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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohen] | [TOKENS: 3843] |
Contents Kohen Kohen (Hebrew: כֹּהֵן, romanized: kōhēn, pronounced [koˈ(h)en]; pl. כֹּהֲנִים, kōhănīm, [ko(h)aˈnim]) is the Hebrew word for "priest", used in reference to the Aaronic priesthood, also called Aaronites or Aaronides. They are traditionally believed, and halakhically required, to be of direct patrilineal descent from the biblical Aaron (also Aharon), brother of Moses, and thus belong to the Tribe of Levi. During the existence of the Temple in Jerusalem (and previously the Tabernacle), kohanim performed the Temple sacrificial offerings, which were only permitted to be offered by them. Following its destruction, it seems that most of them joined the Synagogal Jewish movement before adopting gradually Rabbinic Judaism, other types of Judaism, Christianity or Islam. Today, kohanim retain a lesser though distinct status within Rabbinic and Karaite Judaism, including certain honors and restrictions. In the Samaritan community, the kohanim have remained the primary religious leaders.[citation needed] Name The word kohen originally derives from a Semitic root common at least to the Central Semitic languages. In the ancient polytheistic religion of Phoenicia, the word for priest was khn (𐤊𐤄𐤍). The cognate Arabic word كاهن (kāhin) means "priest". The noun kohen is used in the Bible to refer to priests, whether Jewish or pagan (such as the kohanim of Baal or Dagon), although Christian priests are referred to in modern Hebrew by the term komer (כומר). Kohanim can also refer to the Jewish nation as a whole, as in Exodus 19:6, where the whole of Israel is addressed as a "priestly kingdom (or: kingdom of priests) and a holy nation". In Targum Yonatan, interpretive translations of the word kohen include "friend", "master", and "servant". Other interpretations include "minister" (Mechilta to Parshah Jethro, Exodus 18:1–20:23). Individuals and history The early books of the Bible mention several pagan priests, such as Potipherah, the other priests of Egypt, and Jethro. The non-Jewish priest Melchitzedek, however, is described as worshipping the same God as Abraham. Later Jewish sources even discuss the possibility that Melchitzedek's family could have served as priests for the future Jewish nation, though in the end this did not happen. Jewish priests are first mentioned in Exodus 19. Here God offered the entire Jewish people the opportunity to become a symbolic "kingdom of priests and a holy nation". More practically, though, in this chapter "the priests who approach the Lord" were warned to stay away from Mount Sinai during the revelation of the Ten Commandments. The identity of these priests is not specified. According to many later Jewish sources, the firstborn son in each family served as priests, starting in the period of the patriarchs. Nevertheless, shortly after the Sinai revelation, Aaron and his sons were chosen to be the priests. The exclusive possession of the priesthood by Aaron's descendants was known as the priestly covenant. Many commentators assert that the firstborns lost their status due to their participation in the golden calf sin. A number of reasons have been suggested for why Aaron and his descendants were chosen instead: Moses, too, performed sacrificial services before the completion of Aaron's consecration, and arguably is once called a "priest" in the Bible, but his descendants were not priests. Since Aaron was a descendant of the Tribe of Levi, priests are sometimes included in the term Levites, by direct patrilineal descent. However, not all Levites are priests. During the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and until the Holy Temple was built in Jerusalem, the priests performed their priestly service in the portable Tabernacle. Ancient roles Priestly duties involved offering the Temple sacrifices, and delivering the Priestly Blessing. When the Temple existed, most sacrifices and offerings could only be conducted by priests. Non-priest Levites (i.e. those who descended from Levi but not from Aaron) performed a variety of other Temple roles, including ritual slaughter of sacrificial animals, song service by use of voice and musical instruments, and various tasks in assisting the priests in performing their service. The kohanim were not granted any ancestral land to own. Instead, they were compensated for their service to the nation and in the Temple through the twenty-four kohanic gifts. Most of these gifts are related to Temple sacrifices, or else the agricultural produce of the Land of Israel (such as terumah). A notable gift which is given even in the Jewish diaspora is the five shekels of the pidyon haben ceremony. The Torah provides for specific vestments to be worn by the priests when they are ministering in the Tabernacle: "And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for dignity and for beauty". These garments are described in Exodus 28, Exodus 39 and Leviticus 8. The high priest wore eight holy garments (bigdei kodesh). Of these, four were of the same type worn by all priests and four were unique to the high priest. Those vestments which were common to all priests were: The vestments that were unique to the high priest were: In addition to the above "golden garments", the high priest also had a set of white "linen garments" (bigdei ha-bad) which he wore only for the Yom Kippur Temple service. The linen garments were only four in number, corresponding to the garments worn by all priests (undergarments, tunic, sash and turban), but made only of white linen, with no embroidery. They could be worn only once, new sets being made each year. A priest would serve barefoot in the Temple, and would immerse in a mikvah before vesting, and wash his hands and his feet before performing any sacred act. The Talmud teaches that priests were only fit to perform their duties when wearing their priestly vestments, and that the vestments achieve atonement for sin, just as sacrifices do. According to the Talmud, the wearing of the Priestly golden head plate atoned for the sin of arrogance on the part of the Children of Israel (B.Zevachim 88b) and she also symbolizes that the high priest bears the lack of all the offerings and gifts of the sons of Israel. And it must be constantly on his head for the good pleasure of God towards them (Exodus 28:38). Numerous Biblical passages attest to the role of the priests in teaching Torah to the people and in issuing judgment. Later rabbinic statements elaborate on these roles. However, the priest's religious authority is not automatic: even a bastard who is a scholar takes precedence over an ignorant high priest. In every generation when the Temple was standing, one kohen would be singled out to perform the functions of the High Priest (Hebrew kohen gadol). His primary task was the Day of Atonement service. Another unique task of the high priest was the offering of a daily meal sacrifice; he also held the prerogative to supersede any priest and offer any offering he chose. Although the Torah retains a procedure to select a High Priest when needed, in the absence of the Temple in Jerusalem, there is no High Priest in Judaism today. According to 1 Chronicles 24:3–5, King David divided the priests into 24 priestly divisions (Heb. משמרות, mishmarot). Each division would perform the Temple service for one week in a 24-week cycle, with all divisions eligible to serve on holidays. According to the Talmud, this was an expansion of a previous division, by Moses, into 8 (or 16) divisions. Following the destruction of the Second Temple, and the displacement to the Galilee of the bulk of the remaining Jewish population after the Bar Kokhba revolt, Jewish tradition in the Talmud and poems from the period record that the descendants of each priestly watch established a separate residential seat in towns and villages of the Galilee, and maintained this residential pattern for at least several centuries in anticipation of the reconstruction of the Temple and reinstitution of the cycle of priestly courses. In subsequent years, there was a custom of publicly recalling every Shabbat in the synagogues the courses of the priests, a practice that reinforced the prestige of the priests' lineage. Following this destruction, it seems that most of them joined the Synagogal Jewish movement; before being gradually converted towards Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity. Although kohanim may assume their duties once they reached physical maturity, the fraternity of kohanim generally would not allow young kohanim to begin service until they reached the age of twenty or thirty. There was no mandatory retirement age. Only when a kohen became physically infirm could he no longer serve. A kohen may become disqualified from performing his service for a host of reasons, including ritual impurity, prohibited marriages, and certain physical blemishes. The kohen is never permanently disqualified from service, but may return to his normal duties once the disqualification ceases. Modern practice Since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Jewish priests have not performed sacrificial services. However, they have retained a formal and public ceremonial role in synagogue prayer services, along with certain unique religious duties and privileges. Following the First Jewish–Roman War, the priestly class relocated to Galilee and various diaspora communities, with their new places of residence recorded in inscriptions from the period. Drawing on their knowledge of the Torah and Temple worship, they contributed to the development of synagogue liturgy and may have played a role in the preparation of biblical translations. These special roles have been maintained in Orthodox Judaism, and sometimes in Conservative Judaism. Reform Judaism does not afford any special status or recognition to kohanim. When the Torah reading is performed in synagogue, it is divided into a number of sections. Traditionally, a kohen (if one is present) is called for the first section (aliyah), a Levite for the second reading, and an "Israelite" (non-kohen, non-levite) for all succeeding portions. If no Levite is present, the kohen is called for the second aliyah as well. The Maftir portion may be given to someone from any of the three groups. The kohanim participating in an Orthodox and some other styles of traditional Jewish prayer service also deliver the priestly blessing during the repetition of the Amidah prayer. They perform this service by standing and facing the crowd in the front of the congregation, with their arms held outwards and their hands and fingers in a specific formation, with a Jewish prayer shawl or Talit covering their heads and outstretched hands so that their fingers cannot be seen. Kohanim living in Israel and many Sephardic Jews living in areas outside Israel deliver the priestly blessing daily; Ashkenazi Jews living outside Israel deliver it only on major Jewish holidays. Outside the synagogue, the kohen leads the pidyon haben ceremony. This redemption of the first born son is based on the Torah commandment, "all the first-born of man among thy sons shalt thou redeem". Leviticus 21:7 prohibits marriage between a kohen and certain classes of women. According to rabbinic law, these classes include divorcees, non-Jews, converts (who were previously non-Jews), and women who have previously engaged in certain forbidden sexual relationships (even if involuntary, i. e., rape). If a kohen did have relations with any of these women, the offspring are described as "profaned" (male: challal, female: challalah); their status is nearly identical to a normal Jew, while the challalah herself is one of the categories which a kohen may not marry. Rape poses an especially poignant problem. The pain experienced by the families of kohanim who were required to divorce their wives as the result of the rapes accompanying the capture of Jerusalem is alluded to in this Mishnah: If a woman were imprisoned by non-Jews concerning money affairs, she is permitted to her husband, but if for some capital offense, she is forbidden to her husband. If a town were overcome by besieging troops, all women of priestly stock found in it are ineligible [to be married to priests or to remain married to priests], but if they had witnesses, even a male or female slave, these may be believed. But no man may be believed for himself. Rabbi Zechariah ben Hakatsab said, "By this Temple, her hand did not stir from my hand from the time the non-Jews entered Jerusalem until they went out." They said to him: No man may give evidence of himself. Orthodox Judaism recognizes these rules as still binding, and Orthodox rabbis will not perform a marriage between a kohen and a divorced woman. This is the attitude of the Israeli rabbinate, with the result that a kohen cannot legally marry a divorced or converted woman in the State of Israel. (However, if such a marriage were performed outside Israel, it would be recognized as a valid marriage by the Israeli state.) Conservative Judaism has issued an emergency takanah (rabbinical edict) temporarily suspending the application of the rules in their entirety, on the grounds that the high intermarriage rate threatens the survival of Judaism, and, hence, that any marriage between Jews is welcomed. The takanah declares that the offspring of such marriages are to be regarded as kohanim. To this day, kohanim keep the prohibition (Leviticus 21:1–4) against becoming ritually impure through proximity to a corpse (within the same room, at a cemetery, and elsewhere), except when the deceased is his immediate family member. Some Jewish cemeteries have special facilities to permit kohanim to participate in funerals or visit graves without becoming impure. The presumption of priestly descent is used to help identify kohanim. Other Jews are commanded to respect the priesthood in certain ways. One of these ways is that priests (and in their absence, occasionally Levites) are the first offered the opportunity to lead Birkat Hamazon. Unlike the general rule for aliyot, this offer - which is only a requirement according to some Rabbinic opinions - may be declined. There are other rules regarding the honoring of kohanim, even in the absence of the Temple, but generally these are waived (if they are even offered) by the kohen. Bat kohen Kohen is a status that traditionally refers to men, passed from father to son. However, a bat kohen (the daughter of a priest) holds a special status in the Hebrew Bible and rabbinical texts. She is entitled to a number of rights and is encouraged to abide by specified requirements, for example, entitlement to consume some of the priestly gifts, and an increased value for her ketubah. In modern times, Orthodox and many Conservative rabbis maintain the position that only a man can act as a kohen, and that a daughter of a kohen is recognized as a bat kohen only in those limited ways that have been identified in the past. Accordingly, in Orthodox Judaism only men can perform the Priestly Blessing and receive the first aliyah during the public Torah reading. However, some Conservative rabbis give the kohen's daughter equal priestly status to a (male) kohen. As a result, some Conservative synagogues permit a kohen's daughter to perform the Priestly Blessing and the Pidyon HaBen ceremony, and to receive the first aliyah during the Torah reading. Because most Reform and Reconstructionist temples have abolished traditional tribal distinctions, roles, and identities on grounds of egalitarianism, a special status for a bat kohen has very little significance in these movements. Genetics Since the Y chromosome is inherited only from one's father (biological females have no Y chromosome), all direct male lineages share a common haplotype. Thus, if kohanim share a direct male lineage to Aaron, one would expect to see a high level of commonality among their Y chromosomes. Since 1997, a number of genetic studies have been done on this topic, using testing data from across sectors of the Jewish and non-Jewish populations. The results of these studies have been interpreted by various parties as either confirming or disproving the traditions of uniform descent.[citation needed] Surnames As both kohen status and (in many societies) last names are patrilineal, there is often a relationship between the two. But this is not always the case: although descendants of kohanim often bear surnames that reflect their genealogy, many families with the surname Cohen (or a variation) are not kohanim, nor even Jewish. Conversely, many kohanim do not have Cohen as a surname. Names often associated with kohanim include: In contemporary Israel, "Moshe Cohen" is the equivalent of "John Smith" in English-speaking countries – i.e., proverbially the most common of names.[citation needed] Outside Judaism According to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, either "literal descendants of Aaron", or worthy Melchizedek priesthood holders have the legal right to constitute the Presiding Bishopric under the authority of the First Presidency (Section 68:16–20). To date, all men who have served on the Presiding Bishopric have been Melchizedek priesthood holders, and none have been publicly identified as descendants of Aaron. See also Mormonism and Judaism. In popular culture The positioning of the kohen's hands during the Priestly Blessing was Leonard Nimoy's inspiration for Mr. Spock's Vulcan salute in the original Star Trek television series. Nimoy, raised an Orthodox Jew (but not a kohen), used the salute when saying, "Live long and prosper." The Priestly Blessing was used by Leonard Cohen in his farewell blessing during "Whither Thou Goest", the closing song on his concerts. Leonard Cohen himself was from a kohen family. He also used the drawing of the Priestly Blessing as one of his logos. See also References Bibliography External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenAI#cite_note-239] | [TOKENS: 8773] |
Contents OpenAI OpenAI is an American artificial intelligence research organization comprising both a non-profit foundation and a controlled for-profit public benefit corporation (PBC), headquartered in San Francisco. It aims to develop "safe and beneficial" artificial general intelligence (AGI), which it defines as "highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work". OpenAI is widely recognized for its development of the GPT family of large language models, the DALL-E series of text-to-image models, and the Sora series of text-to-video models, which have influenced industry research and commercial applications. Its release of ChatGPT in November 2022 has been credited with catalyzing widespread interest in generative AI. The organization was founded in 2015 in Delaware but evolved a complex corporate structure. As of October 2025, following restructuring approved by California and Delaware regulators, the non-profit OpenAI Foundation holds 26% of the for-profit OpenAI Group PBC, with Microsoft holding 27% and employees/other investors holding 47%. Under its governance arrangements, the OpenAI Foundation holds the authority to appoint the board of the for-profit OpenAI Group PBC, a mechanism designed to align the entity’s strategic direction with the Foundation’s charter. Microsoft previously invested over $13 billion into OpenAI, and provides Azure cloud computing resources. In October 2025, OpenAI conducted a $6.6 billion share sale that valued the company at $500 billion. In 2023 and 2024, OpenAI faced multiple lawsuits for alleged copyright infringement against authors and media companies whose work was used to train some of OpenAI's products. In November 2023, OpenAI's board removed Sam Altman as CEO, citing a lack of confidence in him, but reinstated him five days later following a reconstruction of the board. Throughout 2024, roughly half of then-employed AI safety researchers left OpenAI, citing the company's prominent role in an industry-wide problem. Founding In December 2015, OpenAI was founded as a not for profit organization by Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, Trevor Blackwell, Vicki Cheung, Andrej Karpathy, Durk Kingma, John Schulman, Pamela Vagata, and Wojciech Zaremba, with Sam Altman and Elon Musk as the co-chairs. A total of $1 billion in capital was pledged by Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Jessica Livingston, Peter Thiel, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Infosys. However, the actual capital collected significantly lagged pledges. According to company disclosures, only $130 million had been received by 2019. In its founding charter, OpenAI stated an intention to collaborate openly with other institutions by making certain patents and research publicly available, but later restricted access to its most capable models, citing competitive and safety concerns. OpenAI was initially run from Brockman's living room. It was later headquartered at the Pioneer Building in the Mission District, San Francisco. According to OpenAI's charter, its founding mission is "to ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI)—by which we mean highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work—benefits all of humanity." Musk and Altman stated in 2015 that they were partly motivated by concerns about AI safety and existential risk from artificial general intelligence. OpenAI stated that "it's hard to fathom how much human-level AI could benefit society", and that it is equally difficult to comprehend "how much it could damage society if built or used incorrectly". The startup also wrote that AI "should be an extension of individual human wills and, in the spirit of liberty, as broadly and evenly distributed as possible", and that "because of AI's surprising history, it's hard to predict when human-level AI might come within reach. When it does, it'll be important to have a leading research institution which can prioritize a good outcome for all over its own self-interest." Co-chair Sam Altman expected a decades-long project that eventually surpasses human intelligence. Brockman met with Yoshua Bengio, one of the "founding fathers" of deep learning, and drew up a list of great AI researchers. Brockman was able to hire nine of them as the first employees in December 2015. OpenAI did not pay AI researchers salaries comparable to those of Facebook or Google. It also did not pay stock options which AI researchers typically get. Nevertheless, OpenAI spent $7 million on its first 52 employees in 2016. OpenAI's potential and mission drew these researchers to the firm; a Google employee said he was willing to leave Google for OpenAI "partly because of the very strong group of people and, to a very large extent, because of its mission." OpenAI co-founder Wojciech Zaremba stated that he turned down "borderline crazy" offers of two to three times his market value to join OpenAI instead. In April 2016, OpenAI released a public beta of "OpenAI Gym", its platform for reinforcement learning research. Nvidia gifted its first DGX-1 supercomputer to OpenAI in August 2016 to help it train larger and more complex AI models with the capability of reducing processing time from six days to two hours. In December 2016, OpenAI released "Universe", a software platform for measuring and training an AI's general intelligence across the world's supply of games, websites, and other applications. Corporate structure In 2019, OpenAI transitioned from non-profit to "capped" for-profit, with the profit being capped at 100 times any investment. According to OpenAI, the capped-profit model allows OpenAI Global, LLC to legally attract investment from venture funds and, in addition, to grant employees stakes in the company. Many top researchers work for Google Brain, DeepMind, or Facebook, which offer equity that a nonprofit would be unable to match. Before the transition, OpenAI was legally required to publicly disclose the compensation of its top employees. The company then distributed equity to its employees and partnered with Microsoft, announcing an investment package of $1 billion into the company. Since then, OpenAI systems have run on an Azure-based supercomputing platform from Microsoft. OpenAI Global, LLC then announced its intention to commercially license its technologies. It planned to spend $1 billion "within five years, and possibly much faster". Altman stated that even a billion dollars may turn out to be insufficient, and that the lab may ultimately need "more capital than any non-profit has ever raised" to achieve artificial general intelligence. The nonprofit, OpenAI, Inc., is the sole controlling shareholder of OpenAI Global, LLC, which, despite being a for-profit company, retains a formal fiduciary responsibility to OpenAI, Inc.'s nonprofit charter. A majority of OpenAI, Inc.'s board is barred from having financial stakes in OpenAI Global, LLC. In addition, minority members with a stake in OpenAI Global, LLC are barred from certain votes due to conflict of interest. Some researchers have argued that OpenAI Global, LLC's switch to for-profit status is inconsistent with OpenAI's claims to be "democratizing" AI. On February 29, 2024, Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, accusing them of shifting focus from public benefit to profit maximization—a case OpenAI dismissed as "incoherent" and "frivolous," though Musk later revived legal action against Altman and others in August. On April 9, 2024, OpenAI countersued Musk in federal court, alleging that he had engaged in "bad-faith tactics" to slow the company's progress and seize its innovations for his personal benefit. OpenAI also argued that Musk had previously supported the creation of a for-profit structure and had expressed interest in controlling OpenAI himself. The countersuit seeks damages and legal measures to prevent further alleged interference. On February 10, 2025, a consortium of investors led by Elon Musk submitted a $97.4 billion unsolicited bid to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI, declaring willingness to match or exceed any better offer. The offer was rejected on 14 February 2025, with OpenAI stating that it was not for sale, but the offer complicated Altman's restructuring plan by suggesting a lower bar for how much the nonprofit should be valued. OpenAI, Inc. was originally designed as a nonprofit in order to ensure that AGI "benefits all of humanity" rather than "the private gain of any person". In 2019, it created OpenAI Global, LLC, a capped-profit subsidiary controlled by the nonprofit. In December 2024, OpenAI proposed a restructuring plan to convert the capped-profit into a Delaware-based public benefit corporation (PBC), and to release it from the control of the nonprofit. The nonprofit would sell its control and other assets, getting equity in return, and would use it to fund and pursue separate charitable projects, including in science and education. OpenAI's leadership described the change as necessary to secure additional investments, and claimed that the nonprofit's founding mission to ensure AGI "benefits all of humanity" would be better fulfilled. The plan has been criticized by former employees. A legal letter named "Not For Private Gain" asked the attorneys general of California and Delaware to intervene, stating that the restructuring is illegal and would remove governance safeguards from the nonprofit and the attorneys general. The letter argues that OpenAI's complex structure was deliberately designed to remain accountable to its mission, without the conflicting pressure of maximizing profits. It contends that the nonprofit is best positioned to advance its mission of ensuring AGI benefits all of humanity by continuing to control OpenAI Global, LLC, whatever the amount of equity that it could get in exchange. PBCs can choose how they balance their mission with profit-making. Controlling shareholders have a large influence on how closely a PBC sticks to its mission. On October 28, 2025, OpenAI announced that it had adopted the new PBC corporate structure after receiving approval from the attorneys general of California and Delaware. Under the new structure, OpenAI's for-profit branch became a public benefit corporation known as OpenAI Group PBC, while the non-profit was renamed to the OpenAI Foundation. The OpenAI Foundation holds a 26% stake in the PBC, while Microsoft holds a 27% stake and the remaining 47% is owned by employees and other investors. All members of the OpenAI Group PBC board of directors will be appointed by the OpenAI Foundation, which can remove them at any time. Members of the Foundation's board will also serve on the for-profit board. The new structure allows the for-profit PBC to raise investor funds like most traditional tech companies, including through an initial public offering, which Altman claimed was the most likely path forward. In January 2023, OpenAI Global, LLC was in talks for funding that would value the company at $29 billion, double its 2021 value. On January 23, 2023, Microsoft announced a new US$10 billion investment in OpenAI Global, LLC over multiple years, partially needed to use Microsoft's cloud-computing service Azure. From September to December, 2023, Microsoft rebranded all variants of its Copilot to Microsoft Copilot, and they added MS-Copilot to many installations of Windows and released Microsoft Copilot mobile apps. Following OpenAI's 2025 restructuring, Microsoft owns a 27% stake in the for-profit OpenAI Group PBC, valued at $135 billion. In a deal announced the same day, OpenAI agreed to purchase $250 billion of Azure services, with Microsoft ceding their right of first refusal over OpenAI's future cloud computing purchases. As part of the deal, OpenAI will continue to share 20% of its revenue with Microsoft until it achieves AGI, which must now be verified by an independent panel of experts. The deal also loosened restrictions on both companies working with third parties, allowing Microsoft to pursue AGI independently and allowing OpenAI to develop products with other companies. In 2017, OpenAI spent $7.9 million, a quarter of its functional expenses, on cloud computing alone. In comparison, DeepMind's total expenses in 2017 were $442 million. In the summer of 2018, training OpenAI's Dota 2 bots required renting 128,000 CPUs and 256 GPUs from Google for multiple weeks. In October 2024, OpenAI completed a $6.6 billion capital raise with a $157 billion valuation including investments from Microsoft, Nvidia, and SoftBank. On January 21, 2025, Donald Trump announced The Stargate Project, a joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle, SoftBank and MGX to build an AI infrastructure system in conjunction with the US government. The project takes its name from OpenAI's existing "Stargate" supercomputer project and is estimated to cost $500 billion. The partners planned to fund the project over the next four years. In July, the United States Department of Defense announced that OpenAI had received a $200 million contract for AI in the military, along with Anthropic, Google, and xAI. In the same month, the company made a deal with the UK Government to use ChatGPT and other AI tools in public services. OpenAI subsequently began a $50 million fund to support nonprofit and community organizations. In April 2025, OpenAI raised $40 billion at a $300 billion post-money valuation, which was the highest-value private technology deal in history. The financing round was led by SoftBank, with other participants including Microsoft, Coatue, Altimeter and Thrive. In July 2025, the company reported annualized revenue of $12 billion. This was an increase from $3.7 billion in 2024, which was driven by ChatGPT subscriptions, which reached 20 million paid subscribers by April 2025, up from 15.5 million at the end of 2024, alongside a rapidly expanding enterprise customer base that grew to five million business users. The company’s cash burn remains high because of the intensive computational costs required to train and operate large language models. It projects an $8 billion operating loss in 2025. OpenAI reports revised long-term spending projections totaling approximately $115 billion through 2029, with annual expenditures projected to escalate significantly, reaching $17 billion in 2026, $35 billion in 2027, and $45 billion in 2028. These expenditures are primarily allocated toward expanding compute infrastructure, developing proprietary AI chips, constructing data centers, and funding intensive model training programs, with more than half of the spending through the end of the decade expected to support research-intensive compute for model training and development. The company's financial strategy prioritizes market expansion and technological advancement over near-term profitability, with OpenAI targeting cash-flow-positive operations by 2029 and projecting revenue of approximately $200 billion by 2030. This aggressive spending trajectory underscores both the enormous capital requirements of scaling cutting-edge AI technology and OpenAI's commitment to maintaining its position as a leader in the artificial intelligence industry. In October 2025, OpenAI completed an employee share sale of up to $10 billion to existing investors which valued the company at $500 billion. The deal values OpenAI as the most valuable privately owned company in the world—surpassing SpaceX as the world's most valuable private company. On November 17, 2023, Sam Altman was removed as CEO when its board of directors (composed of Helen Toner, Ilya Sutskever, Adam D'Angelo and Tasha McCauley) cited a lack of confidence in him. Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati took over as interim CEO. Greg Brockman, the president of OpenAI, was also removed as chairman of the board and resigned from the company's presidency shortly thereafter. Three senior OpenAI researchers subsequently resigned: director of research and GPT-4 lead Jakub Pachocki, head of AI risk Aleksander Mądry, and researcher Szymon Sidor. On November 18, 2023, there were reportedly talks of Altman returning as CEO amid pressure placed upon the board by investors such as Microsoft and Thrive Capital, who objected to Altman's departure. Although Altman himself spoke in favor of returning to OpenAI, he has since stated that he considered starting a new company and bringing former OpenAI employees with him if talks to reinstate him didn't work out. The board members agreed "in principle" to resign if Altman returned. On November 19, 2023, negotiations with Altman to return failed and Murati was replaced by Emmett Shear as interim CEO. The board initially contacted Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei (a former OpenAI executive) about replacing Altman, and proposed a merger of the two companies, but both offers were declined. On November 20, 2023, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced Altman and Brockman would be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team, but added that they were still committed to OpenAI despite recent events. Before the partnership with Microsoft was finalized, Altman gave the board another opportunity to negotiate with him. About 738 of OpenAI's 770 employees, including Murati and Sutskever, signed an open letter stating they would quit their jobs and join Microsoft if the board did not rehire Altman and then resign. This prompted OpenAI investors to consider legal action against the board as well. In response, OpenAI management sent an internal memo to employees stating that negotiations with Altman and the board had resumed and would take some time. On November 21, 2023, after continued negotiations, Altman and Brockman returned to the company in their prior roles along with a reconstructed board made up of new members Bret Taylor (as chairman) and Lawrence Summers, with D'Angelo remaining. According to subsequent reporting, shortly before Altman’s firing, some employees raised concerns to the board about how he had handled the safety implications of a recent internal AI capability discovery. On November 29, 2023, OpenAI announced that an anonymous Microsoft employee had joined the board as a non-voting member to observe the company's operations; Microsoft resigned from the board in July 2024. In February 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission subpoenaed OpenAI's internal communication to determine if Altman's alleged lack of candor misled investors. In 2024, following the temporary removal of Sam Altman and his return, many employees gradually left OpenAI, including most of the original leadership team and a significant number of AI safety researchers. In August 2023, it was announced that OpenAI had acquired the New York-based start-up Global Illumination, a company that deploys AI to develop digital infrastructure and creative tools. In June 2024, OpenAI acquired Multi, a startup focused on remote collaboration. In March 2025, OpenAI reached a deal with CoreWeave to acquire $350 million worth of CoreWeave shares and access to AI infrastructure, in return for $11.9 billion paid over five years. Microsoft was already CoreWeave's biggest customer in 2024. Alongside their other business dealings, OpenAI and Microsoft were renegotiating the terms of their partnership to facilitate a potential future initial public offering by OpenAI, while ensuring Microsoft's continued access to advanced AI models. On May 21, OpenAI announced the $6.5 billion acquisition of io, an AI hardware start-up founded by former Apple designer Jony Ive in 2024. In September 2025, OpenAI agreed to acquire the product testing startup Statsig for $1.1 billion in an all-stock deal and appointed Statsig's founding CEO Vijaye Raji as OpenAI's chief technology officer of applications. The company also announced development of an AI-driven hiring service designed to rival LinkedIn. OpenAI acquired personal finance app Roi in October 2025. In October 2025, OpenAI acquired Software Applications Incorporated, the developer of Sky, a macOS-based natural language interface designed to operate across desktop applications. The Sky team joined OpenAI, and the company announced plans to integrate Sky’s capabilities into ChatGPT. In December 2025, it was announced OpenAI had agreed to acquire Neptune, an AI tooling startup that helps companies track and manage model training, for an undisclosed amount. In January 2026, it was announced OpenAI had acquired healthcare technology startup Torch for approximately $60 million. The acquisition followed the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT Health product and was intended to strengthen the company’s medical data and healthcare artificial intelligence capabilities. OpenAI has been criticized for outsourcing the annotation of data sets to Sama, a company based in San Francisco that employed workers in Kenya. These annotations were used to train an AI model to detect toxicity, which could then be used to moderate toxic content, notably from ChatGPT's training data and outputs. However, these pieces of text usually contained detailed descriptions of various types of violence, including sexual violence. The investigation uncovered that OpenAI began sending snippets of data to Sama as early as November 2021. The four Sama employees interviewed by Time described themselves as mentally scarred. OpenAI paid Sama $12.50 per hour of work, and Sama was redistributing the equivalent of between $1.32 and $2.00 per hour post-tax to its annotators. Sama's spokesperson said that the $12.50 was also covering other implicit costs, among which were infrastructure expenses, quality assurance and management. In 2024, OpenAI began collaborating with Broadcom to design a custom AI chip capable of both training and inference, targeted for mass production in 2026 and to be manufactured by TSMC on a 3 nm process node. This initiative intended to reduce OpenAI's dependence on Nvidia GPUs, which are costly and face high demand in the market. In January 2024, Arizona State University purchased ChatGPT Enterprise in OpenAI's first deal with a university. In June 2024, Apple Inc. signed a contract with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT features into its products as part of its new Apple Intelligence initiative. In June 2025, OpenAI began renting Google Cloud's Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) to support ChatGPT and related services, marking its first meaningful use of non‑Nvidia AI chips. In September 2025, it was revealed that OpenAI signed a contract with Oracle to purchase $300 billion in computing power over the next five years. In September 2025, OpenAI and NVIDIA announced a memorandum of understanding that included a potential deployment of at least 10 gigawatts of NVIDIA systems and a $100 billion investment from NVIDIA in OpenAI. OpenAI expected the negotiations to be completed within weeks. As of January 2026, this has not been realized, and the two sides are rethinking the future of their partnership. In October 2025, OpenAI announced a multi-billion dollar deal with AMD. OpenAI committed to purchasing six gigawatts worth of AMD chips, starting with the MI450. OpenAI will have the option to buy up to 160 million shares of AMD, about 10% of the company, depending on development, performance and share price targets. In December 2025, Disney said it would make a $1 billion investment in OpenAI, and signed a three-year licensing deal that will let users generate videos using Sora—OpenAI's short-form AI video platform. More than 200 Disney, Marvel, Star Wars and Pixar characters will be available to OpenAI users. In early 2026, Amazon entered advanced discussions to invest up to $50 billion in OpenAI as part of a potential artificial intelligence partnership. Under the proposed agreement, OpenAI’s models could be integrated into Amazon’s digital assistant Alexa and other internal projects. OpenAI provides LLMs to the Artificial Intelligence Cyber Challenge and to the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. In October 2024, The Intercept revealed that OpenAI's tools are considered "essential" for AFRICOM's mission and included in an "Exception to Fair Opportunity" contractual agreement between the United States Department of Defense and Microsoft. In December 2024, OpenAI said it would partner with defense-tech