012, "I'm Feeling Lucky" was changed to serve as an advertisement for Google services; users hover their computer mouse over the button, it spins and shows an emotion ("I'm Feeling Puzzled" or "I'm Feeling Trendy", for instance), and, when clicked, takes users to a Google service related to that emotion. Tom Chavez of "Rapt", a firm helping to determine a website's advertising worth, estimated in 2007 that Google lost $110 million in revenue per year due to use of the button, which bypasses the advertisements found on the search results page. Special interactive features Besides the main text-based search-engine features of Google search, it also offers multiple quick, interactive experiences. These include, but are not limited to: Calculator Time zone, currency, and unit conversions Word translations Flight status Local film showings Weather forecasts Population and unemployment rates Package tracking Word definitions Metronome Roll a die "Do a barrel roll" (search page spins) "Askew" (results show up sideways) "OK Google" conversational search During Google's developer conference, Google I/O, in May 2013, the company announced that users on Google Chrome and Chrome OS would be able to have the browser initiate an audio-based search by saying "OK Google", with no button presses required. After having the answer presented, users can follow up with additional, contextual questions; an example include initially asking "OK Google, will it be sunny in Santa Cruz this weekend?", hearing a spoken answer, and reply with "how far is it from here?" An update to the Chrome browser with voice-search functionality rolled out a week later, though it required a button press on a microphone icon rather than "OK Google" voice activation. Google released a browser extension for the Chrome browser, named with a "beta" tag for unfinished development, shortly thereafter. In May 2014, the company officially added "OK Google" into the browser itself; they removed it in October 2015, citing low usage, though the microphone icon for activation remained available. In May 2016, 20% of search queries on mobile devices were done through voice. Search results Page layout At the top of the search page, the approximate result count and the response time two digits behind decimal is noted. Of search results, page titles and URLs, dates, and a preview text snippet for each result appears. Along with web search results, sections with images, news, and videos may appear. The length of the previewed text snipped was experimented with in 2015 and 2017. Universal search "Universal search" was launched by Google on May 16, 2007, as an idea that merged the results from different kinds of search types into one. Prior to Universal search, a standard Google search would consist of links only to websites. Universal search, however, incorporates a wide variety of sources, including websites, news, pictures, maps, blogs, videos, and more, all shown on the same search results page. Marissa Mayer, then-vice president of search products and user experience, described the goal of Universal search as "we're attempting to break down the walls that traditionally separated our various search properties and integrate the vast amounts of information available into one simple set of search results. In June 2017, Google expanded its search results to cover available job listings. The data is aggregated from various major job boards and collected by analyzing company homepages. Initially only available in English, the feature aims to simplify finding jobs suitable for each user. Rich snippets In May 2009, Google announced that they would be parsing website microformats to populate search result pages with "Rich snippets". Such snippets include additional details about results, such as displaying reviews for restaurants and social media accounts for individuals. In May 2016, Google expanded on the "Rich snippets" format to offer "Rich cards", which, similarly to snippets, display more information about results, but shows them at the top of the mobile website in a swipeable carousel-like format. Originally limited to movie and recipe websites in the United States only, the feature expanded to all countries globally in 2017. Now the web publishers can have greater control over the rich snippets. Preview settings from these meta tags will become effective in mid-to-late October 2019 and may take about a week for the global rollout to complete. Knowledge Graph The Knowledge Graph is a knowledge base used by Google to enhance its search engine's results with information gathered from a variety of sources. This information is presented to users in a box to the right of search results. Knowledge Graph boxes were added to Google's search engine in May 2012, starting in the United States, with international expansion by the end of the year. The information covered by the Knowledge Graph grew significantly after launch, tripling its original size within seven months, and being able to answer "roughly one-third" of the 100 billion monthly searches Google processed in May 2016. The information is often used as a spoken answer in Google Assistant and Google Home searches. The Knowledge Graph has been criticized for providing answers without source attribution. Google Search has been accused of using a so-called zero-click search to prevent a large part of the traffic leaving its page to third-party publishers. As a result, 71% of searches end on the Google search page. In case of one specific query out of 890,000 searches on Google, only 30,000 resulted in the user clicking on the results website. Personal tab In May 2017, Google enabled a new "Personal" tab in Google Search, letting users search for content in their Google accounts' various services, including email messages from Gmail and photos from Google Photos. Google Discover Google Discover, previously known as Google Feed, is a personalized stream of articles, videos, and other news-related content. The feed contains a "mix of cards" which show topics of interest based on users' interactions with Google, or topics they choose to follow directly. Cards include, "links to news stories, YouTube videos, sports scores, recipes, and other content based on what [Google] determined you're most likely to be interested in at that particular moment." Users can also tell Google they're not interested in certain topics to avoid seeing future updates. Google Discover launched in December 2016 and received a major update in July 2017. Another major update was released in September 2018, which renamed the app from Google Feed to Google Discover, updated the design, and adding more features. Discover can be found on a tab in the Google app and by swiping left on the home screen of certain Android devices. As of 2019, Google will not allow political campaigns worldwide to target their advertisement to people to make them vote. Ranking of results PageRank Google's rise was largely due to a patented algorithm called PageRank which helps rank web pages that match a given search string. When Google was a Stanford research project, it was nicknamed BackRub because the technology checks backlinks to determine a site's importance. Other keyword-based methods to rank search results, used by many search engines that were once more popular than Google, would check how often the search terms occurred in a page, or how strongly associated the search terms were within each resulting page. The PageRank algorithm instead analyzes human-generated links assuming that web pages linked from many important pages are also important. The algorithm computes a recursive score for pages, based on the weighted sum of other pages linking to them. PageRank is thought to correlate well with human concepts of importance. In addition to PageRank, Google, over the years, has added many other secret criteria for determining the ranking of resulting pages. This is reported to comprise over 250 different indicators, the specifics of which are kept secret to avoid difficulties created by scammers and help Google maintain an edge over its competitors globally. PageRank was influenced by a similar page-ranking and site-scoring algorithm earlier used for RankDex, developed by Robin Li in 1996. Larry Page's patent for PageRank filed in 1998 includes a citation to Li's earlier patent. Li later went on to create the Chinese search engine Baidu in 2000. In a potential hint of Google's future direction of their Search algorithm, Google's then chief executive Eric Schmidt, said in a 2007 interview with the Financial Times: "The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as 'What shall I do tomorrow?' and 'What job shall I take?'". Schmidt reaffirmed this during a 2010 interview with the Wall Street Journal: "I actually think most people don't want Google to answer their questions, they want Google to tell them what they should be doing next." In 2013 the European Commission found that Google Search favored Google's own products, instead of the best result for consumers' needs. In February 2015 Google announced a major change to its mobile search algorithm which would favor mobile friendly over other websites. Nearly 60% of Google searches come from mobile phones. Google says it wants users to have access to premium quality websites. Those websites which lack a mobile-friendly interface would be ranked lower and it is expected that this update will cause a shake-up of ranks. Businesses who fail to update their websites accordingly could see a dip in their regular websites traffic. Google optimization Because Google is the most popular search engine, many webmasters attempt to influence their website's Google rankings. An industry of consultants has arisen to help websites increase their rankings on Google and other search engines. This field, called search engine optimization, attempts to discern patterns in search engine listings, and then develop a methodology for improving rankings to draw more searchers to their clients' sites. Search engine optimization encompasses both "on page" factors (like body copy, title elements, H1 heading elements and image alt attribute values) and Off Page Optimization factors (like anchor text and PageRank). The general idea is to affect Google's relevance algorithm by incorporating the keywords being targeted in various places "on page", in particular the title element and the body copy (note: the higher up in the page, presumably the better its keyword prominence and thus the ranking). Too many occurrences of the keyword, however, cause the page to look suspect to Google's spam checking algorithms. Google has published guidelines for website owners who would like to raise their rankings when using legitimate optimization consultants. It has been hypothesized, and, allegedly, is the opinion of the owner of one business about which there have been numerous complaints, that negative publicity, for example, numerous consumer complaints, may serve as well to elevate page rank on Google Search as favorable comments. The particular problem addressed in The New York Times article, which involved DecorMyEyes, was addressed shortly thereafter by an undisclosed fix in the Google algorithm. According to Google, it was not the frequently published consumer complaints about DecorMyEyes which resulted in the high ranking but mentions on news websites of events which affected the firm such as legal actions against