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Achill Island	See also	See also List of islands of County Mayo
Achill Island	References	References
Achill Island	External links	External links Colaiste Pobail Acla students project on the Achill area Achill Island Maritime Archaeology Project VisitAchill multilingual visitor's site Category:Islands of County Mayo Category:Gaeltacht places in County Mayo
Achill Island	Table of Content	Short description, History, Overlords, Immigration, Specific historical sites and events, Grace O'Malley's Castle, Achill Mission, Railway, Kildamhnait, The Monastery, Valley House, Deserted Village, Archaeology, Other places of interest, Economy and tourism, Religion, Artists, Education, Transport, Rail, Road, Sport, Demographics, Notable people, In popular culture, Further reading, See also, References, External links
Allen Ginsberg	short description	Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Generation. He vigorously opposed militarism, economic materialism, and sexual repression, and he embodied various aspects of this counterculture with his views on drugs, sex, multiculturalism, hostility to bureaucracy, and openness to Eastern religions. Best known for his poem "Howl", Ginsberg denounced what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the United States. San Francisco police and US Customs seized copies of "Howl" in 1956, and a subsequent obscenity trial in 1957 attracted widespread publicity due to the poem's language and descriptions of heterosexual and homosexual sex at a time when sodomy laws made male homosexual acts a crime in every state. The poem reflected Ginsberg's own sexuality and his relationships with a number of men, including Peter Orlovsky, his lifelong partner. Judge Clayton W. Horn ruled that "Howl" was not obscene, asking: "Would there be any freedom of press or speech if one must reduce his vocabulary to vapid innocuous euphemisms?" Ginsberg was a Buddhist who extensively studied Eastern religious disciplines. He lived modestly, buying his clothing in second-hand stores and residing in apartments in New York City's East Village. One of his most influential teachers was Tibetan Buddhist Chögyam Trungpa, the founder of the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. At Trungpa's urging, Ginsberg and poet Anne Waldman started The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics there in 1974. For decades, Ginsberg was active in political protests across a range of issues from the Vietnam War to the war on drugs.Ginsberg, Allen, Deliberate Prose, the foreword by Edward Sanders, p. xxi. His poem "September on Jessore Road" drew attention to refugees fleeing the 1971 Bangladeshi genocide, exemplifying what literary critic Helen Vendler described as Ginsberg's persistent opposition to "imperial politics" and the "persecution of the powerless".Vendler, Helen (January 13, 1986), "Books: A Lifelong Poem Including History", The New Yorker, p. 81. His collection The Fall of America shared the annual National Book Award for Poetry in 1974. In 1979, he received the National Arts Club gold medal and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1995 for his book Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986–1992.
Allen Ginsberg	Biography	Biography
Allen Ginsberg	Early life and family	Early life and family Ginsberg was born into a JewishPacernick, Gary. "Allen Ginsberg: An interview by Gary Pacernick" (February 10, 1996), The American Poetry Review, July/August 1997. "Yeah, I am a Jewish poet. I'm Jewish." family in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby Paterson. He was the second son of Louis Ginsberg, also born in Newark, a schoolteacher and published poet, and the former Naomi Levy, born in Nevel (Russia) and a fervent Marxist. As a teenager, Ginsberg began to write letters to The New York Times about political issues, such as World War II and workers' rights. He published his first poems in the Paterson Morning Call.David S. Wills, "Allen Ginsberg's First Poem?" While in high school, Ginsberg became interested in the works of Walt Whitman, inspired by his teacher's passionate reading. In 1943, Ginsberg graduated from Eastside High School and briefly attended Montclair State College before entering Columbia University on a scholarship from the Young Men's Hebrew Association of Paterson. Ginsberg intended to study law at Columbia but later changed his major to literature. In 1945, he joined the Merchant Marine to earn money to continue his education at Columbia.Ginsberg, Allen (2008) The Letters of Allen Ginsberg. Philadelphia, Da Capo Press, p. 6. While at Columbia, Ginsberg contributed to the Columbia Review literary journal, the Jester humor magazine, won the Woodberry Poetry Prize, served as president of the Philolexian Society (literary and debate group), and joined Boar's Head Society (poetry society). He was a resident of Hartley Hall, where other Beat Generation poets such as Jack Kerouac and Herbert Gold also lived. Ginsberg has stated that he considered his required freshman seminar in Great Books, taught by Lionel Trilling, to be his favorite Columbia course. In 1948, he graduated from Columbia with a B.A in English and American Literature.Charters, Ann (July 2000) "Ginsberg's Life." American National Biography Online. American Council of Learned Societies. According to The Poetry Foundation, Ginsberg spent several months in a mental institution after he pleaded insanity during a hearing. He was allegedly being prosecuted for harboring stolen goods in his dorm room. It was noted that the stolen property was not his, but belonged to an acquaintance.Allen Ginsberg." Allen Ginsberg Biography. Poetry Foundation, 2014. Web. November 6, 2014. Ginsberg also took part in public readings at the Episcopal St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery which would later hold a memorial service for him after his death.
Allen Ginsberg	Relationship with his parents	Relationship with his parents Ginsberg referred to his parents in a 1985 interview as "old-fashioned delicatessen philosophers". His mother was also an active member of the Communist Party and took Ginsberg and his brother Eugene to party meetings. Ginsberg later said that his mother "made up bedtime stories that all went something like: 'The good king rode forth from his castle, saw the suffering workers and healed them.'" Of his father Ginsberg said: "My father would go around the house either reciting Emily Dickinson and Longfellow under his breath or attacking T. S. Eliot for ruining poetry with his 'obscurantism.' I grew suspicious of both sides." Naomi Ginsberg had schizophrenia which often manifested as paranoid delusions, disordered thinking and multiple suicide attempts. She would claim, for example, that the president had implanted listening devices in their home and that her mother-in-law was trying to kill her.Hyde, Lewis and Ginsberg, Allen (1984) On the poetry of Allen Ginsberg. University of Michigan Press. , . p. 421. Her suspicion of those around her caused Naomi to draw closer to young Allen, "her little pet," as Bill Morgan says in his biography of Ginsberg, titled I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg. She also tried to kill herself by slitting her wrists and was soon taken to Greystone, a mental hospital; she would spend much of Ginsberg's youth in mental hospitals.Dittman, Michael J. (2007), Masterpieces of Beat literature. Greenwood Publishing Group. , pp. 57–58. His experiences with his mother and her mental illness were a major inspiration for his two major works, "Howl" and his long autobiographical poem "Kaddish for Naomi Ginsberg (1894–1956)".Breslin, James (2003), "Allen Ginsberg: The Origins of Howl and Kaddish." in Poetry Criticism. David M. Galens (ed.). Vol. 47. Detroit: Gale. When he was in junior high school, he accompanied his mother by bus to her therapist. The trip deeply disturbed Ginsberg—he mentioned it and other moments from his childhood in "Kaddish". His experiences with his mother's mental illness and her institutionalization are also frequently referred to in "Howl." For example, "Pilgrim State, Rockland, and Grey Stone's foetid halls" is a reference to institutions frequented by his mother and Carl Solomon, ostensibly the subject of the poem: Pilgrim State Hospital and Rockland State Hospital in New York and Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey.Ginsberg, Allen (1995). Howl: Original Draft Facsimile, Transcript & Variant Versions, Fully Annotated by Author, with Contemporaneous Correspondence, Account of First Public Reading, Legal Skirmishes, Precursor Texts & Bibliography. Barry Miles (Ed.). Harper Perennial. . pp. 131, 132, 139–140.Theado, Matt (2003) The Beats: A Literary Reference. Carroll & Graf Publishers. . p. 53. This is followed soon by the line "with mother finally ******." Ginsberg later admitted the deletion was the expletive "fucked." He also says of Solomon in section three, "I'm with you in Rockland where you imitate the shade of my mother," once again showing the association between Solomon and his mother. Ginsberg received a letter from his mother after her death responding to a copy of "Howl" he had sent her. It admonished Ginsberg to be good and stay away from drugs; she says, "The key is in the window, the key is in the sunlight at the window—I have the key—Get married Allen don't take drugs—the key is in the bars, in the sunlight in the window."Hyde, Lewis and Ginsberg, Allen (1984), On the poetry of Allen Ginsberg. University of Michigan Press. , , pp. 426–427. In a letter she wrote to Ginsberg's brother Eugene, she said, "God's informers come to my bed, and God himself I saw in the sky. The sunshine showed too, a key on the side of the window for me to get out. The yellow of the sunshine, also showed the key on the side of the window." These letters and the absence of a facility to recite kaddish inspired Ginsberg to write "Kaddish", which makes references to many details from Naomi's life, Ginsberg's experiences with her, and the letter, including the lines "the key is in the light" and "the key is in the window."Ginsberg, Allen (1961), Kaddish and Other Poems. Volume 2, Issue 14 of The Pocket Poets series. City Lights Books.
Allen Ginsberg	New York Beats	New York Beats In Ginsberg's first year at Columbia he met fellow undergraduate Lucien Carr, who introduced him to a number of future Beat writers, including Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and John Clellon Holmes. They bonded, because they saw in one another an excitement about the potential of American youth, a potential that existed outside the strict conformist confines of post–World War II, McCarthy-era America. Ginsberg and Carr talked excitedly about a "New Vision" (a phrase adapted from Yeats' "A Vision"), for literature and America. Carr also introduced Ginsberg to Neal Cassady, for whom Ginsberg had a long infatuation.Barry Gifford, ed., As Ever: The Collected Correspondence of Allen Ginsberg & Neal Cassady. In the first chapter of his 1957 novel On the Road Kerouac described the meeting between Ginsberg and Cassady. Kerouac saw them as the dark (Ginsberg) and light (Cassady) side of their "New Vision", a perception stemming partly from Ginsberg's association with communism, of which Kerouac had become increasingly distrustful. Though Ginsberg was never a member of the Communist Party, Kerouac named him "Carlo Marx" in On the Road. This was a source of strain in their relationship. Also, in New York, Ginsberg met Gregory Corso in the Pony Stable Bar. Corso, recently released from prison, was supported by the Pony Stable patrons and was writing poetry there the night of their meeting. Ginsberg claims he was immediately attracted to Corso, who was straight, but understood homosexuality after three years in prison. Ginsberg was even more struck by reading Corso's poems, realizing Corso was "spiritually gifted." Ginsberg introduced Corso to the rest of his inner circle. In their first meeting at the Pony Stable, Corso showed Ginsberg a poem about a woman who lived across the street from him and sunbathed naked in the window. Amazingly, the woman happened to be Ginsberg's girlfriend that he was living with during one of his forays into heterosexuality. Ginsberg took Corso over to their apartment. There the woman proposed sex with Corso, who was still very young and fled in fear. Ginsberg introduced Corso to Kerouac and Burroughs and they began to travel together. Ginsberg and Corso remained lifelong friends and collaborators. Shortly after this period in Ginsberg's life, he became romantically involved with Elise Nada Cowen after meeting her through Alex Greer, a philosophy professor at Barnard College whom she had dated for a while during the burgeoning Beat generation's period of development. As a Barnard student, Elise Cowen extensively read the poetry of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, when she met Joyce Johnson and Leo Skir, among other Beat players. As Cowen had felt a strong attraction to darker poetry most of the time, Beat poetry seemed to provide an allure to what suggests a shadowy side of her persona. While at Barnard, Cowen earned the nickname "Beat Alice" as she had joined a small group of anti-establishment artists and visionaries known to outsiders as beatniks, and one of her first acquaintances at the college was the beat poet Joyce Johnson who later portrayed Cowen in her books, including "Minor Characters" and Come and Join the Dance, which expressed the two women's experiences in the Barnard and Columbia Beat community. Through his association with Elise Cowen, Ginsberg discovered that they shared a mutual friend, Carl Solomon, to whom he later dedicated his most famous poem "Howl." This poem is considered an autobiography of Ginsberg up to 1955, and a brief history of the Beat Generation through its references to his relationship to other Beat artists of that time.
Allen Ginsberg	The "Blake vision"	The "Blake vision" In 1948, in an apartment in East Harlem, Ginsberg experienced an auditory hallucination while masturbating and reading the poetry of William Blake, which he later referred to as his "Blake vision". Ginsberg claimed to have heard the voice of God—also described as the "voice of the Ancient of Days"—or of Blake himself reading "Ah! Sun-flower", "The Sick Rose" and "The Little Girl Lost". The experience lasted several days, with him believing that he had witnessed the interconnectedness of the universe; Ginsberg recounted that after looking at latticework on the fire escape of the apartment and then at the sky, he intuited that one had been crafted by human beings, while the other had been crafted by itself. He explained that this hallucination was not inspired by drug use, but said he sought to recapture the feeling of interconnectedness later with various drugs. Later, in 1955, he referenced his "Blake vision" in his poem "Sunflower Sutra", saying "—I rushed up enchanted—it was my first sunflower, memories of Blake—my visions—".
Allen Ginsberg	San Francisco Renaissance	San Francisco Renaissance Ginsberg moved to San Francisco during the 1950s. Before Howl and Other Poems was published in 1956 by City Lights, he worked as a market researcher.Schumacher, Michael (January 27, 2002). "Allen Ginsberg Project". In 1954, in San Francisco, Ginsberg met Peter Orlovsky (1933–2010), with whom he fell in love and who remained his lifelong partner. Selections from their correspondence have been published.Straight Hearts' Delight: Love Poems and Selected Letters, by Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky, edited by Winston Leyland. Gay Sunshine Press, 1980, . Also in San Francisco, Ginsberg met members of the San Francisco Renaissance (James Broughton, Robert Duncan, Madeline Gleason and Kenneth Rexroth) and other poets who would later be associated with the Beat Generation in a broader sense. Ginsberg's mentor William Carlos Williams wrote an introductory letter to San Francisco Renaissance figurehead Kenneth Rexroth, who then introduced Ginsberg into the San Francisco poetry scene. There, Ginsberg also met three budding poets and Zen enthusiasts who had become friends at Reed College: Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, and Lew Welch. In 1959, along with poets John Kelly, Bob Kaufman, A. D. Winans, and William Margolis, Ginsberg was one of the founders of the Beatitude poetry magazine. Wally Hedrick—a painter and co-founder of the Six Gallery—approached Ginsberg in mid-1955 and asked him to organize a poetry reading at the Six Gallery. At first, Ginsberg refused, but once he had written a rough draft of "Howl," he changed his "fucking mind," as he put it. Ginsberg advertised the event as "Six Poets at the Six Gallery." One of the most important events in Beat mythos, known simply as "The Six Gallery reading" took place on October 7, 1955. The event, in essence, brought together the East and West Coast factions of the Beat Generation. Of more personal significance to Ginsberg, the reading that night included the first public presentation of "Howl," a poem that brought worldwide fame to Ginsberg and to many of the poets associated with him. An account of that night can be found in Kerouac's novel The Dharma Bums, describing how change was collected from audience members to buy jugs of wine, and Ginsberg reading passionately, drunken, with arms outstretched. thumb\|First edition cover of Ginsberg's landmark poetry collection, Howl and Other Poems(1956) Ginsberg's principal work, "Howl," is well known for its opening line: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked [...]." "Howl" was considered scandalous at the time of its publication, because of the rawness of its language. Shortly after its 1956 publication by San Francisco's City Lights Bookstore, it was banned for obscenity. The ban became a cause célèbre among defenders of the First Amendment, and was later lifted, after Judge Clayton W. Horn declared the poem to possess redeeming artistic value. Ginsberg and Shig Murao, the City Lights manager who was jailed for selling "Howl," became lifelong friends.Ball, Gordon, Howl' and Other Victories: A friend remembers City Lights' Shig Murao", San Francisco Chronicle, November 28, 1999.