company Anduril to build drone defense technologies for the United States and its allies. In 2025, OpenAI's Chief Product Officer, Kevin Weil, was commissioned lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army to join Detachment 201 as senior advisor. In June 2025, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded OpenAI a $200 million one-year contract to develop AI tools for military and national security applications. OpenAI announced a new program, OpenAI for Government, to give federal, state, and local governments access to its models, including ChatGPT. Services In February 2019, GPT-2 was announced, which gained attention for its ability to generate human-like text. In 2020, OpenAI announced GPT-3, a language model trained on large internet datasets. GPT-3 is aimed at natural language answering questions, but it can also translate between languages and coherently generate improvised text. It also announced that an associated API, named the API, would form the heart of its first commercial product. Eleven employees left OpenAI, mostly between December 2020 and January 2021, in order to establish Anthropic. In 2021, OpenAI introduced DALL-E, a specialized deep learning model adept at generating complex digital images from textual descriptions, utilizing a variant of the GPT-3 architecture. In December 2022, OpenAI received widespread media coverage after launching a free preview of ChatGPT, its new AI chatbot based on GPT-3.5. According to OpenAI, the preview received over a million signups within the first five days. According to anonymous sources cited by Reuters in December 2022, OpenAI Global, LLC was projecting $200 million of revenue in 2023 and $1 billion in revenue in 2024. After ChatGPT was launched, Google announced a similar chatbot, Bard, amid internal concerns that ChatGPT could threaten Google’s position as a primary source of online information. On February 7, 2023, Microsoft announced that it was building AI technology based on the same foundation as ChatGPT into Microsoft Bing, Edge, Microsoft 365 and other products. On March 14, 2023, OpenAI released GPT-4, both as an API (with a waitlist) and as a feature of ChatGPT Plus. On November 6, 2023, OpenAI launched GPTs, allowing individuals to create customized versions of ChatGPT for specific purposes, further expanding the possibilities of AI applications across various industries. On November 14, 2023, OpenAI announced they temporarily suspended new sign-ups for ChatGPT Plus due to high demand. Access for newer subscribers re-opened a month later on December 13. In December 2024, the company launched the Sora model. It also launched OpenAI o1, an early reasoning model that was internally codenamed strawberry. Additionally, ChatGPT Pro—a $200/month subscription service offering unlimited o1 access and enhanced voice features—was introduced, and preliminary benchmark results for the upcoming OpenAI o3 models were shared. On January 23, 2025, OpenAI released Operator, an AI agent and web automation tool for accessing websites to execute goals defined by users. The feature was only available to Pro users in the United States. OpenAI released deep research agent, nine days later. It scored a 27% accuracy on the benchmark Humanity's Last Exam (HLE). Altman later stated GPT-4.5 would be the last model without full chain-of-thought reasoning. In July 2025, reports indicated that AI models by both OpenAI and Google DeepMind solved mathematics problems at the level of top-performing students in the International Mathematical Olympiad. OpenAI's large language model was able to achieve gold medal-level performance, reflecting significant progress in AI's reasoning abilities. On October 6, 2025, OpenAI unveiled its Agent Builder platform during the company's DevDay event. The platform includes a visual drag-and-drop interface that lets developers and businesses design, test, and deploy agentic workflows with limited coding. On October 21, 2025, OpenAI introduced ChatGPT Atlas, a browser integrating the ChatGPT assistant directly into web navigation, to compete with existing browsers such as Google Chrome and Apple Safari. On December 11, 2025, OpenAI announced GPT-5.2. This model will be better at creating spreadsheets, building presentations, perceiving images, writing code and understanding long context. On January 27, 2026, OpenAI introduced Prism, a LaTeX-native workspace meant to assist scientists to help with research and writing. The platform utilizes GPT-5.2 as a backend to automate the process of drafting for scientific papers, including features for managing citations, complex equation formatting, and real-time collaborative editing. In March 2023, the company was criticized for disclosing particularly few technical details about products like GPT-4, contradicting its initial commitment to openness and making it harder for independent researchers to replicate its work and develop safeguards. OpenAI cited competitiveness and safety concerns to justify this repudiation. OpenAI's former chief scientist Ilya Sutskever argued in 2023 that open-sourcing increasingly capable models was increasingly risky, and that the safety reasons for not open-sourcing the most potent AI models would become "obvious" in a few years. In September 2025, OpenAI published a study on how people use ChatGPT for everyday tasks. The study found that "non-work tasks" (according to an LLM-based classifier) account for more than 72 percent of all ChatGPT usage, with a minority of overall usage related to business productivity. In July 2023, OpenAI launched the superalignment project, aiming within four years to determine how to align future superintelligent systems. OpenAI promised to dedicate 20% of its computing resources to the project, although the team denied receiving anything close to 20%. OpenAI ended the project in May 2024 after its co-leaders Ilya Sutskever and Jan Leike left the company. In August 2025, OpenAI was criticized after thousands of private ChatGPT conversations were inadvertently exposed to public search engines like Google due to an experimental "share with search engines" feature. The opt-in toggle, intended to allow users to make specific chats discoverable, resulted in some discussions including personal details such as names, locations, and intimate topics appearing in search results when users accidentally enabled it while sharing links. OpenAI announced the feature's permanent removal on August 1, 2025, and the company began coordinating with search providers to remove the exposed content, emphasizing that it was not a security breach but a design flaw that heightened privacy risks. CEO Sam Altman acknowledged the issue in a podcast, noting users often treat ChatGPT as a confidant for deeply personal matters, which amplified concerns about AI handling sensitive data. Management In 2018, Musk resigned from his Board of Directors seat, citing "a potential future conflict [of interest]" with his role as CEO of Tesla due to Tesla's AI development for self-driving cars. OpenAI stated that Musk's financial contributions were below $45 million. On March 3, 2023, Reid Hoffman resigned from his board seat, citing a desire to avoid conflicts of interest with his investments in AI companies via Greylock Partners, and his co-founding of the AI startup Inflection AI. Hoffman remained on the board of Microsoft, a major investor in OpenAI. In May 2024, Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever resigned and was succeeded by Jakub Pachocki. Co-leader Jan Leike also departed amid concerns over safety and trust. OpenAI then signed deals with Reddit, News Corp, Axios, and Vox Media. Paul Nakasone then joined the board of OpenAI. In August 2024, cofounder John Schulman left OpenAI to join Anthropic, and OpenAI's president Greg Brockman took extended leave until November. In September 2024, CTO Mira Murati left the company. In November 2025, Lawrence Summers resigned from the board of directors. Governance and legal issues In May 2023, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever posted recommendations for the governance of superintelligence. They stated that superintelligence could happen within the next 10 years, allowing a "dramatically more prosperous future" and that "given the possibility of existential risk, we can't just be reactive". They proposed creating an international watchdog organization similar to IAEA to oversee AI systems above a certain capability threshold, suggesting that relatively weak AI systems on the other side should not be overly regulated. They also called for more technical safety research for superintelligences, and asked for more coordination, for example through governments launching a joint project which "many current efforts become part of". In July 2023, the FTC issued a civil investigative demand to OpenAI to investigate whether the company's data security and privacy practices to develop ChatGPT were unfair or harmed consumers (including by reputational harm) in violation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914. These are typically preliminary investigative matters and are nonpublic, but the FTC's document was leaked. In July 2023, the FTC launched an investigation into OpenAI over allegations that the company scraped public data and published false and defamatory information. They asked OpenAI for comprehensive information about its technology and privacy safeguards, as well as any steps taken to prevent the recurrence of situations in which its chatbot generated false and derogatory content about people. The agency also raised concerns about ‘circular’ spending arrangements—for example, Microsoft extending Azure credits to OpenAI while both companies shared engineering talent—and warned that such structures could negatively affect the public. In September 2024, OpenAI's global affairs chief endorsed the UK's "smart" AI regulation during testimony to a House of Lords committee. In February 2025, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated that the company is interested in collaborating with the People's Republic of China, despite regulatory restrictions imposed by the U.S. government. This shift comes in response to the growing influence of the Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek, which has disrupted the AI market with open models, including DeepSeek V3 and DeepSeek R1. Following DeepSeek's market emergence, OpenAI enhanced security protocols to protect proprietary development techniques from industrial espionage. Some industry observers noted similarities between DeepSeek's model distillation approach and OpenAI's methodology, though no formal intellectual property claim was filed. According to Oliver Roberts, in March 2025, the United States had 781 state AI bills or laws. OpenAI advocated for preempting state AI laws with federal laws. According to Scott Kohler, OpenAI has opposed California's AI legislation and suggested that the state bill encroaches on a more competent federal government. Public Citizen opposed a federal preemption on AI and pointed to OpenAI's growth and valuation as evidence that existing state laws have not hampered innovation. Before May 2024, OpenAI required departing employees to sign a lifelong non-disparagement agreement forbidding them from criticizing OpenAI and acknowledging the existence of the agreement. Daniel Kokotajlo, a former employee, publicly stated that he forfeited his vested equity in OpenAI in order to leave without signing the agreement. Sam Altman stated that he was unaware of the equity cancellation provision, and that OpenAI never enforced it to cancel any employee's vested equity. However, leaked documents and emails refute this claim. On May 23, 2024, OpenAI sent a memo releasing former employees from the agreement. OpenAI was sued for copyright infringement by authors Sarah Silverman, Matthew Butterick, Paul Tremblay and Mona Awad in July 2023. In September 2023, 17 authors, including George R. R. Martin, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult and Jonathan Franzen, joined the Authors Guild in filing a class action lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that the company's technology was illegally using their copyrighted work. The New York Times also sued the company in late December 2023. In May 2024 it was revealed that OpenAI had destroyed its Books1 and Books2 training datasets, which were used in the training of GPT-3, and which the Authors Guild believed to have contained over 100,000 copyrighted books. In 2021, OpenAI developed a speech recognition tool called Whisper. OpenAI used it to transcribe more than one million hours of YouTube videos into text for training GPT-4. The automated transcription of YouTube videos raised concerns within OpenAI employees regarding potential violations of YouTube's terms of service, which prohibit the use of videos for applications independent of the platform, as well as any type of automated access to its videos. Despite these concerns, the project proceeded with notable involvement from OpenAI's president, Greg Brockman. The resulting dataset proved instrumental in training GPT-4. In February 2024, The Intercept as well as Raw Story and Alternate Media Inc. filed lawsuit against OpenAI on copyright litigation ground. The lawsuit is said to have charted a new legal strategy for digital-only publishers to sue OpenAI. On April 30, 2024, eight newspapers filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York against OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming illegal harvesting of their copyrighted articles. The suing publications included The Mercury News, The Denver Post, The Orange County Register, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, Sun Sentinel, and New York Daily News. In June 2023, a lawsuit claimed that OpenAI scraped 300 billion words online without consent and without registering as a data broker. It was filed in San Francisco, California, by sixteen anonymous plaintiffs. They also claimed that OpenAI and its partner as well as customer Microsoft continued to unlawfully collect and use personal data from millions of consumers worldwide to train artificial intelligence models. On May 22, 2024, OpenAI entered into an agreement with News Corp to integrate news content from The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, The Times, and The Sunday Times into its AI platform. Meanwhile, other publications like The New York Times chose to sue OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement over the use of their content to train AI models. In November 2024, a coalition of Canadian news outlets, including the Toronto Star, Metroland Media, Postmedia, The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press and CBC, sued OpenAI for using their news articles to train its software without permission. In October 2024 during a New York Times interview, Suchir Balaji accused OpenAI of violating copyright law in developing its commercial LLMs which he had helped engineer. He was a likely witness in a major copyright trial against the AI company, and was one of several of its current or former employees named in court filings as potentially having documents relevant to the case. On November 26, 2024, Balaji died by suicide. His death prompted the circulation of conspiracy theories alleging that he had been deliberately silenced. California Congressman Ro Khanna endorsed calls for an investigation. On April 24, 2025, Ziff Davis sued OpenAI in Delaware federal court for copyright infringement. Ziff Davis is known for publications such as ZDNet, PCMag, CNET, IGN and Lifehacker. In April 2023, the EU's European Data Protection Board (EDPB) formed a dedicated task force on ChatGPT "to foster cooperation and to exchange information on possible enforcement actions conducted by data protection authorities" based on the "enforcement action undertaken by the Italian data protection authority against OpenAI about the ChatGPT service". In late April 2024 NOYB filed a complaint with the Austrian Datenschutzbehörde against OpenAI for violating the European General Data Protection Regulation. A text created with ChatGPT gave a false date of birth for a living person without giving the individual the option to see the personal data used in the process. A request to correct the mistake was denied. Additionally, neither the recipients of ChatGPT's work nor the sources used, could be made available, OpenAI claimed. OpenAI was criticized for lifting its ban on using ChatGPT for "military and warfare". Up until January 10, 2024, its "usage policies" included a ban on "activity that has high risk of physical harm, including", specifically, "weapons development" and "military and warfare". Its new policies prohibit "[using] our service to harm yourself or others" and to "develop or use weapons". In August 2025, the parents of a 16-year-old boy who died by suicide filed a wrongful death lawsuit against OpenAI (and CEO Sam Altman), alleging that months of conversations with ChatGPT about mental health and methods of self-harm contributed to their son's death and that safeguards were inadequate for minors. OpenAI expressed condolences and said it was strengthening protections (including updated crisis response behavior and parental controls). Coverage described it as a first-of-its-kind wrongful death case targeting the company's chatbot. The complaint was filed in California state court in San Francisco. In November 2025, the Social Media Victims Law Center and Tech Justice Law Project filed seven lawsuits against OpenAI, of which four lawsuits alleged wrongful death. The suits were filed on behalf of Zane Shamblin, 23, of Texas; Amaurie Lacey, 17, of Georgia; Joshua Enneking, 26, of Florida; and Joe Ceccanti, 48, of Oregon, who each committed suicide after prolonged ChatGPT usage. In December 2025, Stein-Erik Soelberg, who was 56 years old at the time, allegedly murdered his mother Suzanne Adams. In the months prior the paranoid, delusional man often discussed his ideas with ChatGPT. Adam's estate then sued OpenAI claiming that the company shared responsibility due to the risk of chatbot psychosis despite the fact that chatbot psychosis is not a real medical diagnosis. OpenAI responded saying they will make ChatGPT safer for users disconnected from reality. See also References Further reading External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubercode] | [TOKENS: 132] |
Contents Ubercode Ubercode is a high-level programming language designed by Ubercode Software and released in 2005 for Microsoft Windows. Ubercode is influenced by Eiffel and BASIC. It is proprietary software and can be tried out for free for 30 days. Ubercode has the following design goals: Hello, World! Here is the basic "Hello, World!" program: Preconditions and postconditions Here is an example using pre- and postconditions. In the example, the IntToStr function validates its input as a string before converting it to an integer: External links This programming-language-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information. |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/51_Orionis] | [TOKENS: 184] |
Contents 51 Orionis 51 Orionis is a single star in the equatorial constellation of Orion. It has the Bayer designation b Orionis, while 51 Orionis is the Flamsteed designation. This object is visible to the naked eye as a faint, orange-hued star with an apparent visual magnitude of 4.90. It is located approximately 299 light-years away from the Sun based on parallax, and is drifting further away with a radial velocity of +88 km/s. This is an aging giant star with a stellar classification of K1III, having exhausted the supply of hydrogen at its core and expanded to 19 times the Sun's radius. It is four billion years old with 1.11 times the mass of the Sun. The star is radiating 132 times the Sun's luminosity from its enlarged photosphere at an effective temperature of 4,458 K. References |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UCSD_Pascal] | [TOKENS: 1711] |
Contents UCSD Pascal UCSD Pascal is a Pascal programming language system that runs on the UCSD p-System, a portable, highly machine-independent operating system. UCSD Pascal was first released in 1977. It was developed at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). The p-System In 1977, the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Institute for Information Systems developed UCSD Pascal to provide students with a common environment that could run on any of the then available microcomputers as well as campus DEC PDP-11 minicomputers. The operating system became known as UCSD p-System. There were three operating systems that IBM offered for its original IBM PC: the UCSD p-System, CP/M-86, and IBM PC DOS. Vendor SofTech Microsystems emphasized p-System's application portability, with virtual machines for 20 CPUs as of the IBM PC's release. It predicted that users would be able to use applications they purchased on future computers running p-System; advertisements called it "the Universal Operating System". PC Magazine denounced UCSD p-System on the IBM PC, stating in a review of Context MBA, written in the language, that it "simply does not produce good code". The p-System did not sell very well for the IBM PC, because of a lack of applications and because it was more expensive than the other choices. Previously, IBM had offered the UCSD p-System as an option for IBM Displaywriter, an 8086-based dedicated word processing machine. (The Displaywriter's native operating system had been developed completely internally and was not opened for end-user programming.) Notable extensions to standard Pascal include separately compilable Units and a String type. Some intrinsics were provided to accelerate string processing (e.g. scanning in an array for a particular search pattern); other language extensions were provided to allow the UCSD p-System to be self-compiling and self-hosted. UCSD Pascal was based on a p-code machine architecture. Its contribution to these early virtual machines was to extend p-code away from its roots as a compiler intermediate language into a full execution environment.[clarification needed] The UCSD Pascal p-Machine was optimized for the new small microcomputers with addressing restricted to 16-bit (only 64 KB of memory). James Gosling cites UCSD Pascal as a key influence (along with the Smalltalk virtual machine) on the design of the Java virtual machine. UCSD p-System achieved machine independence by defining a virtual machine, called the p-Machine (or pseudo-machine, which many users began to call the "Pascal-machine" like the OS—although UCSD documentation always used "pseudo-machine") with its own instruction set called p-code (or pseudo-code). Urs Ammann, a student of Niklaus Wirth, originally presented a p-code in his PhD thesis, from which the UCSD implementation was derived, the Zurich Pascal-P implementation. The UCSD implementation changed the Zurich implementation to be "byte oriented". The UCSD p-code was optimized for execution of the Pascal programming language. Each hardware platform then only needed a p-code interpreter program written for it to port the entire p-System and all the tools to run on it. Later versions also included additional languages that compiled to the p-code base. For example, Apple Computer offered a Fortran Compiler (written by Silicon Valley Software, Sunnyvale California) producing p-code that ran on the Apple version of the p-system. Later, TeleSoft (also located in San Diego) offered an early Ada development environment that used p-code and was therefore able to run on a number of hardware platforms including the Motorola 68000, the System/370, and the Pascal MicroEngine. UCSD p-System shares some concepts with the later Java platform. Both use a virtual machine to hide operating system and hardware differences, and both use programs written to that virtual machine to provide cross-platform support. Likewise both systems allow the virtual machine to be used either as the complete operating system of the target computer or to run in a "box" under another operating system. The UCSD Pascal compiler was distributed as part of a portable operating system, the p-System. History UCSD p-System began around 1974 as the idea of UCSD's Kenneth Bowles, who believed that the number of new computing platforms coming out at the time would make it difficult for new programming languages to gain acceptance. He based UCSD Pascal on the Pascal-P2 release of the portable compiler from Zurich. He was particularly interested in Pascal as a language to teach programming. UCSD introduced two features that were important improvements on the original Pascal: variable length strings, and "units" of independently compiled code (an idea included into the then-evolving Ada (programming language)). Niklaus Wirth credits the p-System, and UCSD Pascal in particular, with popularizing Pascal. It was not until the release of Turbo Pascal that UCSD's version started to slip from first place among Pascal users. The Pascal dialect of UCSD Pascal came from the subset of Pascal implemented in Pascal-P2, which was not designed to be a full implementation of the language, but rather "the minimum subset that would self-compile", to fit its function as a bootstrap kit for Pascal compilers. UCSD added strings from BASIC, and several other implementation dependent features. Although UCSD Pascal later obtained many of the other features of the full Pascal language, the Pascal-P2 subset persisted in other dialects, notably Borland Pascal, which copied much of the UCSD dialect. Versions There were four versions of UCSD p-code engine, each with several revisions of the p-System and UCSD Pascal. A revision of the p-code engine (i.e., the p-Machine) meant a change to the p-code language, and therefore compiled code is not portable between different p-Machine versions. Each revision was represented with a leading Roman Numeral, while operating system revisions were enumerated as the "dot" number following the p-code Roman Numeral. For example, II.3 represented the third revision of the p-System running on the second revision of the p-Machine. Original version, never officially distributed outside of the University of California, San Diego. However, the Pascal sources for both Versions I.3 and I.5 were freely exchanged between interested users. Specifically, the patch revision I.5a was known to be one of the most stable. Widely distributed, available on many early microcomputers. Numerous versions included Apple II ultimately Apple Pascal, DEC PDP-11, Intel 8080, Zilog Z80, and MOS 6502 based machines, Motorola 68000 and the IBM PC (Version II on the PC was restricted to one 64K code segment and one 64K stack/heap data segment; Version IV removed the code segment limit but cost a lot more[quantify]). Project members from this era include Dr Kenneth L Bowles, Mark Allen, Richard Gleaves, Richard Kaufmann, Pete Lawrence, Joel McCormack, Mark Overgaard, Keith Shillington, Roger Sumner, and John Van Zandt. Custom version written for Western Digital to run on their Pascal MicroEngine microcomputer. Included support for parallel processes for the first time. Commercial version, developed and sold by SofTech. Based on Version II; did not include changes from Version III. Did not sell well due to combination of their pricing structure, performance problems due to p-code interpreter, and competition with native operating systems (on top of which it often ran). After SofTech dropped the product, it was picked up by Pecan Systems, a relatively small company formed of p-System users and fans. Sales revived somewhat, due mostly to Pecan's reasonable pricing structure, but the p-System and UCSD Pascal gradually lost the market to native operating systems and compilers. Available for the TI-99/4A equipped with p-code card, Commodore CBM 8096, Sage II/IV, HP 9000, and BBC Micro with 6502 second processor. Further use The Corvus Systems computer used UCSD Pascal for all its user software. The "innovative concept" of the Constellation OS was to run Pascal (interpretively or compiled) and include all common software in the manual, so users could modify as needed. Notes Further reading External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merfolk] | [TOKENS: 2341] |
Contents Merfolk Merfolk, Mercreatures, Mermen or Merpeople are legendary water-dwelling, human-like beings. They are attested in folklore and mythology throughout the ages in various parts of the world. Merfolk, Merpeople, or simply Mer refers to humanoid creatures that live in deep waters like Mermaids, Sirens, Cecaelia etc. In English, female merfolk are called mermaids, although in a strict sense, mermaids are confined to beings who are half-woman and half-fish in appearance; male merfolk are called mermen. Depending on the story, they can be described as either ugly or beautiful. Chinese rényú (人魚) stands for "merfolk", but in ancient geographical or natural historical tracts, the term referred to "human-fish" or "man-fish" purported to inhabit rivers or lakes in certain parts of China. The Japanese analogue ningyo (人魚) likewise translates to "human-fish" while, at the same time, having also applied to various human-like fish recorded in writings from medieval times into the Edo Period. China Certain fantastical types of "fish", generically referred to as renyu (人魚, "human-fish") are alleged to occur in various parts of China according to the Shan Hai Jing (Classic of Mountains and Seas, 4th century BC). It is mentioned in the Bei Shan Jing ("Classic of the Northern mountains"), Zhong Shan Jing (Central Mountains), and Xi Shan Jing (Western Mountains) sections of this work. This work and others also mention several additional types of "anthropomorphic fish" with limbs in other regions such as the chiru [zh] (赤鱬; "red ru fish") and lingyu [zh] (陵魚; "hill-fish"), considered to be in the same category of creatures. Certain tribes or races of humans were also described being part-fish, namely the Di people [zh]. It is recorded that the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor was illuminated with lamps fueled by the oil of the human-fish (renyu), whose flames were meant to last a very long time. In the Chinese Song Dynasty's supernatural tale collection Yijian Zhi (夷堅志), there are stories of sea sirens similar to those in other folklore. One tale describes a beautiful female demon living on a cliff of an island. A man sailed to the island, married a woman there, and she taught him how to recognize plants and avoid dangers, protecting him from wild beasts. They had two sons together. However, when a fellow townsman arrived on the island and took the man back by boat, the woman cursed him, throwing their sons into the water in a fit of rage and yelling at him to leave. The man stayed silent after boarding the ship. Another tale from Guangzhou tells of a merchant who, upon reaching an island, was captured by two women and taken into the mountains. They fed him daily, but he couldn't tell if he was still alive. After about a year, he overheard the women discussing magic, and he begged them to take him to the place where it was performed. When they did, he sought help, causing the women to flee by flying away. Though he was revived, his food gradually dwindled, and he died two months later. The renyu (人魚; human-fish) is described in the Bei Shan Jing ("Classic of the North Mountains") section as dwelling on Mt. Longhou (龍侯山, "Dragon-Marquis Mountain") in the waters of the Jueshui (決水, "Bursting River"), which flows eastward into the Yellow River. It is said to "resemble the tiyu" (translated as "resemble catfish")[c] possess four legs, with a voice like baby crying. Eating the fish purportedly cured idiocy or dementia. This fish as a cure was also quoted in the Compendium of Materia Medica or Bencao Gangmu (1596) under its entry for Tiyu (Chinese: 䱱魚) The Bencao Gangmu categorized the tiyu (䱱魚) as one of two types of "human-fish" (renyu). The human-fish were also known as "child-fish" or haieryu (孩兒魚; 孩儿鱼). The other type, called the niyu (鯢魚) is elaborated in a separate section. It has been noted by Li Shizhen that the character for the Niyu (Ni 鯢 fish) consists of the "fish" indexing component (魚) and "child" (兒) radical. Translators of the Bencao Gangmu attempt to match entries with actual taxa of animals, forbs, etc., where possible, and the tiyu type is glossed as "newts" while the niyu type is "Chinese giant salamander". The chiru [zh] (赤鱬; "red ru fish". Wade–Giles: ch'ih-ju; "red ju") is described in the Nan Shan Jing ("Classic of the Southern Mountains") as a human-headed fish. It is said to be found in the Qingqushan (青丘山 "Green-Hills Mountains") in the Pool-of-Yi (Yì zhī zé 翼之澤; "Carp-Wings Lake"). It is described as basically fish-form but having a human face, and issuing sounds like the mandarin duck. Eating it purportedly prevented scabies or itchy skin. The illustration of the chiru from China may have influenced the legless, human-faced fish visualization of some of the ningyo in Japan, according to the hypothesis of Morihiko Fujisawa [ja]. The jiaoren (蛟人 "flood dragon people" or 鮫人 "shark people")[e] that appear in medieval writings are considered to be references to merfolk. This mythical southern mermaid or merman is recorded in Ren Fang [zh]'s Shuyi ji [zh] "Records of Strange Things" (early 6th century CE). In the midst of the South Sea are the houses of the kău (Chinese: 鮫; pinyin: jiao; Wade–Giles: chiao) people who dwell in the water like fish, but have not given up weaving at the loom. Their eyes have the power to weep, but what they bring forth is pearls. Similar passages appear in other texts such as the Bowuzhi (博物志, "Treatise of Manifold " c. 290 CE) as "weep[ing] tears that became pearls".[f] These aquatic people supposedly spun a type of raw silk called jiaoxiao 蛟綃 "mermaid silk" or jiaonujuan 蛟女絹 "mermaid woman's silk". Schafer equates this with sea silk, the rare fabric woven from byssus filaments produced by Pinna "pen shell" mollusks.[g] Loting (盧亭) is a mysterious ethnic group residing in Hong Kong's Myths. They are legendary merfolk half human and half fish, also known as Lo Yu, Lu Heng, or Lo Ting Fish Man. They have lived on Tai O' Lantau Island in Hong Kong since the local civil uprising in the Eastern Jin Dynasty of China. It is said that Loting has fish scales on his fish-like human body, a face that resembles humans, and he enjoys sucking chicken blood. They could use their catch to fish from Tai O and trade chickens with the local human inhabitants to survive. Japan The ningyo (人魚 "human-fish") of Japan has its own history in the country's literary record. The earliest references (in the Nihon shoki, entry for year 619, reign of Empress Suiko) do not specifically use the term ningyo, and the "thing" appeared in fresh water (a river in Ōmi Province, canal Settsu Province), and may presumed to be a giant salamander. Later accounts claim that Empress Suiko's regent Prince Shōtoku knew the creature to be a ningyo when one was presented to him by representatives of Ōmi. The appearance of the human-fish was strongly associated with ill omen in later treatments of the Prince's encounter with the human-fish. During the Kamakura Period, ningyo of the marine sort were frequently reported as washing ashore, and these were taken to be ominous signs usually prefiguring bloody battles. The ningyo, or rather renyu (人魚) and the like found in Chinese sources (chiru, tiyu etc., etc., discussed above) were also discussed in Japanese literature, for example, works of scholars of herbal and traditional medicine, such as Kaibara Ekiken (d. 1714) and Ono Ranzan (d. 1810). These Japanese scholars were also aware of European discussions on "sirens", "anthropomorphic fish", "peixe muller (fish-woman)", etc. Philippines Merfolk, known collectively as Taga-Dagat or sometimes Bantay Tubig ("Water Guardians"), are aquatic beings in Philippine mythology. Due to the country's diverse cultures and languages across its many islands, tales of merfolk vary widely. These beings are often considered engkanto or supernatural entities or nature spirits and are believed to guard bodies of water. The most well-known merfolk figure is the Sirena, a mermaid-like creature with the upper body of a human female and the tail of a fish. Sirenas are known for their mesmerizing voices, which they use to lure fishermen or sailors to their deaths by drowning or abduction. In some stories, Sirenas are portrayed as malevolent, while in others, they can become kind and loyal if they fall in love with a human. The Sireno is the male counterpart of the Sirena, though it appears less frequently in stories. Sometimes, Sirena are paired with the Siyokoy (also spelled Shokoy or Syokoy), another type of aquatic creature. Siyokoy are depicted as hostile sea monsters with scales, webbed limbs, and grotesque features. Unlike the Sirena, Siyokoy are more animalistic and are believed to drown humans. Their name is thought to originate from the Hokkien term shui gui, referring to water spirits in Chinese folklore. Another merfolk being is the Kataw, often considered a higher-ranking water entity than the Sirena or Siyokoy. Kataw resemble humans but have gills, fins, and sometimes even human feet and the ability to manipulate water elements. They are known to disguise themselves as fishermen and lure humans into the sea. A human-eating version of the Sirena is the Magindara, often portrayed in Bicolano folklore. In popular culture See also Explanatory notes References Citations Bibliography |