it. Google Search Console helps to check for websites that use duplicate or copyright content. "Hummingbird" search algorithm upgrade In 2013, Google significantly upgraded its search algorithm with "Hummingbird". Its name was derived from the speed and accuracy of the hummingbird. The change was announced on September 26, 2013, having already been in use for a month. "Hummingbird" places greater emphasis on natural language queries, considering context and meaning over individual keywords. It also looks deeper at content on individual pages of a website, with improved ability to lead users directly to the most appropriate page rather than just a website's homepage. The upgrade marked the most significant change to Google search in years, with more "human" search interactions and a much heavier focus on conversation and meaning. Thus, web developers and writers were encouraged to optimize their sites with natural writing rather than forced keywords, and make effective use of technical web development for on-site navigation. Google Doodles On certain occasions, the logo on Google's webpage will change to a special version, known as a "Google Doodle". This is a picture, drawing, animation, or interactive game that includes the logo. It is usually done for a special event or day although not all of them are well known. Clicking on the Doodle links to a string of Google search results about the topic. The first was a reference to the Burning Man Festival in 1998, and others have been produced for the birthdays of notable people like Albert Einstein, historical events like the interlocking Lego block's 50th anniversary and holidays like Valentine's Day. Some Google Doodles have interactivity beyond a simple search, such as the famous "Google Pacman" version that appeared on May 21, 2010. Smartphone apps Google offers a "Google Search" mobile app for Android and iOS devices. The mobile apps exclusively feature Google Discover and a "Collections" feature, in which the user can save for later perusal any type of search result like images, bookmarks or map locations into groups. Android devices were introduced to a preview of the feed in December 2016, while it was made official on both Android and iOS in July 2017. In April 2016, Google updated its Search app on Android to feature "Trends"; search queries gaining popularity appeared in the autocomplete box along with normal query autocompletion. The update received significant backlash, due to encouraging search queries unrelated to users' interests or intentions, prompting the company to issue an update with an opt-out option. In September 2017, the Google Search app on iOS was updated to feature the same functionality. In December 2017, Google released "Google Go", an app designed to enable use of Google Search on physically smaller and lower-spec devices in multiple languages. A Google blog post about designing "India-first" products and features explains that it is "tailor-made for the millions of people in [India and Indonesia] coming online for the first time". Discontinued features Translate foreign pages Until May 2013, Google Search had offered a feature to translate search queries into other languages. A Google spokesperson told Search Engine Land that "Removing features is always tough, but we do think very hard about each decision and its implications for our users. Unfortunately, this feature never saw much pick up". Instant search was announced in September 2010 as a feature that displayed suggested results while the user typed in their search query, initially only in select countries or to registered users. The primary advantage of the new system was its ability to save time, with Marissa Mayer, then-vice president of search products and user experience, proclaiming that the feature would save 2–5 seconds per search, elaborating that "That may not seem like a lot at first, but it adds up. With Google Instant, we estimate that we'll save our users 11 hours with each passing second!" Matt Van Wagner of Search Engine Land wrote that "Personally, I kind of like Google Instant and I think it represents a natural evolution in the way search works", and also praised Google's efforts in public relations, writing that "With just a press conference and a few well-placed interviews, Google has parlayed this relatively minor speed improvement into an attention-grabbing front-page news story". The upgrade also became notable for the company switching Google Search's underlying technology from HTML to AJAX. Instant Search could be disabled via Google's "preferences" menu for those who didn't want its functionality. The publication 2600: The Hacker Quarterly compiled a list of words that Google Instant did not show suggested results for, with a Google spokesperson giving the following statement to Mashable: PC Magazine discussed the inconsistency in how some forms of the same topic are allowed; for instance, "lesbian" was blocked, while "gay" was not, and "cocaine" was blocked, while "crack" and "heroin" were not. The report further stated that seemingly normal words were also blocked due to pornographic innuendos, most notably "scat", likely due to having two completely separate contextual meanings, one for music and one for a sexual practice. On July 26, 2017, Google removed Instant results, due to a growing number of searches on mobile devices, where interaction with search, as well as screen sizes, differ significantly from a computer. "Instant previews" allowed previewing screenshots of search results' web pages without having to open them. The feature was introduced in November 2010 to the desktop website and removed in April 2013 citing low usage. Dedicated encrypted search page Various search engines provide encrypted Web search facilities. In May 2010 Google rolled out SSL-encrypted web search. The encrypted search was accessed at encrypted.google.com However, the web search is encrypted via Transport Layer Security (TLS) by default today, thus every search request should be automatically encrypted if TLS is supported by the web browser. On its support website, Google announced that the address encrypted.google.com would be turned off April 30, 2018, stating that all Google products and most new browsers use HTTPS connections as the reason for the discontinuation. Real-Time Search Google Real-Time Search was a feature of Google Search in which search results also sometimes included real-time information from sources such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and news websites. The feature was introduced on December 7, 2009 and went offline on July 2, 2011, after the deal with Twitter expired. Real-Time Search included Facebook status updates beginning on February 24, 2010. A feature similar to Real-Time Search was already available on Microsoft's Bing search engine, which showed results from Twitter and Facebook. The interface for the engine showed a live, descending "river" of posts in the main region (which could be paused or resumed), while a bar chart metric of the frequency of posts containing a certain search term or hashtag was located on the right hand corner of the page above a list of most frequently reposted posts and outgoing links. Hashtag search links were also supported, as were "promoted" tweets hosted by Twitter (located persistently on top of the river) and thumbnails of retweeted image or video links. In January 2011, geolocation links of posts were made available alongside results in Real-Time Search. In addition, posts containing syndicated or attached shortened links were made searchable by the link: query option. In July 2011 Real-Time Search became inaccessible, with the Real-Time link in the Google sidebar disappearing and a custom 404 error page generated by Google returned at its former URL. Google originally suggested that the interruption was temporary and related to the launch of Google+; they subsequently announced that it was due to the expiry of a commercial arrangement with Twitter to provide access to tweets. Privacy Searches made by search engines, including Google, leave traces. This raises concerns about privacy. In principle, if details of a user's searches are found, those with access to the information—principally state agencies responsible for law enforcement and similar matters—can make deductions about the user's activities. This has been used for the detection and prosecution of lawbreakers; for example a murderer was found and convicted after searching for terms such as "tips with killing with a baseball bat". A search may leave traces both on a computer used to make the search, and in records kept by the search provider. When using a search engine through a browser program on a computer, search terms and other information may be stored on the computer by default, unless the browser is set not to do this, or they are erased. Saved terms may be discovered on forensic analysis of the computer. An Internet service provider (ISP) or search engine provider (e.g. Google) may store records which relate search terms to an IP address and a time. Whether such logs are kept, and access to them by law enforcement agencies, is subject to legislation in different jurisdictions and working practices; the law may mandate, prohibit, or say nothing about logging of various types of information. Some search engines, located in jurisdictions where it is not illegal, make a feature of not storing user search information. The keywords suggested by the Autocomplete feature show a population of users' research which is made possible by an identity management system. Volumes of personal data are collected via Eddystone web and proximity beacons. Google has been criticized for placing long-term cookies on users' machines to store these preferences, a tactic which also enables them to track a user's search terms and retain the data for more than a year. Since 2012, Google Inc. has globally introduced encrypted connections for most of its clients, to bypass governative blockings of the commercial and IT services. Redesign In late June 2011, Google introduced a new look to the Google home page in order to boost the use of the Google+ social tools. One of the major changes was replacing the classic navigation bar with a black one. Google's digital creative director Chris Wiggins explains: "We're working on a project to bring you a new and improved Google experience, and over the next few months, you'll continue to see more updates to our look and feel." The new navigation bar has been negatively received by a vocal minority. In November 2013, Google started testing yellow labels for advertisements displayed in search results, to improve user experience. The new labels, highlighted in yellow color, and aligned to the left of each sponsored link help users differentiate between organic and sponsored results. On December 15, 2016, Google rolled out a new desktop search interface that mimics their modular mobile user interface. The mobile design consists of a tabular design that highlights search features in boxes. and works by imitating the desktop Knowledge Graph real estate, which appears in the right-hand rail of the search engine result page, these featured elements frequently feature Twitter carousels, People Also Search For, and Top Stories (vertical and horizontal design) modules. The Local Pack and Answer Box were two of the original features of the Google SERP that were primarily