Allen Ginsberg	Biographical references in "Howl"	Biographical references in "Howl" Ginsberg claimed at one point that all of his work was an extended biography (like Kerouac's Duluoz Legend). "Howl" is not only a biography of Ginsberg's experiences before 1955, but also a history of the Beat Generation. Ginsberg also later claimed that at the core of "Howl" were his unresolved emotions about his schizophrenic mother. Though "Kaddish" deals more explicitly with his mother, "Howl" in many ways is driven by the same emotions. "Howl" chronicles the development of many important friendships throughout Ginsberg's life. He begins the poem with "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness", which sets the stage for Ginsberg to describe Cassady and Solomon, immortalizing them into American literature. This madness was the "angry fix" that society needed to function—madness was its disease. In the poem, Ginsberg focused on "Carl Solomon! I'm with you in Rockland", and, thus, turned Solomon into an archetypal figure searching for freedom from his "straightjacket". Though references in most of his poetry reveal much about his biography, his relationship to other members of the Beat Generation, and his own political views, "Howl," his most famous poem, is still perhaps the best place to start.
Allen Ginsberg	To Paris and the "Beat Hotel", Tangier and India	To Paris and the "Beat Hotel", Tangier and India In 1957, Ginsberg surprised the literary world by abandoning San Francisco. After a spell in Morocco, he and Peter Orlovsky joined Gregory Corso in Paris. Corso introduced them to a shabby lodging house above a bar at 9 rue Gît-le-Cœur that was to become known as the Beat Hotel. They were soon joined by Burroughs and others. It was a productive, creative time for all of them. There, Ginsberg began his epic poem "Kaddish", Corso composed Bomb and Marriage, and Burroughs (with help from Ginsberg and Corso) put together Naked Lunch from previous writings. This period was documented by the photographer Harold Chapman, who moved in at about the same time, and took pictures constantly of the residents of the "hotel" until it closed in 1963. During 1962–1963, Ginsberg and Orlovsky travelled extensively across India, living half a year at a time in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and Benares (Varanasi). On his road to India he stayed two months in Athens ( August 29, 1961 – October 31, 1961) where he visited various sites such as Delphi, Mycines, Crete, and then continued his journey to Israel, Kenya and finally India. Also during this time, he formed friendships with some of the prominent young Bengali poets of the time including Shakti Chattopadhyay and Sunil Gangopadhyay. Ginsberg had several political connections in India; most notably Pupul Jayakar who helped him extend his stay in India when the authorities were eager to expel him.
Allen Ginsberg	England and the International Poetry Incarnation	England and the International Poetry Incarnation In May 1965, Ginsberg arrived in London, and offered to read anywhere for free.Nuttall, J (1968) Bomb Culture MacGibbon & Kee, Shortly after his arrival, he gave a reading at Better Books, which was described by Jeff Nuttall as "the first healing wind on a very parched collective mind." Tom McGrath wrote: "This could well turn out to have been a very significant moment in the history of England—or at least in the history of English Poetry."Fountain, N: Underground: the London alternative press, 1966–1974, p. 16. Taylor & Francis, 1988 . Soon after the bookshop reading, plans were hatched for the International Poetry Incarnation, which was held at the Royal Albert Hall in London on June 11, 1965. The event attracted an audience of 7,000, who heard readings and live and tape performances by a wide variety of figures, including Ginsberg, Adrian Mitchell, Alexander Trocchi, Harry Fainlight, Anselm Hollo, Christopher Logue, George MacBeth, Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael Horovitz, Simon Vinkenoog, Spike Hawkins and Tom McGrath. The event was organized by Ginsberg's friend, the filmmaker Barbara Rubin. Peter Whitehead documented the event on film and released it as Wholly Communion. A book featuring images from the film and some of the poems that were performed was also published under the same title by Lorrimer in the UK and Grove Press in US.
Allen Ginsberg	Continuing literary activity	Continuing literary activity thumb\|250px\|Ginsberg with his partner, poet Peter Orlovsky. Photo taken in 1978 Though the term "Beat" is most accurately applied to Ginsberg and his closest friends (Corso, Orlovsky, Kerouac, Burroughs, etc.), the term "Beat Generation" has become associated with many of the other poets Ginsberg met and became friends with in the late 1950s and early 1960s. A key feature of this term seems to be a friendship with Ginsberg. Friendship with Kerouac or Burroughs might also apply, but both writers later strove to disassociate themselves from the name "Beat Generation." Part of their dissatisfaction with the term came from the mistaken identification of Ginsberg as the leader. Ginsberg never claimed to be the leader of a movement. He claimed that many of the writers with whom he had become friends in this period shared many of the same intentions and themes. Some of these friends include: David Amram, Bob Kaufman; Diane di Prima; Jim Cohn; poets associated with the Black Mountain College such as Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, and Denise Levertov; poets associated with the New York School such as Frank O'Hara and Kenneth Koch. LeRoi Jones before he became Amiri Baraka, who, after reading "Howl", wrote a letter to Ginsberg on a sheet of toilet paper. Baraka's independent publishing house Totem Press published Ginsberg's early work. Through a party organized by Baraka, Ginsberg was introduced to Langston Hughes while Ornette Coleman played saxophone. thumb\|250px\|Portrait with Bob Dylan, taken in 1975 Later in his life, Ginsberg formed a bridge between the beat movement of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s, befriending, among others, Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Hunter S. Thompson, and Bob Dylan. Ginsberg gave his last public reading at Booksmith, a bookstore in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, a few months before his death.. Video at fora.tv. October 23, 2008. In 1993, Ginsberg visited the University of Maine at Orono to pay homage to the 90-year-old great Carl Rakosi.
Allen Ginsberg	Buddhism and Krishna	Buddhism and Krishna In 1950, Kerouac began studying Buddhism and shared what he learned from Dwight Goddard's Buddhist Bible with Ginsberg. Ginsberg first heard about the Four Noble Truths and such sutras as the Diamond Sutra at this time. Ginsberg's endorsement helped establish the Krishna movement within New York's bohemian culture. Ginsberg's spiritual journey began early on with his spontaneous visions, and continued with an early trip to India with Gary Snyder. Snyder had previously spent time in Kyoto to study at the First Zen Institute at Daitoku-ji Monastery. At one point, Snyder chanted the Prajnaparamita, which in Ginsberg's words "blew my mind." His interest piqued, Ginsberg traveled to meet the Dalai Lama as well as the Karmapa at Rumtek Monastery. Continuing on his journey, Ginsberg met Dudjom Rinpoche in Kalimpong, who taught him: "If you see something horrible, don't cling to it, and if you see something beautiful, don't cling to it." After returning to the United States, a chance encounter on a New York City street with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (they both tried to catch the same cab), a Kagyu and Nyingma Tibetan Buddhist master, led to Trungpa becoming his friend and lifelong teacher. Ginsberg helped Trungpa and New York poet Anne Waldman in founding the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Ginsberg was also involved with Krishnaism. He had started incorporating chanting the Hare Krishna mantra into his religious practice in the mid-1960s. After learning that A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the Hare Krishna movement in the Western world had rented a store front in New York, he befriended him, visiting him often and suggesting publishers for his books, and a fruitful relationship began. This relationship is documented by Satsvarupa dasa Goswami in his biographical account Srila Prabhupada Lilamrta. Ginsberg donated money, materials, and his reputation to help the Swami establish the first temple, and toured with him to promote his cause. thumb\|left\|Allen Ginsberg greeting A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada at San Francisco International Airport. January 17, 1967 Despite disagreeing with many of Bhaktivedanta Swami's required prohibitions, Ginsberg often sang the Hare Krishna mantra publicly as part of his philosophy and declared that it brought a state of ecstasy. He was glad that Bhaktivedanta Swami, an authentic swami from India, was now trying to spread the chanting in America. Along with other counterculture ideologists like Timothy Leary, Gary Snyder, and Alan Watts, Ginsberg hoped to incorporate Bhaktivedanta Swami and his chanting into the hippie movement, and agreed to take part in the Mantra-Rock Dance concert and to introduce the swami to the Haight-Ashbury hippie community.(from the "Houseboat Summit" panel discussion, Sausalito CA. February 1967)(): Ginsberg: So what do you think of Swami Bhaktivedanta pleading for the acceptance of Krishna in every direction? Snyder: Why, it's a lovely positive thing to say Krishna. It's a beautiful mythology and it's a beautiful practice. Leary: Should be encouraged. Ginsberg: He feels it's the one uniting thing. He feels a monopolistic unitary thing about it. Watts: I'll tell you why I think he feels it. The mantras, the images of Krishna have in this culture no foul association [...] [W]hen somebody comes in from the Orient with a new religion which hasn't got any of [horrible] associations in our minds, all the words are new, all the rites are new, and yet, somehow it has feeling in it, and we can get with that, you see, and we can dig that! On January 17, 1967, Ginsberg helped plan and organize a reception for Bhaktivedanta Swami at San Francisco International Airport, where fifty to a hundred hippies greeted the Swami, chanting Hare Krishna in the airport lounge with flowers in hands.Addressing speculations that he was Allen Ginsberg's guru, Bhaktivedanta Swami answered a direct question in a public program, "Are you Allen Ginsberg's guru?" by saying, "I am nobody's guru. I am everybody's servant. Actually I am not even a servant; a servant of God is no ordinary thing." (; ) To further support and promote Bhaktivedanta Swami's message and chanting in San Francisco, Allen Ginsberg agreed to attend the Mantra-Rock Dance, a musical event 1967 held at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. It featured some leading rock bands of the time: Big Brother and the Holding Company with Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, and Moby Grape, who performed there along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami and donated proceeds to the Krishna temple. Ginsberg introduced Bhaktivedanta Swami to some three thousand hippies in the audience and led the chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra. thumb\|right\|upright\|The Mantra-Rock Dance promotional poster featuring Allen Ginsberg along with leading rock bands. Music and chanting were both important parts of Ginsberg's live delivery during poetry readings.Chowka, Peter Barry, "This is Allen Ginsberg? " (Interview), New Age Journal, April 1976. "I had known Swami Bhaktivedanta and was somewhat guided by him [...] spiritual friend. I practiced the Hare Krishna chant, practiced it with him, sometimes in mass auditoriums and parks in the Lower East Side of New York. Actually, I'd been chanting it since '63, after coming back from India. I began chanting it, in Vancouver at a great poetry conference, for the first time in '63, with Duncan and Olson and everybody around, and then continued. When Bhaktivedanta arrived on the Lower East Side in '66 it was reinforcement for me, like 'the reinforcements had arrived' from India." He often accompanied himself on a harmonium, and was often accompanied by a guitarist. It is believed that the Hindi and Buddhist poet Nagarjun had introduced Ginsberg to the harmonium in Banaras. According to Malay Roy Choudhury, Ginsberg refined his practice while learning from his relatives, including his cousin Savitri Banerjee.Klausner, Linda T. (April 22, 2011), "American Beat Yogi: An Exploration of the Hindu and Indian Cultural Themes in Allen Ginsberg", Masters Thesis: Literature, Culture, and MediaLund University. When Ginsberg asked if he could sing a song in praise of Lord Krishna on William F. Buckley, Jr.'s TV show Firing Line on September 3, 1968, Buckley acceded and the poet chanted slowly as he played dolefully on a harmonium. According to Richard Brookhiser, an associate of Buckley's, the host commented that it was "the most unharried Krishna I've ever heard."Konigsberg, Eric (February 29, 2008), "Buckley's Urbane Debating Club: Firing Line Set a Standard For Political Discourse on TV", The New York Times, Metro Section, p. B1. At the 1967 Human Be-In in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and the 1970 Black Panther rally at Yale campus Allen chanted "Om" repeatedly over a sound system for hours on end. Ginsberg further brought mantras into the world of rock and roll when he recited the Heart Sutra in the song "Ghetto Defendant". The song appears on the 1982 album Combat Rock by British first wave punk band The Clash. Ginsberg came in touch with the Hungryalist poets of Bengal, especially Malay Roy Choudhury, who introduced Ginsberg to the three fish with one head of Indian emperor Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar. The three fish symbolised coexistence of all thought, philosophy, and religion.Mitra, Alo (May 9, 2008), HUNGRYALIST INFLUENCE ON ALLEN GINSBERG. thewastepaper.blogspot.com. In spite of Ginsberg's attraction to Eastern religions, the journalist Jane Kramer argues that he, like Whitman, adhered to an "American brand of mysticism" that was "rooted in humanism and in a romantic and visionary ideal of harmony among men."Kramer, Jane (1968), Allen Ginsberg in America. New York: Random House, p. xvii. The Allen Ginsberg Estate and Jewel Heart International partnered to present "Transforming Minds: Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche and Friends", a gallery and online exhibition of images of Gelek Rimpoche by Allen Ginsberg, a student with whom he had an "indissoluble bond," in 2021 at Tibet House US in New York City. Fifty negatives from Ginsberg's Stanford University photo archive celebrated "the unique relationship between Allen and Rimpoche." The selection of never-before presented images, featuring great Tibetan masters including the Dalai Lama, Tibetologists, and students were "guided by Allen's extensive notes on the contact sheets and images he'd circled with the intention to print."