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Contents United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the semi-exclave of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelago of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States also asserts sovereignty over five major island territories and various uninhabited islands in Oceania and the Caribbean.[j] It is a megadiverse country, with the world's third-largest land area[c] and third-largest population, exceeding 341 million.[k] Paleo-Indians first migrated from North Asia to North America at least 15,000 years ago, and formed various civilizations. Spanish colonization established Spanish Florida in 1513, the first European colony in what is now the continental United States. British colonization followed with the 1607 settlement of Virginia, the first of the Thirteen Colonies. Enslavement of Africans was practiced in all colonies by 1770 and supplied most of the labor for the Southern Colonies' plantation economy. Clashes with the British Crown began as a civil protest over the illegality of taxation without representation in Parliament and the denial of other English rights. They evolved into the American Revolution, which led to the Declaration of Independence and a society based on universal rights. Victory in the 1775–1783 Revolutionary War brought international recognition of U.S. sovereignty and fueled westward expansion, further dispossessing native inhabitants. As more states were admitted, a North–South division over slavery led the Confederate States of America to declare secession and fight the Union in the 1861–1865 American Civil War. With the United States' victory and reunification, slavery was abolished nationally. By the late 19th century, the U.S. economy outpaced the French, German and British economies combined. As of 1900, the country had established itself as a great power, a status solidified after its involvement in World War I. Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. entered World War II. Its aftermath left the U.S. and the Soviet Union as rival superpowers, competing for ideological dominance and international influence during the Cold War. The Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 ended the Cold War, leaving the U.S. as the world's sole superpower. The U.S. federal government is a representative democracy with a president and a constitution that grants separation of powers under three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. The United States Congress is a bicameral national legislature composed of the House of Representatives (a lower house based on population) and the Senate (an upper house based on equal representation for each state). Federalism grants substantial autonomy to the 50 states. In addition, 574 Native American tribes have sovereignty rights, and there are 326 Native American reservations. Since the 1850s, the Democratic and Republican parties have dominated American politics. American ideals and values are based on a democratic tradition inspired by the American Enlightenment movement. A developed country, the U.S. ranks high in economic competitiveness, innovation, and higher education. Accounting for over a quarter of nominal global GDP, its economy has been the world's largest since about 1890. It is the wealthiest country, with the highest disposable household income per capita among OECD members, though its wealth inequality is highly pronounced. Shaped by centuries of immigration, the culture of the U.S. is diverse and globally influential. Making up more than a third of global military spending, the country has one of the strongest armed forces and is a designated nuclear state. A member of numerous international organizations, the U.S. plays a major role in global political, cultural, economic, and military affairs. Etymology Documented use of the phrase "United States of America" dates back to January 2, 1776. On that day, Stephen Moylan, a Continental Army aide to General George Washington, wrote a letter to Joseph Reed, Washington's aide-de-camp, seeking to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the Revolutionary War effort. The first known public usage is an anonymous essay published in the Williamsburg newspaper The Virginia Gazette on April 6, 1776. Sometime on or after June 11, 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote "United States of America" in a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, which was adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. The term "United States" and its initialism "U.S.", used as nouns or as adjectives in English, are common short names for the country. The initialism "USA", a noun, is also common. "United States" and "U.S." are the established terms throughout the U.S. federal government, with prescribed rules.[l] "The States" is an established colloquial shortening of the name, used particularly from abroad; "stateside" is the corresponding adjective or adverb. "America" is the feminine form of the first word of Americus Vesputius, the Latinized name of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512);[m] it was first used as a place name by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann in 1507.[n] Vespucci first proposed that the West Indies discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492 were part of a previously unknown landmass and not among the Indies at the eastern limit of Asia. In English, the term "America" usually does not refer to topics unrelated to the United States, despite the usage of "the Americas" to describe the totality of the continents of North and South America. History The first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia approximately 15,000 years ago, either across the Bering land bridge or along the now-submerged Ice Age coastline. Small isolated groups of hunter-gatherers are said to have migrated alongside herds of large herbivores far into Alaska, with ice-free corridors developing along the Pacific coast and valleys of North America in c. 16,500 – c. 13,500 BCE (c. 18,500 – c. 15,500 BP). The Clovis culture, which appeared around 11,000 BCE, is believed to be the first widespread culture in the Americas. Over time, Indigenous North American cultures grew increasingly sophisticated, and some, such as the Mississippian culture, developed agriculture, architecture, and complex societies. In the post-archaic period, the Mississippian cultures were located in the midwestern, eastern, and southern regions, and the Algonquian in the Great Lakes region and along the Eastern Seaboard, while the Hohokam culture and Ancestral Puebloans inhabited the Southwest. Native population estimates of what is now the United States before the arrival of European colonizers range from around 500,000 to nearly 10 million. Christopher Columbus began exploring the Caribbean for Spain in 1492, leading to Spanish-speaking settlements and missions from what are now Puerto Rico and Florida to New Mexico and California. The first Spanish colony in the present-day continental United States was Spanish Florida, chartered in 1513. After several settlements failed there due to starvation and disease, Spain's first permanent town, Saint Augustine, was founded in 1565. France established its own settlements in French Florida in 1562, but they were either abandoned (Charlesfort, 1578) or destroyed by Spanish raids (Fort Caroline, 1565). Permanent French settlements were founded much later along the Great Lakes (Fort Detroit, 1701), the Mississippi River (Saint Louis, 1764) and especially the Gulf of Mexico (New Orleans, 1718). Early European colonies also included the thriving Dutch colony of New Nederland (settled 1626, present-day New York) and the small Swedish colony of New Sweden (settled 1638 in what became Delaware). British colonization of the East Coast began with the Virginia Colony (1607) and the Plymouth Colony (Massachusetts, 1620). The Mayflower Compact in Massachusetts and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for local representative self-governance and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies. While European settlers in what is now the United States experienced conflicts with Native Americans, they also engaged in trade, exchanging European tools for food and animal pelts.[o] Relations ranged from close cooperation to warfare and massacres. The colonial authorities often pursued policies that forced Native Americans to adopt European lifestyles, including conversion to Christianity. Along the eastern seaboard, settlers trafficked Africans through the Atlantic slave trade, largely to provide manual labor on plantations. The original Thirteen Colonies[p] that would later found the United States were administered as possessions of the British Empire by Crown-appointed governors, though local governments held elections open to most white male property owners. The colonial population grew rapidly from Maine to Georgia, eclipsing Native American populations; by the 1770s, the natural increase of the population was such that only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas. The colonies' distance from Britain facilitated the entrenchment of self-governance, and the First Great Awakening, a series of Christian revivals, fueled colonial interest in guaranteed religious liberty. Following its victory in the French and Indian War, Britain began to assert greater control over local affairs in the Thirteen Colonies, resulting in growing political resistance. One of the primary grievances of the colonists was the denial of their rights as Englishmen, particularly the right to representation in the British government that taxed them. To demonstrate their dissatisfaction and resolve, the First Continental Congress met in 1774 and passed the Continental Association, a colonial boycott of British goods enforced by local "committees of safety" that proved effective. The British attempt to then disarm the colonists resulted in the 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord, igniting the American Revolutionary War. At the Second Continental Congress, the colonies appointed George Washington commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, and created a committee that named Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence. Two days after the Second Continental Congress passed the Lee Resolution to create an independent, sovereign nation, the Declaration was adopted on July 4, 1776. The political values of the American Revolution evolved from an armed rebellion demanding reform within an empire to a revolution that created a new social and governing system founded on the defense of liberty and the protection of inalienable natural rights; sovereignty of the people; republicanism over monarchy, aristocracy, and other hereditary political power; civic virtue; and an intolerance of political corruption. The Founding Fathers of the United States, who included Washington, Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, Thomas Paine, and many others, were inspired by Classical, Renaissance, and Enlightenment philosophies and ideas. Though in practical effect since its drafting in 1777, the Articles of Confederation was ratified in 1781 and formally established a decentralized government that operated until 1789. After the British surrender at the siege of Yorktown in 1781, American sovereignty was internationally recognized by the Treaty of Paris (1783), through which the U.S. gained territory stretching west to the Mississippi River, north to present-day Canada, and south to Spanish Florida. The Northwest Ordinance (1787) established the precedent by which the country's territory would expand with the admission of new states, rather than the expansion of existing states. The U.S. Constitution was drafted at the 1787 Constitutional Convention to overcome the limitations of the Articles. It went into effect in 1789, creating a federal republic governed by three separate branches that together formed a system of checks and balances. George Washington was elected the country's first president under the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791 to allay skeptics' concerns about the power of the more centralized government. His resignation as commander-in-chief after the Revolutionary War and his later refusal to run for a third term as the country's first president established a precedent for the supremacy of civil authority in the United States and the peaceful transfer of power. In the late 18th century, American settlers began to expand westward in larger numbers, many with a sense of manifest destiny. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 from France nearly doubled the territory of the United States. Lingering issues with Britain remained, leading to the War of 1812, which was fought to a draw. Spain ceded Florida and its Gulf Coast territory in 1819. The Missouri Compromise of 1820, which admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, attempted to balance the desire of northern states to prevent the expansion of slavery into new territories with that of southern states to extend it there. Primarily, the compromise prohibited slavery in all other lands of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36°30′ parallel. As Americans expanded further into territory inhabited by Native Americans, the federal government implemented policies of Indian removal or assimilation. The most significant such legislation was the Indian Removal Act of 1830, a key policy of President Andrew Jackson. It resulted in the Trail of Tears (1830–1850), in which an estimated 60,000 Native Americans living east of the Mississippi River were forcibly removed and displaced to lands far to the west, causing 13,200 to 16,700 deaths along the forced march. Settler expansion as well as this influx of Indigenous peoples from the East resulted in the American Indian Wars west of the Mississippi. During the colonial period, slavery became legal in all the Thirteen colonies, but by 1770 it provided the main labor force in the large-scale, agriculture-dependent economies of the Southern Colonies from Maryland to Georgia. The practice began to be significantly questioned during the American Revolution, and spurred by an active abolitionist movement that had reemerged in the 1830s, states in the North enacted laws to prohibit slavery within their boundaries. At the same time, support for slavery had strengthened in Southern states, with widespread use of inventions such as the cotton gin (1793) having made slavery immensely profitable for Southern elites. The United States annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845, and the 1846 Oregon Treaty led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest. Dispute with Mexico over Texas led to the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). After the victory of the U.S., Mexico recognized U.S. sovereignty over Texas, New Mexico, and California in the 1848 Mexican Cession; the cession's lands also included the future states of Nevada, Colorado and Utah. The California gold rush of 1848–1849 spurred a huge migration of white settlers to the Pacific coast, leading to even more confrontations with Native populations. One of the most violent, the California genocide of thousands of Native inhabitants, lasted into the mid-1870s. Additional western territories and states were created. Throughout the 1850s, the sectional conflict regarding slavery was further inflamed by national legislation in the U.S. Congress and decisions of the Supreme Court. In Congress, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 mandated the forcible return to their owners in the South of slaves taking refuge in non-slave states, while the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 effectively gutted the anti-slavery requirements of the Missouri Compromise. In its Dred Scott decision of 1857, the Supreme Court ruled against a slave brought into non-slave territory, simultaneously declaring the entire Missouri Compromise to be unconstitutional. These and other events exacerbated tensions between North and South that would culminate in the American Civil War (1861–1865). Beginning with South Carolina, 11 slave-state governments voted to secede from the United States in 1861, joining to create the Confederate States of America. All other state governments remained loyal to the Union.[q] War broke out in April 1861 after the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter. Following the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, many freed slaves joined the Union army. The war began to turn in the Union's favor following the 1863 Siege of Vicksburg and Battle of Gettysburg, and the Confederates surrendered in 1865 after the Union's victory in the Battle of Appomattox Court House. Efforts toward reconstruction in the secessionist South had begun as early as 1862, but it was only after President Lincoln's assassination that the three Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution were ratified to protect civil rights. The amendments codified nationally the abolition of slavery and involuntary servitude except as punishment for crimes, promised equal protection under the law for all persons, and prohibited discrimination on the basis of race or previous enslavement. As a result, African Americans took an active political role in ex-Confederate states in the decade following the Civil War. The former Confederate states were readmitted to the Union, beginning with Tennessee in 1866 and ending with Georgia in 1870. National infrastructure, including transcontinental telegraph and railroads, spurred growth in the American frontier. This was accelerated by the Homestead Acts, through which nearly 10 percent of the total land area of the United States was given away free to some 1.6 million homesteaders. From 1865 through 1917, an unprecedented stream of immigrants arrived in the United States, including 24.4 million from Europe. Most came through the Port of New York, as New York City and other large cities on the East Coast became home to large Jewish, Irish, and Italian populations. Many Northern Europeans as well as significant numbers of Germans and other Central Europeans moved to the Midwest. At the same time, about one million French Canadians migrated from Quebec to New England. During the Great Migration, millions of African Americans left the rural South for urban areas in the North. Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867. The Compromise of 1877 is generally considered the end of the Reconstruction era, as it resolved the electoral crisis following the 1876 presidential election and led President Rutherford B. Hayes to reduce the role of federal troops in the South. Immediately, the Redeemers began evicting the Carpetbaggers and quickly regained local control of Southern politics in the name of white supremacy. African Americans endured a period of heightened, overt racism following Reconstruction, a time often considered the nadir of American race relations. A series of Supreme Court decisions, including Plessy v. Ferguson, emptied the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of their force, allowing Jim Crow laws in the South to remain unchecked, sundown towns in the Midwest, and segregation in communities across the country, which would be reinforced in part by the policy of redlining later adopted by the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation. An explosion of technological advancement, accompanied by the exploitation of cheap immigrant labor, led to rapid economic expansion during the Gilded Age of the late 19th century. It continued into the early 20th, when the United States already outpaced the economies of Britain, France, and Germany combined. This fostered the amassing of power by a few prominent industrialists, largely by their formation of trusts and monopolies to prevent competition. Tycoons led the nation's expansion in the railroad, petroleum, and steel industries. The United States emerged as a pioneer of the automotive industry. These changes resulted in significant increases in economic inequality, slum conditions, and social unrest, creating the environment for labor unions and socialist movements to begin to flourish. This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era, which was characterized by significant economic and social reforms. Pro-American elements in Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy; the islands were annexed in 1898. That same year, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam were ceded to the U.S. by Spain after the latter's defeat in the Spanish–American War. (The Philippines was granted full independence from the U.S. on July 4, 1946, following World War II. Puerto Rico and Guam have remained U.S. territories.) American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after the Second Samoan Civil War. The U.S. Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917. The United States entered World War I alongside the Allies in 1917 helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers. In 1920, a constitutional amendment granted nationwide women's suffrage. During the 1920s and 1930s, radio for mass communication and early television transformed communications nationwide. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression, to which President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New Deal plan of "reform, recovery and relief", a series of unprecedented and sweeping recovery programs and employment relief projects combined with financial reforms and regulations. Initially neutral during World War II, the U.S. began supplying war materiel to the Allies of World War II in March 1941 and entered the war in December after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Agreeing to a "Europe first" policy, the U.S. concentrated its wartime efforts on Japan's allies Italy and Germany until their final defeat in May 1945. The U.S. developed the first nuclear weapons and used them against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, ending the war. The United States was one of the "Four Policemen" who met to plan the post-war world, alongside the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China. The U.S. emerged relatively unscathed from the war, with even greater economic power and international political influence. The end of World War II in 1945 left the U.S. and the Soviet Union as superpowers, each with its own political, military, and economic sphere of influence. Geopolitical tensions between the two superpowers soon led to the Cold War. The U.S. implemented a policy of containment intended to limit the Soviet Union's sphere of influence; engaged in regime change against governments perceived to be aligned with the Soviets; and prevailed in the Space Race, which culminated with the first crewed Moon landing in 1969. Domestically, the U.S. experienced economic growth, urbanization, and population growth following World War II. The civil rights movement emerged, with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming a prominent leader in the early 1960s. The Great Society plan of President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration resulted in groundbreaking and broad-reaching laws, policies and a constitutional amendment to counteract some of the worst effects of lingering institutional racism. The counterculture movement in the U.S. brought significant social changes, including the liberalization of attitudes toward recreational drug use and sexuality. It also encouraged open defiance of the military draft (leading to the end of conscription in 1973) and wide opposition to U.S. intervention in Vietnam, with the U.S. totally withdrawing in 1975. A societal shift in the roles of women was significantly responsible for the large increase in female paid labor participation starting in the 1970s, and by 1985 the majority of American women aged 16 and older were employed. The Fall of Communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union from 1989 to 1991 marked the end of the Cold War and left the United States as the world's sole superpower. This cemented the United States' global influence, reinforcing the concept of the "American Century" as the U.S. dominated international political, cultural, economic, and military affairs. The 1990s saw the longest recorded economic expansion in American history, a dramatic decline in U.S. crime rates, and advances in technology. Throughout this decade, technological innovations such as the World Wide Web, the evolution of the Pentium microprocessor in accordance with Moore's law, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, the first gene therapy trial, and cloning either emerged in the U.S. or were improved upon there. The Human Genome Project was formally launched in 1990, while Nasdaq became the first stock market in the United States to trade online in 1998. In the Gulf War of 1991, an American-led international coalition of states expelled an Iraqi invasion force that had occupied neighboring Kuwait. The September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001 by the pan-Islamist militant organization al-Qaeda led to the war on terror and subsequent military interventions in Afghanistan and in Iraq. The U.S. housing bubble culminated in 2007 with the Great Recession, the largest economic contraction since the Great Depression. In the 2010s and early 2020s, the United States has experienced increased political polarization and democratic backsliding. The country's polarization was violently reflected in the January 2021 Capitol attack, when a mob of insurrectionists entered the U.S. Capitol and sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in an attempted self-coup d'état. Geography The United States is the world's third-largest country by total area behind Russia and Canada.[c] The 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia have a combined area of 3,119,885 square miles (8,080,470 km2). In 2021, the United States had 8% of the Earth's permanent meadows and pastures and 10% of its cropland. Starting in the east, the coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way to inland forests and rolling hills in the Piedmont plateau region. The Appalachian Mountains and the Adirondack Massif separate the East Coast from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest. The Mississippi River System, the world's fourth-longest river system, runs predominantly north–south through the center of the country. The flat and fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast. The Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, peaking at over 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in the Rocky Mountains, the Yellowstone Caldera, is the continent's largest volcanic feature. Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and the Chihuahuan, Sonoran, and Mojave deserts. In the northwest corner of Arizona, carved by the Colorado River, is the Grand Canyon, a steep-sided canyon and popular tourist destination known for its overwhelming visual size and intricate, colorful landscape. The Cascade and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast. The lowest and highest points in the contiguous United States are in the State of California, about 84 miles (135 km) apart. At an elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190.5 m), Alaska's Denali (also called Mount McKinley) is the highest peak in the country and on the continent. Active volcanoes in the U.S. are common throughout Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands. Located entirely outside North America, the archipelago of Hawaii consists of volcanic islands, physiographically and ethnologically part of the Polynesian subregion of Oceania. In addition to its total land area, the United States has one of the world's largest marine exclusive economic zones spanning approximately 4.5 million square miles (11.7 million km2) of ocean. With its large size and geographic variety, the United States includes most climate types. East of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south. The western Great Plains are semi-arid. Many mountainous areas of the American West have an alpine climate. The climate is arid in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California, and oceanic in coastal Oregon, Washington, and southern Alaska. Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar. Hawaii, the southern tip of Florida and U.S. territories in the Caribbean and Pacific are tropical. The United States receives more high-impact extreme weather incidents than any other country. States bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes occur in the country, mainly in Tornado Alley. Due to climate change in the country, extreme weather has become more frequent in the U.S. in the 21st century, with three times the number of reported heat waves compared to the 1960s. Since the 1990s, droughts in the American Southwest have become more persistent and more severe. The regions considered as the most attractive to the population are the most vulnerable. The U.S. is one of 17 megadiverse countries containing large numbers of endemic species: about 17,000 species of vascular plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland. The United States is home to 428 mammal species, 784 birds, 311 reptiles, 295 amphibians, and around 91,000 insect species. There are 63 national parks, and hundreds of other federally managed monuments, forests, and wilderness areas, administered by the National Park Service and other agencies. About 28% of the country's land is publicly owned and federally managed, primarily in the Western States. Most of this land is protected, though some is leased for commercial use, and less than one percent is used for military purposes. Environmental issues in the United States include debates on non-renewable resources and nuclear energy, air and water pollution, biodiversity, logging and deforestation, and climate change. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the federal agency charged with addressing most environmental-related issues. The idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since 1964, with the Wilderness Act. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 provides a way to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service implements and enforces the Act. In 2024, the U.S. ranked 35th among 180 countries in the Environmental Performance Index. Government and politics The United States is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The U.S. asserts sovereignty over five unincorporated territories and several uninhabited island possessions. It is the world's oldest surviving federation, and its presidential system of federal government has been adopted, in whole or in part, by many newly independent states worldwide following their decolonization. The Constitution of the United States serves as the country's supreme legal document. Most scholars describe the United States as a liberal democracy.[r] Composed of three branches, all headquartered in Washington, D.C., the federal government is the national government of the United States. The U.S. Constitution establishes a separation of powers intended to provide a system of checks and balances to prevent any of the three branches from becoming supreme. The three-branch system is known as the presidential system, in contrast to the parliamentary system where the executive is part of the legislative body. Many countries around the world adopted this aspect of the 1789 Constitution of the United States, especially in the postcolonial Americas. In the U.S. federal system, sovereign powers are shared between three levels of government specified in the Constitution: the federal government, the states, and Indian tribes. The U.S. also asserts sovereignty over five permanently inhabited territories: American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Residents of the 50 states are governed by their elected state government, under state constitutions compatible with the national constitution, and by elected local governments that are administrative divisions of a state. States are subdivided into counties or county equivalents, and (except for Hawaii) further divided into municipalities, each administered by elected representatives. The District of Columbia is a federal district containing the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C. The federal district is an administrative division of the federal government. Indian country is made up of 574 federally recognized tribes and 326 Indian reservations. They hold a government-to-government relationship with the U.S. federal government in Washington and are legally defined as domestic dependent nations with inherent tribal sovereignty rights. In addition to the five major territories, the U.S. also asserts sovereignty over the United States Minor Outlying Islands in the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean. The seven undisputed islands without permanent populations are Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Atoll, and Palmyra Atoll. U.S. sovereignty over the unpopulated Bajo Nuevo Bank, Navassa Island, Serranilla Bank, and Wake Island is disputed. The Constitution is silent on political parties. However, they developed independently in the 18th century with the Federalist and Anti-Federalist parties. Since then, the United States has operated as a de facto two-party system, though the parties have changed over time. Since the mid-19th century, the two main national parties have been the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The former is perceived as relatively liberal in its political platform while the latter is perceived as relatively conservative in its platform. The United States has an established structure of foreign relations, with the world's second-largest diplomatic corps as of 2024[update]. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and home to the United Nations headquarters. The United States is a member of the G7, G20, and OECD intergovernmental organizations. Almost all countries have embassies and many have consulates (official representatives) in the country. Likewise, nearly all countries host formal diplomatic missions with the United States, except Iran, North Korea, and Bhutan. Though Taiwan does not have formal diplomatic relations with the U.S., it maintains close unofficial relations. The United States regularly supplies Taiwan with military equipment to deter potential Chinese aggression. Its geopolitical attention also turned to the Indo-Pacific when the United States joined the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Australia, India, and Japan. The United States has a "Special Relationship" with the United Kingdom and strong ties with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Israel, and several European Union countries such as France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Poland. The U.S. works closely with its NATO allies on military and national security issues, and with countries in the Americas through the Organization of American States and the United States–Mexico–Canada Free Trade Agreement. The U.S. exercises full international defense authority and responsibility for Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau through the Compact of Free Association. It has increasingly conducted strategic cooperation with India, while its ties with China have steadily deteriorated. Beginning in 2014, the U.S. had become a key ally of Ukraine. After Donald Trump was elected U.S. president in 2024, he sought to negotiate an end to the Russo-Ukrainian War. He paused all military aid to Ukraine in March 2025, although the aid resumed later. Trump also ended U.S. intelligence sharing with the country, but this too was eventually restored. The president is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces and appoints its leaders, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Department of Defense, headquartered at the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., administers five of the six service branches, which are made up of the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force. The Coast Guard is administered by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and can be transferred to the Department of the Navy in wartime. Total strength of the entire military is about 1.3 million active duty with an additional 400,000 in reserve. The United States spent $997 billion on its military in 2024, which is by far the largest amount of any country, making up 37% of global military spending and accounting for 3.4% of the country's GDP. The U.S. possesses 42% of the world's nuclear weapons—the second-largest stockpile after that of Russia. The U.S. military is widely regarded as the most powerful and advanced in the world. The United States has the third-largest combined armed forces in the world, behind the Chinese People's Liberation Army and Indian Armed Forces. The U.S. military operates about 800 bases and facilities abroad, and maintains deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries. The United States has engaged in over 400 military interventions since its founding in 1776, with over half of these occurring between 1950 and 2019 and 25% occurring in the post-Cold War era. State defense forces (SDFs) are military units that operate under the sole authority of a state government. SDFs are authorized by state and federal law but are under the command of the state's governor. By contrast, the 54 U.S. National Guard organizations[t] fall under the dual control of state or territorial governments and the federal government; their units can also become federalized entities, but SDFs cannot be federalized. The National Guard personnel of a state or territory can be federalized by the president under the National Defense Act Amendments of 1933; this legislation created the Guard and provides for the integration of Army National Guard and Air National Guard units and personnel into the U.S. Army and (since 1947) the U.S. Air Force. The total number of National Guard members is about 430,000, while the estimated combined strength of SDFs is less than 10,000. There are about 18,000 U.S. police agencies from local to national level in the United States. Law in the United States is mainly enforced by local police departments and sheriff departments in their municipal or county jurisdictions. The state police departments have authority in their respective state, and federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have national jurisdiction and specialized duties, such as protecting civil rights, national security, enforcing U.S. federal courts' rulings and federal laws, and interstate criminal activity. State courts conduct almost all civil and criminal trials, while federal courts adjudicate the much smaller number of civil and criminal cases that relate to federal law. There is no unified "criminal justice system" in the United States. The American prison system is largely heterogenous, with thousands of relatively independent systems operating across federal, state, local, and tribal levels. In 2025, "these systems hold nearly 2 million people in 1,566 state prisons, 98 federal prisons, 3,116 local jails, 1,277 juvenile correctional facilities, 133 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories." Despite disparate systems of confinement, four main institutions dominate: federal prisons, state prisons, local jails, and juvenile correctional facilities. Federal prisons are run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and hold pretrial detainees as well as people who have been convicted of federal crimes. State prisons, run by the department of corrections of each state, hold people sentenced and serving prison time (usually longer than one year) for felony offenses. Local jails are county or municipal facilities that incarcerate defendants prior to trial; they also hold those serving short sentences (typically under a year). Juvenile correctional facilities are operated by local or state governments and serve as longer-term placements for any minor adjudicated as delinquent and ordered by a judge to be confined. In January 2023, the United States had the sixth-highest per capita incarceration rate in the world—531 people per 100,000 inhabitants—and the largest prison and jail population in the world, with more than 1.9 million people incarcerated. An analysis of the World Health Organization Mortality Database from 2010 showed U.S. homicide rates "were 7 times higher than in other high-income countries, driven by a gun homicide rate that was 25 times higher". Economy The U.S. has a highly developed mixed economy that has been the world's largest nominally since about 1890. Its 2024 gross domestic product (GDP)[e] of more than $29 trillion constituted over 25% of nominal global economic output, or 15% at purchasing power parity (PPP). From 1983 to 2008, U.S. real compounded annual GDP growth was 3.3%, compared to a 2.3% weighted average for the rest of the G7. The country ranks first in the world by nominal GDP, second when adjusted for purchasing power parities (PPP), and ninth by PPP-adjusted GDP per capita. In February 2024, the total U.S. federal government debt was $34.4 trillion. Of the world's 500 largest companies by revenue, 138 were headquartered in the U.S. in 2025, the highest number of any country. The U.S. dollar is the currency most used in international transactions and the world's foremost reserve currency, backed by the country's dominant economy, its military, the petrodollar system, its large U.S. treasuries market, and its linked eurodollar. Several countries use it as their official currency, and in others it is the de facto currency. The U.S. has free trade agreements with several countries, including the USMCA. Although the United States has reached a post-industrial level of economic development and is often described as having a service economy, it remains a major industrial power; in 2024, the U.S. manufacturing sector was the world's second-largest by value output after China's. New York City is the world's principal financial center, and its metropolitan area is the world's largest metropolitan economy. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, both located in New York City, are the world's two largest stock exchanges by market capitalization and trade volume. The United States is at the forefront of technological advancement and innovation in many economic fields, especially in artificial intelligence; electronics and computers; pharmaceuticals; and medical, aerospace and military equipment. The country's economy is fueled by abundant natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity. The largest trading partners of the United States are the European Union, Mexico, Canada, China, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Vietnam, India, and Taiwan. The United States is the world's largest importer and second-largest exporter.[u] It is by far the world's largest exporter of services. Americans have the highest average household and employee income among OECD member states, and the fourth-highest median household income in 2023, up from sixth-highest in 2013. With personal consumption expenditures of over $18.5 trillion in 2023, the U.S. has a heavily consumer-driven economy and is the world's largest consumer market. The U.S. ranked first in the number of dollar billionaires and millionaires in 2023, with 735 billionaires and nearly 22 million millionaires. Wealth in the United States is highly concentrated; in 2011, the richest 10% of the adult population owned 72% of the country's household wealth, while the bottom 50% owned just 2%. U.S. wealth inequality increased substantially since the late 1980s, and income inequality in the U.S. reached a record high in 2019. In 2024, the country had some of the highest wealth and income inequality levels among OECD countries. Since the 1970s, there has been a decoupling of U.S. wage gains from worker productivity. In 2016, the top fifth of earners took home more than half of all income, giving the U.S. one of the widest income distributions among OECD countries. There were about 771,480 homeless persons in the U.S. in 2024. In 2022, 6.4 million children experienced food insecurity. Feeding America estimates that around one in five, or approximately 13 million, children experience hunger in the U.S. and do not know where or when they will get their next meal. Also in 2022, about 37.9 million people, or 11.5% of the U.S. population, were living in poverty. The United States has a smaller welfare state and redistributes less income through government action than most other high-income countries. It is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation nationally and one of a few countries in the world without federal paid family leave as a legal right. The United States has a higher percentage of low-income workers than almost any other developed country, largely because of a weak collective bargaining system and lack of government support for at-risk workers. The United States has been a leader in technological innovation since the late 19th century and scientific research since the mid-20th century. Methods for producing interchangeable parts and the establishment of a machine tool industry enabled the large-scale manufacturing of U.S. consumer products in the late 19th century. By the early 20th century, factory electrification, the introduction of the assembly line, and other labor-saving techniques created the system of mass production. In the 21st century, the United States continues to be one of the world's foremost scientific powers, though China has emerged as a major competitor in many fields. The U.S. has the highest research and development expenditures of any country and ranks ninth as a percentage of GDP. In 2022, the United States was (after China) the country with the second-highest number of published scientific papers. In 2021, the U.S. ranked second (also after China) by the number of patent applications, and third by trademark and industrial design applications (after China and Germany), according to World Intellectual Property Indicators. In 2025 the United States ranked third (after Switzerland and Sweden) in the Global Innovation Index. The United States is considered to be a world leader in the development of artificial intelligence technology. In 2023, the United States was ranked the second most technologically advanced country in the world (after South Korea) by Global Finance magazine. The United States has maintained a space program since the late 1950s, beginning with the establishment of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958. NASA's Apollo program (1961–1972) achieved the first crewed Moon landing with the 1969 Apollo 11 mission; it remains one of the agency's most significant milestones. Other major endeavors by NASA include the Space Shuttle program (1981–2011), the Voyager program (1972–present), the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes (launched in 1990 and 2021, respectively), and the multi-mission Mars Exploration Program (Spirit and Opportunity, Curiosity, and Perseverance). NASA is one of five agencies collaborating on the International Space Station (ISS); U.S. contributions to the ISS include several modules, including Destiny (2001), Harmony (2007), and Tranquility (2010), as well as ongoing logistical and operational support. The United States private sector dominates the global commercial spaceflight industry. Prominent American spaceflight contractors include Blue Origin, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and SpaceX. NASA programs such as the Commercial Crew Program, Commercial Resupply Services, Commercial Lunar Payload Services, and NextSTEP have facilitated growing private-sector involvement in American spaceflight. In 2023, the United States received approximately 84% of its energy from fossil fuel, and its largest source of energy was petroleum (38%), followed by natural gas (36%), renewable sources (9%), coal (9%), and nuclear power (9%). In 2022, the United States constituted about 4% of the world's population, but consumed around 16% of the world's energy. The U.S. ranks as the second-highest emitter of greenhouse gases behind China. The U.S. is the world's largest producer of nuclear power, generating around 30% of the world's nuclear electricity. It also has the highest number of nuclear power reactors of any country. From 2024, the U.S. plans to triple its nuclear power capacity by 2050. The United States' 4 million miles (6.4 million kilometers) of road network, owned almost entirely by state and local governments, is the longest in the world. The extensive Interstate Highway System that connects all major U.S. cities is funded mostly by the federal government but maintained by state departments of transportation. The system is further extended by state highways and some private toll roads. The U.S. is among the top ten countries with the highest vehicle ownership per capita (850 vehicles per 1,000 people) in 2022. A 2022 study found that 76% of U.S. commuters drive alone and 14% ride a bicycle, including bike owners and users of bike-sharing networks. About 11% use some form of public transportation. Public transportation in the United States is well developed in the largest urban areas, notably New York City, Washington, D.C., Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco; otherwise, coverage is generally less extensive than in most other developed countries. The U.S. also has many relatively car-dependent localities. Long-distance intercity travel is provided primarily by airlines, but travel by rail is more common along the Northeast Corridor, the only high-speed rail in the U.S. that meets international standards. Amtrak, the country's government-sponsored national passenger rail company, has a relatively sparse network compared to that of Western European countries. Service is concentrated in the Northeast, California, the Midwest, the Pacific Northwest, and Virginia/Southeast. The United States has an extensive air transportation network. U.S. civilian airlines are all privately owned. The three largest airlines in the world, by total number of passengers carried, are U.S.