showcased in this manner, but this new layout creates a previously unseen level of design consistency for Google results. Search products In addition to its tool for searching web pages, Google also provides services for searching images, Usenet newsgroups, news websites, videos (Google Videos), searching by locality, maps, and items for sale online. Google Videos allows searching the World Wide Web for video clips. The service evolved from Google Video, Google's discontinued video hosting service that also allowed to search the web for video clips. In 2012, Google has indexed over 30 trillion web pages, and received 100 billion queries per month. It also caches much of the content that it indexes. Google operates other tools and services including Google News, Google Shopping, Google Maps, Google Custom Search, Google Earth, Google Docs, Picasa (discontinued), Panoramio (discontinued), YouTube, Google Translate, Google Blog Search and Google Desktop Search (discontinued). There are also products available from Google that are not directly search-related. Gmail, for example, is a webmail application, but still includes search features; Google Browser Sync does not offer any search facilities, although it aims to organize your browsing time. Energy consumption In 2009, Google claimed that a search query requires altogether about 1 kJ or 0.0003 kW·h, which is enough to raise the temperature of one liter of water by 0.24 °C. According to green search engine Ecosia, the industry standard for search engines is estimated to be about 0.2 grams of CO2 emission per search. Google's 40,000 searches per second translate to 8 kg CO2 per second or over 252 million kilos of CO2 per year. Criticism Complaints about indexing In 2003, The New York Times complained about Google's indexing, claiming that Google's caching of content on its site infringed its copyright for the content. In both Field v. Google and Parker v. Google, the United States District Court of Nevada ruled in favor of Google. January 2009 malware bug Google flags search results with the message "This site may harm your computer" if the site is known to install malicious software in the background or otherwise surreptitiously. For approximately 40 minutes on January 31, 2009, all search results were mistakenly classified as malware and could therefore not be clicked; instead a warning message was displayed and the user was required to enter the requested URL manually. The bug was caused by human error. The URL of "/" (which expands to all URLs) was mistakenly added to the malware patterns file. Possible misuse of search results In 2007, a group of researchers observed a tendency for users to rely on Google Search exclusively for finding information, writing that "With the Google interface the user gets the impression that the search results imply a kind of totality. ... In fact, one only sees a small part of what one could see if one also integrates other research tools." In 2011, Google Search query results have been shown by Internet activist Eli Pariser to be tailored to users, effectively isolating users in what he defined as a filter bubble. Pariser holds algorithms used in search engines such as Google Search responsible for catering "a personal ecosystem of information". Although contrasting views have mitigated the potential threat of "informational dystopia" and questioned the scientific nature of Pariser's claims, filter bubbles have been mentioned to account for the surprising results of the U.S. presidential election in 2016 alongside fake news and echo chambers, suggesting that Facebook and Google have designed personalized online realities in which "we only see and hear what we like". FTC fines In 2012, the US Federal Trade Commission fined Google US$22.5 million for violating their agreement not to violate the privacy of users of Apple's Safari web browser. The FTC was also continuing to investigate if Google's favoring of their own services in their search results violated antitrust regulations. Big Data and human bias Google search engine robots are programmed to use algorithms that understand and predict human behavior. The book, Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code by Ruha Benjamin talks about human bias as a behavior that the Google search engine can recognize. In 2016, some users google searched "three Black teenagers" and images of criminal mugshots of young African American teenagers came up. Then, the users searched "three White teenagers" and were presented with photos of smiling, happy teenagers. They also searched for "three Asian teenagers", and very revealing photos of Asian girls and women appeared. Benjamin concluded that these results reflect human prejudice and views on different ethnic groups. A group of analysts explained the concept of a racist computer program: "The idea here is that computers, unlike people, can't be racist but we're increasingly learning that they do in fact take after their makers...Some experts believe that this problem might stem from the hidden biases in the massive piles of data that the algorithms process as they learn to recognize patterns...reproducing our worst values". Trademark As people talk about "googling" rather than searching, the company has taken some steps to defend its trademark, in an effort to prevent it from becoming a generic trademark. This has led to lawsuits, threats of lawsuits, and the use of euphemisms, such as calling Google Search a famous web search engine. See also Timeline of Google Search Censorship by Google § Google Search Google (verb) Dragonfly (search engine) Google bomb Google Panda Google Penguin Googlewhack Halalgoogling Reunion List of search engines Comparison of web search engines History of Google List of Google products References Further reading Google Hacks from O'Reilly is a book containing tips about using Google effectively. Now in its third edition (2006). . Google: The Missing Manual by Sarah Milstein and Rael Dornfest (O'Reilly, 2004). How to Do Everything with Google by Fritz Schneider, Nancy Blachman, and Eric Fredricksen (McGraw-Hill Osborne Media, 2003). Google Power by Chris Sherman (McGraw-Hill Osborne Media, 2005). External links The Original Google! Google search trends Internet search engines Alphabet Inc. Search Multilingual websites Internet properties established in 1997 Computer-related introductions in 1997 1997 establishments in the United States Websites which mirror Wikipedia

Giulio Alberoni (30 May 1664 OS – 26 June NS 1752) was an Italian cardinal and statesman in the service of Philip V of Spain. He is known also for being a remarkable soldier and great gourmet who advised the Spanish court on table manners and menus. Early years He was born near Piacenza, probably at the village of Fiorenzuola d'Arda in the Duchy of Parma. His father was a gardener, and he himself became first connected with the church in the humble position of a bellringer and verger in the Duomo of Piacenza; he was twenty-one when the judge Ignazio Gardini, of Ravenna, was banished, and he followed Gardini to Ravenna, where he met the vice-legate Giorgio Barni, who was made bishop of Piacenza in 1688 and appointed Alberoni chamberlain of his household. Alberoni took priest's orders, and afterwards accompanied the son of his patron to Rome. During the War of the Spanish Succession Alberoni laid the foundation of his political success by the services he rendered to Louis-Joseph, duc de Vendôme, commander of the French forces in Italy, to whom the duke of Parma had sent him. That a low-ranking priest was used as envoy was due to the duke's rude manners: the previous envoy, the bishop of Parma, had quit because the duke had wiped his buttocks in front of him: Saint-Simon in his Mémoires relates that Alberoni gained Vendôme's favor when he was received in the same way, but reacted adroitly by kissing the duke's buttocks and crying "O culo di angelo!". The duke was amused, and this joke started Alberoni's brilliant career. When the French forces were recalled in 1706, he accompanied the duke to Paris, where he was favourably received by Louis XIV. Middle years Alberoni accompanied Vendôme to Spain as his secretary and became very active in promoting the cause of the French candidate Philip V. Following Vendôme's death, in 1713 he was made a Count and appointed Consular agent for Parma at Philip's court where he was a Royal favourite. Under the terms of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, Philip became King of Spain but the Spanish Empire was effectively partitioned. The Southern Netherlands and their Italian possessions were ceded to the Austrian Habsburgs and Savoy, Menorca and Gibraltar went to Britain while British merchants gained trading rights in the previously closed market of the Spanish Americas. At this time, the key powerbroker at the Spanish court was Marie-Anne de la Trémoille, princesse des Ursins who dominated Phillip and his wife Maria Luisa of Savoy. Alberoni worked with her and when Maria Luisa died in 1714 they arranged for Philip to marry Elisabetta Farnese, daughter of the Duke of Parma. Elisabetta was a strong personality herself and formed an alliance with Alberoni, their first action being to banish the Princesse des Ursins. By the end of 1715, Alberoni had been made a Duke and Grandee of Spain, a member of the King's council, Bishop of Málaga and Chief Minister of the Hispanic Monarchy. In July 1717, Pope Clement XI appointed him Cardinal, allegedly because of his assistance in resolving several ecclesiastical disputes between Rome and Madrid in favour of Rome. One outcome of the war was to reduce the powers of Castile and Aragon and create a Spanish state similar to the centralised French system. This allowed Alberoni to copy the economic reforms of Colbert and he passed a series of decrees aimed at restoring the Spanish economy. These abolished internal custom-houses, promoted trade with the Americas, instituted a regular mail service to the colonies and reorganised state finances along lines established by the French economist Jean Orry. Some attempts were made to satisfy Spanish conservatives e.g. a new School of Navigation was reserved for the sons of the nobility. These reforms made Spain confident enough to attempt the recovery of territories in Italy ceded to Savoy and Charles VI of Austria. In 1717, a Spanish force occupied Sardinia unopposed; neither Austria or Savoy had significant naval forces and Austria was engaged in the Austro-Turkish War of 1716–18. This assumed the British would not intervene but when 38,000 Spanish troops landed on Sicily in 1718, Britain declared it a violation of Utrecht. On 2 August 1718, Britain, France, the Netherlands and the Austrians formed the Quadruple Alliance and on 11 August the Royal Navy destroyed a Spanish fleet off Sicily at the Battle of Cape Passaro. Alberoni now attempted to offset British in the Mediterranean by sponsoring a Jacobite landing to divert their naval resources; he also sought to end the 1716 Anglo-French Alliance by using the Cellamare conspiracy to replace the current French Regent the Duke of Orleans with Phillip of Spain. However, he failed to appreciate that Britain was now powerful enough to maintain naval superiority in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic while France declared war on Spain in December 1718 on discovery of the Conspiracy. France invaded eastern Spain and