Allen Ginsberg	Illness and death	Illness and death In 1960, he was treated for a tropical disease, and it is speculated that he contracted hepatitis from an unsterilized needle administered by a doctor, which played a role in his death 37 years later. Ginsberg was a lifelong smoker, and though he tried to quit for health and religious reasons, his busy schedule in later life made it difficult, and he always returned to smoking. In the 1970s, Ginsberg had two minor strokes which were first diagnosed as Bell's palsy, which gave him significant paralysis and stroke-like drooping of the muscles in one side of his face. Later in life, he also had constant minor ailments such as high blood pressure. Many of these symptoms were related to stress, but he never slowed down his schedule. thumb\|Allen Ginsberg, 1979 Ginsberg won a 1974 National Book Award for The Fall of America (split with Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck).In 1993, Ginsberg visited the University of Maine at Orono for a conference, to pay homage to the 90-year-old great Carl Rakosi and to read poems as well. "National Book Awards1974". National Book Foundation. Retrieved April 7, 2012 (with acceptance speech by Ginsberg and essay by John Murillo from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog). In 1986, Ginsberg was awarded the Golden Wreath by the Struga Poetry Evenings International Festival in Macedonia, the second American poet to be so awarded since W. H. Auden. At Struga, Ginsberg met with the other Golden Wreath winners, Bulat Okudzhava and Andrei Voznesensky. In 1989, Ginsberg appeared in Rosa von Praunheim's award-winning film Silence = Death about the fight of gay artists in New York City for AIDS-education and the rights of HIV infected people. In 1993, the French Minister of Culture appointed Ginsberg a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. Ginsberg continued to help his friends as much as he could: he gave money to Herbert Huncke out of his own pocket, regularly supplied neighbor Arthur Russell with an extension cord to power his home recording setup, and housed a broke, drug-addicted Harry Smith. With the exception of a special guest appearance at the NYU Poetry Slam on February 20, 1997, Ginsberg gave what is thought to be his last reading at The Booksmith in San Francisco on December 16, 1996. After returning home from the hospital for the last time, where he had been unsuccessfully treated for congestive heart failure, Ginsberg continued making phone calls to say goodbye to nearly everyone in his address book. Some of the phone calls were sad and interrupted by crying, and others were joyous and optimistic. Ginsberg continued to write through his final illness, with his last poem, "Things I'll Not Do (Nostalgias)", written on March 30.Ginsberg, Allen Collected Poems 1947–1997, pp. 1160–61. He died on April 5, 1997, surrounded by family and friends in his East Village loft in Manhattan, succumbing to liver cancer via complications of hepatitis at the age of 70. Gregory Corso, Roy Lichtenstein, Patti Smith and others came by to pay their respects. He was cremated, and his ashes were buried in his family plot in Gomel Chesed Cemetery in Newark. He was survived by Orlovsky. In 1998, various writers, including Catfish McDaris, read at a gathering at Ginsberg's farm to honor Allen and the Beats. Good Will Hunting (released in December 1997) was dedicated to Ginsberg, as well as Burroughs, who died four months later.
Allen Ginsberg	Social and political activism	Social and political activism
Allen Ginsberg	Free speech	Free speech Ginsberg's willingness to talk about taboo subjects made him a controversial figure during the conservative 1950s, and a significant figure in the 1960s. In the mid-1950s, no reputable publishing company would even consider publishing Howl. At the time, such "sex talk" employed in Howl was considered by some to be vulgar or even a form of pornography, and could be prosecuted under law. Ginsberg used phrases such as "cocksucker", "fucked in the ass", and "cunt" as part of the poem's depiction of different aspects of American culture. Numerous books that discussed sex were banned at the time, including Lady Chatterley's Lover. The sex that Ginsberg described did not portray the sex between heterosexual married couples, or even longtime lovers. Instead, Ginsberg portrayed casual sex. For example, in Howl, Ginsberg praises the man "who sweetened the snatches of a million girls." Ginsberg used gritty descriptions and explicit sexual language, pointing out the man "who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup." In his poetry, Ginsberg also discussed the then-taboo topic of homosexuality. The explicit sexual language that filled Howl eventually led to an important trial on First Amendment issues. Ginsberg's publisher was brought up on charges for publishing pornography, and the outcome led to a judge going on record dismissing charges, because the poem carried "redeeming social importance,"Morgan, Bill (ed.) (2006), "Howl" on Trial: The Battle for Free Expression. California: City of Lights. thus setting an important legal precedent. Ginsberg continued to broach controversial subjects throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. From 1970 to 1996, Ginsberg had a long-term affiliation with PEN American Center with efforts to defend free expression. When explaining how he approached controversial topics, he often pointed to Herbert Huncke: he said that when he first got to know Huncke in the 1940s, Ginsberg saw that he was sick from his heroin addiction, but at the time heroin was a taboo subject and Huncke was left with nowhere to go for help.Ginsberg, Allen. Deliberate Prose: Selected Essays 1952–1995. Harper Perennial, 2001.
Allen Ginsberg	Role in Vietnam War protests	Role in Vietnam War protests thumb\|right\|Protesting at the 1972 Republican National Convention Ginsberg was a signer of the anti-war manifesto "A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority", circulated among draft resistors in 1967 by members of the radical intellectual collective RESIST. Other signers and RESIST members included Mitchell Goodman, Henry Braun, Denise Levertov, Noam Chomsky, William Sloane Coffin, Dwight Macdonald, Robert Lowell, and Norman Mailer.Barsky, Robert F. (1998), "Marching with the Armies of the Night" in Noam Chomsky: a life of dissent. 1st ed. Cambridge: M.I.T. PressMitford, Jessica (1969) The Trial of Dr. Spock, the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., Michael Ferber, Mitchell Goodman, and Marcus Raskin [1st ed.]. New York: Knopf, p. 255. In 1968, Ginsberg signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War,"Writers and Editors War Tax Protest", New York Post. January 30, 1968. and later became a sponsor of the War Tax Resistance project, which practiced and advocated tax resistance as a form of anti-war protest."A Call to War Tax Resistance", The Cycle, May 14, 1970, p.7. He was present the night of the Tompkins Square Park riot (1988) and provided an eyewitness account to The New York Times.Purdham, Todd (August 14, 1988), "Melee in Tompkins Sq. Park: Violence and Its Provocation". The New York Times, section 1, part 1, page 1, column 4: Metropolitan Desk.
Allen Ginsberg	Relationship to communism	Relationship to communism Ginsberg talked openly about his connections with communism and his admiration for past communist heroes and the labor movement at a time when the Red Scare and McCarthyism were still raging. He admired Fidel Castro and many other Marxist figures from the 20th century. Ginsberg was a member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. In "America" (1956), Ginsberg writes: "America, I used to be a communist when I was a kid I'm not sorry". Biographer Jonah Raskin has claimed that, despite his often stark opposition to communist orthodoxy, Ginsberg held "his own idiosyncratic version of communism." On the other hand, when Donald Manes, a New York City politician, publicly accused Ginsberg of being a member of the Communist Party, Ginsberg objected: "I am not, as a matter of fact, a member of the Communist party, nor am I dedicated to the overthrow of the U.S. government or any government by violence ... I must say that I see little difference between the armed and violent governments both Communist and Capitalist that I have observed".Ginsberg, Allen (2008), The Letters of Allen Ginsberg. Philadelphia, Da Capo Press, p. 359. For context, see also . Ginsberg travelled to several communist countries to promote free speech. He claimed that communist countries, such as China, welcomed him because they thought he was an enemy of capitalism, but often turned against him when they saw him as a troublemaker. For example, in 1965 Ginsberg was deported from Cuba for publicly protesting the persecution of homosexuals.Allen Ginsberg's Life . illinois.edu The Cubans sent him to Czechoslovakia, where one week after being named the Král majálesu ("King of May",Ginsberg, Allan (2001), Selected Poems 1947–1995, "Kral Majales", Harper Collins Publishers, p. 147. a students' festivity, celebrating spring and student life), Ginsberg was arrested for alleged drug use and public drunkenness, and the security agency StB confiscated several of his writings, which they considered to be lewd and morally dangerous. Ginsberg was then deported from Czechoslovakia on May 7, 1965,Yanosik, Joseph (March 1996), The Plastic People of the Universe. furious.com. by order of the StB. Václav Havel points to Ginsberg as an important inspiration.
Allen Ginsberg	Gay rights	Gay rights One contribution that is often considered his most significant and most controversial was his openness about homosexuality. Ginsberg was an early proponent of freedom for gay people. In 1943, he discovered within himself "mountains of homosexuality." He expressed this desire openly and graphically in his poetry. He also struck a note for gay marriage by listing Peter Orlovsky, his lifelong companion, as his spouse in his Who's Who entry. Subsequent gay writers saw his frank talk about homosexuality as an opening to speak more openly and honestly about something often before only hinted at or spoken of in metaphor. In writing about sexuality in graphic detail and in his frequent use of language seen as indecent, he challenged—and ultimately changed—obscenity laws. He was a staunch supporter of others whose expression challenged obscenity laws (William S. Burroughs and Lenny Bruce, for example).
Allen Ginsberg	NAMBLA membership	NAMBLA membership Ginsberg was a supporter and member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), a pedophilia and pederasty advocacy organization in the United States that works to abolish age of consent laws and legalize sexual relations between adults and children. Saying that he joined the organization "in defense of free speech", Ginsberg stated: "Attacks on NAMBLA stink of politics, witchhunting for profit, humorlessness, vanity, anger and ignorance ... I'm a member of NAMBLA because I love boys too—everybody does, who has a little humanity". In 1994, Ginsberg appeared in a documentary on NAMBLA called Chicken Hawk: Men Who Love Boys (playing on the gay male slang term 'chickenhawk'), in which he read a "graphic ode to youth". He read his poem "Sweet Boy, Gimme Yr Ass" from the book Mind Breaths. In her 2002 book Heartbreak, Andrea Dworkin claimed Ginsberg had ulterior motives for allying with NAMBLA: In reference to his onetime friend Dworkin, Ginsberg stated:
Allen Ginsberg	Recreational drugs	Recreational drugs thumb\|right\|Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, and John C. Lilly in 1991 Ginsberg talked often about drug use. He organized the New York City chapter of LeMar (Legalize Marijuana).Fisher, Marc (February 22, 2014). Marijuana's rising acceptance comes after many failures. Is it now legalization's time? The Washington Post. Retrieved August 3, 2016. Throughout the 1960s he took an active role in the demystification of LSD, and, with Timothy Leary, worked to promote its common use. He remained for many decades an advocate of marijuana legalization, and, at the same time, warned his audiences against the hazards of tobacco in his Put Down Your Cigarette Rag (Don't Smoke): "Don't Smoke Don't Smoke Nicotine Nicotine No / No don't smoke the official Dope Smoke Dope Dope."
Allen Ginsberg	CIA drug trafficking	CIA drug trafficking Ginsberg worked closely with Alfred W. McCoy on the latter's book The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, which claimed that the CIA was knowingly involved in the production of heroin in the Golden Triangle of Burma, Thailand, and Laos. In addition to working with McCoy, Ginsberg personally confronted Richard Helms, the director of the CIA in the 1970s, about the matter, but Helms denied that the CIA had anything to do with selling illegal drugs.Ginsberg, Allen, and Hyde, Lewis. On the Poetry of Allen Ginsberg. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1984. Print. Ginsberg wrote many essays and articles, researching and compiling evidence of the CIA's alleged involvement in drug trafficking, but it took ten years, and the publication of McCoy's book in 1972, before anyone took him seriously. In 1978, Ginsberg received a note from the chief editor of The New York Times, apologizing for not having taken his allegations seriously. The political subject is dealt with in his song/poem "CIA Dope calypso". The United States Department of State responded to McCoy's initial allegations stating that they were "unable to find any evidence to substantiate them, much less proof." Subsequent investigations by the Inspector General of the CIA, United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a.k.a. the Church Committee, also found the charges to be unsubstantiated.
Allen Ginsberg	Work	Work Most of Ginsberg's very early poetry was written in formal rhyme and meter like that of his father, and of his idol William Blake. His admiration for the writing of Jack Kerouac inspired him to take poetry more seriously. In 1955, upon the advice of a psychiatrist, Ginsberg dropped out of the working world to devote his entire life to poetry. Soon after, he wrote Howl, the poem that brought him and his Beat Generation contemporaries to national attention and allowed him to live as a professional poet for the rest of his life. Later in life, Ginsberg entered academia, teaching poetry as Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College from 1986 until his death.Lawlor, William. Beat culture : lifestyles, icons, and impact. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2005. Print.
Allen Ginsberg	Inspiration from friends	Inspiration from friends Ginsberg claimed throughout his life that his biggest inspiration was Kerouac's concept of "spontaneous prose." He believed literature should come from the soul without conscious restrictions. Ginsberg was much more prone to revise than Kerouac. For example, when Kerouac saw the first draft of Howl, he disliked the fact that Ginsberg had made editorial changes in pencil (transposing "negro" and "angry" in the first line, for example). Kerouac only wrote out his concepts of spontaneous prose at Ginsberg's insistence because Ginsberg wanted to learn how to apply the technique to his poetry. The inspiration for Howl was Ginsberg's friend, Carl Solomon, and Howl is dedicated to him. Solomon was a Dada and Surrealism enthusiast (he introduced Ginsberg to Artaud) who had bouts of clinical depression. Solomon wanted to commit suicide, but he thought a form of suicide appropriate to dadaism would be to go to a mental institution and demand a lobotomy. The institution refused, giving him many forms of therapy, including electroshock therapy. Much of the final section of the first part of Howl is a description of this. Ginsberg used Solomon as an example of all those ground down by the machine of "Moloch." Moloch, to whom the second section is addressed, is a Levantine god to whom children were sacrificed. Ginsberg may have gotten the name from the Kenneth Rexroth poem "Thou Shalt Not Kill," a poem about the death of one of Ginsberg's heroes, Dylan Thomas. Moloch is mentioned a few times in the Torah and references to Ginsberg's Jewish background are frequent in his work. Ginsberg said the image of Moloch was inspired by peyote visions he had of the Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco which appeared to him as a skull; he took it as a symbol of the city (not specifically San Francisco, but all cities). Ginsberg later acknowledged in various publications and interviews that behind the visions of the Francis Drake Hotel were memories of the Moloch of Fritz Lang's film Metropolis (1927) and of the woodcut novels of Lynd Ward. Moloch has subsequently been interpreted as any system of control, including the conformist society of post-World War II America, focused on material gain, which Ginsberg frequently blamed for the destruction of all those outside of societal norms. He also made sure to emphasize that Moloch is a part of humanity in multiple aspects, in that the decision to defy socially created systems of control—and therefore go against Moloch—is a form of self-destruction. Many of the characters Ginsberg references in Howl, such as Neal Cassady and Herbert Huncke, destroyed themselves through excessive substance abuse or a generally wild lifestyle. The personal aspects of Howl are perhaps as important as the political aspects. Carl Solomon, the prime example of a "best mind" destroyed by defying society, is associated with Ginsberg's schizophrenic mother: the line "with mother finally fucked" comes after a long section about Carl Solomon, and in Part III, Ginsberg says: "I'm with you in Rockland where you imitate the shade of my mother." Ginsberg later admitted that the drive to write Howl was fueled by sympathy for his ailing mother, an issue which he was not yet ready to deal with directly. He dealt with it directly with 1959's Kaddish, which had its first public reading at a Catholic Worker Friday Night meeting, possibly due to its associations with Thomas Merton.