-based; American Airlines became the global leader after its 2013 merger with US Airways. Of the 50 busiest airports in the world, 16 are in the United States, as well as five of the top 10. The world's busiest airport by passenger volume is Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2022, most of the 19,969 U.S. airports were owned and operated by local government authorities, and there are also some private airports. Some 5,193 are designated as "public use", including for general aviation. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has provided security at most major airports since 2001. The country's rail transport network, the longest in the world at 182,412.3 mi (293,564.2 km), handles mostly freight (in contrast to more passenger-centered rail in Europe). Because they are often privately owned operations, U.S. railroads lag behind those of the rest of the world in terms of electrification. The country's inland waterways are the world's fifth-longest, totaling 25,482 mi (41,009 km). They are used extensively for freight, recreation, and a small amount of passenger traffic. Of the world's 50 busiest container ports, four are located in the United States, with the busiest in the country being the Port of Los Angeles. Demographics The U.S. Census Bureau reported 331,449,281 residents on April 1, 2020,[v] making the United States the third-most-populous country in the world, after India and China. The Census Bureau's official 2025 population estimate was 341,784,857, an increase of 3.1% since the 2020 census. According to the Bureau's U.S. Population Clock, on July 1, 2024, the U.S. population had a net gain of one person every 16 seconds, or about 5400 people per day. In 2023, 51% of Americans age 15 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 34% had never been married. In 2023, the total fertility rate for the U.S. stood at 1.6 children per woman, and, at 23%, it had the world's highest rate of children living in single-parent households in 2019. Most Americans live in the suburbs of major metropolitan areas. The United States has a diverse population; 37 ancestry groups have more than one million members. White Americans with ancestry from Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa form the largest racial and ethnic group at 57.8% of the United States population. Hispanic and Latino Americans form the second-largest group and are 18.7% of the United States population. African Americans constitute the country's third-largest ancestry group and are 12.1% of the total U.S. population. Asian Americans are the country's fourth-largest group, composing 5.9% of the United States population. The country's 3.7 million Native Americans account for about 1%, and some 574 native tribes are recognized by the federal government. In 2024, the median age of the United States population was 39.1 years. While many languages and dialects are spoken in the United States, English is by far the most commonly spoken and written. De facto, English is the official language of the United States, and in 2025, Executive Order 14224 declared English official. However, the U.S. has never had a de jure official language, as Congress has never passed a law to designate English as official for all three federal branches. Some laws, such as U.S. naturalization requirements, nonetheless standardize English. Twenty-eight states and the United States Virgin Islands have laws that designate English as the sole official language; 19 states and the District of Columbia have no official language. Three states and four U.S. territories have recognized local or indigenous languages in addition to English: Hawaii (Hawaiian), Alaska (twenty Native languages),[w] South Dakota (Sioux), American Samoa (Samoan), Puerto Rico (Spanish), Guam (Chamorro), and the Northern Mariana Islands (Carolinian and Chamorro). In total, 169 Native American languages are spoken in the United States. In Puerto Rico, Spanish is more widely spoken than English. According to the American Community Survey (2020), some 245.4 million people in the U.S. age five and older spoke only English at home. About 41.2 million spoke Spanish at home, making it the second most commonly used language. Other languages spoken at home by one million people or more include Chinese (3.40 million), Tagalog (1.71 million), Vietnamese (1.52 million), Arabic (1.39 million), French (1.18 million), Korean (1.07 million), and Russian (1.04 million). German, spoken by 1 million people at home in 2010, fell to 857,000 total speakers in 2020. America's immigrant population is by far the world's largest in absolute terms. In 2022, there were 87.7 million immigrants and U.S.-born children of immigrants in the United States, accounting for nearly 27% of the overall U.S. population. In 2017, out of the U.S. foreign-born population, some 45% (20.7 million) were naturalized citizens, 27% (12.3 million) were lawful permanent residents, 6% (2.2 million) were temporary lawful residents, and 23% (10.5 million) were unauthorized immigrants. In 2019, the top countries of origin for immigrants were Mexico (24% of immigrants), India (6%), China (5%), the Philippines (4.5%), and El Salvador (3%). In fiscal year 2022, over one million immigrants (most of whom entered through family reunification) were granted legal residence. The undocumented immigrant population in the U.S. reached a record high of 14 million in 2023. The First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion in the country and forbids Congress from passing laws respecting its establishment. Religious practice is widespread, among the most diverse in the world, and profoundly vibrant. The country has the world's largest Christian population, which includes the fourth-largest population of Catholics. Other notable faiths include Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, New Age, and Native American religions. Religious practice varies significantly by region. "Ceremonial deism" is common in American culture. The overwhelming majority of Americans believe in a higher power or spiritual force, engage in spiritual practices such as prayer, and consider themselves religious or spiritual. In the Southern United States' "Bible Belt", evangelical Protestantism plays a significant role culturally; New England and the Western United States tend to be more secular. Mormonism, a Restorationist movement founded in the U.S. in 1847, is the predominant religion in Utah and a major religion in Idaho. About 82% of Americans live in metropolitan areas, particularly in suburbs; about half of those reside in cities with populations over 50,000. In 2022, 333 incorporated municipalities had populations over 100,000, nine cities had more than one million residents, and four cities—New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston—had populations exceeding two million. Many U.S. metropolitan populations are growing rapidly, particularly in the South and West. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), average U.S. life expectancy at birth reached 79.0 years in 2024, its highest recorded level. This was an increase of 0.6 years over 2023. The CDC attributed the improvement to a significant fall in the number of fatal drug overdoses in the country, noting that "heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death in the United States, followed by cancer and unintentional injuries." In 2024, life expectancy at birth for American men rose to 76.5 years (+0.7 years compared to 2023), while life expectancy for women was 81.4 years (+0.3 years). Starting in 1998, life expectancy in the U.S. fell behind that of other wealthy industrialized countries, and Americans' "health disadvantage" gap has been increasing ever since. The Commonwealth Fund reported in 2020 that the U.S. had the highest suicide rate among high-income countries. Approximately one-third of the U.S. adult population is obese and another third is overweight. The U.S. healthcare system far outspends that of any other country, measured both in per capita spending and as a percentage of GDP, but attains worse healthcare outcomes when compared to peer countries for reasons that are debated. The United States is the only developed country without a system of universal healthcare, and a significant proportion of the population that does not carry health insurance. Government-funded healthcare coverage for the poor (Medicaid) and for those age 65 and older (Medicare) is available to Americans who meet the programs' income or age qualifications. In 2010, then-President Obama passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.[x] Abortion in the United States is not federally protected, and is illegal or restricted in 17 states. American primary and secondary education, known in the U.S. as K–12 ("kindergarten through 12th grade"), is decentralized. School systems are operated by state, territorial, and sometimes municipal governments and regulated by the U.S. Department of Education. In general, children are required to attend school or an approved homeschool from the age of five or six (kindergarten or first grade) until they are 18 years old. This often brings students through the 12th grade, the final year of a U.S. high school, but some states and territories allow them to leave school earlier, at age 16 or 17. The U.S. spends more on education per student than any other country, an average of $18,614 per year per public elementary and secondary school student in 2020–2021. Among Americans age 25 and older, 92.2% graduated from high school, 62.7% attended some college, 37.7% earned a bachelor's degree, and 14.2% earned a graduate degree. The U.S. literacy rate is near-universal. The U.S. has produced the most Nobel Prize winners of any country, with 411 (having won 413 awards). U.S. tertiary or higher education has earned a global reputation. Many of the world's top universities, as listed by various ranking organizations, are in the United States, including 19 of the top 25. American higher education is dominated by state university systems, although the country's many private universities and colleges enroll about 20% of all American students. Local community colleges generally offer open admissions, lower tuition, and coursework leading to a two-year associate degree or a non-degree certificate. As for public expenditures on higher education, the U.S. spends more per student than the OECD average, and Americans spend more than all nations in combined public and private spending. Colleges and universities directly funded by the federal government do not charge tuition and are limited to military personnel and government employees, including: the U.S. service academies, the Naval Postgraduate School, and military staff colleges. Despite some student loan forgiveness programs in place, student loan debt increased by 102% between 2010 and 2020, and exceeded $1.7 trillion in 2022. Culture and society The United States is home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and customs. The country has been described as having the values of individualism and personal autonomy, as well as a strong work ethic and competitiveness. Voluntary altruism towards others also plays a major role; according to a 2016 study by the Charities Aid Foundation, Americans donated 1.44% of total GDP to charity—the highest rate in the world by a large margin. Americans have traditionally been characterized by a unifying political belief in an "American Creed" emphasizing consent of the governed, liberty, equality under the law, democracy, social equality, property rights, and a preference for limited government. The U.S. has acquired significant hard and soft power through its diplomatic influence, economic power, military alliances, and cultural exports such as American movies, music, video games, sports, and food. The influence that the United States exerts on other countries through soft power is referred to as Americanization. Nearly all present Americans or their ancestors came from Europe, Africa, or Asia (the "Old World") within the past five centuries. Mainstream American culture is a Western culture largely derived from the traditions of European immigrants with influences from many other sources, such as traditions brought by slaves from Africa. More recent immigration from Asia and especially Latin America has added to a cultural mix that has been described as a homogenizing melting pot, and a heterogeneous salad bowl, with immigrants contributing to, and often assimilating into, mainstream American culture. Under the First Amendment to the Constitution, the United States is considered to have the strongest protections of free speech of any country. Flag desecration, hate speech, blasphemy, and lese majesty are all forms of protected expression. A 2016 Pew Research Center poll found that Americans were the most supportive of free expression of any polity measured. Additionally, they are the "most supportive of freedom of the press and the right to use the Internet without government censorship". The U.S. is a socially progressive country with permissive attitudes surrounding human sexuality. LGBTQ rights in the United States are among the most advanced by global standards. The American Dream, or the perception that Americans enjoy high levels of social mobility, plays a key role in attracting immigrants. Whether this perception is accurate has been a topic of debate. While mainstream culture holds that the United States is a classless society, scholars identify significant differences between the country's social classes, affecting socialization, language, and values. Americans tend to greatly value socioeconomic achievement, but being ordinary or average is promoted by some as a noble condition as well. The National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities is an agency of the United States federal government that was established in 1965 with the purpose to "develop and promote a broadly conceived national policy of support for the humanities and the arts in the United States, and for institutions which preserve the cultural heritage of the United States." It is composed of four sub-agencies: Colonial American authors were influenced by John Locke and other Enlightenment philosophers. The American Revolutionary Period (1765–1783) is notable for the political writings of Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson. Shortly before and after the Revolutionary War, the newspaper rose to prominence, filling a demand for anti-British national literature. An early novel is William Hill Brown's The Power of Sympathy, published in 1791. Writer and critic John Neal in the early- to mid-19th century helped advance America toward a unique literature and culture by criticizing predecessors such as Washington Irving for imitating their British counterparts, and by influencing writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, who took American poetry and short fiction in new directions. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller pioneered the influential Transcendentalism movement; Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden, was influenced by this movement. The conflict surrounding abolitionism inspired writers, like Harriet Beecher Stowe, and authors of slave narratives, such as Frederick Douglass. Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850) explored the dark side of American history, as did Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851). Major American poets of the 19th century American Renaissance include Walt Whitman, Melville, and Emily Dickinson. Mark Twain was the first major American writer to be born in the West. Henry James achieved international recognition with novels like The Portrait of a Lady (1881). As literacy rates rose, periodicals published more stories centered around industrial workers, women, and the rural poor. Naturalism, regionalism, and realism were the major literary movements of the period. While modernism generally took on an international character, modernist authors working within the United States more often rooted their work in specific regions, peoples, and cultures. Following the Great Migration to northern cities, African-American and black West Indian authors of the Harlem Renaissance developed an independent tradition of literature that rebuked a history of inequality and celebrated black culture. An important cultural export during the Jazz Age, these writings were a key influence on Négritude, a philosophy emerging in the 1930s among francophone writers of the African diaspora. In the 1950s, an ideal of homogeneity led many authors to attempt to write the Great American Novel, while the Beat Generation rejected this conformity, using styles that elevated the impact of the spoken word over mechanics to describe drug use, sexuality, and the failings of society. Contemporary literature is more pluralistic than in previous eras, with the closest thing to a unifying feature being a trend toward self-conscious experiments with language. Twelve American laureates have won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Media in the United States is broadly uncensored, with the First Amendment providing significant protections, as reiterated in New York Times Co. v. United States. The four major broadcasters in the U.S. are the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), American Broadcasting Company (ABC), and Fox Broadcasting Company (Fox). The four major broadcast television networks are all commercial entities. The U.S. cable television system offers hundreds of channels catering to a variety of niches. In 2021, about 83% of Americans over age 12 listened to broadcast radio, while about 40% listened to podcasts. In the prior year, there were 15,460 licensed full-power radio stations in the U.S. according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Much of the public radio broadcasting is supplied by National Public Radio (NPR), incorporated in February 1970 under the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. U.S. newspapers with a global reach and reputation include The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today. About 800 publications are produced in Spanish. With few exceptions, newspapers are privately owned, either by large chains such as Gannett or McClatchy, which own dozens or even hundreds of newspapers; by small chains that own a handful of papers; or, in an increasingly rare situation, by individuals or families. Major cities often have alternative newspapers to complement the mainstream daily papers, such as The Village Voice in New York City and LA Weekly in Los Angeles. The five most-visited websites in the world are Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and ChatGPT—all of them American-owned. Other popular platforms used include X (formerly Twitter) and Amazon. In 2025, the U.S. was the world's second-largest video game market by revenue (after China). In 2015, the U.S. video game industry consisted of 2,457 companies that employed around 220,000 jobs and generated $30.4 billion in revenue. There are 444 game publishers, developers, and hardware companies in California alone. According to the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the U.S. is the top location for video game development, with 58% of the world's game developers based there in 2025. The United States is well known for its theater. Mainstream theater in the United States derives from the old European theatrical tradition and has been heavily influenced by the British theater. By the middle of the 19th century, America had created new distinct dramatic forms in the Tom Shows, the showboat theater and the minstrel show. The central hub of the American theater scene is the Theater District in Manhattan, with its divisions of Broadway, off-Broadway, and off-off-Broadway. Many movie and television celebrities have gotten their big break working in New York productions. Outside New York City, many cities have professional regional or resident theater companies that produce their own seasons. The biggest-budget theatrical productions are musicals. U.S. theater has an active community theater culture. The Tony Awards recognizes excellence in live Broadway theater and are presented at an annual ceremony in Manhattan. The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances. One is also given for regional theater. Several discretionary non-competitive awards are given as well, including a Special Tony Award, the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre, and the Isabelle Stevenson Award. Folk art in colonial America grew out of artisanal craftsmanship in communities that allowed commonly trained people to individually express themselves. It was distinct from Europe's tradition of high art, which was less accessible and generally less relevant to early American settlers. Cultural movements in art and craftsmanship in colonial America generally lagged behind those of Western Europe. For example, the prevailing medieval style of woodworking and primitive sculpture became integral to early American folk art, despite the emergence of Renaissance styles in England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The new English styles would have been early enough to make a considerable impact on American folk art, but American styles and forms had already been firmly adopted. Not only did styles change slowly in early America, but there was a tendency for rural artisans there to continue their traditional forms longer than their urban counterparts did—and far longer than those in Western Europe. The Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century movement in the visual arts tradition of European naturalism. The 1913 Armory Show in New York City, an exhibition of European modernist art, shocked the public and transformed the U.S. art scene. American Realism and American Regionalism sought to reflect and give America new ways of looking at itself. Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, and others experimented with new and individualistic styles, which would become known as American modernism. Major artistic movements such as the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and the pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein developed largely in the United States. Major photographers include Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston, James Van Der Zee, Ansel Adams, and Gordon Parks. The tide of modernism and then postmodernism has brought global fame to American architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, and Frank Gehry. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan is the largest art museum in the United States and the fourth-largest in the world. American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as traditional music, traditional folk music, contemporary folk music, or roots music. Many traditional songs have been sung within the same family or folk group for generations, and sometimes trace back to such origins as the British Isles, mainland Europe, or Africa. The rhythmic and lyrical styles of African-American music in particular have influenced American music. Banjos were brought to America through the slave trade. Minstrel shows incorporating the instrument into their acts led to its increased popularity and widespread production in the 19th century. The electric guitar, first invented in the 1930s, and mass-produced by the 1940s, had an enormous influence on popular music, in particular due to the development of rock and roll. The synthesizer, turntablism, and electronic music were also largely developed in the U.S. Elements from folk idioms such as the blues and old-time music were adopted and transformed into popular genres with global audiences. Jazz grew from blues and ragtime in the early 20th century, developing from the innovations and recordings of composers such as W.C. Handy and Jelly Roll Morton. Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington increased its popularity early in the 20th century. Country music developed in the 1920s, bluegrass and rhythm and blues in the 1940s, and rock and roll in the 1950s. In the 1960s, Bob Dylan emerged from the folk revival to become one of the country's most celebrated songwriters. The musical forms of punk and hip hop both originated in the United States in the 1970s. The United States has the world's largest music market, with a total retail value of $15.9 billion in 2022. Most of the world's major record companies are based in the U.S.; they are represented by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Mid-20th-century American pop stars, such as Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, became global celebrities and best-selling music artists, as have artists of the late 20th century, such as Michael Jackson, Madonna, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey, and of the early 21st century, such as Eminem, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. The United States has the world's largest apparel market by revenue. Apart from professional business attire, American fashion is eclectic and predominantly informal. Americans' diverse cultural roots are reflected in their clothing; however, sneakers, jeans, T-shirts, and baseball caps are emblematic of American styles. New York, with its Fashion Week, is considered to be one of the "Big Four" global fashion capitals, along with Paris, Milan, and London. A study demonstrated that general proximity to Manhattan's Garment District has been synonymous with American fashion since its inception in the early 20th century. A number of well-known designer labels, among them Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Tom Ford and Calvin Klein, are headquartered in Manhattan. Labels cater to niche markets, such as preteens. New York Fashion Week is one of the most influential fashion shows in the world, and is held twice each year in Manhattan; the annual Met Gala, also in Manhattan, has been called the fashion world's "biggest night". The U.S. film industry has a worldwide influence and following. Hollywood, a district in central Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city, is also metonymous for the American filmmaking industry. The major film studios of the United States are the primary source of the most commercially successful movies selling the most tickets in the world. Largely centered in the New York City region from its beginnings in the late 19th century through the first decades of the 20th century, the U.S. film industry has since been primarily based in and around Hollywood. Nonetheless, American film companies have been subject to the forces of globalization in the 21st century, and an increasing number of films are made elsewhere. The Academy Awards, popularly known as "the Oscars", have been held annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1929, and the Golden Globe Awards have been held annually since January 1944. The industry peaked in what is commonly referred to as the "Golden Age of Hollywood", from the early sound period until the early 1960s, with screen actors such as John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe becoming iconic figures. In the 1970s, "New Hollywood", or the "Hollywood Renaissance", was defined by grittier films influenced by French and Italian realist pictures of the post-war period. The 21st century has been marked by the rise of American streaming platforms, which came to rival traditional cinema. Early settlers were introduced by Native Americans to foods such as turkey, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup. Of the most enduring and pervasive examples are variations of the native dish called succotash. Early settlers and later immigrants combined these with foods they were familiar with, such as wheat flour, beef, and milk, to create a distinctive American cuisine. New World crops, especially pumpkin, corn, potatoes, and turkey as the main course are part of a shared national menu on Thanksgiving, when many Americans prepare or purchase traditional dishes to celebrate the occasion. Characteristic American dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, doughnuts, french fries, macaroni and cheese, ice cream, hamburgers, hot dogs, and American pizza derive from the recipes of various immigrant groups. Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos preexisted the United States in areas later annexed from Mexico, and adaptations of Chinese cuisine as well as pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are all widely consumed. American chefs have had a significant impact on society both domestically and internationally. In 1946, the Culinary Institute of America was founded by Katharine Angell and Frances Roth. This would become the United States' most prestigious culinary school, where many of the most talented American chefs would study prior to successful careers. The United States restaurant industry was projected at $899 billion in sales for 2020, and employed more than 15 million people, representing 10% of the nation's workforce directly. It is the country's second-largest private employer and the third-largest employer overall. The United States is home to over 220 Michelin star-rated restaurants, 70 of which are in New York City. Wine has been produced in what is now the United States since the 1500s, with the first widespread production beginning in what is now New Mexico in 1628. In the modern U.S., wine production is undertaken in all fifty states, with California producing 84 percent of all U.S. wine. With more than 1,100,000 acres (4,500 km2) under vine, the United States is the fourth-largest wine-producing country in the world, after Italy, Spain, and France. The classic American diner, a casual restaurant type originally intended for the working class, emerged during the 19th century from converted railroad dining cars made stationary. The diner soon evolved into purpose-built structures whose number expanded greatly in the 20th century. The American fast-food industry developed alongside the nation's car culture. American restaurants developed the drive-in format in the 1920s, which they began to replace with the drive-through format by the 1940s. American fast-food restaurant chains, such as McDonald's, Burger King, Chick-fil-A, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dunkin' Donuts and many others, have numerous outlets around the world. The most popular spectator sports in the U.S. are American football, basketball, baseball, soccer, and ice hockey. Their premier leagues are, respectively, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, and the National Hockey League, All these leagues enjoy wide-ranging domestic media coverage and, except for the MLS, all are considered the preeminent leagues in their respective sports in the world. While most major U.S. sports such as baseball and American football have evolved out of European practices, basketball, volleyball, skateboarding, and snowboarding are American inventions, many of which have become popular worldwide. Lacrosse and surfing arose from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate European contact. The market for professional sports in the United States was approximately $69 billion in July 2013, roughly 50% larger than that of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa combined. American football is by several measures the most popular spectator sport in the United States. Although American football does not have a substantial following in other nations, the NFL does have the highest average attendance (67,254) of any professional sports league in the world. In the year 2024, the NFL generated over $23 billion, making them the most valued professional sports league in the United States and the world. Baseball has been regarded as the U.S. "national sport" since the late 19th century. The most-watched individual sports in the U.S. are golf and auto racing, particularly NASCAR and IndyCar. On the collegiate level, earnings for the member institutions exceed $1 billion annually, and college football and basketball attract large audiences, as the NCAA March Madness tournament and the College Football Playoff are some of the most watched national sporting events. In the U.S., the intercollegiate sports level serves as the main feeder system for professional and Olympic sports, with significant exceptions such as Minor League Baseball. This differs greatly from practices in nearly all other countries, where publicly and privately funded sports organizations serve this function. Eight Olympic Games have taken place in the United States. The 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri, were the first-ever Olympic Games held outside of Europe. The Olympic Games will be held in the U.S. for a ninth time when Los Angeles hosts the 2028 Summer Olympics. U.S. athletes have won a total of 2,968 medals (1,179 gold) at the Olympic Games, the most of any country. In other international competition, the United States is the home of a number of prestigious events, including the America's Cup, World Baseball Classic, the U.S. Open, and the Masters Tournament. The U.S. men's national soccer team has qualified for eleven World Cups, while the women's national team has won the FIFA Women's World Cup and Olympic soccer tournament four and five times, respectively. The 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup was hosted by the United States. Its final match was attended by 90,185, setting the world record for largest women's sporting event crowd at the time. The United States hosted the 1994 FIFA World Cup and will co-host, along with Canada and Mexico, the 2026 FIFA World Cup. See also Notes References This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under CC BY-SA IGO 3.0 (license statement/permission). Text taken from World Food and Agriculture – Statistical Yearbook 2023, FAO, FAO. External links 40°N 100°W / 40°N 100°W / 40; -100 (United States of America) |