in October 1719 a British naval expedition captured the Spanish port of Vigo; they landed 6,000 troops, held Vigo for ten days, destroyed vast quantities of stores and equipment and then re-embarked unopposed. The nearby city of Santiago de Compostela even paid £40,000 in return for being left alone. As intended, this was a crushing demonstration of British naval power and showed the Spanish Britain could land anywhere along their coastline and leave when they wanted to. The failure of his policy meant Alberoni was dismissed on 5 December 1719 and ordered to leave Spain, with the Treaty of The Hague in 1720 confirming the outcome of Utrecht. Later years He went to Italy, escaped from arrest at Genoa, and had to take refuge among the Apennines, Pope Clement XI, who was his bitter enemy, having given strict orders for his arrest. On the death of Clement in 1721, Alberoni boldly appeared at the conclave, and took part in the election of Innocent XIII, after which he was for a short time imprisoned by the new pontiff on the demand of Spain on charges including sodomy (Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatine noted in her diaries that he was a pederast). He was ultimately cleared by a commission of his fellow Cardinals. At the next election (1724) he was himself proposed for the papal chair, and secured ten votes at the conclave that elected Benedict XIII. Benedict's successor, Clement XII (elected 1730), named him legate of Ravenna, where he erected the Porta Alberoni (1739), a magnificent gateway that formerly provided access to the city's dockyards, and has since been moved to the entrance of the Teatro Rasi. That same year, the strong and unwarrantable measures he adopted to subject the grand republic of San Marino to the papal states incurred the pope's displeasure, and left a historical scar in that place's memory. He was soon replaced by another legate in 1740, and he retired to Piacenza, where in 1730 Clement XII appointed him administrator of the hospital of San Lazzaro, a medieval foundation for the benefit of lepers. Since leprosy had nearly disappeared in Italy, Alberoni obtained the consent of the pope to suppress the hospital, which had fallen into great disorder, and replaced it with a seminary for the priestly education of seventy poor boys, under the name of the Collegio Alberoni, which it still bears. The Cardinal's collections of art gathered in Rome and Piacenza, housed in his richly appointed private apartments, have been augmented by the Collegio. There are remarkable suites of Flemish tapestries, and paintings, among which the most famous is the Ecce Homo by Antonello da Messina (1473), but which also include panels by Jan Provoost and other Flemish artists, oil paintings by Domenico Maria Viani and Francesco Solimena. Alberoni was a gourmet. Interspersed in his official correspondence with Parma are requests for local delicacies triffole (truffles), salame, robiola cheeses, and agnolini (kind of pasta). The pork dish "Coppa del Cardinale", a specialty of Piacenza, is named for him. A "timballo Alberoni" combines maccaroni, shrimp sauce, mushrooms, butter and cheese. Death and legacy He died leaving a sum of 600,000 ducats to endow the seminary he had founded. He left the rest of the immense wealth he had acquired in Spain to his nephew. Alberoni produced many manuscripts. The genuineness of the Political Testament, published in his name at Lausanne in 1753, has been questioned. References and sources References Sources Kuethe, Allan J. "Cardinal Alberoni and Reform in the American Empire." in Francisco A. Eissa-Barroso y Ainara Vázquez Varela, eds. Early Bourbon Spanish America. Politics and Society in a forgotten Era (1700–1759) (Brill, 2013): 23–38. Catholic Encyclopedia: Giulio Alberoni Catholic Hierarchy: Giulio Cardinal Alberoni Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church: Conclave of 31 March – 8 May 1724 Collegio Alberoni, Piacenza The San Marino event of 1739–40 1664 births 1752 deaths People from Fiorenzuola d'Arda 18th-century Italian cardinals Grandees of Spain

Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and the largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kong and north of Macau, Guangzhou has a history of over 2,200 years and was a major terminus of the maritime Silk Road, and continues to serve as a major port and transportation hub, as well as one of China's three largest cities. Long the only Chinese port accessible to most foreign traders, Guangzhou was captured by the British during the First Opium War. No longer enjoying a monopoly after the war, it lost trade to other ports such as Hong Kong and Shanghai, but continued to serve as a major transshipment port. Due to a high urban population and large volumes of port traffic, Guangzhou is classified as a Large-Port Megacity, the largest type of port-city in the world. Guangzhou is at the heart of the most-populous built-up metropolitan area in mainland China, which extends into the neighboring cities of Foshan, Dongguan, Zhongshan, Shenzhen and part of Jiangmen, Huizhou, Zhuhai and Macao, forming the largest urban agglomeration on Earth with approximately 47.6 million inhabitants and part of the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone. Administratively, the city holds subprovincial status and is one of China's nine National Central Cities. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, nationals of sub-Saharan Africa who had initially settled in the Middle East and Southeast Asia moved in unprecedented numbers to Guangzhou in response to the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis. The domestic migrant population from other provinces of China in Guangzhou was 40% of the city's total population in 2008. Together with Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen, Guangzhou has one of the most expensive real estate markets in China. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city's expansive administrative area was 18,676,605 inhabitants (up to 47% from the previous census in 2010) whom 16,492,590 lived in 9 urban districts (all but Conghua and Zengcheng). In modern commerce, Guangzhou is best known for its annual Canton Fair, the oldest and largest trade fair in China. For three consecutive years (2013–2015), Forbes ranked Guangzhou as the best commercial city in mainland China. Guangzhou is highly ranked as an Alpha- (global first-tier) city together with San Francisco and Stockholm. As an important international city, Guangzhou has hosted numerous international and national sporting events, the most notable being the 2010 Asian Games, the 2010 Asian Para Games, and the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup. The city also hosts 65 foreign representatives, and ranks 10th in the world and 5th in China (after Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Shenzhen) in terms of the number of billionaire residents according to the Hurun Global Rich List 2020. Guangzhou has a high level of scientific research output, ranking 14th globally and 4th in China (after Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing), and is home to many of china's most prestigious universities, including Sun Yat-sen University, South China University of Technology, Jinan University, South China Normal University, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou University, Southern Medical University, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine. Toponymy Guǎngzhōu is the official romanization of the Chinese name . The name of the city is taken from the ancient "Guang Province" after it had become the prefecture's seat of government, which is how some other Chinese cities, including Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Fuzhou got their names. The character or —which also appears in the names of the provinces Guangdong and Guangxi, together called the Liangguang—means "broad" or "expansive" and refers to the intention to dispense imperial grace broadly in the region with the founding of the county of Guangxin in the Han Dynasty. Before acquiring its current name, the town was known as Panyu (Punyü; ), a name still borne by one of Guangzhou's districts not far from the main city. The origin of the name is still uncertain, with 11 various explanations being offered, including that it may have referred to two local mountains. The city has also sometimes been known as Guangzhou Fu or Guangfu after its status as the capital of a prefecture. From this latter name, Guangzhou was known to medieval Persians such as Al-Masudi and Ibn Khordadbeh as Khanfu (). Under the Southern Han, the city was renamed Xingwang Fu (). The Chinese abbreviation for Guangzhou is "," pronounced Seoi6 in Cantonese and Suì in Mandarin (although the abbreviation on car license plates, as with the rest of the province, is ), after its nickname "City of Rice" (). The city has long borne the nickname () or () from the five stones at the old Temple of the Five Immortals said to have been the sheep or goats ridden by the Taoist culture heroes credited with introducing rice cultivation to the area around the time of the city's foundation. The former name "City of the Immortals" (/) came from the same story. The more recent () is usually taken as a simple reference to the area's fine greenery. The English name "Canton" derived from Portuguese or , a blend of dialectical pronunciations of "Guangdong" (e.g., Cantonese Gwong2-dung1). Although it originally and chiefly applied to the walled city, it was occasionally conflated with Guangdong by some authors. It was adopted as the Postal Map Romanization of Guangzhou, and remained the official name until its name change to "Guangzhou." As an adjective, it is still used in describing the people, language, cuisine and culture of Guangzhou and the surrounding Liangguang region. The 19th-century name "" derived from Nanjing dialect of Mandarin and the town's status as a prefectural capital. History Prehistory A settlement now known as Nanwucheng was present in the area by . Some traditional Chinese histories placed Nanwucheng's founding during the reign of Ji Yan, king of Zhou from 314 to 256 BC. It was said to have consisted of little more than a stockade of bamboo and mud. Nanyue Guangzhou, then known as Panyu, was founded on the eastern bank of the Pearl River in 214 BC. It was the seat of Qin Empire's Nanhai Commandery, and served as a base for the first invasion of the Baiyue lands in southern China. Legendary accounts claimed that the soldiers at Panyu were so vigilant that they did not remove their armor for three years. Upon the fall of the Qin, General Zhao Tuo established the kingdom of Nanyue and made Panyu its capital in 204 BC. It remained independent throughout the Chu-Han Contention, although Zhao negotiated recognition of his independence in exchange for his nominal submission to the Han in 196 BC. Archeological evidence shows that Panyu was an expansive commercial center: in addition to items from central China, archeologists have found remains originating from Southeast Asia, India, and even Africa. Zhao Tuo was succeeded by Zhao Mo and then Zhao Yingqi. Upon Zhao Yingqi's death in , his younger son Zhao Xing was named as his successor in violation of Chinese primogeniture. By , his chinese mother, the Empress Dowager Jiu () had prevailed upon him to submit Nanyue as a formal part of the Han Empire. The native prime minister