Allen Ginsberg	Inspiration from mentors and idols	Inspiration from mentors and idols Ginsberg's poetry was strongly influenced by Modernism (most importantly the American style of Modernism pioneered by William Carlos Williams), Romanticism (specifically William Blake and John Keats), the beat and cadence of jazz (specifically that of bop musicians such as Charlie Parker), and his Kagyu Buddhist practice and Jewish background. He considered himself to have inherited the visionary poetic mantle handed down from the English poet and artist William Blake, the American poet Walt Whitman and the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca. The power of Ginsberg's verse, its searching, probing focus, its long and lilting lines, as well as its New World exuberance, all echo the continuity of inspiration that he claimed. He corresponded with William Carlos Williams, who was then in the middle of writing his epic poem Paterson about the industrial city near his home. After attending a reading by Williams, Ginsberg sent the older poet several of his poems and wrote an introductory letter. Most of these early poems were rhymed and metered and included archaic pronouns like "thee." Williams disliked the poems and told Ginsberg, "In this mode perfection is basic, and these poems are not perfect." Though he disliked these early poems, Williams loved the exuberance in Ginsberg's letter. He included the letter in a later part of Paterson. He encouraged Ginsberg not to emulate the old masters, but to speak with his own voice and the voice of the common American. From Williams, Ginsberg learned to focus on strong visual images, in line with Williams' own motto "No ideas but in things." Studying Williams' style led to a tremendous shift from the early formalist work to a loose, colloquial free verse style. Early breakthrough poems include Bricklayer's Lunch Hour and Dream Record. Carl Solomon introduced Ginsberg to the work of Antonin Artaud (To Have Done with the Judgement of God and Van Gogh: The Man Suicided by Society), and Jean Genet (Our Lady of the Flowers). Philip Lamantia introduced him to other Surrealists and Surrealism continued to be an influence (for example, sections of "Kaddish" were inspired by André Breton's Free Union). Ginsberg claimed that the anaphoric repetition of Howl and other poems was inspired by Christopher Smart in such poems as Jubilate Agno. Ginsberg also claimed other more traditional influences, such as: Franz Kafka, Herman Melville, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Edgar Allan Poe, and Emily Dickinson. Ginsberg also made an intense study of haiku and the paintings of Paul Cézanne, from which he adapted a concept important to his work, which he called the Eyeball Kick. He noticed in viewing Cézanne's paintings that when the eye moved from one color to a contrasting color, the eye would spasm, or "kick." Likewise, he discovered that the contrast of two seeming opposites was a common feature in haiku. Ginsberg used this technique in his poetry, putting together two starkly dissimilar images: something weak with something strong, an artifact of high culture with an artifact of low culture, something holy with something unholy. The example Ginsberg most often used was "hydrogen jukebox" (which later became the title of a song cycle composed by Philip Glass with lyrics drawn from Ginsberg's poems). Another example is Ginsberg's observation on Bob Dylan during Dylan's hectic and intense 1966 electric-guitar tour, fueled by a cocktail of amphetamines, opiates, alcohol, and psychedelics, as a Dexedrine Clown. The phrases "eyeball kick" and "hydrogen jukebox" both show up in Howl, as well as a direct quote from Cézanne: "Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus".
Allen Ginsberg	Inspiration from music	Inspiration from music Allen Ginsberg also found inspiration in music. He frequently included music in his poetry, invariably composing his tunes on an old Indian harmonium, which he often played during his readings. He wrote and recorded music to accompany William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. He also recorded a handful of other albums. To create music for Howl and Wichita Vortex Sutra, he worked with the minimalist composer, Philip Glass. Ginsberg worked with, drew inspiration from, and inspired artists such as Bob Dylan, The Clash, Patti Smith, Phil Ochs, and The Fugs. He worked with Dylan on various projects and maintained a friendship with him over many years.Wills, D., "Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan", Beatdom No. 1 (2007). In 1981, Ginsberg recorded a song called "Birdbrain." He was backed by the Gluons, and the track was released as a single. In 1996, he recorded a song co-written with Paul McCartney and Philip Glass, "The Ballad of the Skeletons", which reached number 8 on the Triple J Hottest 100 for that year.
Allen Ginsberg	Style and technique	Style and technique From the study of his idols and mentors and the inspiration of his friends—not to mention his own experiments—Ginsberg developed an individualistic style that's easily identified as Ginsbergian. Ginsberg stated that Whitman's long line was a dynamic technique few other poets had ventured to develop further, and Whitman is also often compared to Ginsberg because their poetry sexualized aspects of the male form. Many of Ginsberg's early long line experiments contain some sort of anaphora, repetition of a "fixed base" (for example "who" in Howl, "America" in America) and this has become a recognizable feature of Ginsberg's style. He said later this was a crutch because he lacked confidence; he did not yet trust "free flight." In the 1960s, after employing it in some sections of Kaddish ("caw" for example) he, for the most part, abandoned the anaphoric form. 'Latter-Day Beat' Bob Dylan is known for using anaphora, as in 'Tangled Up in Blue' where the phrase, returned to at the end of every verse, takes the place of a chorus. Several of his earlier experiments with methods for formatting poems as a whole became regular aspects of his style in later poems. In the original draft of Howl, each line is in a "stepped triadic" format reminiscent of William Carlos Williams. He abandoned the "stepped triadic" when he developed his long line although the stepped lines showed up later, most significantly in the travelogues of The Fall of America. Howl and Kaddish, arguably his two most important poems, are both organized as an inverted pyramid, with larger sections leading to smaller sections. In America, he also experimented with a mix of longer and shorter lines. Ginsberg's mature style made use of many specific, highly developed techniques, which he expressed in the "poetic slogans" he used in his Naropa teaching. Prominent among these was the inclusion of his unedited mental associations so as to reveal the mind at work ("First thought, best thought." "Mind is shapely, thought is shapely.") He preferred expression through carefully observed physical details rather than abstract statements ("Show, don't tell." "No ideas but in things.")Rabinowitz, Jacob, Blame it on Blake, Amazon/Independent 2019, , pp. 55–63. In these he carried on and developed traditions of modernism in writing that are also found in Kerouac and Whitman. In Howl and in his other poetry, Ginsberg drew inspiration from the epic, free verse style of the 19th-century American poet Walt Whitman.Ginsberg, Allen Deliberate Prose, pp. 285–331. Both wrote passionately about the promise (and betrayal) of American democracy, the central importance of erotic experience, and the spiritual quest for the truth of everyday existence. J. D. McClatchy, editor of the Yale Review, called Ginsberg "the best-known American poet of his generation, as much a social force as a literary phenomenon." McClatchy added that Ginsberg, like Whitman, "was a bard in the old manner—outsized, darkly prophetic, part exuberance, part prayer, part rant. His work is finally a history of our era's psyche, with all its contradictory urges." McClatchy's barbed eulogies define the essential difference between Ginsberg ("a beat poet whose writing was [...] journalism raised by combining the recycling genius with a generous mimic-empathy, to strike audience-accessible chords; always lyrical and sometimes truly poetic") and Kerouac ("a poet of singular brilliance, the brightest luminary of a 'beat generation' he came to symbolise in popular culture [...] [though] in reality he far surpassed his contemporaries [...] Kerouac is an originating genius, exploring then answering—like Rimbaud a century earlier, by necessity more than by choice—the demands of authentic self-expression as applied to the evolving quicksilver mind of America's only literary virtuoso [...]").
Allen Ginsberg	Bibliography	Bibliography Howl and Other Poems (1956), Kaddish and Other Poems (1961), Empty Mirror: Early Poems (1961), Reality Sandwiches (1963), The Yage Letters (1963)with William S. Burroughs Planet News (1968), Indian Journals (1970), First Blues: Rags, Ballads & Harmonium Songs 1971 - 1974 (1975), The Gates of Wrath: Rhymed Poems 1948–1951 (1972), The Fall of America: Poems of These States (1973), Iron Horse (1973) Allen Verbatim: Lectures on Poetry, Politics, Consciousness by Allen Ginsberg (1974), edited by Gordon Ball, Sad Dust Glories: poems during work summer in woods (1975) Mind Breaths (1978), Plutonian Ode: Poems 1977–1980 (1981), Collected Poems 1947–1980 (1984), . Republished with later material added as Collected Poems 1947-1997, New York, HarperCollins, 2006 White Shroud Poems: 1980–1985 (1986), Cosmopolitan Greetings Poems: 1986–1993 (1994) Howl Annotated (1995) Illuminated Poems (1996) Selected Poems: 1947–1995 (1996) Death and Fame: Poems 1993–1997 (1999) Deliberate Prose 1952–1995 (2000) Howl & Other Poems 50th Anniversary Edition (2006), The Book of Martyrdom and Artifice: First Journals and Poems 1937-1952 (Da Capo Press, 2006) The Selected Letters of Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder (Counterpoint, 2009) I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career: The Selected Correspondence of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg, 1955–1997 (City Lights, 2015) The Best Minds of My Generation: A Literary History of the Beats (Grove Press, 2017)
Allen Ginsberg	Selected discography	Selected discography Howl And Other Poems (1959) Fantasy - 7006 None (1965) with Gregory Corso, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Andrei Voznesensky Lovebooks - LB0001 Allen Ginsberg Reading at Better Books (1965) Better Books – 16156/57 Reads Kaddish (A 20th Century American Ecstatic Narrative Poem) (1966) Atlantic – 4001 The Ginsbergs At The ICA (1967) with Louise Ginsberg Saga Psyche – PSY 3000 Consciousness & Practical Action (1967) Liberation Records – DL 16 Challenge Seminar (1968) with Gregory Bateson and R.D. Laing Liberation Records – DL 23 Ginsberg's Thing (1969) Transatlantic Records – TRA 192 Songs Of Innocence And Experience (1970) MGM Records – FTS-3083, Verve Forecast – FTS-3083 America Today! (The World's Greatest Poets Vol. I) (1971) with Gregory Corso and Lawrence Ferlinghetti CMS – CMS 617 Gate, Two Evenings With Allen Ginsberg Vol.1 Songs (1980) Loft – LOFT 1001 First Blues: Rags, Ballads & Harmonium Songs (1981) Folkways Records – FSS 37560 First Blues (1983) John Hammond Records – W2X 37673 Allen Ginsberg With Still Life (1983) with Still Life Local Anesthetic Records – LA LP-001 Üvöltés (1987) with Hobo Krém – SLPM 37048 The Lion For Real (1989) Great Jones – GJ-6004 September On Jessore Road (1992) with the Mondriaan Quartet Soyo Records – 0001 Cosmopolitan Greetings (1993) with George Gruntz Schweiz – MGB CD 9203, Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund – MGB CD 9203 Hydrogen Jukebox (1993) with Philip Glass Elektra Nonesuch – 9 79286-2 Allen Ginsberg: Material Wealth (Allen’s voice in poems and songs 1956-1996)(2024)
Allen Ginsberg	Honors	Honors His collection The Fall of America shared the annual U.S. National Book Award for Poetry in 1974. Ginsberg won a 1974 National Book Award for The Fall of America (split with Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck). In 1979, he received the National Arts Club gold medal and was inducted into the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1986, Ginsberg was awarded the Golden Wreath by the Struga Poetry Evenings International Festival in Macedonia, the second American poet to be so awarded since W. H. Auden. At Struga, Ginsberg met with the other Golden Wreath winners, Bulat Okudzhava and Andrei Voznesensky. In 1989, Ginsberg appeared in Rosa von Praunheim's award-winning film Silence = Death about the fight of gay artists in New York City for AIDS-education and the rights of HIV infected people. In 1993, the French Minister of Culture appointed Ginsberg a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. Ginsberg was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1995 for his book Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986–1992. In 1993, he received a John Jay Award posthumously from Columbia. In 2014, Ginsberg was one of the inaugural honorees in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields."