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Contents George R. R. Martin George Raymond Richard Martin (born George Raymond Martin; September 20, 1948), also known by the initials G.R.R.M., is an American author, television writer, and television producer. Martin is best known as the author of the epic fantasy novel series A Song of Ice and Fire, which was adapted by HBO into the Primetime Emmy Award–winning television series Game of Thrones (2011–2019) and its prequel series House of the Dragon (2022–present). Martin also wrote a related series of novellas, Tales of Dunk and Egg, which have been adapted by HBO as A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (2026–present). Outside of A Song of Ice and Fire and its related media, Martin helped create the Wild Cards anthology series and contributed worldbuilding for the video game Elden Ring (2022). In 2005, Lev Grossman of Time called Martin "the American Tolkien", and in 2011, he was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. He is a longtime resident of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he helped fund Meow Wolf and owns the Jean Cocteau Cinema. The city commemorates March 29 as George R. R. Martin Day. Early life George Raymond Martin (he adopted the confirmation name Richard at 13 years old) was born on September 20, 1948, in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of Raymond Collins, a longshoreman, and Margaret Brady Martin. His mother's family had once been wealthy, owning a successful construction business, but lost their wealth in the Great Depression, something Martin was reminded about every day when he passed what had been his family's dock and house. He has two younger sisters, Darleen and Jane. He is predominantly of Irish descent; a DNA test on the series Finding Your Roots showed him to be 53.6% "British and Irish", 22.4% Ashkenazi Jewish, and 15.6% "Broadly Northwestern European". The family first lived in a house on Broadway belonging to Martin's great-grandmother. In 1953, they moved to a federal housing project near the Bayonne docks. During Martin's childhood, his world consisted predominantly of "First Street to Fifth Street", between his grade school and his home. This limited world made him want to travel and experience other places, but he found this impossible save by imagination, and he became a voracious reader. Martin began writing and selling monster stories for pennies to other neighborhood children, dramatic readings included. He had to stop once a customer's mother complained about her child's nightmares. He also wrote stories about a mythical kingdom populated by his pet turtles — the turtles died frequently in their toy castle, so he decided they were killing each other off in "sinister plots". Martin had a habit of starting "endless stories" that he never completed, as they did not turn out as well on paper as he had imagined them. Martin attended Mary Jane Donohoe School and later Marist High School. While there, he became an avid comic-book fan, developing a strong interest in the superheroes being published by Marvel Comics, and later credited Stan Lee for being one of his greatest literary influences; "Maybe Stan Lee is the greatest literary influence on me, even more than Shakespeare or Tolkien." A letter Martin wrote to the editor of Fantastic Four was printed in issue #20 (November 1963); it was the first of many sent, e.g., Fantastic Four #32, #34, and others. Fans who read his letters wrote him letters in turn, and through such contacts, Martin joined the fledgling comics fandom of the era, writing fiction for various fanzines; he bought the first ticket to the world's first Comic-Con, held in New York in 1964. In 1965, Martin won comic fandom's Alley Award for Best Fan Fiction for his prose superhero story "Powerman vs. The Blue Barrier". In 1970, Martin earned a B.S. in journalism with a minor in history from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in Evanston, Illinois, graduating summa cum laude; he went on to complete his M.S. in journalism in 1971, also from Medill. Eligible for the draft during the Vietnam War, to which he objected, Martin applied for and obtained conscientious objector status; he instead did alternative service work for two years (1972–1974) as a VISTA volunteer, attached to the Cook County Legal Assistance Foundation. Career Martin began selling science fiction short stories professionally in 1970, at age 21. His first sale was "The Hero", sold to Galaxy magazine and published in its February 1971 issue; other sales soon followed. His first story to be nominated for the Hugo Award and Nebula Awards was "With Morning Comes Mistfall", published in 1973 in Analog magazine. In 1975 his story "...for a single yesterday" about a post-apocalyptic timetripper was selected for inclusion in Epoch, a science fiction anthology edited by Roger Elwood and Robert Silverberg. His first novel, Dying of the Light, was completed in 1976 right before he moved to Dubuque and published in 1977. That same year the enormous success of Star Wars had a huge impact on the publishing industry and science fiction, and he sold the novel for the same amount he would make in three years of teaching. The short stories he was able to sell in his early 20s gave him some profit but not enough to pay his bills, which prevented him from becoming the full-time writer he wanted to be. The need for a day job occurred simultaneously with the American chess craze which followed Bobby Fischer's victory in the 1972 world chess championship. Martin's own chess skills and experience allowed him to be hired as a tournament director for the Continental Chess Association, which ran chess tournaments on the weekends. This gave him a sufficient income, and because the tournaments only ran on Saturdays and Sundays, it allowed him to work as a writer five days a week from 1973 to 1976. By the time the chess craze subsided and no longer provided an income, he had become much better established as a writer. In the mid-1970s, Martin met English professor George Guthridge from Dubuque, Iowa, at a science fiction convention in Milwaukee. Martin persuaded Guthridge (who later said that at that time he despised science fiction and fantasy) not only to give speculative fiction a second look, but also to write in the field himself. Guthridge has since been a finalist for the Hugo Award and twice for the Nebula Award for science fiction and fantasy. In 1998, Guthridge and Janet Berliner won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in the Novel for their Children of the Dusk. In turn, Guthridge helped Martin in finding a job at Clarke University (then Clarke College). Martin "wasn't making enough money to stay alive" from writing and the chess tournaments, said Guthridge. From 1976 to 1978, Martin was an English and journalism instructor at Clarke, and he became Writer In Residence at the college from 1978 to 1979. While he enjoyed teaching, the sudden death of friend and fellow author Tom Reamy in late 1977 made Martin reevaluate his own life, and he eventually decided to try to become a full-time writer. In 1979 he resigned from his job and moved from Dubuque to Santa Fe, New Mexico at the end of the year. There he would live alone for almost three years, a period he described as tremendously productive in regard to writing. Martin is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA); he served as the organization's Southwest Regional Director from 1977 to 1979, and as its vice-president from 1996 to 1998. In 1976, for Kansas City's MidAmeriCon, the 34th World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon), Martin and his friend and fellow writer-editor Gardner Dozois conceived of and organized the first Hugo Losers' Party for the benefit of all past and present Hugo-losing writers on the evening following the convention's Hugo Awards ceremony. Martin was nominated for two Hugos that year but lost both awards, for the novelette "...and Seven Times Never Kill Man" and the novella The Storms of Windhaven, co-written with Lisa Tuttle. Although Martin often writes fantasy or horror, a number of his earlier works are science fiction tales occurring in a loosely defined future history, known informally as "The Thousand Worlds" or "The Manrealm". In 2017, Martin recalled that he had started writing science fiction-horror hybrids in the late 1970s to disprove a statement from a critic claiming that science fiction and horror were opposites and therefore incompatible. Martin considered Sandkings (1979) the best known of these. Another was the novella Nightflyers (1980), whose screen and television rights were purchased by in 1984 by Vista, which produced a 1987 film adaptation, Nightflyers, with a screenplay co-written by Martin. Martin was unhappy about having to cut plot elements in order to accommodate the film's small budget. While not a hit at theatres, Martin believes that the film saved his career, and that everything he has written since exists in large part because of it. He has also written at least one piece of political-military fiction, "Night of the Vampyres", collected in Harry Turtledove's anthology The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century (2001). In 1982, Martin published a vampire novel titled Fevre Dream set in the 19th century on the Mississippi River, in the heyday of the great paddle steamers. Unlike traditional vampire novels, in Fevre Dream vampires are not supernatural creatures, but are rather a different species related to humans created by evolution with superhuman powers. Critic Don D'Amassa has praised Fevre Dream for its strong 19th-century atmosphere and wrote: "This is without question one of the greatest vampire novels of all time". Martin followed up Fevre Dream with another horror novel, The Armageddon Rag (1983). The unexpected commercial failure of The Armageddon Rag "essentially destroyed my career as a novelist at the time", he recalled, and made him consider going into real estate instead. In 1984, the new editor of Baen Books, Betsy Mitchell, called Martin to ask him if he had considered doing a collection of Haviland Tuf adventures. Martin, who had several favorite series characters like Solomon Kane, Elric, Nicholas van Rijn and Magnus Ridolph, had made an attempt to create such a character on his own in the 1970s with his Tuf stories. He was interested, but was too occupied with the writing of his next book, the never-completed novel Black and White and Red All Over, which occupied most of his writing time the same year. But after the failure of The Armageddon Rag, all editors rejected his upcoming novel, and desperate for money, he accepted Mitchell's offer and wrote some more Tuf stories which were collected in Tuf Voyaging, which sold well enough for Mitchell to suggest a sequel. Martin was willing and agreed to do it, but before he got started he got an offer from Hollywood, where producer Philip DeGuere Jr. wanted to adapt The Armageddon Rag into a film. The film adaptation did not happen, but they stayed in touch, and when DeGuere became the producer for the revival of The Twilight Zone, Martin was offered a job as a writer. Working for television paid a lot better than writing literature, so he decided to move to Hollywood to seek a new career. At first he worked as staff writer for the show, and then as an executive story consultant. After the CBS series was cancelled, Martin migrated over to the already-underway satirical science fiction series Max Headroom. He worked on scripts and created the show's "Ped Xing" character. However, before his scripts could go into production, the ABC show was cancelled in the middle of its second season. Martin was hired as a writer-producer on the new dramatic fantasy series Beauty and the Beast; in 1989, he became the show's co-supervising producer and wrote 14 of its episodes. In 1987, Martin published a collection of short horror stories in Portraits of His Children. During this same period, Martin continued working in print media as a book-series editor, this time overseeing the development of the multi-author Wild Cards book series, which takes place in a shared universe in which a small slice of post–World War II humanity gains superpowers after the release of an alien-engineered virus; new titles are published in the ongoing series from Tor Books. In Second Person, Martin "gives a personal account of the close-knit role-playing game (RPG) culture that gave rise to his Wild Cards shared-world anthologies". An important element in the creation of the multiple-author series was a campaign of Chaosium's role-playing game Superworld (1983) that Martin ran in Albuquerque. Admitting he became completely obsessed with the game, he stopped writing literature for most of 1983, which he refers to as his "lost year", but his shrinking bank accounts made him realize he had to come up with something, and got the idea that perhaps the stories and characters created in Superworld could somehow become profitable. Martin's own contributions to Wild Cards have included Thomas Tudbury, "The Great and Powerful Turtle", a powerful psychokinetic whose flying "shell" consisted of an armored VW Beetle. As of June 2011[update], 21 Wild Cards volumes had been published in the series; earlier that same year, Martin signed the contract for the 22nd volume, Low Ball (2014), published by Tor Books. In early 2012, Martin signed another Tor contract for the 23rd Wild Cards volume, High Stakes, which was released in August 2016. In August 2016, Martin announced that Universal Cable Productions had acquired the rights to adapt the Wild Cards novels into a television series. He noted that he himself would not write for the adaptation due to focusing on A Song of Ice and Fire. In 2014, Martin said in a BBC interview that he writes using WordStar editor software, on an MS-DOS computer, because he dislikes having his work spell-checked and to avoid internet distractions. He uses a separate computer for common internet tasks. In 1991, Martin briefly returned to writing novels. He had grown frustrated that his TV pilots and screenplays were not getting made and that TV-related production limitations like budgets and episode lengths were forcing him to cut characters and trim battle scenes. This pushed Martin back towards writing books, where he did not have to worry about compromising his imagination. Admiring the works of J. R. R. Tolkien in his childhood, he wanted to write an epic fantasy, though he did not have any specific ideas. His epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire, was inspired by the Wars of the Roses, The Accursed Kings and Ivanhoe. Though Martin originally conceptualized it as being three volumes, it is currently slated to comprise seven. The first, A Game of Thrones, was published in 1996, followed by A Clash of Kings in 1998 and A Storm of Swords in 2000. In November 2005, A Feast for Crows, the fourth novel in this series, became The New York Times No. 1 Bestseller. The fifth book, A Dance with Dragons, was published July 12, 2011, and became an international bestseller, including achieving a No. 1 spot on the New York Times Bestseller List and many others; it remained on the New York Times list for 88 weeks. In 2012, A Dance with Dragons made the final ballot for science fiction and fantasy's Hugo Award, World Fantasy Award, Locus Poll Award, and the British Fantasy Award; the novel went on to win the Locus Poll Award for Best Fantasy Novel. Two more novels are planned in the series: The Winds of Winter and the final volume A Dream of Spring. On April 25, 2018, Martin announced the release date of his new book, Fire & Blood, dealing with the history of House Targaryen, which was released on November 20, 2018. Should Martin die before finishing the A Song of Ice and Fire series, former collaborators have said that they will not conclude the series for him. HBO Productions purchased the television rights for the A Song of Ice and Fire series in 2007. Although busy completing A Dance with Dragons and other projects, Martin was heavily involved in the production of the television series adaptation of his books. Martin's involvement included the selection of a production team and participation in scriptwriting; the opening credits list him as a co-executive producer of the series. The original pilot was shot between October 24 and November 19, 2009, on location in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Morocco. It was received so poorly by HBO executives that they did not make a decision for four months after the pilot was delivered. In March 2010, HBO's decision to greenlight the series was announced, with the production of the series scheduled to start June 2010. However, HBO demanded that the first episode be reshot, and wanted all the scenes from Morocco scrapped. The first episode ("Winter Is Coming") premiered on HBO in the United States and Canada on April 17, 2011. It was seen initially by 2.2 million viewers. The first season was nominated for 13 Emmy Awards, ultimately winning two: one for its opening title credits, and one for Peter Dinklage as Best Supporting Actor. HBO ordered a second season of Game of Thrones on April 19, 2011, two days after the series premiere. The second season obtained a 15% increase in budget in order to be able to stage the war's most important battle, the Battle of the Blackwater, in episode nine, which was written by Martin. Filming took place during 106 shooting days. During three-quarters of those, two crews ("Dragon" and "Wolf") were working simultaneously in different locations. Alan Taylor was promoted to co-executive producer and directed four episodes, including the season premiere and finale. David Petrarca and David Nutter each directed two episodes, while series cinematographer Alik Sakharov and filmmaker Neil Marshall directed the remaining two. The second season premiered in the United States on HBO on April 1, 2012, and concluded on June 3, 2012. U.S. viewership rose by approximately 8% over the course of the season, from 3.9 million to 4.2 million by the season finale. The second season won six of the twelve Emmy Awards for which it was nominated. Game of Thrones rapidly became a critical and commercial success after the second season. HBO renewed the series for a third season on April 10, 2012, nine days after the second season's premiere. Production began in July 2012 and concluded with the wrap of the unit filming in Iceland on November 24, 2012. The third season is based on the first half of the novel A Storm of Swords. Benioff had previously said that A Storm of Swords would need to be adapted in two seasons on account of its length. Benioff and Weiss also noted that they thought of Game of Thrones as an adaptation of the series as a whole, rather than of individual novels, which gave them the liberty to move scenes back and forth across novels according to the requirements of the screen adaptation. Season 3 saw the first significant use of the Valyrian languages, spoken in doomed Valyria and its former colonies in Essos. The constructed languages were developed by conlanger David J. Peterson based on the few words Martin invented for the novels. Peterson had previously developed the Dothraki language, used principally in season 1. The third season premiered on HBO on March 31, 2013, and concluded on June 9, 2013. The third season was seen by 14.2 million viewers. It won 2 of the 16 Emmy Awards for which it was nominated. Two days after third-season premiere, HBO ordered the fourth season on April 2, 2013, which began filming in July 2013. The season is adapted primarily from the second half of A Storm of Swords, along with elements of A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. Showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss co-wrote seven out of ten episodes. The remaining three episodes were written by Bryan Cogman (two episodes), and George R. R. Martin (one episode). For this season, the filming lasted 136 days and was completed on November 21, 2013. The fourth season premiered in the United States on HBO on April 6, 2014, and concluded on June 15, 2014. The season was met with largely positive reviews. It won 4 of the 19 Emmy Awards for which it was nominated. With its fourth season, Game of Thrones has become the most-watched HBO series in history (surpassing the fourth season of The Sopranos which had a gross audience of 18.2 million viewers), averaging 18.4 million viewers across multiple platforms, including live viewing, encores, DVR views, HBO GO and On Demand views. Up until the fourth season, Martin wrote one episode for each season. In 2022, Martin said that he had been estranged from the show during the production process of the last 4 seasons (starting with season 5). In the early seasons, Martin wrote and read scripts, consulted on casting decisions and visited sets. Over time, however, he stepped back to focus on his long-delayed next "Thrones" novel, The Winds of Winter. Following the gargantuan success of the fourth season, HBO ordered the fifth season on April 8, 2014, together with the sixth season, which began filming in July 2014. The season primarily adapts the storylines from A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, also with original content not found in Martin's novels. This season set a Guinness World Record for winning the highest number of Emmy Awards for a series in a single season and year, winning 12 out of 24 nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series. With a budget over $100 million for the whole season, filming for the sixth season began in July 2015 and ended on December. The season filmed in five different countries: Northern Ireland, Spain, Croatia, Iceland, and Canada. This season saw the overall plot of the show diverging from the source material. Some of the season's storyline is derived from content not yet published in Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, although a significant amount of material from A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons and the upcoming sixth novel The Winds of Winter, which Martin previously outlined to showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, was used. The season was largely met with positive reviews. The "Battle of the Bastards" episode received immense critical acclaim, with many calling it one of the best television episodes of all time. U.S. viewership rose compared to the previous season, and by approximately 13 percent over its course, from 7.9 million to 8.9 million by the finale. The season won 12 of the 23 Emmy Awards for which it was nominated. Three days before the premiere of the episode "The Red Woman", HBO ordered the seventh season. Due to necessary weather conditions required for filming, the production of the penultimate season of the show was delayed that year. Filming began only on August 31, 2016, at Titanic Studios in Belfast, and ended in February 2017. Unlike previous seasons, the seventh and eighth seasons largely consisted of original content not found in the source material. This season comprised only seven episodes. The showrunners stated that they were unable to produce 10 episodes in the show's usual 12 to 14 month time frame, as Weiss said "It's crossing out of a television schedule into more of a mid-range movie schedule". The average runtime of an episode in this season was approximately 63 minutes. The series received 22 nominations for the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards and won 9 of them, including "Outstanding Drama Series". Unlike its prior seasons, the final one took a year gap for its production and filming. The eighth season consisted of only six episodes, though the average runtime of an episode was 68 minutes, the longest of all seasons, with "The Long Night" consisting of 81 minutes. The season was met with mixed reviews from critics. While the performances, production values and music score were praised, criticism was mainly directed at the shorter runtime of the season as well as numerous creative decisions made by the showrunners. Many commentators deemed it to be a disappointing conclusion to the series. Despite this, the season received 32 nominations at the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards, the most for a single season of television in history, and won twelve, including Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for Peter Dinklage. Three years after the show ended, a prequel series, House of the Dragon, premiered on HBO on August 21, 2022. Based on parts of the novel Fire & Blood, the series is set about 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones. Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik served as the showrunners for the first season. Five days after its premiere, the series was renewed for a second season by HBO. On September 1, Sapochnik departed as showrunner, with another veteran Game of Thrones director Alan Taylor replacing him as the co-showrunner for the second season. In June 2022, it was reported that a Jon Snow sequel series with Kit Harington to reprise his role was in early development at HBO. The working title is Snow and Martin confirmed his involvement with the project and that Harington initiated the idea. Also in June, Martin said there were still three other live-action series in development: 10,000 Ships (written by Amanda Segal), 9 Voyages aka Sea Snake (written by Bruno Heller), and the Dunk & Egg prequel series (written by Steven Conrad), tentatively titled either The Hedge Knight or Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. In January 2021, an animated drama series was announced as in development at HBO Max. In July 2021, two more animated series were in development at HBO Max, with one being set in Yi Ti, a nation in Essos loosely based on Imperial China. Martin's work has been described as having "complex story lines, fascinating characters, great dialogue, perfect pacing" by literary critic Jeff VanderMeer. Dana Jennings of the New York Times described Martin's work as "fantasy for grown ups" and Lev Grossman wrote that it was dark and cynical. Martin's first novel, Dying of the Light, set the tone for some of his future work; it unfolds on a mostly abandoned planet that is slowly becoming uninhabitable as it moves away from its sun. This story has a strong sense of melancholy. His characters are often unhappy or, at least, unsatisfied, in many cases holding on to idealisms in spite of an otherwise chaotic and ruthless world, and often troubled by their own self-seeking or violent actions, even as they undertake them. Many have elements of tragic heroes or antiheroes in them; reviewer T. M. Wagner writes: "Let it never be said Martin doesn't share Shakespeare's fondness for the senselessly tragic." The overall gloominess of A Song of Ice and Fire can be an obstacle for some readers; the Inchoatus Group writes that, "If this absence of joy is going to trouble you, or you're looking for something more affirming, then you should probably seek elsewhere." However, for many fans, it is precisely this level of "realness" and "completeness" – including many characters' imperfections, moral and ethical ambiguity, and (often sudden) consequential plot twists that is endearing about Martin's work. Many find that this is what makes the series' story arcs compelling enough to keep following despite its sheer brutality and intricately messy and interwoven plotlines; as TM Wagner points out: There's great tragedy here, but there's also excitement, humor, heroism even in weaklings, nobility even in villains, and, now and then, a taste of justice after all. It's a rare gift when a writer can invest his story with that much humanity. Martin's characters are multifaceted, each with intricate pasts, aspirations, and ambitions. Publishers Weekly writes of his ongoing epic fantasy A Song of Ice and Fire: "The complexity of characters such as Daenerys, Arya and the Kingslayer will keep readers turning even the vast number of pages contained in this volume, for the author, like Tolkien or Jordan, makes us care about their fates." Misfortune, injury, and death (including false death and reanimation) often befall major or minor characters, no matter how attached the reader has become. Martin has described his penchant for killing off important characters as being necessary for the story's depth: "when my characters are in danger, I want you to be afraid to turn the page, (so) you need to show right from the beginning that you're playing for keeps". In distinguishing his work from others, Martin makes a point of emphasizing realism and plausible social dynamics above an over-reliance on magic and a simplistic "good versus evil" dichotomy, for which contemporary fantasy writing is often criticized. Notably, Martin's work makes a sharp departure from the prevalent "heroic knights and chivalry" schema that has become a mainstay in fantasy as derived from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. He specifically critiques the oversimplification of Tolkien's themes and devices by imitators in ways that he has humorously described as "Disneyland Middle Ages", which gloss over or ignore major differences between medieval and modern societies, particularly social structures, ways of living, and political arrangements. Martin has been described as "the American Tolkien" by literary critics. While Martin finds inspiration in Tolkien's legacy, he aims to go beyond what he sees as Tolkien's "medieval philosophy" of "if the king was a good man, the land would prosper" to delve into the complexities, ambiguities, and vagaries of real-life power: "We look at real history and it's not that simple... Just having good intentions doesn't make you a wise king." Per this fact Martin has been credited with the rise of grimdark fantasy, a modern form of an "anti-Tolkien" approach to fantasy writing which, according to British science fiction and fantasy novelist Adam Roberts, is characterized by its reaction to Tolkien's idealism even though it owes a lot to Tolkien's work. The Canadian fantasy writer R. Scott Bakker "says he wouldn't have been able to publish his fantasy novels without the success George R. R. Martin achieved first". Similarly, Mark Lawrence, author of Prince of Thorns, was inspired by Martin and impressed by his Red Wedding scene. The author makes a point of grounding his work on a foundation of historical fiction, which he channels to evoke important social and political elements of primarily the European medieval era that differ markedly from elements of modern times, including the multigenerational, rigid, and often brutally consequential nature of the hierarchical class system of feudal societies that is in many cases overlooked in fantasy writing. Even as A Song of Ice and Fire is a fantasy series that employs magic and the surreal as central to the genre, Martin is keen to ensure that magic is merely one element of many that moves his work forward, not a generic deus ex machina that is itself the focus of his stories, which is something he has been very conscious about since reading Tolkien; "If you look at The Lord of the Rings, what strikes you, it certainly struck me, is that although the world is infused with this great sense of magic, there is very little onstage magic. So you have a sense of magic, but it's kept under very tight control, and I really took that to heart when I was starting my own series." Martin's ultimate aim is an exploration of the internal conflicts that define the human condition, which, in deriving inspiration from William Faulkner, he ultimately describes as the only reason to read any literature, regardless of genre. In 2018, Martin called The Lord of the Rings, The Great Gatsby, Gone with the Wind, Great Expectations, Lonesome Dove, Catch-22, and Charlotte's Web "favorites all, towering masterpieces, books that changed my life". Producing In 2017, Martin confirmed he would serve as an executive producer of the HBO television series adaptation of the 2010 science fantasy novel Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor. Martin also contributed to the 2022 video game titled Elden Ring, writing the worldbuilding aspects for it. In February 2021, it was reported that Martin and Kalinda Vazquez were developing a TV adaptation of Roadmarks by Roger Zelazny, which Martin pitched to HBO in 2020. Martin will be an executive producer, Vazquez the showrunner, writer and executive producer. In March 2021, he signed an overall deal with HBO. Martin will serve as an executive producer of the Peacock TV adaptation in development of his Wild Cards book series, together with Melinda M. Snodgrass and Vince Gerardis, Martin's manager. He serves as an executive producer of the AMC series Dark Winds based on Tony Hillerman's Leaphorn & Chee books. In 2021, Martin served as one of the producers of the short film Night of the Cooters based on the eponymous short story by Howard Waldrop. Media appearances Martin made a guest appearance as himself in "El Skeletorito", an episode of the Adult Swim show Robot Chicken. He appeared in SyFy's Z Nation as a zombie version of himself in season two's "The Collector", where he is still signing copies of his new novel. In Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!, he is killed when watching a movie at the theatre. In the third season premiere of the AMC's TV show Dark Winds, he appears as "George", opposite co-executive producer Robert Redford, playing chess in a Navajo jail cell. Relationship with fans Martin actively contributes to his blog, Not a Blog. In April 2018, he moved his blog from Livejournal to his own website. Martin's official fan club is the "Brotherhood Without Banners", which has a regular posting board at the Forum of the website westeros.org, which is focused on his A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series. At the annual World Science Fiction Convention every year, the Brotherhood Without Banners hosts a large, on-going hospitality suite that is open to all members of the Worldcon. Martin has criticized writing fan fiction, which he views as a harmful exercise for aspiring writers in terms of developing their skills in worldbuilding and character development, alongside it being copyright infringement. Martin responded to backlash on his Not a Blog about the alleged use of generative AI art in the illustrated edition of A Feast For Crows. His art director and licensing developer, Raya Golden, wrote a blog post addressing the controversy, stating that they have not and never willingly would work with AI generative artists. Martin is known for his regular attendance at science fiction conventions and comics conventions, and his accessibility to fans. In the early 1980s, critic and writer Thomas Disch identified Martin as a member of the "Labor Day Group", writers who regularly congregated at the annual Worldcon, usually held on or around the Labor Day weekend. Since the early 1970s, he has also attended regional science fiction conventions; further, since 1986, Martin has participated annually in Albuquerque's smaller regional convention Bubonicon, near his New Mexico home. He was the Guest of Honor at the 61st World Science Fiction Convention in Toronto, held in 2003. In December 2016, Martin was a key speaker at the Guadalajara International Book Fair 2016 in Mexico where the author provided hints about the next two books in the series A Song of Ice and Fire. In 2020, Martin fulfilled his duties as "toastmaster" of the Hugo Awards. During the event, he mispronounced several names, including that of R. F. Kuang. Martin later apologized for mispronouncing the names. Martin has been criticized by his fanbase for the long periods between books in the A Song of Ice and Fire series, notably the six-year gap between the fourth volume, A Feast for Crows (2005), and the fifth volume, A Dance with Dragons (2011), and the fact that the next volume in the series, The Winds of Winter, is still unpublished 15 years later. In 2010, Martin had responded to fan criticisms by saying he was unwilling to write only his A Song of Ice and Fire series, noting that working on other prose and compiling and editing different book projects have always been part of his working process. In 2014, musical duo Paul and Storm released the humorous song "Write like the Wind" that alludes to the perceived long time spans between book releases. Personal life In the early 1970s, Martin was in a relationship with fellow science fiction/fantasy author Lisa Tuttle, with whom he co-wrote Windhaven. While attending an East Coast science fiction convention he met his first wife, Gale Burnick; they were married in 1975 and moved from their Chicago apartment and into a house in Dubuque in 1976. Both of them grew tired of the hard winters there, and when she graduated from Clarke University in June 1979, he resigned from his job and they decided to move to New Mexico. The year before, they had "fallen in love" with Santa Fe on their way to the 36th World Science Fiction Convention which was being held in Phoenix. His wife went down and bought a house while Martin stayed behind to sell their home and finish the semester. The marriage ended in divorce in 1979, before they could be reunited in Santa Fe. Instead he settled there alone from December that same year until September 1981, when what would be his longtime partner Parris McBride moved in with him. On February 15, 2011, Martin married McBride during a small ceremony at their Santa Fe home. On August 19, 2011, they held a larger wedding ceremony and reception at Renovation, the 69th World Science Fiction Convention. They have no children. He and McBride are supporters of the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary in New Mexico. In early 2013, he purchased Santa Fe's Jean Cocteau Cinema and Coffee House, which had been closed since 2006. He had the property completely restored, including its original 35mm capability. The restoration also added digital projection and sound; the Cocteau officially reopened for business on August 9, 2013. In 2019, he opened a bookstore named Beastly Books, after Beauty and the Beast, next to Jean Cocteau. Martin has also supported Meow Wolf, an arts collective in Santa Fe, having pledged $2.7 million toward a new art space in January 2015. In response to a question on his religious views, Martin replied: "I suppose I'm a lapsed Catholic. You would consider me an atheist or agnostic. I find religion and spirituality fascinating. I would like to believe this isn't the end and there's something more, but I can't convince the rational part of me that makes any sense whatsoever." Martin is a fan of the New York Jets, the New York Giants and the New York Mets. He is also a fan of the Grateful Dead, and says that the band's music may have influenced his work. Philanthropy In 2014, Martin launched a campaign on Prizeo to raise funds for Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary and the Food Depot of Santa Fe. As part of the campaign, Martin offered one donor the chance to accompany him on a trip to the wolf sanctuary, including a helicopter ride and dinner. Martin also offered those donating $20,000 or more the opportunity to have a character named after them and "killed off" in an upcoming Song of Ice and Fire novel. The campaign garnered media attention and raised a total of $502,549. In 2017, Martin announced that he was funding The Miskatonic Scholarship. The Miskatonic Scholarship allows a writer of Lovecraftian cosmic horror to attend the Odyssey Writing Workshop, a six-week writing workshop held at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. Martin is a cultural advisor for Colossal Biosciences, a biotech and genetic engineering company. He was invited to meet three dire wolves the company had created in February 2025 stating, "Maybe I was remembering a past life, when I ran with a pack in the Ice Age. … Whatever the reason, I have to say the rebirth of the direwolf has stirred me as no scientific news has since Neil Armstrong walked on the moon." Politics Growing up, Martin avoided the draft to the Vietnam War by being a conscientious objector and did two years of alternative service. He generally opposes war and thought the Vietnam War was a "terrible mistake for America". While he did not endorse Barack Obama in 2008, Martin endorsed him for re-election in 2012 calling Obama the most intelligent president since Jimmy Carter. In 2014, Martin endorsed Democratic Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico. In the midst of pressure to pull the 2014 feature film The Interview from theaters, the Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which has been owned by Martin since 2013, decided to show the film. Theater manager Jon Bowman told the Santa Fe New Mexican, "Martin feels strongly about the First Amendment and the idea of artists having the ability to speak their minds and not having to worry about being targets." Immediately following Bernie Sanders' defeat in the U.S. Democratic primary elections, he supported Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the general 2016 United States presidential election, and criticized Donald Trump during the election and following her defeat, commenting that Trump would "become the worst president in American history". In response to fans of Martin who compared Trump favorably to characters from A Song of Ice and Fire, Martin doubled-down on his criticism of Trump by making the case to his fans that Trump shares many personality traits in common with King Joffrey, a near-universally hated character from the series, concluding that "Trump is a Grown-Up Joffrey." In May 2019, Martin endorsed Joe Biden for president in 2020. Awards (with Lisa Tuttle) (with Lisa Tuttle) (with Lisa Tuttle) (with Gardner Dozois) (with Gardner Dozois) (with Daniel Abraham & Gardner Dozois) (with Gardner Dozois) (with Gardner Dozois) (with Gardner Dozois) (with Elio M. García Jr. and Linda Antonsson) (with Gardner Dozois) (with Gary Gianni) (with Hidetaka Miyazaki) Other awards won: Bibliography A Song of Ice and Fire universe: Stand-alones: Collections: Uncollected short stories: Filmography References External links |