Lü Jia () launched a coup, killing Han ambassadors along with the king, his mother, and their supporters. A successful ambush then annihilated a Han force which had been sent to arrest him. Emperor Wu took offense and launched a massive river- and seaborne war: six armies under Lu Bode and Yang Pu took Panyu and annexed Nanyue by the end of 111 BC. Imperial China Incorporated into the Han Dynasty, Panyu became a provincial capital. In AD 226, it became the seat of Guang Prefecture, which gave it its modern name. The Old Book of Tang described Guangzhou as an important port in southern China. Direct routes connected the Middle East and China, as shown in the records of a Chinese prisoner returning home from Iraq twelve years after his capture at Talas. Relations were often strained: Arab and Persian pirates sacked the city on October 30, 758 and came to an end under the revenge of Chinese rebel Huang Chao in 878, along with the city's Jews, Christians, and Parsis. The port was closed for fifty years after its destruction. Amid the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms that followed the collapse of the Tang dynasty, the Later Liang governor Liu Yan used his base at Panyu to establish a "Great Yue" or "Southern Han" empire, which lasted from 917 to 971. The region enjoyed considerable cultural and economic success in this period. From the 10th to 12th century, there are records that the large foreign communities were not exclusively male, but included "Persian women". According to Odoric of Pordenone, Guangzhou was as large as three Venices in terms of area, and rivaled all of Italy in the amount of crafts produced. He also noted the large amount of ginger available as well as large geese and snakes. Guangzhou was visited by the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta during his 14th-century journey around the world; he detailed the process by which the Chinese constructed their large ships in the port's shipyards. Shortly after the Hongwu Emperor's declaration of the Ming dynasty, he reversed his earlier support of foreign trade and imposed the first of a series of sea bans (). These banned private foreign trade upon penalty of death for the merchant and exile for his family and neighbors. The Yuan-era maritime intendancies of Guangzhou, Quanzhou, and Ningbo were closed in 1384 and legal trade became limited to the tribute delegations sent to or by official representatives of foreign governments. Following the Portuguese conquest of the Melaka Sultanate, Rafael Perestrello traveled to Guangzhou as a passenger on a native junk in 1516. His report induced Fernão Pires de Andrade to sail to the city with eight ships the next year, but De Andrade's exploration was understood as spying and his brother Simão and others began attempting to monopolize trade, enslaving Chinese women and children, engaging in piracy, and fortifying the island of Tamão. Rumors even circulated that Portuguese were eating the children. The Guangzhou administration was charged with driving them off: they bested the Portuguese at the Battle of Tunmen and in Xicao Bay; held a diplomatic mission hostage in a failed attempt to pressure the restoration of the sultan of Malacca, who had been accounted a Ming vassal; and, after placing them in cangues and keeping them for most of a year, ultimately executed 23 by lingchi. With the help of local pirates, the "Folangji" then carried out smuggling at Macao, Lampacau, and Island (now Shangchuan), until Leonel de Sousa legalized their trade with bribes to Admiral Wang Bo () and the 1554 Luso-Chinese Accord. The Portuguese undertook not to raise fortifications and to pay customs dues; three years later, after providing the Chinese with assistance suppressing their former pirate allies, the Portuguese were permitted to warehouse their goods at Macau instead of Guangzhou itself. In October 1646, the Longwu Emperor's brother, Zhu Yuyue fled by sea to Guangzhou, the last stronghold of the Ming empire. On December 11, he declared himself the Shaowu Emperor, borrowing his imperial regalia from local theater troupes. He led a successful offense against his cousin Zhu Youlang but was deposed and executed on 20 January 1647 when the Ming turncoat Li Chengdong () sacked the city on behalf of the Qing. The Qing became somewhat more receptive to foreign trade after gaining control of Taiwan in 1683. The Portuguese from Macau and Spaniards from Manila returned, as did private Muslim, Armenian, and English traders. From 1699 to 1714, the French and British East India Companies sent a ship or two each year; the Austrian Ostend General India Co. arrived in 1717, the Dutch East India Co. in 1729, the Danish Asiatic Co. in 1731, and the Swedish East India Co. the next year. These were joined by the occasional Prussian or Trieste Company vessel. The first independent American ship arrived in 1784, and the first colonial Australian one in 1788. By that time, Guangzhou was one of the world's great ports, organized under the Canton System. The main exports were tea and porcelain. As a meeting place of merchants from all over the world, Guangzhou became a major contributor to the rise of the modern global economy. In the 19th century, most of the city's buildings were still only one or two stories. However, there were notable exceptions such as the Flower Pagoda of the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees, and the guard tower known as the Five-Story Pagoda. The subsequently urbanized northern hills were bare and covered with traditional graves. The brick city walls were about in circumference, high, and wide. Its eight main gates and two water gates all held guards during the day and were closed at night. The wall rose to incorporate a hill on its northern side and was surrounded on the other three by a moat which, along with the canals, functioned as the city's sewer, emptied daily by the river's tides. A partition wall with four gates divided the northern "old town" from the southern "new town" closer to the river; the suburb of Xiguan (Saikwan; "West Gate") stretched beyond and the boats of fishers, traders, and Tanka ("boat people") almost entirely concealed the riverbank for about . It was common for homes to have a storefront facing the street and to treat their courtyards as a kind of warehouse. The city was part of a network of signal towers so effective that messages could be relayed to Beijing—about away—in less than 24 hours. The Canton System was maintained until the outbreak of the First Opium War in 1839. Following a series of battles in the Pearl River Delta, the British captured Canton on March 18, 1841. The Second Battle of Canton was fought two months later. Following the Qing's 1842 treaty with Great Britain, Guangzhou lost its privileged trade status as more and more treaty ports were opened to more and more countries, usually including extraterritorial enclaves. Amid the decline of Qing prestige and the chaos of the Red Turban Rebellion (1854–1856), the Punti and Hakka waged a series of clan wars from 1855 to 1867 in which one million people died. The foreign trade facilities were destroyed by local Chinese in the Arrow War (1856–1858). The international community relocated to the outskirts and most international trade moved through Shanghai. The concession for the Canton–Hankow railway was awarded to the American China Development Co. in 1898. It completed its branch line west to Foshan and Sanshui before being engulfed in a diplomatic crisis after a Belgian consortium bought a controlling interest and the Qing subsequently canceled its concession. J.P. Morgan was awarded millions in damages and the line to Wuchang was not completed until 1936 and the completion of a unified Beijing–Guangzhou Railway waited until the completion of Wuhan's Yangtze River Bridge in 1957. Modern China Revolutions During the late Qing Dynasty, Guangzhou was the site of revolutionary attempts such as the Uprisings of 1895 and 1911 that were the predecessors of the successful Xinhai Revolution, which overthrew the Qing Dynasty. The 72 revolutionaries whose bodies were found after the latter uprising are honored as the city's 72 Martyrs at the Huanghuagang ("Yellow Flower Mound") Mausoleum. Republic of China After the assassination of Sung Chiao-jen and Yuan Shihkai's attempts to remove the Nationalist Party of China from power, the leader of Guangdong Hu Hanmin joined the 1913 Second Revolution against him but was forced to flee to Japan with Sun Yat-sen after its failure. The city came under national spotlight again in 1917, when Prime Minister Duan Qirui's abrogation of the constitution triggered the Constitutional Protection Movement. Sun Yat-sen came to head the Guangzhou Military Government supported by the members of the dissolved parliament and the Southwestern warlords. The Guangzhou government fell apart as the warlords withdrew their support. Sun fled to Shanghai in November 1918 until the Guangdong warlord Chen Jiongming restored him in October 1920 during the Yuegui Wars. On 16 June 1922, Sun was ousted in a coup and fled on the warship Yongfeng after Chen sided with the Zhili Clique's Beijing government. In the following months Sun mounted a counterattack into Guangdong by rallying supporters from Yunnan and Guangxi, and in January established a government in the city for the third time. From 1923 to 1926 Sun and the Kuomintang used the city as a base to prosecute a renewed revolution in China by conquering the warlords in the north. Although Sun was previously dependent on opportunistic warlords who hosted him in the city, with the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, the KMT developed its own military power to serve its ambition. The Canton years saw the evolution of the KMT into a revolutionary movement with a strong military focus and ideological commitment, setting the tone of the KMT rule of China beyond 1927. In 1924, the KMT made the momentous decision to ally with the Communist Party and the USSR. With Soviet help, KMT reorganized itself along the Leninist line and adopted a pro-labor and pro-peasant stance. The Kuomintang-CCP cooperation was confirmed in the First Congress of the KMT and the communists were instructed to join the KMT. The allied government set up the Peasant Movement Training Institute in the city, of which Mao Zedong was a director for one term. Sun and his military commander Chiang used Soviet funds and weapons to build an armed force staffed by communist commissars, training its cadres in the Whampoa Military Academy. In August, the fledgling army suppressed the Canton Merchants' Corps Uprising. The next year the anti-imperialist May Thirtieth Movement swept the country, and the KMT government called for strikes in Canton and Hong Kong. The tensions of the massive strikes and protests led to the Shakee Massacre. After the death of Sun Yat-sen in 1925 the mood was changing in the party toward the communists. In August the left-wing KMT leader Liao Zhongkai was assassinated and the right-wing leader Hu Hanmin, the suspected mastermind, was exiled to the Soviet Union, leaving the pro-communist Wang Jingwei in charge. Opposing communist encroachment, the right-wing Western Hills Group vowed to expel the communists from the KMT. The "Canton Coup" on 20 March 1926 saw Chiang solidify his control over the Nationalists and their army against Wang Jingwei, the party's left wing, its Communist allies, and its Soviet advisors. By May, he had ended civilian control of the military and begun his Northern Expedition against the warlords of the north. Its success led to the split of the KMT between Wuhan and Nanking and the purge of the communists in the April 12 Incident. Immediately afterwards Canton joined the purge under the auspice of Li Jishen, resulting in the arrest of communists and the suspension of left wing KMT apparatuses and labor groups. Later in 1927 when Zhang Fakui, a general supportive of the Wuhan faction seized Canton and installed Wang Jingwei's faction in the city, the communists saw an opening and launched the Guangzhou Uprising. Prominent communist military leaders Ye Ting and Ye Jianying led the failed defense of the city. Soon, control of the city reverted to Li Jishen. Li was deposed during a war between Chiang and the Kwangsi Clique. By 1929, Chen Jitang had established himself as the powerholder of Guangdong. In 1931 he threw his weight behind the anti-Chiang schism by hosting a separate Nationalist government in Guangzhou. Opposing Chiang's alleged dictatorship, the separatists included KMT leaders like Wang Ching-wei, Sun Fo and others from diverse factions. The peace negotiations amid the armed standoff led to the 4th National Congress of Kuomintang being held separately by three factions in Nanjing, Shanghai and Canton. Resigning all his posts, Chiang pulled off a political compromise that reunited all factions. While the intraparty division was resolved, Chen kept his power until he was defeated by Chiang in 1936. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the "Canton Operation" subjected the city to Japanese occupation by the end of December 1938. People's Republic of China Amid the closing months of the Chinese Civil War, Guangzhou briefly served as the capital of the Republic of China after the taking of Nanjing by the PLA in April 1949. The People's Liberation Army entered the city on 14 October 1949. Amid a massive exodus to Hong Kong and Macau, the Nationalists blew up the Haizhu Bridge across the Pearl River in retreat. The Cultural Revolution had a large effect on the city with much of its temples, churches and other monuments destroyed during this chaotic period. The People's Republic of China initiated building projects including new housing on the banks of the Pearl River to adjust the city's boat people to life on land. Since the 1980s, the city's close proximity to Hong Kong and Shenzhen and its ties to overseas Chinese have made it one of the first beneficiaries of China's opening up under Deng Xiaoping. Beneficial tax reforms in the 1990s have also helped the city's industrialization and economic development. The municipality was expanded in the year 2000, with Huadu and Panyu joining the city as urban districts and Conghua and Zengcheng as more rural counties. The former districts of Dongshan and Fangcun were abolished in 2005, merged into Yuexiu and Liwan respectively. The city acquired Nansha and Luogang. The former was carved out of Panyu, the latter from parts of Baiyun, Tianhe, Zengcheng, and an exclave within Huangpu. The National People's Congress approved a development plan for the Pearl River Delta in January 2009; on March 19 the same year, the Guangzhou and Foshan municipal governments agreed to establish a framework to merge the two cities. In 2014, Luogang merged into Huangpu and both Conghua and Zengcheng counties were upgraded to districts. Gallery Geography The old town of Guangzhou was near Baiyun Mountain on the east bank of the Pearl River (Zhujiang) about from its junction with the South China Sea and about below its head of navigation. It commanded the rich alluvial plain of the Pearl River Delta, with its connection to the sea protected at the Humen Strait. The present city spans on both sides of the river from to longitude and to latitude in south-central Guangdong. The Pearl is the 4th-largest river of China. Intertidal ecosystems exist on the tidal flat lining the river estuary, however, many of the tidal flats have been reclaimed for agriculture. Baiyun Mountain is now locally referred to as the city's "lung" (). The elevation of the prefecture generally increases from southwest to northeast, with mountains forming the backbone of the city and the ocean comprising the front. Tiantang Peak (, "Heavenly Peak") is the highest point of elevation at above sea level. Natural resources There are 47 different types of minerals and also 820 ore fields in Guangzhou, including 18 large and medium-sized oil deposits. The major minerals are granite, cement limestone, ceramic clay, potassium, albite, salt mine, mirabilite, nepheline, syenite, fluorite, marble, mineral water, and geothermal mineral water. Since Guangzhou is located in the water-rich area of southern China, it has a wide water area with many rivers and water systems, accounting for 10% of the total land area. The rivers and streams improve the landscape and keep the ecological environment of the city stable. Climate Despite being located just south of the Tropic of Cancer, Guangzhou has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa/Cwa) influenced by the East Asian monsoon. Summers are wet with high temperatures, high humidity, and a high heat index. Winters are mild and comparatively dry. Guangzhou has a lengthy monsoon season, spanning from April through September. Monthly averages range from in January to in July, while the annual mean is . Autumn, from October to December, is very moderate, cool and windy, and is the best travel time. The relative humidity is approximately 68 percent, whereas annual rainfall in the metropolitan area is over . With monthly percent possible sunshine ranging from 17 percent in March and April to 52 percent in November, the city receives 1,628 hours of bright sunshine annually, considerably less than nearby Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Extreme temperatures have ranged from to . The last recorded snowfall in the city was on 24 January 2016, 87 years after the second last recorded snowfall. Administrative divisions Guangzhou is a sub-provincial city. It has direct jurisdiction over eleven districts: Economy Guangzhou is the main manufacturing hub of the Pearl River Delta, one of mainland China's leading commercial and manufacturing regions. In 2017, the GDP reached ¥2,150 billion (US$318 billion), per capita was ¥150,678 (US$22,317). Guangzhou is considered one of the most prosperous cities in China. Guangzhou ranks 10th in the world and 5th in China (after Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Shenzhen) in terms of the number of billionaires according to the Hurun Global Rich List 2020. Guangzhou is projected to be among the world top 10 largest cities in terms of nominal GDP in 2035 (together with Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen in China) according to a study by Oxford Economics, and its nominal GDP per capita will reach above US$42,000 in 2030. Guangzhou also ranks 21st globally (between Washington, D.C. and Amsterdam) and 8th in the whole Asia & Oceania region (behind Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Beijing, Shenzhen and Dubai) in the 2020 Global Financial Centers Index (GFCI). Owing to rapid industrialization, it was once also considered a rather polluted city. After green urban planning was implemented, it is now one of the most livable cities in China. Canton Fair The Canton Fair, formally the "China Import and Export Fair", is held every year in April and October by the Ministry of Trade. Inaugurated in the spring of 1957, the fair is a major event for the city. It is the trade fair with the longest history, highest level, and largest scale in China. From the 104th session onwards, the fair moved to the new Guangzhou International Convention and Exhibition Center () in Pazhou, from the older complex in Liuhua. The GICEC is served by two stations on Line 8 and three stations on Tram Line THZ1. Since the 104th session, the Canton Fair has been arranged in three phases instead of two phases. Local products Cantonese is one of China's most famous and popular regional cuisines, with a saying stating simply to "Eat in Guangzhou" (). Cantonese sculpture includes work in jade, wood, and (now controversially) ivory. Canton porcelain developed over the past three centuries as one of the major forms of exportware. It is now known within China for its highly colorful style. Cantonese embroidery is one of china's four main styles of the embroidery, and is represented in Guangzhou, although the industry is mainly centered in Chaozhou. Zhujiang Beer, a pale lager, is one of China's most successful brands. It is made in Guangzhou from water piped directly to the brewery from a natural spring. Industry GAC Group Guangzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone Guangzhou Nansha Export Processing Zone The Export Processing Zone was founded in 2005. Its total planned area is . It is located in Nansha District and it belongs to the provincial capital, Guangzhou. The major industries encouraged in the zone include automobile assembly, biotechnology and heavy industry. It is situated (a 70 minutes drive) south of Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport and close to Nansha Port. It also has the advantage of Guangzhou Metro line 4 which is being extended to Nansha Ferry Terminal. Guangzhou Free Trade Zone The zone was founded in 1992. It is located in the east of Huangpu District and near to Guangzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone. It is also very close to Guangzhou Baiyun Airport. The major industries encouraged in the zone include international trade, logistics, processing and computer software. Recently the Area has been rebranded and is now being marketed under the name Huangpu District. Next to the industries above, new sectors are being introduced to the business environment, including new energy, AI, new mobility, new materials, information and communication technology and new transport. It is also Home to the Guangzhou IP Court. Guangzhou Science City Business Environment Guangzhou is a hub for international businesses. According to an article by China Briefing, over 30,000 foreign-invested companies had settled in Guangzhou by 2018, including 297 Fortune Global 500 companies with projects and 120 Fortune Global 500 companies with headquarters or regional headquarters in the city. Demographics The 2010 census found Guangzhou's population to be 12.78 million. , it was estimated at 13,080,500, with 11,264,800 urban residents. Its population density is thus around 1,800 people per km2. The built-up area of the Guangzhou proper connects directly to several other cities. The built-up area of the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone covers around and has been estimated to house 22 million people, including Guangzhou's nine urban districts, Shenzhen (5.36m), Dongguan (3.22m), Zhongshan (3.12m), most of Foshan (2.2m), Jiangmen (1.82m), Zhuhai (890k), and Huizhou's Huiyang District (760k). The total population of this agglomeration is over 28 million after including the population of the adjacent Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. The area's fast-growing economy and high demand for labor has produced a huge "floating population" of migrant workers; thus, up to 10 million migrants reside in the area least six months each year. In 