Allen Ginsberg	See also	See also The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg (film) :Category:Works by Allen Ginsberg Allen Ginsberg Live in London Hungry generation Howl (2010 film) LGBT culture in New York City List of LGBT people from New York City Central Park Be-In Trevor Carolan Counterculture of the 1960s Burroughs by Howard Brookner List of peace activists Kill Your Darlings Jewish Buddhist American poetry
Allen Ginsberg	Notes	Notes
Allen Ginsberg	References	References
Allen Ginsberg	Sources	Sources Schumacher, Michael (ed.). Family Business: Selected Letters Between a Father and Son. Bloomsbury (2002), paperback, 448 pages,
Allen Ginsberg	Further reading	Further reading Boer, Charles. Charles Olson in Connecticut. North Carolina Wesleyan College Press, 1991, (1975). . Bullough, Vern L. Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context. Harrington Park Press, 2002. pp 304–311. Charters, Ann (ed.). The Portable Beat Reader. Penguin Books. New York. 1992. (hc); (pbk) Collins, Ronald & Skover, David. Mania: The Story of the Outraged & Outrageous Lives that Launched a Cultural Revolution (Top-Five books, March 2013) Gifford, Barry (ed.). As Ever: The Collected Letters of Allen Ginsberg & Neal Cassady. Berkeley: Creative Arts Books (1977). Ginsberg, Allen. Travels with Ginsberg: A Postcard Book. San Francisco: City Lights (2002). Hrebeniak, Michael. Action Writing: Jack Kerouac's Wild Form, Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 2006. Kashner, Sam. When I Was Cool, My Life at the Jack Kerouac School, New York: HarperCollins Perennial, 2005. McBride, Dick. Cometh With Clouds (Memory: Allen Ginsberg) Cherry Valley Editions, 1982 Morgan, Bill (ed.), I Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career: The Selected Correspondence of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg, 1955–1997. San Francisco: City Lights Publishers, 2015. Schumacher, Michael. Dharma Lion: A Biography of Allen Ginsberg. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994. Trigilio, Tony. Allen Ginsberg's Buddhist Poetics. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2007. Trigilio, Tony. "Strange Prophecies Anew": Rereading Apocalypse in Blake, H.D., and Ginsberg. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2000. . Tytell, John. Naked Angels: Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1976. Warner, Simon (ed.). Howl for Now: A 50th anniversary celebration of Allen Ginsberg's epic protest poem. West Yorkshire, UK: Route (2005), paperback, 144 pages,
Allen Ginsberg	External links	External links
Allen Ginsberg	Archives	Archives George Dowden papers on the Allen Ginsberg bibliography, 1966–1971 at Rare Book and Manuscripts Library, Columbia University Libraries Materials related to Allen Ginsberg in the Robert A. Wilson collection at Special Collections, University of Delaware Library Allen Ginsberg papers at Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford Libraries
Allen Ginsberg	Audio recordings and interviews	Audio recordings and interviews Audio recordings of Allen Ginsberg, from the Woodberry Poetry Room, Harvard University Audio recordings of Allen Ginsberg, from Maryland Institute College of Art's Decker Library, Internet Archive Modern American Poetry , interview
Allen Ginsberg	Other links	Other links The Allen Ginsberg Trust Case Histories: Allen Ginsberg at PEN.org honoring Ginsberg's work, from PEN American Center Allen Ginsberg on Poets.org With audio clips, poems, and related essays, from the Academy of American Poets "After 50 Years, Ginsberg's Howl Still Resonates" NPR October 27, 2006 Allen Ginsberg photographs with hand-written captions at LensCulture Autobiographical Article in Shambhala Sun Magazine FBI agents were warned against interviewing Allen Ginsberg, fearing it would result in "embarrassment" from MuckRock.com Allen Ginsberg materials in "Beat Visions and the Counterculture" (online exhibition) at Special Collections, University of Delaware Library Category:1926 births Category:1997 deaths Category:20th-century American male writers Category:20th-century American poets Category:20th-century American Buddhists Category:Activists from New York (state) Category:American anti–nuclear weapons activists Category:American anti–Vietnam War activists Category:American cannabis activists Category:20th-century American diarists Category:American expatriates in France Category:American gay writers Category:American LGBTQ poets Category:American LGBTQ rights activists Category:American male poets Category:American pacifists Category:American people of Russian-Jewish descent Category:American psychedelic drug advocates Category:American sailors Category:American spoken word artists Category:American tax resisters Category:Beat Generation poets Category:Brooklyn College faculty Category:Columbia College (New York) alumni Category:Converts to Buddhism Category:Counterculture of the 1950s Category:Deaths from liver cancer in New York (state) Category:Eastside High School (Paterson, New Jersey) alumni Category:English-language haiku poets Category:American free speech activists Category:Gay academics Category:Gay poets Category:Harmonium players Category:Industrial Workers of the World members Category:Jewish American military personnel Category:Jewish American poets Category:Gay Buddhists Category:Gay Jews Category:LGBTQ people from Colorado Category:LGBTQ people from New Jersey Category:LGBTQ people from New York (state) Category:Locust Music artists Category:Military personnel from Newark, New Jersey Category:Military personnel from Paterson, New Jersey Category:Montclair State University alumni Category:National Book Award winners Category:Obscenity controversies in literature Category:Outlaw poets Category:Pedophile advocacy Category:Pedophilia in the United States Category:People from Greenwich Village Category:People from the East Village, Manhattan Category:Writers from Manhattan Category:Poets from New Jersey Category:American postmodern writers Category:Struga Poetry Evenings Golden Wreath laureates Category:Tibetan Buddhists from the United States Category:Transatlantic Records artists Category:United States Merchant Mariners of World War II Category:Writers from Boulder, Colorado Category:Writers from Newark, New Jersey Category:Writers from Paterson, New Jersey Category:Yippies
Allen Ginsberg	Table of Content	short description, Biography, Early life and family, Relationship with his parents, New York Beats, The "Blake vision", San Francisco Renaissance, Biographical references in "Howl", To Paris and the "Beat Hotel", Tangier and India, England and the International Poetry Incarnation, Continuing literary activity, Buddhism and Krishna, Illness and death, Social and political activism, Free speech, Role in Vietnam War protests, Relationship to communism, Gay rights, NAMBLA membership, Recreational drugs, CIA drug trafficking, Work, Inspiration from friends, Inspiration from mentors and idols, Inspiration from music, Style and technique, Bibliography, Selected discography, Honors, See also, Notes, References, Sources, Further reading, External links, Archives, Audio recordings and interviews, Other links
Algebraically closed field	Short description	In mathematics, a field is algebraically closed if every non-constant polynomial in (the univariate polynomial ring with coefficients in ) has a root in . In other words, a field is algebraically closed if the fundamental theorem of algebra holds for it. Every field is contained in an algebraically closed field and the roots in of the polynomials with coefficients in form an algebraically closed field called an algebraic closure of Given two algebraic closures of there are isomorphisms between them that fix the elements of Algebraically closed fields appear in the following chain of class inclusions:
Algebraically closed field	Examples	Examples As an example, the field of real numbers is not algebraically closed, because the polynomial equation has no solution in real numbers, even though all its coefficients (1 and 0) are real. The same argument proves that no subfield of the real field is algebraically closed; in particular, the field of rational numbers is not algebraically closed. By contrast, the fundamental theorem of algebra states that the field of complex numbers is algebraically closed. Another example of an algebraically closed field is the field of (complex) algebraic numbers. No finite field F is algebraically closed, because if a1, a2, ..., an are the elements of F, then the polynomial (x − a1)(x − a2) ⋯ (x − an) + 1 has no zero in F. However, the union of all finite fields of a fixed characteristic p (p prime) is an algebraically closed field, which is, in fact, the algebraic closure of the field with p elements. The field of rational functions with complex coefficients is not closed; for example, the polynomial has roots , which are not elements of .
Algebraically closed field	Equivalent properties	Equivalent properties Given a field F, the assertion "F is algebraically closed" is equivalent to other assertions:
Algebraically closed field	The only irreducible polynomials are those of degree one	The only irreducible polynomials are those of degree one The field F is algebraically closed if and only if the only irreducible polynomials in the polynomial ring F[x] are those of degree one. The assertion "the polynomials of degree one are irreducible" is trivially true for any field. If F is algebraically closed and p(x) is an irreducible polynomial of F[x], then it has some root a and therefore p(x) is a multiple of . Since p(x) is irreducible, this means that , for some . On the other hand, if F is not algebraically closed, then there is some non-constant polynomial p(x) in F[x] without roots in F. Let q(x) be some irreducible factor of p(x). Since p(x) has no roots in F, q(x) also has no roots in F. Therefore, q(x) has degree greater than one, since every first degree polynomial has one root in F.
Algebraically closed field	Every polynomial is a product of first degree polynomials	Every polynomial is a product of first degree polynomials The field F is algebraically closed if and only if every polynomial p(x) of degree n ≥ 1, with coefficients in F, splits into linear factors. In other words, there are elements k, x1, x2, ..., xn of the field F such that p(x) = k(x − x1)(x − x2) ⋯ (x − xn). If F has this property, then clearly every non-constant polynomial in F[x] has some root in F; in other words, F is algebraically closed. On the other hand, that the property stated here holds for F if F is algebraically closed follows from the previous property together with the fact that, for any field K, any polynomial in K[x] can be written as a product of irreducible polynomials.
Algebraically closed field	Polynomials of prime degree have roots	Polynomials of prime degree have roots If every polynomial over F of prime degree has a root in F, then every non-constant polynomial has a root in F.Shipman, J. Improving the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra The Mathematical Intelligencer, Volume 29 (2007), Number 4. pp. 9–14 It follows that a field is algebraically closed if and only if every polynomial over F of prime degree has a root in F.
Algebraically closed field	The field has no proper algebraic extension	The field has no proper algebraic extension The field F is algebraically closed if and only if it has no proper algebraic extension. If F has no proper algebraic extension, let p(x) be some irreducible polynomial in F[x]. Then the quotient of F[x] modulo the ideal generated by p(x) is an algebraic extension of F whose degree is equal to the degree of p(x). Since it is not a proper extension, its degree is 1 and therefore the degree of p(x) is 1. On the other hand, if F has some proper algebraic extension K, then the minimal polynomial of an element in K \ F is irreducible and its degree is greater than 1.
Algebraically closed field	The field has no proper finite extension	The field has no proper finite extension The field F is algebraically closed if and only if it has no proper finite extension because if, within the previous proof, the term "algebraic extension" is replaced by the term "finite extension", then the proof is still valid. (Finite extensions are necessarily algebraic.)
Algebraically closed field	Every endomorphism of ''F<sup>n</sup>'' has some eigenvector	Every endomorphism of Fn has some eigenvector The field F is algebraically closed if and only if, for each natural number n, every linear map from Fn into itself has some eigenvector. An endomorphism of Fn has an eigenvector if and only if its characteristic polynomial has some root. Therefore, when F is algebraically closed, every endomorphism of Fn has some eigenvector. On the other hand, if every endomorphism of Fn has an eigenvector, let p(x) be an element of F[x]. Dividing by its leading coefficient, we get another polynomial q(x) which has roots if and only if p(x) has roots. But if , then q(x) is the characteristic polynomial of the n×n companion matrix
Algebraically closed field	Decomposition of rational expressions	Decomposition of rational expressions The field F is algebraically closed if and only if every rational function in one variable x, with coefficients in F, can be written as the sum of a polynomial function with rational functions of the form a/(x − b)n, where n is a natural number, and a and b are elements of F. If F is algebraically closed then, since the irreducible polynomials in F[x] are all of degree 1, the property stated above holds by the theorem on partial fraction decomposition. On the other hand, suppose that the property stated above holds for the field F. Let p(x) be an irreducible element in F[x]. Then the rational function 1/p can be written as the sum of a polynomial function q with rational functions of the form a/(x – b)n. Therefore, the rational expression can be written as a quotient of two polynomials in which the denominator is a product of first degree polynomials. Since p(x) is irreducible, it must divide this product and, therefore, it must also be a first degree polynomial.
Algebraically closed field	Relatively prime polynomials and roots	Relatively prime polynomials and roots For any field F, if two polynomials are relatively prime then they do not have a common root, for if was a common root, then p(x) and q(x) would both be multiples of and therefore they would not be relatively prime. The fields for which the reverse implication holds (that is, the fields such that whenever two polynomials have no common root then they are relatively prime) are precisely the algebraically closed fields. If the field F is algebraically closed, let p(x) and q(x) be two polynomials which are not relatively prime and let r(x) be their greatest common divisor. Then, since r(x) is not constant, it will have some root a, which will be then a common root of p(x) and q(x). If F is not algebraically closed, let p(x) be a polynomial whose degree is at least 1 without roots. Then p(x) and p(x) are not relatively prime, but they have no common roots (since none of them has roots).
Algebraically closed field	Other properties	Other properties If F is an algebraically closed field and n is a natural number, then F contains all nth roots of unity, because these are (by definition) the n (not necessarily distinct) zeroes of the polynomial xn − 1. A field extension that is contained in an extension generated by the roots of unity is a cyclotomic extension, and the extension of a field generated by all roots of unity is sometimes called its cyclotomic closure. Thus algebraically closed fields are cyclotomically closed. The converse is not true. Even assuming that every polynomial of the form xn − a splits into linear factors is not enough to assure that the field is algebraically closed. If a proposition which can be expressed in the language of first-order logic is true for an algebraically closed field, then it is true for every algebraically closed field with the same characteristic. Furthermore, if such a proposition is valid for an algebraically closed field with characteristic 0, then not only is it valid for all other algebraically closed fields with characteristic 0, but there is some natural number N such that the proposition is valid for every algebraically closed field with characteristic p when p > N.See subsections Rings and fields and Properties of mathematical theories in §2 of J. Barwise's "An introduction to first-order logic". Every field F has some extension which is algebraically closed. Such an extension is called an algebraically closed extension. Among all such extensions there is one and only one (up to isomorphism, but not unique isomorphism) which is an algebraic extension of F;See Lang's Algebra, §VII.2 or van der Waerden's Algebra I, §10.1. it is called the algebraic closure of F. The theory of algebraically closed fields has quantifier elimination.
Algebraically closed field	Notes	Notes
Algebraically closed field	References	References Category:Field (mathematics)
Algebraically closed field	Table of Content	Short description, Examples, Equivalent properties, The only irreducible polynomials are those of degree one, Every polynomial is a product of first degree polynomials, Polynomials of prime degree have roots, The field has no proper algebraic extension, The field has no proper finite extension, Every endomorphism of ''F<sup>n</sup>'' has some eigenvector, Decomposition of rational expressions, Relatively prime polynomials and roots, Other properties, Notes, References
August 6	pp-move
August 6	Events	Events
August 6	Pre-1600	Pre-1600 686 – The Ummayad forces suffer a deceisive defeat against the pro-Alid forces under Ibrahim ibn al-Ashtar in the battle of Khazir. 1284 – The Republic of Pisa is defeated in the Battle of Meloria by the Republic of Genoa, thus losing its naval dominance in the Mediterranean. 1538 – Bogotá, Colombia, is founded by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada.
August 6	1601–1900	1601–1900 1661 – The Treaty of The Hague is signed by Portugal and the Dutch Republic. 1777 – American Revolutionary War: The bloody Battle of Oriskany prevents American relief of the Siege of Fort Stanwix. 1787 – Sixty proof sheets of the Constitution of the United States are delivered to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 1806 – Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, declares the moribund empire to be dissolved, although he retains power in the Austrian Empire. 1819 – Norwich University is founded in Vermont as the first private military school in the United States. 1824 – Peruvian War of Independence: Patriot forces led by Simón Bolívar defeat the Spanish Royalist army in the Battle of Junín. 1825 – The Bolivian Declaration of Independence is proclaimed. 1861 – Britain imposes the Lagos Treaty of Cession to suppress slavery in what is now Nigeria. 1862 – American Civil War: The Confederate ironclad is scuttled on the Mississippi River after suffering catastrophic engine failure near Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 1870 – Franco-Prussian War: The Battle of Spicheren is fought, resulting in a German victory. 1870 – Franco-Prussian War: The Battle of Wörth results in a decisive German victory. 1890 – At Auburn Prison in New York, murderer William Kemmler becomes the first person to be executed by electric chair.
August 6	1901–present	1901–present 1901 – Kiowa land in Oklahoma is opened for white settlement, effectively dissolving the contiguous reservation. 1914 – World War I: U-boat campaign: Two days after the United Kingdom had declared war on Germany over the German invasion of Belgium, ten German U-boats leave their base in Heligoland to attack Royal Navy warships in the North Sea. 1914 – World War I: Serbia declares war on Germany; Austria declares war on Russia. 1915 – World War I: Battle of Sari Bair: The Allies mount a diversionary attack timed to coincide with a major Allied landing of reinforcements at Suvla Bay. 1917 – World War I: Battle of Mărășești between the Romanian and German armies begins. 1926 – Gertrude Ederle becomes the first woman to swim across the English Channel. 1926 – First public screening using the Vitaphone process 1940 – Estonia is annexed by the Soviet Union. 1942 – Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands becomes the first reigning queen to address a joint session of the United States Congress. 1944 – The Warsaw Uprising occurs on August 1. It is brutally suppressed and all able-bodied men in Kraków are detained afterwards to prevent a similar uprising, the Kraków Uprising, that was planned but never carried out. 1945 – World War II: Hiroshima, Japan is devastated when the atomic bomb "Little Boy" is dropped by the United States B-29 Enola Gay. Around 70,000 people are killed instantly, and some tens of thousands die in subsequent years from burns and radiation poisoning. 1956 – After going bankrupt in 1955, the American broadcaster DuMont Television Network makes its final broadcast, a boxing match from St. Nicholas Arena in New York in the Boxing from St. Nicholas Arena series. 1958 – Law of Permanent Defense of Democracy, outlawing the Communist Party of Chile and banning 26,650 persons from the electoral lists,Adam Feinstein, Pablo Neruda: A Passion for Life url is repealed in Chile. 1960 – Cuban Revolution: Cuba nationalizes American and foreign-owned property in the nation. 1962 – Jamaica becomes independent from the United Kingdom. 1965 – US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law. 1986 – A low-pressure system that redeveloped off the New South Wales coast dumps a record 328 millimeters (13 inches) of rain in a day on Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. 1990 – Gulf War: The United Nations Security Council orders a global trade embargo against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. 1991 – Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. WWW makes its first appearance as a publicly available service on the Internet. 1991 – Takako Doi, chair of the Social Democratic Party, becomes Japan's first female speaker of the House of Representatives. 1996 – NASA announces that the ALH 84001 meteorite, thought to originate from Mars, contains evidence of primitive life-forms. 1997 – Korean Air Flight 801 crashed at Nimitz Hill, Guam, killing 229 of the 254 people on board. 2001 – Erwadi fire incident: Twenty-eight mentally ill persons tied to a chain are burnt to death at a faith based institution at Erwadi, Tamil Nadu. 2008 – A military junta led by Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz stages a coup d'état in Mauritania, overthrowing president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi. 2010 – Flash floods across a large part of Jammu and Kashmir, India, damages 71 towns and kills at least 255 people. 2011 – War in Afghanistan: A United States military helicopter is shot down, killing 30 American special forces members and a working dog, seven Afghan soldiers, and one Afghan civilian. It was the deadliest single event for the United States in the War in Afghanistan. 2012 – NASA's Curiosity rover lands on the surface of Mars. 2015 – A suicide bomb attack kills at least 15 people at a mosque in the Saudi city of Abha.
August 6	Births	Births
August 6	Pre-1600	Pre-1600 1180 – Emperor Go-Toba of Japan (d. 1239) 1504 – Matthew Parker, English archbishop (d. 1575) 1572 – Fakhr-al-Din II, Druze emir (d. 1635)
August 6	1601–1900	1601–1900 1605 – Bulstrode Whitelocke, English lawyer (d. 1675) 1609 – Richard Bennett, English-American politician, Colonial Governor of Virginia (d. 1675) 1619 – Barbara Strozzi, Italian composer and singer-songwriter (d. 1677) 1622 – Tjerk Hiddes de Vries, Dutch admiral (d. 1666) 1638 – Nicolas Malebranche, French priest and philosopher (d. 1715) 1644 – Louise de La Vallière, French mistress of Louis XIV of France (d. 1710) 1651 – François Fénelon, French archbishop and poet (d. 1715) 1656 – Claude de Forbin, French general (d. 1733) 1666 – Maria Sophia of Neuburg (d. 1699) 1667 – Johann Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician (d. 1748) 1697 – Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1745) 1715 – Luc de Clapiers, marquis de Vauvenargues, French author (d. 1747) 1765 – Petros Mavromichalis, Greek general and politician, 2nd Prime Minister of Greece (d. 1848) 1766 – William Hyde Wollaston, English chemist and physicist (d. 1828) 1768 – Jean-Baptiste Bessières, French general and politician (d. 1813) 1775 – Daniel O'Connell, Irish lawyer and politician, Lord Mayor of Dublin (d. 1847) 1809 – Alfred, Lord Tennyson, English poet (d. 1892) 1826 – Thomas Alexander Browne, English-Australian author (d. 1915) 1835 – Hjalmar Kiærskou, Danish botanist (d. 1900) 1844 – Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (d. 1900) 1844 – James Henry Greathead, South African-English engineer (d. 1896) 1848 – Susie Taylor, American writer and first black Army nurse (d. 1912) 1846 – Anna Haining Bates, Canadian-American giant (d. 1888) 1868 – Paul Claudel, French poet and playwright (d. 1955) 1874 – Charles Fort, American author (d. 1932) 1877 – Wallace H. White Jr., American lawyer and politician (d. 1952) 1880 – Hans Moser, Austrian actor and singer (d. 1964) 1881 – Leo Carrillo, American actor (d. 1961) 1881 – Alexander Fleming, Scottish biologist, pharmacologist, and botanist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1955) 1881 – Louella Parsons, American journalist (d. 1972) 1883 – Constance Georgina Adams, South African botanist (d. 1968) 1883 – Scott Nearing, American economist and educator (d. 1983) 1886 – Edward Ballantine, American composer and academic (d. 1971) 1887 – Dudley Benjafield, English racing driver (d. 1957) 1889 – George Kenney, Canadian-American general (d. 1977) 1889 – John Middleton Murry, English poet and author (d. 1957) 1891 – William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim, English field marshal and politician, 13th Governor-General of Australia (d. 1970) 1895 – Frank Nicklin, Australian politician, 28th Premier of Queensland (d. 1978) 1900 – Cecil Howard Green, English-American geophysicist and businessman, co-founded Texas Instruments (d. 2003)
August 6	1901–present	1901–present 1901 – Dutch Schultz, American gangster (d. 1935) 1903 – Virginia Foster Durr, American civil rights activist (d. 1999) 1904 – Jean Dessès, Greek-Egyptian fashion designer (d. 1970) 1904 – Henry Iba, American basketball player and coach (d. 1993) 1906 – Vic Dickenson, American trombonist (d. 1984) 1908 – Maria Ludwika Bernhard, Polish classical archaeologist and a member of WWII Polish resistance (d. 1998) 1908 – Helen Jacobs, American tennis player and commander (d. 1997) 1908 – Lajos Vajda, Hungarian painter and illustrator (d. 1941) 1909 – Diana Keppel, Countess of Albemarle (d. 2013) 1910 – Adoniran Barbosa, Brazilian musician, singer, composer, humorist, and actor (d. 1982) 1910 – Charles Crichton, English director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 1999) 1911 – Lucille Ball, American actress, television producer and businesswoman (d. 1989) 1911 – Norman Gordon, South African cricketer (d. 2014) 1911 – Constance Heaven, English author and actress (d. 1995) 1912 – Richard C. Miller, American photographer (d. 2010) 1914 – Gordon Freeth, Australian lawyer and politician, 24th Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs (d. 2001) 1916 – Richard Hofstadter, American historian and academic (d. 1970) 1916 – Dom Mintoff, Maltese journalist and politician, 8th Prime Minister of Malta (d. 2012) 1917 – Barbara Cooney, American author and illustrator (d. 2000) 1917 – Robert Mitchum, American actor (d. 1997) 1918 – Norman Granz, American-Swiss record producer and manager (d. 2001) 1919 – Pauline Betz, American tennis player (d. 2011) 1920 – John Graves, American author (d. 2013) 1920 – Ella Raines, American actress (d. 1988) 1922 – Freddie Laker, English businessman, founded Laker Airways (d. 2006) 1922 – Dan Walker, American lawyer and politician, 36th Governor of Illinois (d. 2015) 1923 – Jess Collins, American painter (d. 2004) 1923 – Paul Hellyer, Canadian engineer and politician, 16th Canadian Minister of Defence (d. 2021) 1924 – Samuel Bowers, American white supremacist, co-founded the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (d. 2006) 1924 – Ella Jenkins, American folk singer (d. 2024) 1926 – Elisabeth Beresford, English journalist and author (d. 2010) 1926 – Frank Finlay, English actor (d. 2016) 1926 – Clem Labine, American baseball player and manager (d. 2007) 1926 – János Rózsás, Hungarian author (d. 2012) 1926 – Norman Wexler, American screenwriter (d. 1999) 1928 – Herb Moford, American baseball player (d. 2005) 1928 – Andy Warhol, American painter, photographer and film director (d. 1987) 1929 – Mike Elliott, Jamaican saxophonist 1929 – Roch La Salle, Canadian politician, 42nd Canadian Minister of Public Works (d. 2007) 1930 – Abbey Lincoln, American singer-songwriter and actress (d. 2010) 1931 – Chalmers Johnson, American scholar and author (d. 2010) 1932 – Michael Deeley, English screenwriter and producer 1932 – Howard Hodgkin, English painter (d. 2017) 1932 – Charles Wood, English playwright and screenwriter (d. 2020) 1933 – A. G. Kripal Singh, Indian cricketer (d. 1987) 1934 – Piers Anthony, English-American soldier and author 1934 – Chris Bonington, English mountaineer and author 1934 – Billy Boston, Welsh rugby player and soldier 1935 – Fortunato Baldelli, Italian cardinal (d. 2012) 1935 – Octavio Getino, Spanish-Argentinian director and screenwriter (d. 2012) 1937 – Baden Powell de Aquino, Brazilian guitarist and composer (d. 2000) 1937 – Charlie Haden, American bassist and composer (d. 2014) 1937 – Barbara Windsor, English actress (d. 2020) 1938 – Paul Bartel, American actor, director, and screenwriter (d. 2000) 1938 – Peter Bonerz, American actor and director 1938 – Bert Yancey, American golfer (d. 1994) 1940 – Mukhu Aliyev, Russian philologist and politician, 2nd President of Dagestan 1940 – Egil Kapstad, Norwegian pianist and composer (d. 2017) 1940 – Louise Sorel, American actress 1941 – Ray Culp, American baseball player 1942 – Byard Lancaster, American saxophonist and flute player (d. 2012) 1943 – Jon Postel, American computer scientist and academic (d. 1998) 1944 – Inday Badiday, Filipino journalist and actress (d. 2003) 1944 – Michael Mingos, English chemist and academic 1944 – Martin Wharton, English bishop 1945 – Ron Jones, English director and production manager (d. 1993) 1946 – Allan Holdsworth, English guitarist, songwriter, and producer (d. 2017) 1947 – Radhia Cousot, French computer scientist and academic (d. 2014) 1949 – Dino Bravo, Italian-Canadian wrestler (d. 1993) 1950 – Dorian Harewood, American actor 1951 – Catherine Hicks, American actress 1951 – Daryl Somers, Australian television host and singer 1952 – Pat MacDonald, American singer-songwriter and guitarist 1952 – David McLetchie, Scottish lawyer and politician (d. 2013) 1952 – Ton Scherpenzeel, Dutch keyboard player, songwriter, and producer 1954 – Mark Hughes, English-Australian rugby league player 1956 – Bill Emmott, English journalist and author 1957 – Bob Horner, American baseball player 1957 – Jim McGreevey, American lawyer and politician, 52nd Governor of New Jersey 1958 – Randy DeBarge, American singer-songwriter and bass player 1959 – Rajendra Singh, Indian environmentalist 1959 – Joyce Sims, American singer (d. 2022) 1960 – Dale Ellis, American basketball player 1961 – Mary Ann Sieghart, English journalist and radio host 1962 – Michelle Yeoh, Malaysian-Hong Kong actress and producerEncyclopædia Britannica Almanac 2010, p. 75 1963 – Charles Ingram, English soldier, author, and game show contestant 1963 – Kevin Mitnick, American computer security consultant, author, and convicted hacker (d. 2023) 1964 – Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo, Nigerian journalist, activist, social media expert, and pharmacist 1965 – Stéphane Peterhansel, French racing driver 1965 – Yuki Kajiura, Japanese pianist and composer 1965 – David Robinson, American basketball player and lieutenant 1968 – Jack de Gier, Dutch footballer 1969 – Simon Doull, New Zealand cricketer and sportscaster 1969 – Elliott Smith, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (d. 2003) 1970 – M. Night Shyamalan, Indian-American director, producer, and screenwriter 1972 – Geri Halliwell, English singer-songwriter, dancer, and actress 1972 – Jason O'Mara, Irish actor 1973 – Vera Farmiga, American actress 1973 – Stuart O'Grady, Australian cyclist 1975 – Jason Crump, English-Australian motorcycle racer 1975 – Renate Götschl, Austrian skier 1975 – Víctor Zambrano, Venezuelan baseball player 1976 – Soleil Moon Frye, American actress 1976 – Melissa George, Australian-American actress 1977 – Leandro Amaral, Brazilian footballer 1977 – Jimmy Nielsen, Danish footballer and manager 1977 – Luciano Zavagno, Argentinian footballer 1979 – Francesco Bellotti, Italian cyclist 1979 – Jaime Correa, Mexican footballer 1979 – Travis Reed, American basketball player 1981 – Leslie Odom Jr., American actor and singer 1981 – Diána Póth, Hungarian figure skater 1983 – Robin van Persie, Dutch footballer 1984 – Vedad Ibišević, Bosnian footballer 1984 – Maja Ognjenović, Serbian volleyball player 1984 – Jesse Ryder, New Zealand cricketer 1985 – Mickaël Delage, French cyclist 1985 – Bafétimbi Gomis, French footballer 1985 – Garrett Weber-Gale, American swimmer 1986 – Raphael Pyrasch, German rugby player 1987 – Leanne Crichton, Scottish footballer 1991 – Wilmer Flores, Venezuelan baseball player 1991 – Jiao Liuyang, Chinese swimmer 1995 – Rebecca Peterson, Swedish tennis player 1999 – Hunter Greene, American baseball player 1999 – Rebeka Masarova, Spanish-Swiss tennis player 2002 – Nessa Barrett, American singer-songwriter. 2004 – Takhmina Ikromova, Uzbekistani rhythmic gymnast
August 6	Deaths	Deaths
August 6	Pre-1600	Pre-1600 258 – Pope Sixtus II 523 – Pope Hormisdas (b. 450) 750 – Marwan II, Umayyad general and caliph (b. 688) 1027 – Richard III, Duke of Normandy 1162 – Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona (b. 1113) 1195 – Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria (b. 1129) 1221 – Saint Dominic, Spanish priest, founded the Dominican Order (b. 1170) 1272 – Stephen V of Hungary (b. 1239) 1384 – Francesco I of Lesbos 1412 – Margherita of Durazzo, Queen consort of Charles III of Naples (b. 1347) 1414 – Ladislaus of Naples (b. 1377) 1458 – Pope Callixtus III (b. 1378) 1530 – Jacopo Sannazaro, Italian poet (b. 1458) 1553 – Girolamo Fracastoro, Italian physician (b. 1478) 1588 – Josias I, Count of Waldeck-Eisenberg, Count of Waldeck-Eisenberg (1578–1588) (b. 1554)
August 6	1601–1900	1601–1900 1628 – Johannes Junius, German lawyer and politician (b. 1573) 1637 – Ben Jonson, English poet and playwright (b. 1572) 1645 – Lionel Cranfield, 1st Earl of Middlesex, English merchant and politician (b. 1575) 1657 – Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Ukrainian soldier and politician, 1st Hetman of Zaporizhian Host (b. 1595) 1660 – Diego Velázquez, Spanish painter and educator (b. 1599) 1666 – Tjerk Hiddes de Vries, Frisian naval hero and commander (b. 1622) 1679 – John Snell, Scottish-English soldier and philanthropist, founded the Snell Exhibition (b. 1629) 1694 – Antoine Arnauld, French mathematician and philosopher (b. 1612) 1695 – François de Harlay de Champvallon, French archbishop (b. 1625) 1753 – Georg Wilhelm Richmann, Estonian-Russian physicist and academic (b. 1711) 1757 – Ádám Mányoki, Hungarian painter (b. 1673) 1794 – Henry Bathurst, 2nd Earl Bathurst, English lawyer and politician, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (b. 1714) 1815 – James A. Bayard, American lawyer and politician (b. 1767) 1828 – Konstantin von Benckendorff, Russian general and diplomat (b. 1785) 1850 – Edward Walsh, Irish poet (b. 1805) 1866 – John Mason Neale, English priest, scholar, and hymnwriter (b. 1818) 1881 – James Springer White, American religious leader, co-founded the Seventh-day Adventist Church (b. 1821) 1893 – Jean-Jacques Challet-Venel, Swiss lawyer and politician (b. 1811)