2008, about five million of Guangzhou's permanent residents were hukouless migrants. Ethnicity and language Most of Guangzhou's population is Han Chinese. Almost all Cantonese people speak Cantonese as their first language, while most migrants speak forms of Mandarin. In 2010, each language was the native tongue of roughly half of the city's population, although minor but substantial numbers speak other varieties as well. In 2018, He Huifeng of the South China Morning Post stated that younger residents have increasingly favored using Mandarin instead of Cantonese in their daily lives, causing their Cantonese-speaking grandparents and parents to use Mandarin to communicate with them. He Huifeng stated that factors included local authorities discouraging the use of Cantonese in schools and the rise in prestige of Mandarin-speaking Shenzhen. Jinan University released a survey result of the Guangzhou youths born in the year 2000 or after that were part of this educational study showed that 69% could still speak and understand Cantonese, 20% can understand Cantonese, but unable to speak it, and 11% completely had no knowledge of Cantonese. Jinan University's study of these Guangzhou youths also indicated when it came to the daily recreational use of Cantonese, roughly 40%-50% of them participated in these recreational functions with the usage of Cantonese with 51.4% of them in mobile games, 47% in Social Platforms, 44.1% in TV shows, and 39.8% in Books and Newspapers. Despite some decline in the use of Cantonese, it is faring better in survival, popularity, and prestige than other Chinese languages due to the historical pride in the language and culture, as well as the wide popularity and availability of mainstream Cantonese entertainment, which encourages locals to retain the Cantonese language. Guangzhou has an even more unbalanced gender ratio than the rest of the country. While most areas of China have 112–120 boys per 100 girls, the Guangdong province that houses Guangzhou has more than 130 boys for every 100 girls. Recent years have seen a huge influx of migrants, with up to 30 million additional migrants living in the Guangzhou area for at least six months out of every year with the majority being female migrants and many becoming local Guangzhou people. This huge influx of people from other areas, called the floating population, is due to the city's fast-growing economy and high labor demands. Guangzhou Mayor Wan Qingliang told an urban planning seminar that Guangzhou is facing a very serious population problem stating that, while the city had 10.33 million registered residents at the time with targets and scales of land use based on this number, the city actually had a population with migrants of nearly 15 million. According to the Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences researcher Peng Peng, the city is almost at its maximum capacity of just 15 million, which means the city is facing a great strain, mostly due to a high population of unregistered people. According to the 2000 National Census, marriage is one of the top two reasons for permanent migration and particular important for women as 29.3% of the permanent female migrants migrate for marriage [Liang et al.,2004]. Many of the female economic migrants marry men from Guangzhou in hopes of a better life. but like elsewhere in the People's Republic of China, the household registration system (hukou) limits migrants' access to residences, educational institutions and other public benefits. It has been noted that many women end up in prostitution. In May 2014, legally employed migrants in Guangzhou were permitted to receive a hukou card allowing them to marry and obtain permission for their pregnancies in the city, rather than having to return to their official hometowns as previously. Historically, the Cantonese people have made up a sizable part of the 19th- and 20th-century Chinese diaspora; in fact, many overseas Chinese have ties to Guangzhou. This is particularly true in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Demographically, the only significant immigration into China has been by overseas Chinese, but Guangzhou sees many foreign tourists, workers, and residents from the usual locations such as the United States. Notably, it is also home to thousands of African immigrants, including people from Nigeria, Somalia, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Metropolitan area The encompassing metropolitan area was estimated by the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) to have, , a population of 25 million. Transportation Urban mass transit When the first line of the Guangzhou Metro opened in 1997, Guangzhou was the fourth city in Mainland China to have an underground railway system, behind Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai. Currently the metro network is made up of thirteen lines, covering a total length of . A long-term plan is to make the city's metro system expand to over by 2020 with 15 lines in operation. In addition to the metro system there is also the Haizhu Tram line which opened on 31 December 2014. The Guangzhou Bus Rapid Transit (GBRT) system which was introduced in 2010 along Zhongshan Road. It has several connections to the metro and is the world's 2nd-largest bus rapid transit system with 1,000,000 passenger trips daily. It handles 26,900 pphpd during the peak hour a capacity second only to the TransMilenio BRT system in Bogota. The system averages one bus every 10 seconds or 350 per hour in a single direction and contains the world's longest BRT stations—around including bridges. Motor transport In the 19th century, the city already had over 600 long, straight streets; these were mostly paved but still very narrow. In June 1919, work began on demolishing the city wall to make way for wider streets and the development of tramways. The demolition took three years in total. In 2009, it was reported that all 9,424 buses and 17,695 taxis in Guangzhou would be operating on LPG-fuel by 2010 to promote clean energy for transport and improve the environment ahead of the 2010 Asian Games which were held in the city. At present, Guangzhou is the city that uses the most LPG-fueled vehicles in the world, and at the end of 2006, 6,500 buses and 16,000 taxis were using LPG, taking up 85 percent of all buses and taxis. Effective January 1, 2007, the municipal government banned motorcycles in Guangdong's urban areas. Motorcycles found violating the ban are confiscated. The Guangzhou traffic bureau claimed to have reported reduced traffic problems and accidents in the downtown area since the ban. Airports Guangzhou's main airport is the Baiyun International Airport in Baiyun District; it opened on August 5, 2004. This airport is the second busiest airport in terms of traffic movements in China. It replaced the old Baiyun International Airport, which was very close to the city center but failed to meet the city's rapidly growing air traffic demand. The old Baiyun International Airport was in operation for 72 years. Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport now has three runways, with two more planned. Terminal 2 opened on April 26, 2018. Another airport located in Zengcheng District is under planning. Guangzhou is served by Hong Kong International Airport; ticketed passengers can take ferries from the Lianhuashan Ferry Terminal and Nansha Ferry Port in Nansha District to the HKIA Skypier. There are also coach bus services connecting Guangzhou with HKIA. Railways Guangzhou is the terminus of the Beijing–Guangzhou, Guangzhou–Shenzhen, Guangzhou–Maoming and Guangzhou–Meizhou–Shantou conventional speed railways. In late 2009, the Wuhan–Guangzhou high-speed railway started service, with multiple unit trains covering at a top speed of . In December 2014, the Guiyang–Guangzhou high-speed railway and Nanning-Guangzhou railway began service with trains running at top speeds of and , respectively. The Guangdong Through Train departs from the Guangzhou East railway station and arrives at the Hung Hom station in Kowloon, Hong Kong. The route is approximately in length and the ride takes less than two hours. Frequent coach services are also provided with coaches departing every day from different locations (mostly major hotels) around the city. A number of regional railways radiating from Guangzhou started operating such as the Guangzhou–Zhuhai intercity railway and the Guangzhou-Foshan-Zhaoqing intercity railway. Water transport There are daily high-speed catamaran services between Nansha Ferry Terminal and Lianhua Shan Ferry Terminal in Guangzhou and the Hong Kong China Ferry Terminal, as well as between Nansha Ferry Terminal and Macau Ferry Pier in Hong Kong. Culture Within China, the culture of the Cantonese people is a subset of the larger "Southern" or "Lingnan" cultural areas. Notable aspects of Guangzhou's cultural heritage include: Cantonese language, the local and prestige variant of Yue Chinese Cantonese cuisine, one of China's eight major culinary traditions Cantonese opera, usually divided into martial and literary performances Xiguan (Saikwan), the area west of the former walled city The Guangzhou Opera House & Symphony Orchestra also perform classical Western music and Chinese compositions in their style. Cantonese music is a traditional style of Chinese instrumental music, while Cantopop is the local form of pop music and rock-and-roll which developed from neighboring Hong Kong. Religions Qing-era Guangzhou had around 124 religious pavilions, halls, and temples. Today, in addition to the Buddhist Association, Guangzhou also has a Taoist Association, a Jewish community, as well as a history with Christianity, reintroduced to China by colonial powers. Taoism Taoism and Chinese folk religion are still represented at a few of the city's temples. Among the most important is the Temple of the Five Immortals, honoring the five immortals credited with introducing rice cultivation at the foundation of the city. The five rams they rode were supposed to have turned into stones upon their departure and gave the city several of its nicknames. Other places of worship include the City God Temple and Sanyuan Palace. Guangzhou, like most of southern China, is also notably observant concerning ancestral veneration during occasions like the Tomb Sweeping and Ghost Festivals. Buddhism Buddhism is the most prominent religion in Guangzhou. The Zhizhi Temple was founded in AD 233 from the estate of a Wu official; it is said to comprise the residence of Zhao Jiande, the last of the Nanyue kings, and has been known as the Guangxiao Temple ("Temple of Bright Filial Piety") since the Ming. The missionary Bodhidharma is traditionally said to have visited Panyu during the Liu Song or Liang dynasties (5th or 6th century). Around AD 520, Emperor Wu of the Liang ordered the construction of the Baozhuangyan Temple and the Xilai Monastery to store the relics of Cambodian Buddhist saints which had been brought to the city and to house the monks beginning to assemble there. The Baozhuangyan is now known as the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees, after a famous poem composed by Su Shi after a visit during the Northern Song. The Xilai Monastery was renamed the Hualin Temple ("Flowery Forest Temple") after its reconstruction during the Qing. The temples were damaged by both the Republican campaign to "Promote Education with Temple