August 6	1901–present	1901–present 1904 – Eduard Hanslick, Austrian author and critic (b. 1825) 1906 – George Waterhouse, English-New Zealand politician, 7th Prime Minister of New Zealand (b. 1824) 1915 – Jennie de la Montagnie Lozier, American physician (b. 1841) 1920 – Stefan Bastyr, Polish pilot and author (b. 1890) 1925 – Surendranath Banerjee, Indian academic and politician (b. 1848) 1925 – Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, Italian mathematician (b. 1853) 1931 – Bix Beiderbecke, American cornet player, pianist, and composer (b. 1903) 1945 – Richard Bong, American soldier and pilot, Medal of Honor recipient (b. 1920)The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, among other periodicals, all carried prominent front page stories about Bong's death on August 7, 1945, despite the prevalence of the news on the first atomic bombing. "Jet plane explosion kills Major Bong, Top U.S. Ace," The New York Times (August 7, 1945), p. 1; "Major Bong, top air ace, killed in crash of Army P-80 jet-fighter," The Washington Post (August 6, 1945), p.1; "Jet plane explosion kills Maj. Bong; Ace's 'Shooting Star' blows up in test flight over north Hollywood", Los Angeles Times (August 6, 1945), p.1. 1945 – Hiram Johnson, American lawyer and politician, 23rd Governor of California (b. 1866) 1946 – Tony Lazzeri, American baseball player and coach (b. 1903) 1952 – Betty Allan, Australian statistician and biometrician (b. 1905) 1959 – Preston Sturges, American director, screenwriter, and playwright (b. 1898) 1964 – Cedric Hardwicke, English actor and director (b. 1893) 1968 – Ye Gongchuo, Chinese politician, poet, and calligrapher (b. 1881) 1969 – Theodor W. Adorno, German sociologist and philosopher (b. 1903) 1970 – Nikos Tsiforos, Greek director and screenwriter (b. 1912) 1973 – Fulgencio Batista, Cuban colonel and politician, 9th President of Cuba (b. 1901) 1976 – Gregor Piatigorsky, Russian-American cellist and educator (b. 1903) 1978 – Pope Paul VI (b. 1897) 1978 – Edward Durell Stone, American architect, designed Radio City Music Hall and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (b. 1902) 1979 – Feodor Felix Konrad Lynen, German biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1911) 1983 – Klaus Nomi, German singer-songwriter and actor (b. 1944) 1985 – Forbes Burnham, Guyanese politician, 2nd President of Guyana (b. 1923) 1986 – Emilio Fernández, Mexican actor, director, and screenwriter (b. 1904) 1987 – Ira C. Eaker, American general (b. 1896) 1990 – Jacques Soustelle, French anthropologist and politician (b. 1912) 1991 – Shapour Bakhtiar, Iranian soldier and politician, 74th Prime Minister of Iran (b. 1915) 1991 – Roland Michener, Canadian lawyer and politician, 20th Governor General of Canada (b. 1900) 1991 – Harry Reasoner, American journalist, co-created 60 Minutes (b. 1923) 1992 – Leszek Błażyński, Polish boxer (b. 1949) 1993 – Tex Hughson, American baseball player (b. 1916) 1994 – Domenico Modugno, Italian singer-songwriter and politician (b. 1928) 1997 – Shin Ki-ha, South Korean lawyer and politician (b. 1941) 1998 – André Weil, French-American mathematician and academic (b. 1906) 2001 – Jorge Amado, Brazilian novelist and poet (b. 1912) 2001 – Adhar Kumar Chatterji, Indian Naval officer (b. 1914) 2001 – Wilhelm Mohnke, German general (b. 1911) 2001 – Shan Ratnam, Sri Lankan physician and academic (b. 1928) 2001 – Dorothy Tutin, English actress (b. 1930) 2002 – Edsger W. Dijkstra, Dutch physicist, computer scientist, and academic (b. 1930) 2003 – Julius Baker, American flute player and educator (b. 1915) 2004 – Rick James, American singer-songwriter and producer (b. 1948) 2004 – Donald Justice, American poet and academic (b. 1925) 2005 – Robin Cook, Scottish educator and politician, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (b. 1946) 2005 – Creme Puff, tabby domestic cat, oldest recorded cat (b. 1967) 2007 – Zsolt Daczi, Hungarian guitarist (b. 1969) 2008 – Angelos Kitsos, Greek lawyer and author (b. 1934) 2009 – Riccardo Cassin, Italian mountaineer and author (b. 1909) 2009 – Willy DeVille, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1950) 2009 – John Hughes, American director, producer, and screenwriter (b. 1950) 2011 – Fe del Mundo, Filipino pediatrician and educator (b. 1911) 2012 – Richard Cragun, American-Brazilian ballet dancer and choreographer (b. 1944) 2012 – Marvin Hamlisch, American pianist, composer, and conductor (b. 1944) 2012 – Robert Hughes, Australian-American author and critic (b. 1938) 2012 – Bernard Lovell, English physicist and astronomer (b. 1913) 2012 – Mark O'Donnell, American playwright (b. 1954) 2012 – Ruggiero Ricci, American violinist and educator (b. 1918) 2012 – Dan Roundfield, American basketball player (b. 1953) 2013 – Stan Lynde, American author and illustrator (b. 1931) 2013 – Mava Lee Thomas, American baseball player (b. 1929) 2013 – Jerry Wolman, American businessman (b. 1927) 2014 – Ralph Bryans, Northern Irish motorcycle racer (b. 1941) 2014 – Ananda W.P. Guruge, Sri Lankan scholar and diplomat (b. 1928) 2014 – John Woodland Hastings, American biochemist and academic (b. 1927) 2015 – Ray Hill, American football player (b. 1975) 2015 – Orna Porat, German-Israeli actress (b. 1924) 2017 – Betty Cuthbert, Australian sprinter (b. 1938) 2017 – Darren Daulton, American baseball player (b. 1962) 2018 – Joël Robuchon, French Chef (b. 1945) 2018 – Margaret Heckler, American politician (b. 1931) 2018 – Anya Krugovoy Silver, American poet (b. 1968) 2024 – Billy Bean, American baseball player (b. 1964) 2024 – Connie Chiume, South African actress and filmmaker (b. 1952)
August 6	Holidays and observances	Holidays and observances Christian holidays and observances Transfiguration of Jesus Anna Maria Rubatto Hormisdas Justus and Pastor August 6 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics) Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan's Accession Day. (United Arab Emirates) Independence Day (Bolivia), celebrates the independence of Bolivia from Spain in 1825. Independence Day (Jamaica), celebrates the independence of Jamaica from the United Kingdom in 1962. Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony (Hiroshima, Japan) Russian Railway Troops Day (Russia)
August 6	References	References
August 6	External links	External links Category:Days of August
August 6	Table of Content	pp-move, Events, Pre-1600, 1601–1900, 1901–present, Births, Pre-1600, 1601–1900, 1901–present, Deaths, Pre-1600, 1601–1900, 1901–present, Holidays and observances, References, External links
Anatoly Karpov	Short description	Anatoly Yevgenyevich Karpov (, ; born May 23, 1951) is a Russian and former Soviet chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, ⁣and politician. He was the 12th World Chess Champion from 1975 to 1985, a three-time FIDE World Champion (1993, 1996, 1998), twice World Chess champion as a member of the USSR team (1985, 1989), and a six-time winner of Chess Olympiads as a member of the USSR team (1972, 1974, 1980, 1982, 1986, 1988). The International Association of Chess Press awarded him nine Chess Oscars (1973–77, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1984). Karpov's chess tournament successes include over 160 first-place finishes. In his 1994 book My Best Games, Karpov says he played some 200 tournaments and matches, and won more than 100. He had a peak Elo rating of 2780, and his 102 total months world number one is the third-longest of all time, behind Magnus Carlsen and Garry Kasparov. Karpov is also an elected Member of the State Duma in Russia. Since 2006, he has chaired the Commission for Ecological Safety and Environmental Protection of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, and since 2007 he has been a member of the Public Council under the Ministry of Defence.
Anatoly Karpov	Early life	Early life Karpov was born into a Russian family on May 23, 1951,How Karpov Wins, p. xiiiDeep Blue: An Artificial Intelligence Milestonebats, p. 44 in Zlatoust, in the Urals region of the former Soviet Union, and learned to play chess at the age of four. His early rise in chess was swift, as he became a candidate master by age 11. At 12, he was accepted into Mikhail Botvinnik's prestigious chess school, though Botvinnik made the following remark about the young Karpov: "The boy does not have a clue about chess, and there's no future at all for him in this profession." Karpov acknowledged that his understanding of chess theory was very confused at that time, and later wrote that the homework Botvinnik assigned greatly helped him, since it required that he consult chess books and work diligently. Karpov improved so quickly under Botvinnik's tutelage that he became the youngest Soviet master in history at the age of fifteen in 1966; this tied the record established by Boris Spassky in 1952.
Anatoly Karpov	Career	Career
Anatoly Karpov	Young master	Young master thumb\|262px\|Karpov in 1967 Karpov finished first in his first international tournament, in Třinec, several months later, ahead of Viktor Kupreichik. In 1967, he won the annual Niemeyer Tournament in Groningen. Karpov won a gold medal for academic excellence in high school, and entered Moscow State University in 1968 to study mathematics. He later transferred to Leningrad State University, eventually graduating from there in economics. One reason for the transfer was to be closer to his coach, grandmaster Semyon Furman, who lived in Leningrad. In his writings, Karpov credits Furman as a major influence on his development as a world-class player. In 1969, Karpov became the first Soviet player since Spassky (1955) to win the World Junior Championship, scoring an undefeated 10/11 in the final A group at Stockholm. This victory earned him the International Master title. In 1970, Karpov tied for fourth and fifth places with Pal Benko at an international tournament in Caracas, Venezuela, and earned the international grandmaster title. FIDE awarded him the title during its 41st congress, held during the Chess Olympiad in Siegen, West Germany in September 1970.
Anatoly Karpov	Grandmaster	Grandmaster Karpov won the 1971 Alekhine Memorial tournament in Moscow (jointly with Leonid Stein), ahead of a star-studded field, for his first significant adult victory. His Elo rating shot from 2540 in 1971 to 2660 in 1973, during which he shared second place in the 1973 Soviet championship, one point behind Spassky, and qualified for the Leningrad Interzonal.
Anatoly Karpov	Candidate	Candidate Karpov's world junior championship qualified him for one of the two Interzonals,Zonal Qualifiers 1972-1975, Mark Weeks' Chess Pages a stage in the 1975 World Championship cycle to choose the challenger to play world champion Bobby Fischer. He finished equal first in the Leningrad Interzonal, qualifying for the 1974 Candidates Matches. Karpov defeated Lev Polugaevsky by the score of +3=5 in the first Candidates' match, earning the right to face former champion Boris Spassky in the semifinal round. Karpov was on record saying that he believed Spassky would easily beat him and win the Candidates' cycle to face Fischer, and that he (Karpov) would win the following Candidates' cycle in 1977. Spassky won the first game as Black in good style, but tenacious, aggressive play from Karpov secured him overall victory by +4−1=6. The Candidates' final was played in Moscow with Victor Korchnoi. Karpov took an early lead, winning the second game against the Sicilian Dragon, then scoring another victory in the sixth game. Following ten consecutive draws, Korchnoi threw away a winning position in the seventeenth game to give Karpov a 3–0 lead. In game 19, Korchnoi succeeded in winning a long endgame, then notched a speedy victory after a blunder by Karpov two games later. Three more draws, the last agreed by Karpov when he was in a clearly better position, closed the match, with Karpov prevailing +3−2=19, entitling him to move on to challenge Fischer for the world title.chessgames.com, Karpov - Korchnoi Candidates Final (1974)
Anatoly Karpov	Match with Fischer in 1975	Match with Fischer in 1975 Though a world championship match between Karpov and Fischer was highly anticipated, those hopes were never realised. Fischer not only insisted that the match be the first to ten wins (draws not counting), but also that the champion retain the crown if the score was tied 9–9. FIDE, the International Chess Federation, refused to allow this proviso, and gave both players a deadline of April 1, 1975, to agree to play the match under the FIDE-approved rules. When Fischer did not agree, FIDE President Max Euwe declared on April 3, 1975, that Fischer had forfeited his title and Karpov was the new World Champion. Karpov later attempted to set up another match with Fischer, but the negotiations fell through. This thrust the young Karpov into the role of World Champion without having faced the reigning champion. Garry Kasparov argued that Karpov would have had good chances because he had beaten Spassky convincingly and was a new breed of tough professional, and indeed had higher quality games, while Fischer had been inactive for three years.Kasparov, My Great Predecessors, part IV: Fischer, p. 474 This view is echoed by Karpov himself. Spassky thought that Fischer would have won in 1975, but Karpov would have qualified again and beaten Fischer in 1978.In an article (PDF) published in 2004 on the Chesscafe website Susan Polgar wrote: "I spoke to Boris Spassky about this same issue and he believes that Bobby would have won in 1975, but that Anatoly would have won the rematch." Karpov has said that if he had had the opportunity to play Fischer for the championship in his twenties, he could have been a much better player as a result.
Anatoly Karpov	World champion	World champion thumb\|300px\|Karpov with FIDE president Max Euwe and wife in 1976 Determined to prove himself a legitimate champion, Karpov participated in nearly every major tournament for the next ten years. He convincingly won the Milan tournament in 1975, and captured his first of three Soviet titles in 1976. He created a phenomenal streak of tournament wins against the strongest players in the world. Karpov held the record for most consecutive tournament victories (9) until it was shattered by Garry Kasparov (15). As a result, most chess professionals soon agreed that Karpov was a legitimate world champion. In 1978, Karpov's first title defence was against Viktor Korchnoi, the opponent he had defeated in the 1973–75 Candidates' cycle; the match was played at Baguio, Philippines, with the winner needing six victories. As in 1974, Karpov took an early lead, winning the eighth game after seven draws to open the match. When the score was +5−2=20 in Karpov's favour, Korchnoi staged a comeback, and won three of the next four games to draw level with Karpov. Karpov then won the very next game to retain the title (+6−5=21).chessgames.com, Karpov vs Korchnoi, 1978 Three years later, Korchnoi reemerged as the Candidates' winner against German finalist Robert Hübner to challenge Karpov in Merano, Italy. Karpov handily won this match, 11–7 (+6−2=10), in what is remembered as the "Massacre in Merano". Karpov's tournament career reached a peak at the Montreal "Tournament of Stars" tournament in 1979, where he finished joint first (+7−1=10) with Mikhail Tal ahead of a field of strong grandmasters completed by Jan Timman, Ljubomir Ljubojević, Boris Spassky, Vlastimil Hort, Lajos Portisch, Robert Hübner, Bent Larsen and Lubomir Kavalek. He dominated Las Palmas in 1977 with 13½/15. He also won the prestigious Bugojno tournament in 1978 (shared), 1980 and 1986, the Linares tournament in 1981 (shared with Larry Christiansen) and 1994, the Tilburg tournament in 1977, 1979, 1980, 1982, and 1983, and the Soviet Championship in 1976, 1983, and 1988.chessgames.com, Anatoly Karpov Karpov represented the Soviet Union at six Chess Olympiads, in all of which the USSR won the team gold medal. He played as the first reserve at Skopje 1972, winning the board prize with 13/15. At Nice 1974, he advanced to board one and again won the board prize with 12/14. At La Valletta 1980, he was again board one and scored 9/12. At Lucerne 1982, he scored 6½/8 on board one. At Dubai 1986, he scored 6/9 on board two. His last was Thessaloniki 1988, where on board two he scored 8/10. In Olympiad play, Karpov lost only two games out of 68 played. To illustrate Karpov's dominance over his peers as champion, his score was +13−1=22 versus Spassky, +8=19 versus Robert Hübner, +12−1=29 versus Ulf Andersson, +3−1=10 versus Vasily Smyslov, +1=19 versus Mikhail Tal, +19-7=23 versus Ljubomir Ljubojević.
Anatoly Karpov	Rivalry with Kasparov	Rivalry with Kasparov
Anatoly Karpov	FIDE champion again (1993–1999)	FIDE champion again (1993–1999) thumb\|Karpov in 1993 In 1992, Karpov lost a Candidates Match against Nigel Short. But in the World Chess Championship 1993, Karpov reacquired the FIDE World Champion title when Kasparov and Short split from FIDE. Karpov defeated Timman – the loser of the Candidates' final against Short. The next major meeting of Kasparov and Karpov was the 1994 Linares chess tournament. The field, in eventual finishing order, was Karpov, Kasparov, Shirov, Bareev, Kramnik, Lautier, Anand, Kamsky, Topalov, Ivanchuk, Gelfand, Illescas, Judit Polgár, and Beliavsky; with an average Elo rating of 2685, the highest ever at that time. Impressed by the strength of the tournament, Kasparov had said several days before the tournament that the winner could rightly be called the world champion of tournaments. Perhaps spurred on by this comment, Karpov played the best tournament of his life. He was undefeated and earned 11 points out of 13 (the best world-class tournament winning percentage since Alekhine won San Remo in 1930), finishing 2½ points ahead of second-place Kasparov and Shirov. Many of his wins were spectacular (in particular, his win over Topalov is considered possibly the finest of his career). This performance against the best players in the world put his Elo rating tournament performance at 2985, the highest performance rating of any player in history up until 2009, when Magnus Carlsen won the category XXI Pearl Spring chess tournament with a performance of 3002. Chess statistician Jeff Sonas considers Karpov's Linares performance the best tournament result in history."Facts and figures: Magnus Carlsen's performance in Nanjing". ChessBase. Retrieved October 26, 2009. Karpov defended his FIDE title against the rising star Gata Kamsky (+6−3=9) in 1996. In 1998, FIDE largely scrapped the old system of Candidates' Matches, instead having a large knockout event in which a large number of players contested short matches against each other over just a few weeks. In the first of these events, the FIDE World Chess Championship 1998, champion Karpov was seeded straight into the final, defeating Viswanathan Anand (+2−2=2, rapid tiebreak 2–0). In the subsequent cycle, the format was changed, with the champion having to qualify. Karpov refused to defend his title, and ceased to be FIDE World Champion after the FIDE World Chess Championship 1999.
Anatoly Karpov	Towards retirement	Towards retirement Karpov's classical tournament play has been seriously limited since 1997, since he prefers to be more involved in Russian politics. He had been a member of the Supreme Soviet Commission for Foreign Affairs and the president of the Soviet Peace Fund before the Soviet Union dissolved. In addition, he has been involved in several disputes with FIDE. In the September 2009 FIDE rating list, he dropped out of the world's Top 100 for the first time. Karpov usually limits his play to exhibition events, and has revamped his style to specialize in rapid chess. In 2002, he won a match against Kasparov, defeating him in a rapid time control match 2½–1½. In 2006, he tied for first with Kasparov in a blitz tournament, ahead of Korchnoi and Judit Polgár. Karpov and Kasparov played a mixed 12-game match from September 21–24, 2009, in Valencia, Spain. It consisted of four rapid (or semi-rapid) and eight blitz games and took place exactly 25 years after the two players' legendary encounter at the World Chess Championship 1984. Kasparov won the match 9–3. Karpov played a match against Yasser Seirawan in 2012 in St. Louis, Missouri, an important center of the North American chess scene, winning 8–6 (+5−3=6). In November 2012, he won the Cap d'Agde rapid tournament that bears his name (Anatoly Karpov Trophy), beating Vasyl Ivanchuk (ranked 9th in the October 2012 FIDE world rankings) in the final.
Anatoly Karpov	Professional and political career after retirement from chess	Professional and political career after retirement from chess thumb\|Karpov founded his chess school in the tan building. The sign bearing his name has been removed, and the school is in the process of changing its name. In 2003, Karpov opened his first American chess school in Lindsborg, Kansas. On March 2, 2022, the school announced a name change to International Chess Institute of the Midwest due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Karpov has been a member of the sixth, seventh and eighth Russian State Dumas. Since 2005, he has been a member of the Public Chamber of Russia. He has involved himself in several humanitarian causes, such as advocating the use of iodised salt. On December 17, 2012, Karpov supported the Dima Yakovlev Law banning adoption of Russian orphans by U.S. citizens. Karpov expressed support of the unilateral annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, and accused Europe of trying to demonize Putin. In August 2019, Maxim Dlugy said that Karpov had been waiting since March for the approval of a non-immigrant visa to the United States, despite frequently visiting the country since 1972. Karpov had been scheduled to teach a summer camp at the Chess Max Academy. Dlugy said that Karpov had been questioned at the US embassy in Moscow about whether he planned to communicate with American politicians. Karpov was among the Russian State Duma members placed under sanctions by the EU and UK during the Russo-Ukrainian War. In March 2022, after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the FIDE Council suspended Karpov's title of FIDE Ambassador for Life. In November 2022, Karpov was placed in an induced coma after receiving a head injury. Karpov's daughter Sofia and the Russian Chess Federation said that he had accidentally fallen. Karpov made a full recovery from the injury.
Anatoly Karpov	Candidate for FIDE presidency	Candidate for FIDE presidency In March 2010, Karpov announced that he would be a candidate for the presidency of FIDE. The election took place in September 2010 at the 39th Chess Olympiad. In May, a fundraising event took place in New York with the participation of Kasparov and Magnus Carlsen, who both supported his bid and campaigned for him. Nigel Short also supported Karpov's candidacy. On September 29, 2010, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was reelected as president of FIDE, 95 votes to 55.
Anatoly Karpov	Style	Style Karpov's playing style, described as a "boa constrictor", is solidly positional, taking minimal risks but reacting mercilessly to the slightest error by his opponent. As a result, he is often compared to José Raúl Capablanca, the third world champion. Karpov himself describes his style as follows:Let us say the game may be continued in two ways: one of them is a beautiful tactical blow that gives rise to variations that don't yield to precise calculations; the other is clear positional pressure that leads to an endgame with microscopic chances of victory.... I would choose [the latter] without thinking twice. If the opponent offers keen play I don't object; but in such cases I get less satisfaction, even if I win, than from a game conducted according to all the rules of strategy with its ruthless logic.
Anatoly Karpov	Notable games	Notable games Viktor Korchnoi vs. Anatoly Karpov, Moscow 1973 Karpov sacrifices a pawn for a strong center and attack. Anatoly Karpov vs. Gyula Sax, Linares 1983 Karpov sacrifices for an attack that wins the game 20 moves later, after another spectacular sacrifice from Karpov and counter-sacrifice from Sax. It won the tournament's first . This was not the first time Karpov used the sharp Keres Attack (6.g4) – see his win in Anatoly Karpov vs. Vlastimil Hort, Alekhine Memorial Tournament, Moscow 1971. Anatoly Karpov vs. Veselin Topalov, Dos Hermanas 1994 This game features a sham sacrifice of two pieces, which Karpov regains with a variation, culminating in the win of an exchange with a technically won endgame.
Anatoly Karpov	Hobbies	Hobbies Karpov's extensive stamp collection of Belgian philately and Belgian Congo stamps and postal history covering mail from 1742 through 1980 was sold by David Feldman's auction company between December 2011 and 2012. He is also known to have large chess stamp and chess book collections. His private chess library consists of 9,000 books. Karpov is also an enthusiastic Backgammon player.
Anatoly Karpov	Honours and awards	Honours and awards Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 3rd class (2001) – for outstanding contribution to the implementation of charitable programmes, the strengthening of peace and friendship between the peoples Order of Friendship (2011) – for his great contribution to strengthening peace and friendship between peoples and productive social activities Order of Lenin (1981) Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1978) Order of Merit, 2nd class (Ukraine) (November 13, 2006) – for his contribution to the victims of the Chernobyl disaster Order of Holy Prince Daniel of Moscow, 2nd class (1996) Order of St. Sergius of Radonezh, 2nd class (2001) Medal "For outstanding contribution to the Collector business in Russia" Honorary member of the Soviet Philately Society (1979) Diploma of the State Duma of the Russian Federation No. 1 Order "For outstanding achievements in sport" (Republic of Cuba) Medal of Tsiolkovsky Cosmonautics Federation of Russia Medal "For Strengthening the penal system", 1st and 2nd class Breastplate of the 1st degree of the Interior Ministry International Association of Chess Press, 9 times voted the best chess player of the year and awarded the "Chess Oscar" Order of Saint Nestor the Chronicler, 1st class Asteroid 90414 Karpov is named after Karpov Anatoly Karpov International Chess Tournament, an annual round-robin tournament held in his honour in Poikovsky, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Russia since 2000
Anatoly Karpov	Books	Books Karpov has authored or co-authored several books, most of which have been translated into English. Karpov, A.E. Ninth vertical. 1978. Moscow: Molodaya Gvardia. (also a 1992 Simon & Schuster edition)
Anatoly Karpov	References	References
Anatoly Karpov	Further reading	Further reading Fine, Rueben (1983). The World's Great Chess Games. Dover. . Hurst, Sarah (2002). Curse of Kirsan: Adventures in the Chess Underworld. Russell Enterprises. . Karpov, Anatoly (2003). Anatoly Karpov's Best Games. Batsford. . Winter, Edward G., editor (1981).World Chess Champions. Pergamon Press. .
Anatoly Karpov	External links	External links Karpov's official homepage Edward Winter, "Books about Korchnoi and Karpov", Chess Notes 25 minute video interview with Karpov, OnlineChessLessons.NET, June 19, 2012 "Anatoly Karpov tells all" (2015 interview by Sport Express, translated by ChessBase): part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 Category:1951 births Category:Living people Category:People from Zlatoust Category:United Russia politicians Category:Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Category:Members of the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union Category:Sixth convocation members of the State Duma (Russian Federation) Category:Seventh convocation members of the State Duma (Russian Federation) Category:Eighth convocation members of the State Duma (Russian Federation) Category:Members of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation Category:Soviet chess players Category:Soviet chess writers Category:Soviet journalists Category:Soviet male writers Category:Russian chess players Category:Russian chess writers Category:Russian male journalists Category:Russian philatelists Category:20th-century Russian male writers Category:21st-century Russian male writers Category:Russian sportsperson-politicians Category:Russian book and manuscript collectors Category:Chess Olympiad competitors Category:Chess Grandmasters Category:World chess champions Category:World Junior Chess Champions Category:Saint Petersburg State University alumni Category:Honorary members of the Russian Academy of Arts Category:Russian individuals subject to United Kingdom sanctions Category:Honoured Masters of Sport of the USSR Category:UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors Category:Recipients of the Order of Lenin Category:Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Category:Recipients of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", 2nd class Category:Recipients of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", 3rd class Category:Recipients of the Order of Holy Prince Daniel of Moscow Category:Recipients of the Olympic Order Category:Recipients of the Order of Merit (Ukraine), 2nd class Category:Recipients of the Order of Merit (Ukraine), 3rd class Category:Recipients of the Order of May
Anatoly Karpov	Table of Content	Short description, Early life, Career, Young master, Grandmaster, Candidate, Match with Fischer in 1975, World champion, Rivalry with Kasparov, FIDE champion again (1993–1999), Towards retirement, Professional and political career after retirement from chess, Candidate for FIDE presidency, Style, Notable games, Hobbies, Honours and awards, Books, References, Further reading, External links
Aspect ratio	Short description	The aspect ratio of a geometric shape is the ratio of its sizes in different dimensions. For example, the aspect ratio of a rectangle is the ratio of its longer side to its shorter side—the ratio of width to height, when the rectangle is oriented as a "landscape". The aspect ratio is most often expressed as two integer numbers separated by a colon (x:y), less commonly as a simple or decimal fraction. The values x and y do not represent actual widths and heights but, rather, the proportion between width and height. As an example, 8:5, 16:10, 1.6:1, and 1.6 are all ways of representing the same aspect ratio. In objects of more than two dimensions, such as hyperrectangles, the aspect ratio can still be defined as the ratio of the longest side to the shortest side.
Aspect ratio	Applications and uses	Applications and uses The term is most commonly used with reference to: Graphic / image Image aspect ratio Display aspect ratio Paper size Standard photographic print sizes Motion picture film formats Standard ad size Pixel aspect ratio Photolithography: the aspect ratio of an etched, or deposited structure is the ratio of the height of its vertical side wall to its width. HARMST High Aspect Ratios allow the construction of tall microstructures without slant Tire code Tire sizing Turbocharger impeller sizing Wing aspect ratio of an aircraft or bird Astigmatism of an optical lens Nanorod dimensions Shape factor (image analysis and microscopy) Finite Element Analysis Flag design; see List of aspect ratios of national flags
Aspect ratio	Aspect ratios of simple shapes	Aspect ratios of simple shapes