Property" () and the Maoist Cultural Revolution but have been renovated since the opening up that began in the 1980s. The Ocean Banner Temple on Henan Island, once famous in the west as the only tourist spot in Guangzhou accessible to foreigners, has been reopened as the Hoi Tong Monastery. Christianity Nestorian christians first arrived in China via the overland Silk Road, but suffered during Emperor Wuzong's 845 persecution and were essentially extinct by the year 1000. The Qing-era ban on foreigners limited missionaries until it was abolished following the First Opium War, although the Protestant Robert Morrison was able to perform some work through his service with the British factory. The Catholic archdiocese of Guangzhou is housed at Guangzhou's Sacred Heart Cathedral, known locally as the "Stone House". A Gothic Revival edifice which was built by hand from 1861 to 1888 under French direction, its original Latin and French stained-glass windows were destroyed during the wars and amid the Cultural Revolution; they have since been replaced by English ones. The Canton Christian College (1888) and Hackett Medical College for Women (1902) were both founded by missionaries and now form part of Guangzhou's Lingnan University. Since the opening up of China in the 1980s, there has been renewed interest in Christianity, but Guangzhou maintains pressure on underground churches which avoid registration with government officials. The Catholic archbishop Dominic Tang was imprisoned without trial for 22 years; however, his present successor is recognized by both the Vatican and China's Patriotic Church. Islam Guangzhou has had ties with the Islamic world since the Tang Dynasty. Relations were often strained: Arab and Persian pirates sacked the city on October 30, 758; the port was subsequently closed for fifty years. Their presence came to an end under the revenge of Chinese rebel Huang Chao in 878, along with that of the Jews, christians, and Parsis. Nowadays, the city is home to halal restaurants. Sport The 11,468 seat Guangzhou Gymnasium was one of the venues for the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup. From 12 to 27 November 2010, Guangzhou hosted the 16th Asian Games. The same year, it hosted the first Asian Para Games from December 12 to 19. Combined, these were the major sporting events the city ever hosted. Guangzhou also hosted the following major sporting events: 1987 The 6th National Games of China 1991 The 1st FIFA Women's World Cup 2001 The 2001 National Games of China 2007 The 8th National Traditional Games of Ethnic Minorities of the People's Republic of China 2008 The 49th World Table Tennis Championships 2009 The 11th Sudirman Cup: the world badminton mixed team championships Current professional sports clubs based in Guangzhou include: In the 2010s, Guangzhou has risen to be a football powerhouse of China, having won eight national titles between 2011 and 2019. The team has also won the AFC Champions League in 2013 and 2015. The club has competed at the 2013 and 2015 FIFA Club World Cup, where it lost 3–0 in the semifinal stage to the 2012–13 UEFA Champions League winners FC Bayern Munich and the 2014–15 UEFA Champions League winners FC Barcelona, respectively. Destinations Eight Views The Eight Views of Ram City are Guangzhou's eight most famous tourist attractions. They have varied over time since the Song dynasty, with some being named or demoted by emperors. The following modern list was chosen through public appraisal in 2011: "Towers Shining through the New Town" "The Pearl River Flowing and Shining": The Pearl River from Bai'etan to Pazhou "Cloudy Mountain Green and Tidy": Baiyun Mountain Scenic Area "Yuexiu's Grandeur": Yuexiu Hill and Park "The Ancient Academy's Lingering Fame": The Chen Clan Ancestral Hall and its folk art museum "Liwan's Wonderful Scenery": Liwan Lake "Science City, Splendid as Brocade" "Wetlands Singing at Night": Nansha Wetlands Park Parks and gardens Baiyun Mountain Nansha Wetland Park People's Park South China Botanical Garden Yuexiu Park Dongshanhu Park () Liuhuahu Park () Liwanhu Park () Luhu Park () Martyrs' Park () Pearl River Park () Yuntai Garden () Shimen National Forest Park() Haizhu Lake Park() Tourist attractions Guangzhou attracts more than 223 million visitors each year, and the total revenue of the tourism exceeded 400 billion in 2018. There are many tourist attractions, including: Canton Tower Chen Clan Ancestral Hall, housing Guangzhou's folk art museum Chime-Long Paradise Chime-Long Waterpark () Guangdong Provincial Museum Guangzhou Zoo Mulberry Park, public center which demonstrates mulberry growing and silk making Museum of the Mausoleum of the Nanyue King Peasant Movement Training Institute, an important Maoist site Sacred Heart Cathedral (Stone House) Temple of Bright Filial Piety (Guangxiao) Temple of the Six Banyan Trees (Liurong), site of the Flowery Pagoda Shamian or Shameen Island, the old trading compound Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, site of Guangzhou's former presidential palace Xiguan(Saikwan), the western suburbs of the old city Pedestrian streets In every district there are many shopping areas where people can walk on the sidewalks; however most of them are not set as pedestrian streets. The popular pedestrian streets are: Beijing Road pedestrian street Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street Huacheng Square (Flower City Square) Malls and shopping centers There are many malls and shopping centers in Guangzhou. The majority of the new malls are located in the Tianhe district. 101 Dynamics China Plaza Liwan Plaza Teem Plaza Victory Plaza Wanguo Plaza Grandview Mall (Grandview Mall Aquarium) Wanda square Happy Valley (Guangzhou) TaiKoo Hui Parc Central OneLinkWalk Rock Square Aeon Mall GT Land Plaza IFC Plaza IGC Mall Mall of the World K11 Fashion Tianhe Major buildings CITIC Plaza Canton Tower Guangzhou Circle Mansion Guangdong Olympic Stadium Guangzhou Opera House Guangzhou TV Tower Pearl River Tower The Twin Towers: Guangzhou International Finance Center (West) The CTF Guangzhou (East) Media Guangzhou has two local radio stations: the provincial Radio Guangdong and the municipal Radio Guangzhou. Together they broadcast in more than a dozen channels. The primary language of both stations is Cantonese. Traditionally only one channel of Radio Guangdong is dedicated to Mandarin Chinese. However, in recent years there has been an increase in Mandarin programs on most Cantonese channels. Radio stations from cities around Guangzhou mainly broadcast in Cantonese and can be received in different parts of the city, depending on the radio stations' locations and transmission power. The Beijing-based China National Radio also broadcasts Mandarin programs in the city. Radio Guangdong has a 30-minute weekly English programs, Guangdong Today, which is broadcast globally through the World Radio Network. Daily English news programs are also broadcast by Radio Guangdong. Guangzhou has some of the most notable Chinese-language newspapers and magazines in mainland China, most of which are published by three major newspaper groups in the city, the Guangzhou Daily Press Group, Nanfang Press Corporation, and the Yangcheng Evening News Group. The two leading newspapers of the city are Guangzhou Daily and Southern Metropolis Daily. The former, with a circulation of 1.8 million, has been China's most successful newspaper for 14 years in terms of advertising revenue, while Southern Metropolis Daily is considered one of the most liberal newspapers in mainland China. In addition to Guangzhou's Chinese-language publications, there are a few English magazines and newspapers. The most successful is That's Guangzhou, which started more than a decade ago and has since blossomed into That's PRD, producing expatriate magazines in Beijing and Shanghai as well. It also produces In the Red. Education The Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Center, also known as Guangzhou University Town (), is a large tertiary education complex located in the southeast suburbs of Guangzhou. It occupies the entirety of Xiaoguwei Island in Panyu District, covering an area of about . The complex accommodates campuses from ten higher education institutions and can eventually accommodate up to 200,000 students, 20,000 teachers, and 50,000 staff. The Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Center's higher education campuses are as follows: Guangdong Pharmaceutical University Guangdong University of Foreign Studies Guangdong University of Technology Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts Guangzhou University Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine South China Normal University South China University of Technology Sun Yat-sen University Xinghai Conservatory of Music Guangzhou's other fully accredited and degree-granting universities and colleges include: Guangdong Institute of Science and Technology Guangdong Polytechnic Normal University Guangdong University of Finance & Economics Guangdong University of Finance Guangzhou College of South China University of Technology Guangzhou Medical University Guangzhou Sports University Jinan University South China Agricultural University Southern Medical University Zhongkai University of Agriculture and Engineering The two main comprehensive libraries are Guangzhou Library and Sun Yat-sen Library of Guangdong Province. Guangzhou Library is a public library in Guangzhou. The library has moved to a new building in Zhujiang New Town, which fully opened on 23 June 2013. Sun Yat-sen Library of Guangdong Province has the largest collection of ancient books in Southern China. International relations Twin towns and sister cities Consulates General/consulates As of October 2020, Guangzhou hosts 65 foreign consulates-general/consulates, excluding the Hong Kong and Macao trade office, making it one of the major cities to host more than 50 foreign representatives in China after Beijing and Shanghai. Honours Guangzhou Peninsula in Antarctica is named after the city, which was a major market and processing centre for the nineteenth-century Antarctic sealing industry. See also Canton System and Old China Trade World's largest cities Historical capitals of China Mezitli Producer Women's Market#Guangzhou Innovation Award 2021 Guangzhou bombing Notes References Citations Sources . . . . . . Fairbank, John King. Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the treaty ports, 1842-1854 (Cambridge, Harvard U. P, 1953) online. Farris, Johnathan Andrew. Enclave to Urbanity: Canton, Foreigners, and Architecture from the Late Eighteenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2016) online review . Further reading Chan, May Caroline. "Canton, 1857." Victorian Review 36.1 (2010): 31–35. online Guangzhou Statistical Yearbook 2016 External links Guangzhou International: Official website of government of Guangzhou municipality Guangzhou, China Network 214 BC 210s BC establishments Populated places established in the 1st century BC Provincial capitals in China Sub-provincial cities in the People's Republic of China National Forest Cities in China Articles containing video clips Prefectures of the Sui dynasty Prefectures of the Tang dynasty Prefectures of the Song dynasty Prefectures of the Yuan dynasty Prefectures of the Ming dynasty Prefectures of the Qing dynasty Former prefectures in Guangdong Metropolitan areas of China