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Contents John Grisham John Ray Grisham Jr. (/ˈɡrɪʃəm/ GRISH-əm; born February 8, 1955) is an American writer, lawyer, and former politician, known for his best-selling legal thrillers. According to the American Academy of Achievement, Grisham has written 37 consecutive number-one fiction bestsellers, and his books have sold 300 million copies worldwide. Along with Tom Clancy and J. K. Rowling, Grisham is one of only three anglophone authors to have sold two million copies on the first printing. Grisham graduated from Mississippi State University and earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981. He practiced criminal law for about a decade and served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1983 to 1990. Grisham's first novel, A Time to Kill, was published in June 1989, four years after he began writing it. It was later adapted into the 1996 feature film of the same name. Grisham's first bestseller, The Firm, sold more than seven million copies, and was also adapted into a 1993 feature film of the same name, starring Tom Cruise, and a 2012 TV series that continues the story ten years after the events of the film and novel. Seven of his other novels have also been adapted into films: The Chamber, The Client, A Painted House, The Pelican Brief, The Rainmaker, The Runaway Jury, and Skipping Christmas. Early life Grisham, the second of five children, was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas, to Wanda (née Skidmore) and John Ray Grisham. His father was a construction worker and a cotton farmer, and his mother was a homemaker. When Grisham was four years old, his family settled in Southaven, Mississippi, near Memphis, Tennessee. As a child, he wanted to be a baseball player. As noted in the foreword to Calico Joe, Grisham gave up playing baseball at the age of 18, after a game in which a pitcher aimed a beanball at him and narrowly missed doing the young Grisham grave harm. Although Grisham's parents lacked formal education, his mother encouraged him to read and prepare for college. He drew on his childhood experiences for his novel A Painted House. Grisham started working for a plant nursery as a teenager, watering bushes for $1.00 an hour. He was soon promoted to a fence crew for $1.50 an hour. He wrote about the job: "there was no future in it". At 16, Grisham took a job with a plumbing contractor but says he "never drew inspiration from that miserable work". Initially, Grisham attended Horn Lake High School, a school that was so overcrowded some classes met in a church or a gymnasium. In 1971, he transferred to Southaven High School, where he played football, basketball, and baseball. He credits his 12th grade English teacher, Frances McGuffey, for inspiring his love for reading and for introducing him to the works of John Steinbeck in particular. Through one of his father's contacts, Grisham managed to find work on a highway asphalt crew in Mississippi at age 17. It was during this time that an unfortunate incident got him "serious" about college. A fight with gunfire broke out among the crew, causing Grisham to run to a nearby restroom to find safety. He did not come out until after the police had detained the perpetrators. He hitchhiked home and started thinking about college. His next work was in retail, as a sales clerk in a department store men's underwear section, which he described as "humiliating". By this time, Grisham was halfway through college. Planning to become a tax lawyer, he was soon overcome by "the complexity and lunacy" of it, deciding instead to return to his hometown as a trial lawyer. Grisham attended the Northwest Mississippi Community College in Senatobia, Mississippi, where he hoped to launch his baseball career but was benched instead. He and two close friends, Bubba Logan and Parker Pickle, transferred to Delta State University in Cleveland where Grisham hoped to revive his baseball career as a walk on player, but he was cut from the team and he left school after one semester. Ultimately, Grisham changed colleges three times before completing a degree. Although he started there as an economics major, he eventually graduated from Mississippi State University in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science in accounting after being inspired by a fellow student, a Vietnam veteran, who planned to go to law school. He later enrolled in the University of Mississippi School of Law intending to become a tax lawyer, but his interest shifted to general civil litigation. He graduated in 1981 with a J.D. degree. Career Grisham practiced law for about a decade and won election as a Democrat to the Mississippi House of Representatives, serving from 1983 to 1990. He challenged the incumbent after becoming embarrassed by Mississippi's national reputation and inspired by the passage of the Education Reform Act of 1982. Grisham represented the 7th District, which included DeSoto County, Mississippi. By his second term in the state legislature, he was the vice-chairman of the Apportionment and Elections Committee and a member of several other committees. He supported Representative Ed Perry's unsuccessful bid for the House speakership in 1987. With a different speaker elected at the beginning of the 1988 legislative session, Grisham was out of favor with the new legislative leaders and assigned to more minor committee roles. Not as busy with political affairs, he devoted more time to his novel, The Firm. Grisham later reflected that if Perry had become speaker he might have been given more committee responsibilities and thus unable to write. Grisham's writing career blossomed with the success of his second book, The Firm, and he gave up practicing law, except for returning briefly in 1996 to represent the family of a railroad worker who was killed on the job. His official website states: "He was honoring a commitment made before he had retired from the law to become a full-time writer. Grisham successfully argued his clients' case, earning them a jury award of $683,500 — the biggest verdict of his career." Although he failed English in community college, Grisham received praise for his writing while taking a business correspondence course during law school. Grisham said a case that inspired his first novel came in 1984, but it was not his case. He heard a 12-year-old girl telling a jury what had happened to her. Her story intrigued Grisham. He saw how the members of the jury cried as she told them about having been raped and beaten. "I remember staring at the defendant and wishing I had a gun." It was then, Grisham later wrote in The New York Times, that a story was born. Over the next three years, he wrote his first book, A Time to Kill. The book was rejected by 28 publishers before Wynwood Press, an unknown publisher, agreed to give it a modest 5,000 copy printing. It was published in June 1988. The day after Grisham completed A Time to Kill, he began work on his second novel, The Firm. The Firm remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 47 weeks, and became the seventh bestselling novel of 1991. This would begin a streak of having one of the top 10 best selling novels of the year for nearly the next two decades. In 1992 and 1993 he had the second-bestselling book of the year with The Pelican Brief and The Client, and from 1994 to 2000 he had the number one bestselling book every year. In 2001 Grisham did not have the bestselling book of the year, but had both the second and third books on the list with Skipping Christmas and A Painted House. In 1992, The Firm was made into a film starring Tom Cruise and Ed Harris and was released in June 1993, grossing $270 million. A feature film version of The Pelican Brief starring Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington was released later that year and grossed $195 million. Following their success, Regency Enterprises paid Grisham $2.25 million for the rights to The Client which was released in 1994 starring Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones. Universal Pictures then commissioned Grisham with the highest amount ever for an unpublished novel, paying $3.75 million for the rights to The Chamber. In August 1994, New Regency paid a record $6 million for the rights to A Time to Kill, with Grisham asking for a guarantee that Joel Schumacher, the director of The Client, would direct. Beginning with A Painted House, Grisham broadened his focus from law to the more general rural South but continued to write legal thrillers at the rate of one per year. In 2002 he once again claimed the number one book of the year with The Summons. In 2003 and 2004 he missed the number one bestseller of the year due to the success of The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, but he once again produced two novels which ended the year in the top 5. In 2004, The Last Juror ended the year at number four, and in 2005 he overtook The Da Vinci Code and returned to number one for the year with The Broker. The year 2006 marked the first time since 1990 that he did not have one of the top-selling books of the year, but he returned to number two in 2007, number one in 2008, and number two in 2009. Grisham has also written sports fiction and comedy fiction. He wrote the original screenplay for and produced the 2004 baseball movie Mickey, which starred Harry Connick Jr. In 2005, Grisham received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award, which is presented annually by the Tulsa Library Trust. In 2010, Grisham started writing a series of legal thrillers for children. They feature Theodore Boone, a 13-year-old who gives his classmates legal advice on a multitude of scenarios, ranging from rescuing impounded dogs to helping their parents prevent their house from being repossessed. He said, "I'm hoping primarily to entertain and interest kids, but at the same time I'm quietly hoping that the books will inform them, in a subtle way, about law." He also stated that it was his daughter, Shea, who inspired him to write the Theodore Boone series. "My daughter Shea is a teacher in North Carolina and when she got her fifth grade students to read the book, three or four of them came up afterwards and said they'd like to go into the legal profession." In an October 2006 interview on the Charlie Rose show, Grisham stated that he usually takes only six months to write a book, and his favorite author is John le Carré. In 2011 and 2012, his novels The Litigators and The Racketeer claimed the top spot in The New York Times best seller list. The novels were among the best selling books of those years, spending several weeks atop various best seller lists. In 2013, he again reached the top five in the US best-seller list. In November 2015, his novel Rogue Lawyer was at the top of the New York Times Fiction Best Seller for two weeks. In 2017, Grisham released two legal thrillers. Camino Island was published on June 6, 2017. The book appeared at the top of several best seller lists including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. The Rooster Bar, published on October 24, 2017, was called "his most original work yet", in The News Herald, and a “buoyant, mischievous thriller” in The New York Times. Several of Grisham's legal thrillers are set in the fictional town of Clanton, Mississippi, located in the fictional Ford County, a northwest Mississippi town still deeply divided by racism. The first novel set in Clanton was A Time to Kill. Other stories set there include The Last Juror, The Summons, The Chamber, The Reckoning, A Time for Mercy and Sycamore Row. The stories in the collection Ford County are also set in and around Clanton. Other Grisham novels have non-fictional Southern settings, for example The Partner, The Runaway Jury, and The Boys from Biloxi are set in Biloxi, and large portions of The Pelican Brief in New Orleans. A Painted House is set in and around the town of Black Oak, Arkansas, where Grisham spent some of his childhood. Personal life Grisham married Renee Jones on May 8, 1981. The couple have two children. The family splits their time among their home in Charlottesville, Virginia, a home in Destin, Florida, and a condominium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Their former and longtime Victorian home on a farm outside Oxford, Mississippi, was given to the University of Mississippi after 2011. Grisham owns a beachfront home on Amelia Island in Florida. Grisham is a member of the University Baptist Church in Charlottesville, Virginia, itself a constituent of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Grisham opposes a literalist understanding of the Bible, and endorses the American separation of church and state. In 1993, he created with his wife a foundation, entirely financed by his royalties, which contributes to Baptist missionaries in Brazil for the purchase of medicines and the construction of chapels, clinics and schools. He also participated in some missionary work in Brazil, under the First Baptist Church of Oxford. Grisham has a lifelong passion for baseball, demonstrated partly by his support of Little League activities in both Oxford, Mississippi, and in Charlottesville. In 1996, Grisham built a $3.8 million youth baseball complex. In A Painted House, a novel with strong autobiographical elements, the protagonist, a seven-year-old farmer boy, manifests a strong wish to become a baseball player. He remains a fan of Mississippi State University's baseball team and wrote about his ties to the university and the Left Field Lounge in the introduction for the book Dudy Noble Field: A Celebration of MSU Baseball. Since moving to the Charlottesville area, Grisham has become a supporter of Virginia Cavaliers athletics and is regularly seen sitting courtside at basketball games. Grisham also contributed to a $1.2 million donation to the Cavalier baseball team in Charlottesville, Virginia, which was used in the 2002 renovation of Davenport Field. His son Ty played college baseball for the University of Virginia. Political activism Grisham is a member of the board of directors of the Innocence Project, which campaigns to free and exonerate unjustly convicted people on the basis of DNA evidence. The Innocence Project contends that wrongful convictions are not isolated or rare events but instead arise from systemic defects. Grisham has testified before Congress on behalf of the Innocence Project. Grisham has appeared on Dateline NBC, Bill Moyers Journal on PBS, and other programs. He wrote for The New York Times in 2013 about an unjustly held prisoner at Guantanamo. Grisham opposes capital punishment, a position very strongly manifested in the plot of The Confession. He believes that prison rates in the United States are excessive, and the justice system is "locking up far too many people". Citing examples including "black teenagers on minor drugs charges" to "those who had viewed child porn online", he controversially added that he believed not all viewers of child pornography are necessarily pedophiles. After hearing from numerous people against this position, he later recanted this statement in a Facebook post. He went on to clarify that he was defending a former friend from law school who was caught in a sting thinking he was looking at adult porn but it was in reality sixteen- and seventeen-year-old minors and went on to add, "I have no sympathy for real pedophiles. God, please lock those people up. Anyone who harms a child for profit or pleasure ... Should be punished to the fullest extent of the law." The Mississippi State University Libraries, Manuscript Division, maintains the John Grisham Room, an archive containing materials generated during the author's tenure as Mississippi State Representative and relating to his writings. In 2012, the Law Library at the University of Mississippi School of Law was renamed in his honor. It had been named for more than a decade after the late Senator James Eastland. In 2015, Grisham, along with about 60 others, signed a letter published in the Clarion-Ledger urging that an inset within the flag of Mississippi containing a Confederate flag be removed. He co-authored the letter with author Greg Iles; the pair contacted various public figures from Mississippi for support. Grisham supported Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2016. In his 2018 Fall Convocation address to new students, Grisham described Mississippi State University as a place where he felt at home, noting, "I loved the big lecture halls, and I came to enjoy the professors. For the first time, after being at several schools, I was on a real campus with a diverse student body, different professors from around the world, big time sports, all of the activities that a big college can bring, and I really fell in love with State." Awards and honors Works A complete listing of works by John Grisham:[non-primary source needed] † Denotes novels not in the legal genre Jake Brigance series: Mitch McDeere series: Sebastian Rudd series: Jugde Claudia McDover series: Camino Island series: Stand-alones: Theodore Boone series: Collections: Uncollected short stories: Adaptations See also References Works cited External links |
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Contents United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the semi-exclave of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelago of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States also asserts sovereignty over five major island territories and various uninhabited islands in Oceania and the Caribbean.[j] It is a megadiverse country, with the world's third-largest land area[c] and third-largest population, exceeding 341 million.[k] Paleo-Indians first migrated from North Asia to North America at least 15,000 years ago, and formed various civilizations. Spanish colonization established Spanish Florida in 1513, the first European colony in what is now the continental United States. British colonization followed with the 1607 settlement of Virginia, the first of the Thirteen Colonies. Enslavement of Africans was practiced in all colonies by 1770 and supplied most of the labor for the Southern Colonies' plantation economy. Clashes with the British Crown began as a civil protest over the illegality of taxation without representation in Parliament and the denial of other English rights. They evolved into the American Revolution, which led to the Declaration of Independence and a society based on universal rights. Victory in the 1775–1783 Revolutionary War brought international recognition of U.S. sovereignty and fueled westward expansion, further dispossessing native inhabitants. As more states were admitted, a North–South division over slavery led the Confederate States of America to declare secession and fight the Union in the 1861–1865 American Civil War. With the United States' victory and reunification, slavery was abolished nationally. By the late 19th century, the U.S. economy outpaced the French, German and British economies combined. As of 1900, the country had established itself as a great power, a status solidified after its involvement in World War I. Following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the U.S. entered World War II. Its aftermath left the U.S. and the Soviet Union as rival superpowers, competing for ideological dominance and international influence during the Cold War. The Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 ended the Cold War, leaving the U.S. as the world's sole superpower. The U.S. federal government is a representative democracy with a president and a constitution that grants separation of powers under three branches: legislative, executive, and judicial. The United States Congress is a bicameral national legislature composed of the House of Representatives (a lower house based on population) and the Senate (an upper house based on equal representation for each state). Federalism grants substantial autonomy to the 50 states. In addition, 574 Native American tribes have sovereignty rights, and there are 326 Native American reservations. Since the 1850s, the Democratic and Republican parties have dominated American politics. American ideals and values are based on a democratic tradition inspired by the American Enlightenment movement. A developed country, the U.S. ranks high in economic competitiveness, innovation, and higher education. Accounting for over a quarter of nominal global GDP, its economy has been the world's largest since about 1890. It is the wealthiest country, with the highest disposable household income per capita among OECD members, though its wealth inequality is highly pronounced. Shaped by centuries of immigration, the culture of the U.S. is diverse and globally influential. Making up more than a third of global military spending, the country has one of the strongest armed forces and is a designated nuclear state. A member of numerous international organizations, the U.S. plays a major role in global political, cultural, economic, and military affairs. Etymology Documented use of the phrase "United States of America" dates back to January 2, 1776. On that day, Stephen Moylan, a Continental Army aide to General George Washington, wrote a letter to Joseph Reed, Washington's aide-de-camp, seeking to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the Revolutionary War effort. The first known public usage is an anonymous essay published in the Williamsburg newspaper The Virginia Gazette on April 6, 1776. Sometime on or after June 11, 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote "United States of America" in a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, which was adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. The term "United States" and its initialism "U.S.", used as nouns or as adjectives in English, are common short names for the country. The initialism "USA", a noun, is also common. "United States" and "U.S." are the established terms throughout the U.S. federal government, with prescribed rules.[l] "The States" is an established colloquial shortening of the name, used particularly from abroad; "stateside" is the corresponding adjective or adverb. "America" is the feminine form of the first word of Americus Vesputius, the Latinized name of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512);[m] it was first used as a place name by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann in 1507.[n] Vespucci first proposed that the West Indies discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492 were part of a previously unknown landmass and not among the Indies at the eastern limit of Asia. In English, the term "America" usually does not refer to topics unrelated to the United States, despite the usage of "the Americas" to describe the totality of the continents of North and South America. History The first inhabitants of North America migrated from Siberia approximately 15,000 years ago, either across the Bering land bridge or along the now-submerged Ice Age coastline. Small isolated groups of hunter-gatherers are said to have migrated alongside herds of large herbivores far into Alaska, with ice-free corridors developing along the Pacific coast and valleys of North America in c. 16,500 – c. 13,500 BCE (c. 18,500 – c. 15,500 BP). The Clovis culture, which appeared around 11,000 BCE, is believed to be the first widespread culture in the Americas. Over time, Indigenous North American cultures grew increasingly sophisticated, and some, such as the Mississippian culture, developed agriculture, architecture, and complex societies. In the post-archaic period, the Mississippian cultures were located in the midwestern, eastern, and southern regions, and the Algonquian in the Great Lakes region and along the Eastern Seaboard, while the Hohokam culture and Ancestral Puebloans inhabited the Southwest. Native population estimates of what is now the United States before the arrival of European colonizers range from around 500,000 to nearly 10 million. Christopher Columbus began exploring the Caribbean for Spain in 1492, leading to Spanish-speaking settlements and missions from what are now Puerto Rico and Florida to New Mexico and California. The first Spanish colony in the present-day continental United States was Spanish Florida, chartered in 1513. After several settlements failed there due to starvation and disease, Spain's first permanent town, Saint Augustine, was founded in 1565. France established its own settlements in French Florida in 1562, but they were either abandoned (Charlesfort, 1578) or destroyed by Spanish raids (Fort Caroline, 1565). Permanent French settlements were founded much later along the Great Lakes (Fort Detroit, 1701), the Mississippi River (Saint Louis, 1764) and especially the Gulf of Mexico (New Orleans, 1718). Early European colonies also included the thriving Dutch colony of New Nederland (settled 1626, present-day New York) and the small Swedish colony of New Sweden (settled 1638 in what became Delaware). British colonization of the East Coast began with the Virginia Colony (1607) and the Plymouth Colony (Massachusetts, 1620). The Mayflower Compact in Massachusetts and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut established precedents for local representative self-governance and constitutionalism that would develop throughout the American colonies. While European settlers in what is now the United States experienced conflicts with Native Americans, they also engaged in trade, exchanging European tools for food and animal pelts.[o] Relations ranged from close cooperation to warfare and massacres. The colonial authorities often pursued policies that forced Native Americans to adopt European lifestyles, including conversion to Christianity. Along the eastern seaboard, settlers trafficked Africans through the Atlantic slave trade, largely to provide manual labor on plantations. The original Thirteen Colonies[p] that would later found the United States were administered as possessions of the British Empire by Crown-appointed governors, though local governments held elections open to most white male property owners. The colonial population grew rapidly from Maine to Georgia, eclipsing Native American populations; by the 1770s, the natural increase of the population was such that only a small minority of Americans had been born overseas. The colonies' distance from Britain facilitated the entrenchment of self-governance, and the First Great Awakening, a series of Christian revivals, fueled colonial interest in guaranteed religious liberty. Following its victory in the French and Indian War, Britain began to assert greater control over local affairs in the Thirteen Colonies, resulting in growing political resistance. One of the primary grievances of the colonists was the denial of their rights as Englishmen, particularly the right to representation in the British government that taxed them. To demonstrate their dissatisfaction and resolve, the First Continental Congress met in 1774 and passed the Continental Association, a colonial boycott of British goods enforced by local "committees of safety" that proved effective. The British attempt to then disarm the colonists resulted in the 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord, igniting the American Revolutionary War. At the Second Continental Congress, the colonies appointed George Washington commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, and created a committee that named Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence. Two days after the Second Continental Congress passed the Lee Resolution to create an independent, sovereign nation, the Declaration was adopted on July 4, 1776. The political values of the American Revolution evolved from an armed rebellion demanding reform within an empire to a revolution that created a new social and governing system founded on the defense of liberty and the protection of inalienable natural rights; sovereignty of the people; republicanism over monarchy, aristocracy, and other hereditary political power; civic virtue; and an intolerance of political corruption. The Founding Fathers of the United States, who included Washington, Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, Thomas Paine, and many others, were inspired by Classical, Renaissance, and Enlightenment philosophies and ideas. Though in practical effect since its drafting in 1777, the Articles of Confederation was ratified in 1781 and formally established a decentralized government that operated until 1789. After the British surrender at the siege of Yorktown in 1781, American sovereignty was internationally recognized by the Treaty of Paris (1783), through which the U.S. gained territory stretching west to the Mississippi River, north to present-day Canada, and south to Spanish Florida. The Northwest Ordinance (1787) established the precedent by which the country's territory would expand with the admission of new states, rather than the expansion of existing states. The U.S. Constitution was drafted at the 1787 Constitutional Convention to overcome the limitations of the Articles. It went into effect in 1789, creating a federal republic governed by three separate branches that together formed a system of checks and balances. George Washington was elected the country's first president under the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791 to allay skeptics' concerns about the power of the more centralized government. His resignation as commander-in-chief after the Revolutionary War and his later refusal to run for a third term as the country's first president established a precedent for the supremacy of civil authority in the United States and the peaceful transfer of power. In the late 18th century, American settlers began to expand westward in larger numbers, many with a sense of manifest destiny. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 from France nearly doubled the territory of the United States. Lingering issues with Britain remained, leading to the War of 1812, which was fought to a draw. Spain ceded Florida and its Gulf Coast territory in 1819. The Missouri Compromise of 1820, which admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, attempted to balance the desire of northern states to prevent the expansion of slavery into new territories with that of southern states to extend it there. Primarily, the compromise prohibited slavery in all other lands of the Louisiana Purchase north of the 36°30′ parallel. As Americans expanded further into territory inhabited by Native Americans, the federal government implemented policies of Indian removal or assimilation. The most significant such legislation was the Indian Removal Act of 1830, a key policy of President Andrew Jackson. It resulted in the Trail of Tears (1830–1850), in which an estimated 60,000 Native Americans living east of the Mississippi River were forcibly removed and displaced to lands far to the west, causing 13,200 to 16,700 deaths along the forced march. Settler expansion as well as this influx of Indigenous peoples from the East resulted in the American Indian Wars west of the Mississippi. During the colonial period, slavery became legal in all the Thirteen colonies, but by 1770 it provided the main labor force in the large-scale, agriculture-dependent economies of the Southern Colonies from Maryland to Georgia. The practice began to be significantly questioned during the American Revolution, and spurred by an active abolitionist movement that had reemerged in the 1830s, states in the North enacted laws to prohibit slavery within their boundaries. At the same time, support for slavery had strengthened in Southern states, with widespread use of inventions such as the cotton gin (1793) having made slavery immensely profitable for Southern elites. The United States annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845, and the 1846 Oregon Treaty led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest. Dispute with Mexico over Texas led to the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). After the victory of the U.S., Mexico recognized U.S. sovereignty over Texas, New Mexico, and California in the 1848 Mexican Cession; the cession's lands also included the future states of Nevada, Colorado and Utah. The California gold rush of 1848–1849 spurred a huge migration of white settlers to the Pacific coast, leading to even more confrontations with Native populations. One of the most violent, the California genocide of thousands of Native inhabitants, lasted into the mid-1870s. Additional western territories and states were created. Throughout the 1850s, the sectional conflict regarding slavery was further inflamed by national legislation in the U.S. Congress and decisions of the Supreme Court. In Congress, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 mandated the forcible return to their owners in the South of slaves taking refuge in non-slave states, while the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 effectively gutted the anti-slavery requirements of the Missouri Compromise. In its Dred Scott decision of 1857, the Supreme Court ruled against a slave brought into non-slave territory, simultaneously declaring the entire Missouri Compromise to be unconstitutional. These and other events exacerbated tensions between North and South that would culminate in the American Civil War (1861–1865). Beginning with South Carolina, 11 slave-state governments voted to secede from the United States in 1861, joining to create the Confederate States of America. All other state governments remained loyal to the Union.[q] War broke out in April 1861 after the Confederacy bombarded Fort Sumter. Following the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, many freed slaves joined the Union army. The war began to turn in the Union's favor following the 1863 Siege of Vicksburg and Battle of Gettysburg, and the Confederates surrendered in 1865 after the Union's victory in the Battle of Appomattox Court House. Efforts toward reconstruction in the secessionist South had begun as early as 1862, but it was only after President Lincoln's assassination that the three Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution were ratified to protect civil rights. The amendments codified nationally the abolition of slavery and involuntary servitude except as punishment for crimes, promised equal protection under the law for all persons, and prohibited discrimination on the basis of race or previous enslavement. As a result, African Americans took an active political role in ex-Confederate states in the decade following the Civil War. The former Confederate states were readmitted to the Union, beginning with Tennessee in 1866 and ending with Georgia in 1870. National infrastructure, including transcontinental telegraph and railroads, spurred growth in the American frontier. This was accelerated by the Homestead Acts, through which nearly 10 percent of the total land area of the United States was given away free to some 1.6 million homesteaders. From 1865 through 1917, an unprecedented stream of immigrants arrived in the United States, including 24.4 million from Europe. Most came through the Port of New York, as New York City and other large cities on the East Coast became home to large Jewish, Irish, and Italian populations. Many Northern Europeans as well as significant numbers of Germans and other Central Europeans moved to the Midwest. At the same time, about one million French Canadians migrated from Quebec to New England. During the Great Migration, millions of African Americans left the rural South for urban areas in the North. Alaska was purchased from Russia in 1867. The Compromise of 1877 is generally considered the end of the Reconstruction era, as it resolved the electoral crisis following the 1876 presidential election and led President Rutherford B. Hayes to reduce the role of federal troops in the South. Immediately, the Redeemers began evicting the Carpetbaggers and quickly regained local control of Southern politics in the name of white supremacy. African Americans endured a period of heightened, overt racism following Reconstruction, a time often considered the nadir of American race relations. A series of Supreme Court decisions, including Plessy v. Ferguson, emptied the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments of their force, allowing Jim Crow laws in the South to remain unchecked, sundown towns in the Midwest, and segregation in communities across the country, which would be reinforced in part by the policy of redlining later adopted by the federal Home Owners' Loan Corporation. An explosion of technological advancement, accompanied by the exploitation of cheap immigrant labor, led to rapid economic expansion during the Gilded Age of the late 19th century. It continued into the early 20th, when the United States already outpaced the economies of Britain, France, and Germany combined. This fostered the amassing of power by a few prominent industrialists, largely by their formation of trusts and monopolies to prevent competition. Tycoons led the nation's expansion in the railroad, petroleum, and steel industries. The United States emerged as a pioneer of the automotive industry. These changes resulted in significant increases in economic inequality, slum conditions, and social unrest, creating the environment for labor unions and socialist movements to begin to flourish. This period eventually ended with the advent of the Progressive Era, which was characterized by significant economic and social reforms. Pro-American elements in Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy; the islands were annexed in 1898. That same year, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam were ceded to the U.S. by Spain after the latter's defeat in the Spanish–American War. (The Philippines was granted full independence from the U.S. on July 4, 1946, following World War II. Puerto Rico and Guam have remained U.S. territories.) American Samoa was acquired by the United States in 1900 after the Second Samoan Civil War. The U.S. Virgin Islands were purchased from Denmark in 1917. The United States entered World War I alongside the Allies in 1917 helping to turn the tide against the Central Powers. In 1920, a constitutional amendment granted nationwide women's suffrage. During the 1920s and 1930s, radio for mass communication and early television transformed communications nationwide. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 triggered the Great Depression, to which President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New Deal plan of "reform, recovery and relief", a series of unprecedented and sweeping recovery programs and employment relief projects combined with financial reforms and regulations. Initially neutral during World War II, the U.S. began supplying war materiel to the Allies of World War II in March 1941 and entered the war in December after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. Agreeing to a "Europe first" policy, the U.S. concentrated its wartime efforts on Japan's allies Italy and Germany until their final defeat in May 1945. The U.S. developed the first nuclear weapons and used them against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, ending the war. The United States was one of the "Four Policemen" who met to plan the post-war world, alongside the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China. The U.S. emerged relatively unscathed from the war, with even greater economic power and international political influence. The end of World War II in 1945 left the U.S. and the Soviet Union as superpowers, each with its own political, military, and economic sphere of influence. Geopolitical tensions between the two superpowers soon led to the Cold War. The U.S. implemented a policy of containment intended to limit the Soviet Union's sphere of influence; engaged in regime change against governments perceived to be aligned with the Soviets; and prevailed in the Space Race, which culminated with the first crewed Moon landing in 1969. Domestically, the U.S. experienced economic growth, urbanization, and population growth following World War II. The civil rights movement emerged, with Martin Luther King Jr. becoming a prominent leader in the early 1960s. The Great Society plan of President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration resulted in groundbreaking and broad-reaching laws, policies and a constitutional amendment to counteract some of the worst effects of lingering institutional racism. The counterculture movement in the U.S. brought significant social changes, including the liberalization of attitudes toward recreational drug use and sexuality. It also encouraged open defiance of the military draft (leading to the end of conscription in 1973) and wide opposition to U.S. intervention in Vietnam, with the U.S. totally withdrawing in 1975. A societal shift in the roles of women was significantly responsible for the large increase in female paid labor participation starting in the 1970s, and by 1985 the majority of American women aged 16 and older were employed. The Fall of Communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union from 1989 to 1991 marked the end of the Cold War and left the United States as the world's sole superpower. This cemented the United States' global influence, reinforcing the concept of the "American Century" as the U.S. dominated international political, cultural, economic, and military affairs. The 1990s saw the longest recorded economic expansion in American history, a dramatic decline in U.S. crime rates, and advances in technology. Throughout this decade, technological innovations such as the World Wide Web, the evolution of the Pentium microprocessor in accordance with Moore's law, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, the first gene therapy trial, and cloning either emerged in the U.S. or were improved upon there. The Human Genome Project was formally launched in 1990, while Nasdaq became the first stock market in the United States to trade online in 1998. In the Gulf War of 1991, an American-led international coalition of states expelled an Iraqi invasion force that had occupied neighboring Kuwait. The September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001 by the pan-Islamist militant organization al-Qaeda led to the war on terror and subsequent military interventions in Afghanistan and in Iraq. The U.S. housing bubble culminated in 2007 with the Great Recession, the largest economic contraction since the Great Depression. In the 2010s and early 2020s, the United States has experienced increased political polarization and democratic backsliding. The country's polarization was violently reflected in the January 2021 Capitol attack, when a mob of insurrectionists entered the U.S. Capitol and sought to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in an attempted self-coup d'état. Geography The United States is the world's third-largest country by total area behind Russia and Canada.[c] The 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia have a combined area of 3,119,885 square miles (8,080,470 km2). In 2021, the United States had 8% of the Earth's permanent meadows and pastures and 10% of its cropland. Starting in the east, the coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way to inland forests and rolling hills in the Piedmont plateau region. The Appalachian Mountains and the Adirondack Massif separate the East Coast from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest. The Mississippi River System, the world's fourth-longest river system, runs predominantly north–south through the center of the country. The flat and fertile prairie of the Great Plains stretches to the west, interrupted by a highland region in the southeast. The Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the country, peaking at over 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in the Rocky Mountains, the Yellowstone Caldera, is the continent's largest volcanic feature. Farther west are the rocky Great Basin and the Chihuahuan, Sonoran, and Mojave deserts. In the northwest corner of Arizona, carved by the Colorado River, is the Grand Canyon, a steep-sided canyon and popular tourist destination known for its overwhelming visual size and intricate, colorful landscape. The Cascade and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges run close to the Pacific coast. The lowest and highest points in the contiguous United States are in the State of California, about 84 miles (135 km) apart. At an elevation of 20,310 feet (6,190.5 m), Alaska's Denali (also called Mount McKinley) is the highest peak in the country and on the continent. Active volcanoes in the U.S. are common throughout Alaska's Alexander and Aleutian Islands. Located entirely outside North America, the archipelago of Hawaii consists of volcanic islands, physiographically and ethnologically part of the Polynesian subregion of Oceania. In addition to its total land area, the United States has one of the world's largest marine exclusive economic zones spanning approximately 4.5 million square miles (11.7 million km2) of ocean. With its large size and geographic variety, the United States includes most climate types. East of the 100th meridian, the climate ranges from humid continental in the north to humid subtropical in the south. The western Great Plains are semi-arid. Many mountainous areas of the American West have an alpine climate. The climate is arid in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California, and oceanic in coastal Oregon, Washington, and southern Alaska. Most of Alaska is subarctic or polar. Hawaii, the southern tip of Florida and U.S. territories in the Caribbean and Pacific are tropical. The United States receives more high-impact extreme weather incidents than any other country. States bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes occur in the country, mainly in Tornado Alley. Due to climate change in the country, extreme weather has become more frequent in the U.S. in the 21st century, with three times the number of reported heat waves compared to the 1960s. Since the 1990s, droughts in the American Southwest have become more persistent and more severe. The regions considered as the most attractive to the population are the most vulnerable. The U.S. is one of 17 megadiverse countries containing large numbers of endemic species: about 17,000 species of vascular plants occur in the contiguous United States and Alaska, and over 1,800 species of flowering plants are found in Hawaii, few of which occur on the mainland. The United States is home to 428 mammal species, 784 birds, 311 reptiles, 295 amphibians, and around 91,000 insect species. There are 63 national parks, and hundreds of other federally managed monuments, forests, and wilderness areas, administered by the National Park Service and other agencies. About 28% of the country's land is publicly owned and federally managed, primarily in the Western States. Most of this land is protected, though some is leased for commercial use, and less than one percent is used for military purposes. Environmental issues in the United States include debates on non-renewable resources and nuclear energy, air and water pollution, biodiversity, logging and deforestation, and climate change. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the federal agency charged with addressing most environmental-related issues. The idea of wilderness has shaped the management of public lands since 1964, with the Wilderness Act. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 provides a way to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service implements and enforces the Act. In 2024, the U.S. ranked 35th among 180 countries in the Environmental Performance Index. Government and politics The United States is a federal republic of 50 states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The U.S. asserts sovereignty over five unincorporated territories and several uninhabited island possessions. It is the world's oldest surviving federation, and its presidential system of federal government has been adopted, in whole or in part, by many newly independent states worldwide following their decolonization. The Constitution of the United States serves as the country's supreme legal document. Most scholars describe the United States as a liberal democracy.[r] Composed of three branches, all headquartered in Washington, D.C., the federal government is the national government of the United States. The U.S. Constitution establishes a separation of powers intended to provide a system of checks and balances to prevent any of the three branches from becoming supreme. The three-branch system is known as the presidential system, in contrast to the parliamentary system where the executive is part of the legislative body. Many countries around the world adopted this aspect of the 1789 Constitution of the United States, especially in the postcolonial Americas. In the U.S. federal system, sovereign powers are shared between three levels of government specified in the Constitution: the federal government, the states, and Indian tribes. The U.S. also asserts sovereignty over five permanently inhabited territories: American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Residents of the 50 states are governed by their elected state government, under state constitutions compatible with the national constitution, and by elected local governments that are administrative divisions of a state. States are subdivided into counties or county equivalents, and (except for Hawaii) further divided into municipalities, each administered by elected representatives. The District of Columbia is a federal district containing the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C. The federal district is an administrative division of the federal government. Indian country is made up of 574 federally recognized tribes and 326 Indian reservations. They hold a government-to-government relationship with the U.S. federal government in Washington and are legally defined as domestic dependent nations with inherent tribal sovereignty rights. In addition to the five major territories, the U.S. also asserts sovereignty over the United States Minor Outlying Islands in the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean. The seven undisputed islands without permanent populations are Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Atoll, and Palmyra Atoll. U.S. sovereignty over the unpopulated Bajo Nuevo Bank, Navassa Island, Serranilla Bank, and Wake Island is disputed. The Constitution is silent on political parties. However, they developed independently in the 18th century with the Federalist and Anti-Federalist parties. Since then, the United States has operated as a de facto two-party system, though the parties have changed over time. Since the mid-19th century, the two main national parties have been the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The former is perceived as relatively liberal in its political platform while the latter is perceived as relatively conservative in its platform. The United States has an established structure of foreign relations, with the world's second-largest diplomatic corps as of 2024[update]. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and home to the United Nations headquarters. The United States is a member of the G7, G20, and OECD intergovernmental organizations. Almost all countries have embassies and many have consulates (official representatives) in the country. Likewise, nearly all countries host formal diplomatic missions with the United States, except Iran, North Korea, and Bhutan. Though Taiwan does not have formal diplomatic relations with the U.S., it maintains close unofficial relations. The United States regularly supplies Taiwan with military equipment to deter potential Chinese aggression. Its geopolitical attention also turned to the Indo-Pacific when the United States joined the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with Australia, India, and Japan. The United States has a "Special Relationship" with the United Kingdom and strong ties with Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Israel, and several European Union countries such as France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Poland. The U.S. works closely with its NATO allies on military and national security issues, and with countries in the Americas through the Organization of American States and the United States–Mexico–Canada Free Trade Agreement. The U.S. exercises full international defense authority and responsibility for Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau through the Compact of Free Association. It has increasingly conducted strategic cooperation with India, while its ties with China have steadily deteriorated. Beginning in 2014, the U.S. had become a key ally of Ukraine. After Donald Trump was elected U.S. president in 2024, he sought to negotiate an end to the Russo-Ukrainian War. He paused all military aid to Ukraine in March 2025, although the aid resumed later. Trump also ended U.S. intelligence sharing with the country, but this too was eventually restored. The president is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces and appoints its leaders, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Department of Defense, headquartered at the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., administers five of the six service branches, which are made up of the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force. The Coast Guard is administered by the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and can be transferred to the Department of the Navy in wartime. Total strength of the entire military is about 1.3 million active duty with an additional 400,000 in reserve. The United States spent $997 billion on its military in 2024, which is by far the largest amount of any country, making up 37% of global military spending and accounting for 3.4% of the country's GDP. The U.S. possesses 42% of the world's nuclear weapons—the second-largest stockpile after that of Russia. The U.S. military is widely regarded as the most powerful and advanced in the world. The United States has the third-largest combined armed forces in the world, behind the Chinese People's Liberation Army and Indian Armed Forces. The U.S. military operates about 800 bases and facilities abroad, and maintains deployments greater than 100 active duty personnel in 25 foreign countries. The United States has engaged in over 400 military interventions since its founding in 1776, with over half of these occurring between 1950 and 2019 and 25% occurring in the post-Cold War era. State defense forces (SDFs) are military units that operate under the sole authority of a state government. SDFs are authorized by state and federal law but are under the command of the state's governor. By contrast, the 54 U.S. National Guard organizations[t] fall under the dual control of state or territorial governments and the federal government; their units can also become federalized entities, but SDFs cannot be federalized. The National Guard personnel of a state or territory can be federalized by the president under the National Defense Act Amendments of 1933; this legislation created the Guard and provides for the integration of Army National Guard and Air National Guard units and personnel into the U.S. Army and (since 1947) the U.S. Air Force. The total number of National Guard members is about 430,000, while the estimated combined strength of SDFs is less than 10,000. There are about 18,000 U.S. police agencies from local to national level in the United States. Law in the United States is mainly enforced by local police departments and sheriff departments in their municipal or county jurisdictions. The state police departments have authority in their respective state, and federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have national jurisdiction and specialized duties, such as protecting civil rights, national security, enforcing U.S. federal courts' rulings and federal laws, and interstate criminal activity. State courts conduct almost all civil and criminal trials, while federal courts adjudicate the much smaller number of civil and criminal cases that relate to federal law. There is no unified "criminal justice system" in the United States. The American prison system is largely heterogenous, with thousands of relatively independent systems operating across federal, state, local, and tribal levels. In 2025, "these systems hold nearly 2 million people in 1,566 state prisons, 98 federal prisons, 3,116 local jails, 1,277 juvenile correctional facilities, 133 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories." Despite disparate systems of confinement, four main institutions dominate: federal prisons, state prisons, local jails, and juvenile correctional facilities. Federal prisons are run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons and hold pretrial detainees as well as people who have been convicted of federal crimes. State prisons, run by the department of corrections of each state, hold people sentenced and serving prison time (usually longer than one year) for felony offenses. Local jails are county or municipal facilities that incarcerate defendants prior to trial; they also hold those serving short sentences (typically under a year). Juvenile correctional facilities are operated by local or state governments and serve as longer-term placements for any minor adjudicated as delinquent and ordered by a judge to be confined. In January 2023, the United States had the sixth-highest per capita incarceration rate in the world—531 people per 100,000 inhabitants—and the largest prison and jail population in the world, with more than 1.9 million people incarcerated. An analysis of the World Health Organization Mortality Database from 2010 showed U.S. homicide rates "were 7 times higher than in other high-income countries, driven by a gun homicide rate that was 25 times higher". Economy The U.S. has a highly developed mixed economy that has been the world's largest nominally since about 1890. Its 2024 gross domestic product (GDP)[e] of more than $29 trillion constituted over 25% of nominal global economic output, or 15% at purchasing power parity (PPP). From 1983 to 2008, U.S. real compounded annual GDP growth was 3.3%, compared to a 2.3% weighted average for the rest of the G7. The country ranks first in the world by nominal GDP, second when adjusted for purchasing power parities (PPP), and ninth by PPP-adjusted GDP per capita. In February 2024, the total U.S. federal government debt was $34.4 trillion. Of the world's 500 largest companies by revenue, 138 were headquartered in the U.S. in 2025, the highest number of any country. The U.S. dollar is the currency most used in international transactions and the world's foremost reserve currency, backed by the country's dominant economy, its military, the petrodollar system, its large U.S. treasuries market, and its linked eurodollar. Several countries use it as their official currency, and in others it is the de facto currency. The U.S. has free trade agreements with several countries, including the USMCA. Although the United States has reached a post-industrial level of economic development and is often described as having a service economy, it remains a major industrial power; in 2024, the U.S. manufacturing sector was the world's second-largest by value output after China's. New York City is the world's principal financial center, and its metropolitan area is the world's largest metropolitan economy. The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, both located in New York City, are the world's two largest stock exchanges by market capitalization and trade volume. The United States is at the forefront of technological advancement and innovation in many economic fields, especially in artificial intelligence; electronics and computers; pharmaceuticals; and medical, aerospace and military equipment. The country's economy is fueled by abundant natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity. The largest trading partners of the United States are the European Union, Mexico, Canada, China, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Vietnam, India, and Taiwan. The United States is the world's largest importer and second-largest exporter.[u] It is by far the world's largest exporter of services. Americans have the highest average household and employee income among OECD member states, and the fourth-highest median household income in 2023, up from sixth-highest in 2013. With personal consumption expenditures of over $18.5 trillion in 2023, the U.S. has a heavily consumer-driven economy and is the world's largest consumer market. The U.S. ranked first in the number of dollar billionaires and millionaires in 2023, with 735 billionaires and nearly 22 million millionaires. Wealth in the United States is highly concentrated; in 2011, the richest 10% of the adult population owned 72% of the country's household wealth, while the bottom 50% owned just 2%. U.S. wealth inequality increased substantially since the late 1980s, and income inequality in the U.S. reached a record high in 2019. In 2024, the country had some of the highest wealth and income inequality levels among OECD countries. Since the 1970s, there has been a decoupling of U.S. wage gains from worker productivity. In 2016, the top fifth of earners took home more than half of all income, giving the U.S. one of the widest income distributions among OECD countries. There were about 771,480 homeless persons in the U.S. in 2024. In 2022, 6.4 million children experienced food insecurity. Feeding America estimates that around one in five, or approximately 13 million, children experience hunger in the U.S. and do not know where or when they will get their next meal. Also in 2022, about 37.9 million people, or 11.5% of the U.S. population, were living in poverty. The United States has a smaller welfare state and redistributes less income through government action than most other high-income countries. It is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation nationally and one of a few countries in the world without federal paid family leave as a legal right. The United States has a higher percentage of low-income workers than almost any other developed country, largely because of a weak collective bargaining system and lack of government support for at-risk workers. The United States has been a leader in technological innovation since the late 19th century and scientific research since the mid-20th century. Methods for producing interchangeable parts and the establishment of a machine tool industry enabled the large-scale manufacturing of U.S. consumer products in the late 19th century. By the early 20th century, factory electrification, the introduction of the assembly line, and other labor-saving techniques created the system of mass production. In the 21st century, the United States continues to be one of the world's foremost scientific powers, though China has emerged as a major competitor in many fields. The U.S. has the highest research and development expenditures of any country and ranks ninth as a percentage of GDP. In 2022, the United States was (after China) the country with the second-highest number of published scientific papers. In 2021, the U.S. ranked second (also after China) by the number of patent applications, and third by trademark and industrial design applications (after China and Germany), according to World Intellectual Property Indicators. In 2025 the United States ranked third (after Switzerland and Sweden) in the Global Innovation Index. The United States is considered to be a world leader in the development of artificial intelligence technology. In 2023, the United States was ranked the second most technologically advanced country in the world (after South Korea) by Global Finance magazine. The United States has maintained a space program since the late 1950s, beginning with the establishment of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958. NASA's Apollo program (1961–1972) achieved the first crewed Moon landing with the 1969 Apollo 11 mission; it remains one of the agency's most significant milestones. Other major endeavors by NASA include the Space Shuttle program (1981–2011), the Voyager program (1972–present), the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes (launched in 1990 and 2021, respectively), and the multi-mission Mars Exploration Program (Spirit and Opportunity, Curiosity, and Perseverance). NASA is one of five agencies collaborating on the International Space Station (ISS); U.S. contributions to the ISS include several modules, including Destiny (2001), Harmony (2007), and Tranquility (2010), as well as ongoing logistical and operational support. The United States private sector dominates the global commercial spaceflight industry. Prominent American spaceflight contractors include Blue Origin, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and SpaceX. NASA programs such as the Commercial Crew Program, Commercial Resupply Services, Commercial Lunar Payload Services, and NextSTEP have facilitated growing private-sector involvement in American spaceflight. In 2023, the United States received approximately 84% of its energy from fossil fuel, and its largest source of energy was petroleum (38%), followed by natural gas (36%), renewable sources (9%), coal (9%), and nuclear power (9%). In 2022, the United States constituted about 4% of the world's population, but consumed around 16% of the world's energy. The U.S. ranks as the second-highest emitter of greenhouse gases behind China. The U.S. is the world's largest producer of nuclear power, generating around 30% of the world's nuclear electricity. It also has the highest number of nuclear power reactors of any country. From 2024, the U.S. plans to triple its nuclear power capacity by 2050. The United States' 4 million miles (6.4 million kilometers) of road network, owned almost entirely by state and local governments, is the longest in the world. The extensive Interstate Highway System that connects all major U.S. cities is funded mostly by the federal government but maintained by state departments of transportation. The system is further extended by state highways and some private toll roads. The U.S. is among the top ten countries with the highest vehicle ownership per capita (850 vehicles per 1,000 people) in 2022. A 2022 study found that 76% of U.S. commuters drive alone and 14% ride a bicycle, including bike owners and users of bike-sharing networks. About 11% use some form of public transportation. Public transportation in the United States is well developed in the largest urban areas, notably New York City, Washington, D.C., Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco; otherwise, coverage is generally less extensive than in most other developed countries. The U.S. also has many relatively car-dependent localities. Long-distance intercity travel is provided primarily by airlines, but travel by rail is more common along the Northeast Corridor, the only high-speed rail in the U.S. that meets international standards. Amtrak, the country's government-sponsored national passenger rail company, has a relatively sparse network compared to that of Western European countries. Service is concentrated in the Northeast, California, the Midwest, the Pacific Northwest, and Virginia/Southeast. The United States has an extensive air transportation network. U.S. civilian airlines are all privately owned. The three largest airlines in the world, by total number of passengers carried, are U.S.-based; American Airlines became the global leader after its 2013 merger with US Airways. Of the 50 busiest airports in the world, 16 are in the United States, as well as five of the top 10. The world's busiest airport by passenger volume is Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2022, most of the 19,969 U.S. airports were owned and operated by local government authorities, and there are also some private airports. Some 5,193 are designated as "public use", including for general aviation. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has provided security at most major airports since 2001. The country's rail transport network, the longest in the world at 182,412.3 mi (293,564.2 km), handles mostly freight (in contrast to more passenger-centered rail in Europe). Because they are often privately owned operations, U.S. railroads lag behind those of the rest of the world in terms of electrification. The country's inland waterways are the world's fifth-longest, totaling 25,482 mi (41,009 km). They are used extensively for freight, recreation, and a small amount of passenger traffic. Of the world's 50 busiest container ports, four are located in the United States, with the busiest in the country being the Port of Los Angeles. Demographics The U.S. Census Bureau reported 331,449,281 residents on April 1, 2020,[v] making the United States the third-most-populous country in the world, after India and China. The Census Bureau's official 2025 population estimate was 341,784,857, an increase of 3.1% since the 2020 census. According to the Bureau's U.S. Population Clock, on July 1, 2024, the U.S. population had a net gain of one person every 16 seconds, or about 5400 people per day. In 2023, 51% of Americans age 15 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 34% had never been married. In 2023, the total fertility rate for the U.S. stood at 1.6 children per woman, and, at 23%, it had the world's highest rate of children living in single-parent households in 2019. Most Americans live in the suburbs of major metropolitan areas. The United States has a diverse population; 37 ancestry groups have more than one million members. White Americans with ancestry from Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa form the largest racial and ethnic group at 57.8% of the United States population. Hispanic and Latino Americans form the second-largest group and are 18.7% of the United States population. African Americans constitute the country's third-largest ancestry group and are 12.1% of the total U.S. population. Asian Americans are the country's fourth-largest group, composing 5.9% of the United States population. The country's 3.7 million Native Americans account for about 1%, and some 574 native tribes are recognized by the federal government. In 2024, the median age of the United States population was 39.1 years. While many languages and dialects are spoken in the United States, English is by far the most commonly spoken and written. De facto, English is the official language of the United States, and in 2025, Executive Order 14224 declared English official. However, the U.S. has never had a de jure official language, as Congress has never passed a law to designate English as official for all three federal branches. Some laws, such as U.S. naturalization requirements, nonetheless standardize English. Twenty-eight states and the United States Virgin Islands have laws that designate English as the sole official language; 19 states and the District of Columbia have no official language. Three states and four U.S. territories have recognized local or indigenous languages in addition to English: Hawaii (Hawaiian), Alaska (twenty Native languages),[w] South Dakota (Sioux), American Samoa (Samoan), Puerto Rico (Spanish), Guam (Chamorro), and the Northern Mariana Islands (Carolinian and Chamorro). In total, 169 Native American languages are spoken in the United States. In Puerto Rico, Spanish is more widely spoken than English. According to the American Community Survey (2020), some 245.4 million people in the U.S. age five and older spoke only English at home. About 41.2 million spoke Spanish at home, making it the second most commonly used language. Other languages spoken at home by one million people or more include Chinese (3.40 million), Tagalog (1.71 million), Vietnamese (1.52 million), Arabic (1.39 million), French (1.18 million), Korean (1.07 million), and Russian (1.04 million). German, spoken by 1 million people at home in 2010, fell to 857,000 total speakers in 2020. America's immigrant population is by far the world's largest in absolute terms. In 2022, there were 87.7 million immigrants and U.S.-born children of immigrants in the United States, accounting for nearly 27% of the overall U.S. population. In 2017, out of the U.S. foreign-born population, some 45% (20.7 million) were naturalized citizens, 27% (12.3 million) were lawful permanent residents, 6% (2.2 million) were temporary lawful residents, and 23% (10.5 million) were unauthorized immigrants. In 2019, the top countries of origin for immigrants were Mexico (24% of immigrants), India (6%), China (5%), the Philippines (4.5%), and El Salvador (3%). In fiscal year 2022, over one million immigrants (most of whom entered through family reunification) were granted legal residence. The undocumented immigrant population in the U.S. reached a record high of 14 million in 2023. The First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion in the country and forbids Congress from passing laws respecting its establishment. Religious practice is widespread, among the most diverse in the world, and profoundly vibrant. The country has the world's largest Christian population, which includes the fourth-largest population of Catholics. Other notable faiths include Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, New Age, and Native American religions. Religious practice varies significantly by region. "Ceremonial deism" is common in American culture. The overwhelming majority of Americans believe in a higher power or spiritual force, engage in spiritual practices such as prayer, and consider themselves religious or spiritual. In the Southern United States' "Bible Belt", evangelical Protestantism plays a significant role culturally; New England and the Western United States tend to be more secular. Mormonism, a Restorationist movement founded in the U.S. in 1847, is the predominant religion in Utah and a major religion in Idaho. About 82% of Americans live in metropolitan areas, particularly in suburbs; about half of those reside in cities with populations over 50,000. In 2022, 333 incorporated municipalities had populations over 100,000, nine cities had more than one million residents, and four cities—New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston—had populations exceeding two million. Many U.S. metropolitan populations are growing rapidly, particularly in the South and West. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), average U.S. life expectancy at birth reached 79.0 years in 2024, its highest recorded level. This was an increase of 0.6 years over 2023. The CDC attributed the improvement to a significant fall in the number of fatal drug overdoses in the country, noting that "heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death in the United States, followed by cancer and unintentional injuries." In 2024, life expectancy at birth for American men rose to 76.5 years (+0.7 years compared to 2023), while life expectancy for women was 81.4 years (+0.3 years). Starting in 1998, life expectancy in the U.S. fell behind that of other wealthy industrialized countries, and Americans' "health disadvantage" gap has been increasing ever since. The Commonwealth Fund reported in 2020 that the U.S. had the highest suicide rate among high-income countries. Approximately one-third of the U.S. adult population is obese and another third is overweight. The U.S. healthcare system far outspends that of any other country, measured both in per capita spending and as a percentage of GDP, but attains worse healthcare outcomes when compared to peer countries for reasons that are debated. The United States is the only developed country without a system of universal healthcare, and a significant proportion of the population that does not carry health insurance. Government-funded healthcare coverage for the poor (Medicaid) and for those age 65 and older (Medicare) is available to Americans who meet the programs' income or age qualifications. In 2010, then-President Obama passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.[x] Abortion in the United States is not federally protected, and is illegal or restricted in 17 states. American primary and secondary education, known in the U.S. as K–12 ("kindergarten through 12th grade"), is decentralized. School systems are operated by state, territorial, and sometimes municipal governments and regulated by the U.S. Department of Education. In general, children are required to attend school or an approved homeschool from the age of five or six (kindergarten or first grade) until they are 18 years old. This often brings students through the 12th grade, the final year of a U.S. high school, but some states and territories allow them to leave school earlier, at age 16 or 17. The U.S. spends more on education per student than any other country, an average of $18,614 per year per public elementary and secondary school student in 2020–2021. Among Americans age 25 and older, 92.2% graduated from high school, 62.7% attended some college, 37.7% earned a bachelor's degree, and 14.2% earned a graduate degree. The U.S. literacy rate is near-universal. The U.S. has produced the most Nobel Prize winners of any country, with 411 (having won 413 awards). U.S. tertiary or higher education has earned a global reputation. Many of the world's top universities, as listed by various ranking organizations, are in the United States, including 19 of the top 25. American higher education is dominated by state university systems, although the country's many private universities and colleges enroll about 20% of all American students. Local community colleges generally offer open admissions, lower tuition, and coursework leading to a two-year associate degree or a non-degree certificate. As for public expenditures on higher education, the U.S. spends more per student than the OECD average, and Americans spend more than all nations in combined public and private spending. Colleges and universities directly funded by the federal government do not charge tuition and are limited to military personnel and government employees, including: the U.S. service academies, the Naval Postgraduate School, and military staff colleges. Despite some student loan forgiveness programs in place, student loan debt increased by 102% between 2010 and 2020, and exceeded $1.7 trillion in 2022. Culture and society The United States is home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and customs. The country has been described as having the values of individualism and personal autonomy, as well as a strong work ethic and competitiveness. Voluntary altruism towards others also plays a major role; according to a 2016 study by the Charities Aid Foundation, Americans donated 1.44% of total GDP to charity—the highest rate in the world by a large margin. Americans have traditionally been characterized by a unifying political belief in an "American Creed" emphasizing consent of the governed, liberty, equality under the law, democracy, social equality, property rights, and a preference for limited government. The U.S. has acquired significant hard and soft power through its diplomatic influence, economic power, military alliances, and cultural exports such as American movies, music, video games, sports, and food. The influence that the United States exerts on other countries through soft power is referred to as Americanization. Nearly all present Americans or their ancestors came from Europe, Africa, or Asia (the "Old World") within the past five centuries. Mainstream American culture is a Western culture largely derived from the traditions of European immigrants with influences from many other sources, such as traditions brought by slaves from Africa. More recent immigration from Asia and especially Latin America has added to a cultural mix that has been described as a homogenizing melting pot, and a heterogeneous salad bowl, with immigrants contributing to, and often assimilating into, mainstream American culture. Under the First Amendment to the Constitution, the United States is considered to have the strongest protections of free speech of any country. Flag desecration, hate speech, blasphemy, and lese majesty are all forms of protected expression. A 2016 Pew Research Center poll found that Americans were the most supportive of free expression of any polity measured. Additionally, they are the "most supportive of freedom of the press and the right to use the Internet without government censorship". The U.S. is a socially progressive country with permissive attitudes surrounding human sexuality. LGBTQ rights in the United States are among the most advanced by global standards. The American Dream, or the perception that Americans enjoy high levels of social mobility, plays a key role in attracting immigrants. Whether this perception is accurate has been a topic of debate. While mainstream culture holds that the United States is a classless society, scholars identify significant differences between the country's social classes, affecting socialization, language, and values. Americans tend to greatly value socioeconomic achievement, but being ordinary or average is promoted by some as a noble condition as well. The National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities is an agency of the United States federal government that was established in 1965 with the purpose to "develop and promote a broadly conceived national policy of support for the humanities and the arts in the United States, and for institutions which preserve the cultural heritage of the United States." It is composed of four sub-agencies: Colonial American authors were influenced by John Locke and other Enlightenment philosophers. The American Revolutionary Period (1765–1783) is notable for the political writings of Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson. Shortly before and after the Revolutionary War, the newspaper rose to prominence, filling a demand for anti-British national literature. An early novel is William Hill Brown's The Power of Sympathy, published in 1791. Writer and critic John Neal in the early- to mid-19th century helped advance America toward a unique literature and culture by criticizing predecessors such as Washington Irving for imitating their British counterparts, and by influencing writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, who took American poetry and short fiction in new directions. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller pioneered the influential Transcendentalism movement; Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden, was influenced by this movement. The conflict surrounding abolitionism inspired writers, like Harriet Beecher Stowe, and authors of slave narratives, such as Frederick Douglass. Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (1850) explored the dark side of American history, as did Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851). Major American poets of the 19th century American Renaissance include Walt Whitman, Melville, and Emily Dickinson. Mark Twain was the first major American writer to be born in the West. Henry James achieved international recognition with novels like The Portrait of a Lady (1881). As literacy rates rose, periodicals published more stories centered around industrial workers, women, and the rural poor. Naturalism, regionalism, and realism were the major literary movements of the period. While modernism generally took on an international character, modernist authors working within the United States more often rooted their work in specific regions, peoples, and cultures. Following the Great Migration to northern cities, African-American and black West Indian authors of the Harlem Renaissance developed an independent tradition of literature that rebuked a history of inequality and celebrated black culture. An important cultural export during the Jazz Age, these writings were a key influence on Négritude, a philosophy emerging in the 1930s among francophone writers of the African diaspora. In the 1950s, an ideal of homogeneity led many authors to attempt to write the Great American Novel, while the Beat Generation rejected this conformity, using styles that elevated the impact of the spoken word over mechanics to describe drug use, sexuality, and the failings of society. Contemporary literature is more pluralistic than in previous eras, with the closest thing to a unifying feature being a trend toward self-conscious experiments with language. Twelve American laureates have won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Media in the United States is broadly uncensored, with the First Amendment providing significant protections, as reiterated in New York Times Co. v. United States. The four major broadcasters in the U.S. are the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), American Broadcasting Company (ABC), and Fox Broadcasting Company (Fox). The four major broadcast television networks are all commercial entities. The U.S. cable television system offers hundreds of channels catering to a variety of niches. In 2021, about 83% of Americans over age 12 listened to broadcast radio, while about 40% listened to podcasts. In the prior year, there were 15,460 licensed full-power radio stations in the U.S. according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Much of the public radio broadcasting is supplied by National Public Radio (NPR), incorporated in February 1970 under the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. U.S. newspapers with a global reach and reputation include The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today. About 800 publications are produced in Spanish. With few exceptions, newspapers are privately owned, either by large chains such as Gannett or McClatchy, which own dozens or even hundreds of newspapers; by small chains that own a handful of papers; or, in an increasingly rare situation, by individuals or families. Major cities often have alternative newspapers to complement the mainstream daily papers, such as The Village Voice in New York City and LA Weekly in Los Angeles. The five most-visited websites in the world are Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and ChatGPT—all of them American-owned. Other popular platforms used include X (formerly Twitter) and Amazon. In 2025, the U.S. was the world's second-largest video game market by revenue (after China). In 2015, the U.S. video game industry consisted of 2,457 companies that employed around 220,000 jobs and generated $30.4 billion in revenue. There are 444 game publishers, developers, and hardware companies in California alone. According to the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the U.S. is the top location for video game development, with 58% of the world's game developers based there in 2025. The United States is well known for its theater. Mainstream theater in the United States derives from the old European theatrical tradition and has been heavily influenced by the British theater. By the middle of the 19th century, America had created new distinct dramatic forms in the Tom Shows, the showboat theater and the minstrel show. The central hub of the American theater scene is the Theater District in Manhattan, with its divisions of Broadway, off-Broadway, and off-off-Broadway. Many movie and television celebrities have gotten their big break working in New York productions. Outside New York City, many cities have professional regional or resident theater companies that produce their own seasons. The biggest-budget theatrical productions are musicals. U.S. theater has an active community theater culture. The Tony Awards recognizes excellence in live Broadway theater and are presented at an annual ceremony in Manhattan. The awards are given for Broadway productions and performances. One is also given for regional theater. Several discretionary non-competitive awards are given as well, including a Special Tony Award, the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theatre, and the Isabelle Stevenson Award. Folk art in colonial America grew out of artisanal craftsmanship in communities that allowed commonly trained people to individually express themselves. It was distinct from Europe's tradition of high art, which was less accessible and generally less relevant to early American settlers. Cultural movements in art and craftsmanship in colonial America generally lagged behind those of Western Europe. For example, the prevailing medieval style of woodworking and primitive sculpture became integral to early American folk art, despite the emergence of Renaissance styles in England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The new English styles would have been early enough to make a considerable impact on American folk art, but American styles and forms had already been firmly adopted. Not only did styles change slowly in early America, but there was a tendency for rural artisans there to continue their traditional forms longer than their urban counterparts did—and far longer than those in Western Europe. The Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century movement in the visual arts tradition of European naturalism. The 1913 Armory Show in New York City, an exhibition of European modernist art, shocked the public and transformed the U.S. art scene. American Realism and American Regionalism sought to reflect and give America new ways of looking at itself. Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, and others experimented with new and individualistic styles, which would become known as American modernism. Major artistic movements such as the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and the pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein developed largely in the United States. Major photographers include Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston, James Van Der Zee, Ansel Adams, and Gordon Parks. The tide of modernism and then postmodernism has brought global fame to American architects, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, and Frank Gehry. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan is the largest art museum in the United States and the fourth-largest in the world. American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as traditional music, traditional folk music, contemporary folk music, or roots music. Many traditional songs have been sung within the same family or folk group for generations, and sometimes trace back to such origins as the British Isles, mainland Europe, or Africa. The rhythmic and lyrical styles of African-American music in particular have influenced American music. Banjos were brought to America through the slave trade. Minstrel shows incorporating the instrument into their acts led to its increased popularity and widespread production in the 19th century. The electric guitar, first invented in the 1930s, and mass-produced by the 1940s, had an enormous influence on popular music, in particular due to the development of rock and roll. The synthesizer, turntablism, and electronic music were also largely developed in the U.S. Elements from folk idioms such as the blues and old-time music were adopted and transformed into popular genres with global audiences. Jazz grew from blues and ragtime in the early 20th century, developing from the innovations and recordings of composers such as W.C. Handy and Jelly Roll Morton. Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington increased its popularity early in the 20th century. Country music developed in the 1920s, bluegrass and rhythm and blues in the 1940s, and rock and roll in the 1950s. In the 1960s, Bob Dylan emerged from the folk revival to become one of the country's most celebrated songwriters. The musical forms of punk and hip hop both originated in the United States in the 1970s. The United States has the world's largest music market, with a total retail value of $15.9 billion in 2022. Most of the world's major record companies are based in the U.S.; they are represented by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Mid-20th-century American pop stars, such as Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, became global celebrities and best-selling music artists, as have artists of the late 20th century, such as Michael Jackson, Madonna, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey, and of the early 21st century, such as Eminem, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. The United States has the world's largest apparel market by revenue. Apart from professional business attire, American fashion is eclectic and predominantly informal. Americans' diverse cultural roots are reflected in their clothing; however, sneakers, jeans, T-shirts, and baseball caps are emblematic of American styles. New York, with its Fashion Week, is considered to be one of the "Big Four" global fashion capitals, along with Paris, Milan, and London. A study demonstrated that general proximity to Manhattan's Garment District has been synonymous with American fashion since its inception in the early 20th century. A number of well-known designer labels, among them Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren, Tom Ford and Calvin Klein, are headquartered in Manhattan. Labels cater to niche markets, such as preteens. New York Fashion Week is one of the most influential fashion shows in the world, and is held twice each year in Manhattan; the annual Met Gala, also in Manhattan, has been called the fashion world's "biggest night". The U.S. film industry has a worldwide influence and following. Hollywood, a district in central Los Angeles, the nation's second-most populous city, is also metonymous for the American filmmaking industry. The major film studios of the United States are the primary source of the most commercially successful movies selling the most tickets in the world. Largely centered in the New York City region from its beginnings in the late 19th century through the first decades of the 20th century, the U.S. film industry has since been primarily based in and around Hollywood. Nonetheless, American film companies have been subject to the forces of globalization in the 21st century, and an increasing number of films are made elsewhere. The Academy Awards, popularly known as "the Oscars", have been held annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1929, and the Golden Globe Awards have been held annually since January 1944. The industry peaked in what is commonly referred to as the "Golden Age of Hollywood", from the early sound period until the early 1960s, with screen actors such as John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe becoming iconic figures. In the 1970s, "New Hollywood", or the "Hollywood Renaissance", was defined by grittier films influenced by French and Italian realist pictures of the post-war period. The 21st century has been marked by the rise of American streaming platforms, which came to rival traditional cinema. Early settlers were introduced by Native Americans to foods such as turkey, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup. Of the most enduring and pervasive examples are variations of the native dish called succotash. Early settlers and later immigrants combined these with foods they were familiar with, such as wheat flour, beef, and milk, to create a distinctive American cuisine. New World crops, especially pumpkin, corn, potatoes, and turkey as the main course are part of a shared national menu on Thanksgiving, when many Americans prepare or purchase traditional dishes to celebrate the occasion. Characteristic American dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, doughnuts, french fries, macaroni and cheese, ice cream, hamburgers, hot dogs, and American pizza derive from the recipes of various immigrant groups. Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos preexisted the United States in areas later annexed from Mexico, and adaptations of Chinese cuisine as well as pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are all widely consumed. American chefs have had a significant impact on society both domestically and internationally. In 1946, the Culinary Institute of America was founded by Katharine Angell and Frances Roth. This would become the United States' most prestigious culinary school, where many of the most talented American chefs would study prior to successful careers. The United States restaurant industry was projected at $899 billion in sales for 2020, and employed more than 15 million people, representing 10% of the nation's workforce directly. It is the country's second-largest private employer and the third-largest employer overall. The United States is home to over 220 Michelin star-rated restaurants, 70 of which are in New York City. Wine has been produced in what is now the United States since the 1500s, with the first widespread production beginning in what is now New Mexico in 1628. In the modern U.S., wine production is undertaken in all fifty states, with California producing 84 percent of all U.S. wine. With more than 1,100,000 acres (4,500 km2) under vine, the United States is the fourth-largest wine-producing country in the world, after Italy, Spain, and France. The classic American diner, a casual restaurant type originally intended for the working class, emerged during the 19th century from converted railroad dining cars made stationary. The diner soon evolved into purpose-built structures whose number expanded greatly in the 20th century. The American fast-food industry developed alongside the nation's car culture. American restaurants developed the drive-in format in the 1920s, which they began to replace with the drive-through format by the 1940s. American fast-food restaurant chains, such as McDonald's, Burger King, Chick-fil-A, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dunkin' Donuts and many others, have numerous outlets around the world. The most popular spectator sports in the U.S. are American football, basketball, baseball, soccer, and ice hockey. Their premier leagues are, respectively, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, and the National Hockey League, All these leagues enjoy wide-ranging domestic media coverage and, except for the MLS, all are considered the preeminent leagues in their respective sports in the world. While most major U.S. sports such as baseball and American football have evolved out of European practices, basketball, volleyball, skateboarding, and snowboarding are American inventions, many of which have become popular worldwide. Lacrosse and surfing arose from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate European contact. The market for professional sports in the United States was approximately $69 billion in July 2013, roughly 50% larger than that of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa combined. American football is by several measures the most popular spectator sport in the United States. Although American football does not have a substantial following in other nations, the NFL does have the highest average attendance (67,254) of any professional sports league in the world. In the year 2024, the NFL generated over $23 billion, making them the most valued professional sports league in the United States and the world. Baseball has been regarded as the U.S. "national sport" since the late 19th century. The most-watched individual sports in the U.S. are golf and auto racing, particularly NASCAR and IndyCar. On the collegiate level, earnings for the member institutions exceed $1 billion annually, and college football and basketball attract large audiences, as the NCAA March Madness tournament and the College Football Playoff are some of the most watched national sporting events. In the U.S., the intercollegiate sports level serves as the main feeder system for professional and Olympic sports, with significant exceptions such as Minor League Baseball. This differs greatly from practices in nearly all other countries, where publicly and privately funded sports organizations serve this function. Eight Olympic Games have taken place in the United States. The 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri, were the first-ever Olympic Games held outside of Europe. The Olympic Games will be held in the U.S. for a ninth time when Los Angeles hosts the 2028 Summer Olympics. U.S. athletes have won a total of 2,968 medals (1,179 gold) at the Olympic Games, the most of any country. In other international competition, the United States is the home of a number of prestigious events, including the America's Cup, World Baseball Classic, the U.S. Open, and the Masters Tournament. The U.S. men's national soccer team has qualified for eleven World Cups, while the women's national team has won the FIFA Women's World Cup and Olympic soccer tournament four and five times, respectively. The 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup was hosted by the United States. Its final match was attended by 90,185, setting the world record for largest women's sporting event crowd at the time. The United States hosted the 1994 FIFA World Cup and will co-host, along with Canada and Mexico, the 2026 FIFA World Cup. See also Notes References This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under CC BY-SA IGO 3.0 (license statement/permission). Text taken from World Food and Agriculture – Statistical Yearbook 2023, FAO, FAO. External links 40°N 100°W / 40°N 100°W / 40; -100 (United States of America) |
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Contents Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk (/ˈiːlɒn/ EE-lon; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman and entrepreneur known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, and xAI. Musk has been the wealthiest person in the world since 2025; as of February 2026,[update] Forbes estimates his net worth to be around US$852 billion. Born into a wealthy family in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk emigrated in 1989 to Canada; he has Canadian citizenship since his mother was born there. He received bachelor's degrees in 1997 from the University of Pennsylvania before moving to California to pursue business ventures. In 1995, Musk co-founded the software company Zip2. Following its sale in 1999, he co-founded X.com, an online payment company that later merged to form PayPal, which was acquired by eBay in 2002. Musk also became an American citizen in 2002. In 2002, Musk founded the space technology company SpaceX, becoming its CEO and chief engineer; the company has since led innovations in reusable rockets and commercial spaceflight. Musk joined the automaker Tesla as an early investor in 2004 and became its CEO and product architect in 2008; it has since become a leader in electric vehicles. In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI to advance artificial intelligence (AI) research, but later left; growing discontent with the organization's direction and their leadership in the AI boom in the 2020s led him to establish xAI, which became a subsidiary of SpaceX in 2026. In 2022, he acquired the social network Twitter, implementing significant changes, and rebranding it as X in 2023. His other businesses include the neurotechnology company Neuralink, which he co-founded in 2016, and the tunneling company the Boring Company, which he founded in 2017. In November 2025, a Tesla pay package worth $1 trillion for Musk was approved, which he is to receive over 10 years if he meets specific goals. Musk was the largest donor in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, where he supported Donald Trump. After Trump was inaugurated as president in early 2025, Musk served as Senior Advisor to the President and as the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). After a public feud with Trump, Musk left the Trump administration and returned to managing his companies. Musk is a supporter of global far-right figures, causes, and political parties. His political activities, views, and statements have made him a polarizing figure. Musk has been criticized for COVID-19 misinformation, promoting conspiracy theories, and affirming antisemitic, racist, and transphobic comments. His acquisition of Twitter was controversial due to a subsequent increase in hate speech and the spread of misinformation on the service, following his pledge to decrease censorship. His role in the second Trump administration attracted public backlash, particularly in response to DOGE. The emails he sent to Jeffrey Epstein are included in the Epstein files, which were published between 2025–26 and became a topic of worldwide debate. Early life Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa's administrative capital. He is of British and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. His mother, Maye (née Haldeman), is a model and dietitian born in Saskatchewan, Canada, and raised in South Africa. Musk therefore holds both South African and Canadian citizenship from birth. His father, Errol Musk, is a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, emerald dealer, and property developer, who partly owned a rental lodge at Timbavati Private Nature Reserve. His maternal grandfather, Joshua N. Haldeman, who died in a plane crash when Elon was a toddler, was an American-born Canadian chiropractor, aviator and political activist in the technocracy movement who moved to South Africa in 1950. Elon has a younger brother, Kimbal, a younger sister, Tosca, and four paternal half-siblings. Musk was baptized as a child in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. Despite both Elon and Errol previously stating that Errol was a part owner of a Zambian emerald mine, in 2023, Errol recounted that the deal he made was to receive "a portion of the emeralds produced at three small mines". Errol was elected to the Pretoria City Council as a representative of the anti-apartheid Progressive Party and has said that his children shared their father's dislike of apartheid. After his parents divorced in 1979, Elon, aged around 9, chose to live with his father because Errol Musk had an Encyclopædia Britannica and a computer. Elon later regretted his decision and became estranged from his father. Elon has recounted trips to a wilderness school that he described as a "paramilitary Lord of the Flies" where "bullying was a virtue" and children were encouraged to fight over rations. In one incident, after an altercation with a fellow pupil, Elon was thrown down concrete steps and beaten severely, leading to him being hospitalized for his injuries. Elon described his father berating him after he was discharged from the hospital. Errol denied berating Elon and claimed, "The [other] boy had just lost his father to suicide, and Elon had called him stupid. Elon had a tendency to call people stupid. How could I possibly blame that child?" Elon was an enthusiastic reader of books, and had attributed his success in part to having read The Lord of the Rings, the Foundation series, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. At age ten, he developed an interest in computing and video games, teaching himself how to program from the VIC-20 user manual. At age twelve, Elon sold his BASIC-based game Blastar to PC and Office Technology magazine for approximately $500 (equivalent to $1,600 in 2025). Musk attended Waterkloof House Preparatory School, Bryanston High School, and then Pretoria Boys High School, where he graduated. Musk was a decent but unexceptional student, earning a 61/100 in Afrikaans and a B on his senior math certification. Musk applied for a Canadian passport through his Canadian-born mother to avoid South Africa's mandatory military service, which would have forced him to participate in the apartheid regime, as well as to ease his path to immigration to the United States. While waiting for his application to be processed, he attended the University of Pretoria for five months. Musk arrived in Canada in June 1989, connected with a second cousin in Saskatchewan, and worked odd jobs, including at a farm and a lumber mill. In 1990, he entered Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Two years later, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied until 1995. Although Musk has said that he earned his degrees in 1995, the University of Pennsylvania did not award them until 1997 – a Bachelor of Arts in physics and a Bachelor of Science in economics from the university's Wharton School. He reportedly hosted large, ticketed house parties to help pay for tuition, and wrote a business plan for an electronic book-scanning service similar to Google Books. In 1994, Musk held two internships in Silicon Valley: one at energy storage startup Pinnacle Research Institute, which investigated electrolytic supercapacitors for energy storage, and another at Palo Alto–based startup Rocket Science Games. In 1995, he was accepted to a graduate program in materials science at Stanford University, but did not enroll. Musk decided to join the Internet boom of the 1990s, applying for a job at Netscape, to which he reportedly never received a response. The Washington Post reported that Musk lacked legal authorization to remain and work in the United States after failing to enroll at Stanford. In response, Musk said he was allowed to work at that time and that his student visa transitioned to an H1-B. According to numerous former business associates and shareholders, Musk said he was on a student visa at the time. Business career In 1995, Musk, his brother Kimbal, and Greg Kouri founded the web software company Zip2 with funding from a group of angel investors. They housed the venture at a small rented office in Palo Alto. Replying to Rolling Stone, Musk denounced the notion that they started their company with funds borrowed from Errol Musk, but in a tweet, he recognized that his father contributed 10% of a later funding round. The company developed and marketed an Internet city guide for the newspaper publishing industry, with maps, directions, and yellow pages. According to Musk, "The website was up during the day and I was coding it at night, seven days a week, all the time." To impress investors, Musk built a large plastic structure around a standard computer to create the impression that Zip2 was powered by a small supercomputer. The Musk brothers obtained contracts with The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, and persuaded the board of directors to abandon plans for a merger with CitySearch. Musk's attempts to become CEO were thwarted by the board. Compaq acquired Zip2 for $307 million in cash in February 1999 (equivalent to $590,000,000 in 2025), and Musk received $22 million (equivalent to $43,000,000 in 2025) for his 7-percent share. In 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company. The startup was one of the first federally insured online banks, and, in its initial months of operation, over 200,000 customers joined the service. The company's investors regarded Musk as inexperienced and replaced him with Intuit CEO Bill Harris by the end of the year. The following year, X.com merged with online bank Confinity to avoid competition. Founded by Max Levchin and Peter Thiel, Confinity had its own money-transfer service, PayPal, which was more popular than X.com's service. Within the merged company, Musk returned as CEO. Musk's preference for Microsoft software over Unix created a rift in the company and caused Thiel to resign. Due to resulting technological issues and lack of a cohesive business model, the board ousted Musk and replaced him with Thiel in 2000.[b] Under Thiel, the company focused on the PayPal service and was renamed PayPal in 2001. In 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion (equivalent to $2,700,000,000 in 2025) in stock, of which Musk—the largest shareholder with 11.72% of shares—received $175.8 million (equivalent to $320,000,000 in 2025). In 2017, Musk purchased the domain X.com from PayPal for an undisclosed amount, stating that it had sentimental value. In 2001, Musk became involved with the nonprofit Mars Society and discussed funding plans to place a growth-chamber for plants on Mars. Seeking a way to launch the greenhouse payloads into space, Musk made two unsuccessful trips to Moscow to purchase intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) from Russian companies NPO Lavochkin and Kosmotras. Musk instead decided to start a company to build affordable rockets. With $100 million of his early fortune, (equivalent to $180,000,000 in 2025) Musk founded SpaceX in May 2002 and became the company's CEO and Chief Engineer. SpaceX attempted its first launch of the Falcon 1 rocket in 2006. Although the rocket failed to reach Earth orbit, it was awarded a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program contract from NASA, then led by Mike Griffin. After two more failed attempts that nearly caused Musk to go bankrupt, SpaceX succeeded in launching the Falcon 1 into orbit in 2008. Later that year, SpaceX received a $1.6 billion NASA contract (equivalent to $2,400,000,000 in 2025) for Falcon 9-launched Dragon spacecraft flights to the International Space Station (ISS), replacing the Space Shuttle after its 2011 retirement. In 2012, the Dragon vehicle docked with the ISS, a first for a commercial spacecraft. Working towards its goal of reusable rockets, in 2015 SpaceX successfully landed the first stage of a Falcon 9 on a land platform. Later landings were achieved on autonomous spaceport drone ships, an ocean-based recovery platform. In 2018, SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy; the inaugural mission carried Musk's personal Tesla Roadster as a dummy payload. Since 2019, SpaceX has been developing Starship, a reusable, super heavy-lift launch vehicle intended to replace the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. In 2020, SpaceX launched its first crewed flight, the Demo-2, becoming the first private company to place astronauts into orbit and dock a crewed spacecraft with the ISS. In 2024, NASA awarded SpaceX an $843 million (equivalent to $865,000,000 in 2025) contract to build a spacecraft that NASA will use to deorbit the ISS at the end of its lifespan. In 2015, SpaceX began development of the Starlink constellation of low Earth orbit satellites to provide satellite Internet access. After the launch of prototype satellites in 2018, the first large constellation was deployed in May 2019. As of May 2025[update], over 7,600 Starlink satellites are operational, comprising 65% of all operational Earth satellites. The total cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation was estimated by SpaceX in 2020 to be $10 billion (equivalent to $12,000,000,000 in 2025).[c] During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Musk provided free Starlink service to Ukraine, permitting Internet access and communication at a yearly cost to SpaceX of $400 million (equivalent to $440,000,000 in 2025). However, Musk refused to block Russian state media on Starlink. In 2023, Musk denied Ukraine's request to activate Starlink over Crimea to aid an attack against the Russian navy, citing fears of a nuclear response. Tesla, Inc., originally Tesla Motors, was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Both men played active roles in the company's early development prior to Musk's involvement. Musk led the Series A round of investment in February 2004; he invested $6.35 million (equivalent to $11,000,000 in 2025), became the majority shareholder, and joined Tesla's board of directors as chairman. Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design, but was not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations. Following a series of escalating conflicts in 2007 and the 2008 financial crisis, Eberhard was ousted from the firm.[page needed] Musk assumed leadership of the company as CEO and product architect in 2008. A 2009 lawsuit settlement with Eberhard designated Musk as a Tesla co-founder, along with Tarpenning and two others. Tesla began delivery of the Roadster, an electric sports car, in 2008. With sales of about 2,500 vehicles, it was the first mass production all-electric car to use lithium-ion battery cells. Under Musk, Tesla has since launched several well-selling electric vehicles, including the four-door sedan Model S (2012), the crossover Model X (2015), the mass-market sedan Model 3 (2017), the crossover Model Y (2020), and the pickup truck Cybertruck (2023). In May 2020, Musk resigned as chairman of the board as part of the settlement of a lawsuit from the SEC over him tweeting that funding had been "secured" for potentially taking Tesla private. The company has also constructed multiple lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle factories, called Gigafactories. Since its initial public offering in 2010, Tesla stock has risen significantly; it became the most valuable carmaker in summer 2020, and it entered the S&P 500 later that year. In October 2021, it reached a market capitalization of $1 trillion (equivalent to $1,200,000,000,000 in 2025), the sixth company in U.S. history to do so. Musk provided the initial concept and financial capital for SolarCity, which his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive founded in 2006. By 2013, SolarCity was the second largest provider of solar power systems in the United States. In 2014, Musk promoted the idea of SolarCity building an advanced production facility in Buffalo, New York, triple the size of the largest solar plant in the United States. Construction of the factory started in 2014 and was completed in 2017. It operated as a joint venture with Panasonic until early 2020. Tesla acquired SolarCity for $2 billion in 2016 (equivalent to $2,700,000,000 in 2025) and merged it with its battery unit to create Tesla Energy. The deal's announcement resulted in a more than 10% drop in Tesla's stock price; at the time, SolarCity was facing liquidity issues. Multiple shareholder groups filed a lawsuit against Musk and Tesla's directors, stating that the purchase of SolarCity was done solely to benefit Musk and came at the expense of Tesla and its shareholders. Tesla directors settled the lawsuit in January 2020, leaving Musk the sole remaining defendant. Two years later, the court ruled in Musk's favor. In 2016, Musk co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology startup, with an investment of $100 million. Neuralink aims to integrate the human brain with artificial intelligence (AI) by creating devices that are embedded in the brain. Such technology could enhance memory or allow the devices to communicate with software. The company also hopes to develop devices to treat neurological conditions like spinal cord injuries. In 2022, Neuralink announced that clinical trials would begin by the end of the year. In September 2023, the Food and Drug Administration approved Neuralink to initiate six-year human trials. Neuralink has conducted animal testing on macaques at the University of California, Davis. In 2021, the company released a video in which a macaque played the video game Pong via a Neuralink implant. The company's animal trials—which have caused the deaths of some monkeys—have led to claims of animal cruelty. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has alleged that Neuralink violated the Animal Welfare Act. Employees have complained that pressure from Musk to accelerate development has led to botched experiments and unnecessary animal deaths. In 2022, a federal probe was launched into possible animal welfare violations by Neuralink.[needs update] In 2017, Musk founded the Boring Company to construct tunnels; he also revealed plans for specialized, underground, high-occupancy vehicles that could travel up to 150 miles per hour (240 km/h) and thus circumvent above-ground traffic in major cities. Early in 2017, the company began discussions with regulatory bodies and initiated construction of a 30-foot (9.1 m) wide, 50-foot (15 m) long, and 15-foot (4.6 m) deep "test trench" on the premises of SpaceX's offices, as that required no permits. The Los Angeles tunnel, less than two miles (3.2 km) in length, debuted to journalists in 2018. It used Tesla Model Xs and was reported to be a rough ride while traveling at suboptimal speeds. Two tunnel projects announced in 2018, in Chicago and West Los Angeles, have been canceled. A tunnel beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center was completed in early 2021. Local officials have approved further expansions of the tunnel system. April 14, 2022 In early 2017, Musk expressed interest in buying Twitter and had questioned the platform's commitment to freedom of speech. By 2022, Musk had reached 9.2% stake in the company, making him the largest shareholder.[d] Musk later agreed to a deal that would appoint him to Twitter's board of directors and prohibit him from acquiring more than 14.9% of the company. Days later, Musk made a $43 billion offer to buy Twitter. By the end of April Musk had successfully concluded his bid for approximately $44 billion. This included approximately $12.5 billion in loans and $21 billion in equity financing. Having backtracked on his initial decision, Musk bought the company on October 27, 2022. Immediately after the acquisition, Musk fired several top Twitter executives including CEO Parag Agrawal; Musk became the CEO instead. Under Elon Musk, Twitter instituted monthly subscriptions for a "blue check", and laid off a significant portion of the company's staff. Musk lessened content moderation and hate speech also increased on the platform after his takeover. In late 2022, Musk released internal documents relating to Twitter's moderation of Hunter Biden's laptop controversy in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election. Musk also promised to step down as CEO after a Twitter poll, and five months later, Musk stepped down as CEO and transitioned his role to executive chairman and chief technology officer (CTO). Despite Musk stepping down as CEO, X continues to struggle with challenges such as viral misinformation, hate speech, and antisemitism controversies. Musk has been accused of trying to silence some of his critics such as Twitch streamer Asmongold, who criticized him during one of his streams. Musk has been accused of removing their accounts' blue checkmarks, which hinders visibility and is considered a form of shadow banning, or suspending their accounts without justification. Other activities In August 2013, Musk announced plans for a version of a vactrain, and assigned engineers from SpaceX and Tesla to design a transport system between Greater Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, at an estimated cost of $6 billion. Later that year, Musk unveiled the concept, dubbed the Hyperloop, intended to make travel cheaper than any other mode of transport for such long distances. In December 2015, Musk co-founded OpenAI, a not-for-profit artificial intelligence (AI) research company aiming to develop artificial general intelligence, intended to be safe and beneficial to humanity. Musk pledged $1 billion of funding to the company, and initially gave $50 million. In 2018, Musk left the OpenAI board. Since 2018, OpenAI has made significant advances in machine learning. In July 2023, Musk launched the artificial intelligence company xAI, which aims to develop a generative AI program that competes with existing offerings like OpenAI's ChatGPT. Musk obtained funding from investors in SpaceX and Tesla, and xAI hired engineers from Google and OpenAI. December 16, 2022 Musk uses a private jet owned by Falcon Landing LLC, a SpaceX-linked company, and acquired a second jet in August 2020. His heavy use of the jets and the consequent fossil fuel usage have received criticism. Musk's flight usage is tracked on social media through ElonJet. In December 2022, Musk banned the ElonJet account on Twitter, and made temporary bans on the accounts of journalists that posted stories regarding the incident, including Donie O'Sullivan, Keith Olbermann, and journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and The Intercept. In October 2025, Musk's company xAI launched Grokipedia, an AI-generated online encyclopedia that he promoted as an alternative to Wikipedia. Articles on Grokipedia are generated and reviewed by xAI's Grok chatbot. Media coverage and academic analysis described Grokipedia as frequently reusing Wikipedia content but framing contested political and social topics in line with Musk's own views and right-wing narratives. A study by Cornell University researchers and NBC News stated that Grokipedia cites sources that are blacklisted or considered "generally unreliable" on Wikipedia, for example, the conspiracy site Infowars and the neo-Nazi forum Stormfront. Wired, The Guardian and Time criticized Grokipedia for factual errors and for presenting Musk himself in unusually positive terms while downplaying controversies. Politics Musk is an outlier among business leaders who typically avoid partisan political advocacy. Musk was a registered independent voter when he lived in California. Historically, he has donated to both Democrats and Republicans, many of whom serve in states in which he has a vested interest. Since 2022, his political contributions have mostly supported Republicans, with his first vote for a Republican going to Mayra Flores in the 2022 Texas's 34th congressional district special election. In 2024, he started supporting international far-right political parties, activists, and causes, and has shared misinformation and numerous conspiracy theories. Since 2024, his views have been generally described as right-wing. Musk supported Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020, and Donald Trump in 2024. In the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Musk endorsed candidate Andrew Yang and expressed support for Yang's proposed universal basic income, and endorsed Kanye West's 2020 presidential campaign. In 2021, Musk publicly expressed opposition to the Build Back Better Act, a $3.5 trillion legislative package endorsed by Joe Biden that ultimately failed to pass due to unanimous opposition from congressional Republicans and several Democrats. In 2022, gave over $50 million to Citizens for Sanity, a conservative political action committee. In 2023, he supported Republican Ron DeSantis for the 2024 U.S. presidential election, giving $10 million to his campaign, and hosted DeSantis's campaign announcement on a Twitter Spaces event. From June 2023 to January 2024, Musk hosted a bipartisan set of X Spaces with Republican and Democratic candidates, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy, and Dean Phillips. In October 2025, former vice-president Kamala Harris commented that it was a mistake from the Democratic side to not invite Musk to a White House electric vehicle event organized in August 2021 and featuring executives from General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, despite Tesla being "the major American manufacturer of extraordinary innovation in this space." Fortune remarked that this was a nod to United Auto Workers and organized labor. Harris said presidents should put aside political loyalties when it came to recognizing innovation, and guessed that the non-invitation impacted Musk's perspective. Fortune noted that, at the time, Musk said, "Yeah, seems odd that Tesla wasn't invited." A month later, he criticized Biden as "not the friendliest administration." Jacob Silverman, author of the book Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley, said that the tech industry represented by Musk, Thiel, Andreessen and other capitalists, actually flourished under Biden, but the tech leaders chose Trump for their common ground on cultural issues. By early 2024, Musk had become a vocal and financial supporter of Donald Trump. In July 2024, minutes after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, Musk endorsed him for president saying; "I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery." During the presidential campaign, Musk joined Trump on stage at a campaign rally, and during the campaign promoted conspiracy theories and falsehoods about Democrats, election fraud and immigration, in support of Trump. Musk was the largest individual donor of the 2024 election. In 2025, Musk contributed $19 million to the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, hoping to influence the state's future redistricting efforts and its regulations governing car manufacturers and dealers. In 2023, Musk said he shunned the World Economic Forum because it was boring. The organization commented that they had not invited him since 2015. He has participated in Dialog, dubbed "Tech Bilderberg" and organized by Peter Thiel and Auren Hoffman, though. Musk's international political actions and comments have come under increasing scrutiny and criticism, especially from the governments and leaders of France, Germany, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom, particularly due to his position in the U.S. government as well as ownership of X. An NBC News analysis found he had boosted far-right political movements to cut immigration and curtail regulation of business in at least 18 countries on six continents since 2023. During his speech after the second inauguration of Donald Trump, Musk twice made a gesture interpreted by many as a Nazi or a fascist Roman salute.[e] He thumped his right hand over his heart, fingers spread wide, and then extended his right arm out, emphatically, at an upward angle, palm down and fingers together. He then repeated the gesture to the crowd behind him. As he finished the gestures, he said to the crowd, "My heart goes out to you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured." It was widely condemned as an intentional Nazi salute in Germany, where making such gestures is illegal. The Anti-Defamation League said it was not a Nazi salute, but other Jewish organizations disagreed and condemned the salute. American public opinion was divided on partisan lines as to whether it was a fascist salute. Musk dismissed the accusations of Nazi sympathies, deriding them as "dirty tricks" and a "tired" attack. Neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups celebrated it as a Nazi salute. Multiple European political parties demanded that Musk be banned from entering their countries. The concept of DOGE emerged in a discussion between Musk and Donald Trump, and in August 2024, Trump committed to giving Musk an advisory role, with Musk accepting the offer. In November and December 2024, Musk suggested that the organization could help to cut the U.S. federal budget, consolidate the number of federal agencies, and eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and that its final stage would be "deleting itself". In January 2025, the organization was created by executive order, and Musk was designated a "special government employee". Musk led the organization and was a senior advisor to the president, although his official role is not clear. In sworn statement during a lawsuit, the director of the White House Office of Administration stated that Musk "is not an employee of the U.S. DOGE Service or U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization", "is not the U.S. DOGE Service administrator", and has "no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself". Trump said two days later that he had put Musk in charge of DOGE. A federal judge has ruled that Musk acted as the de facto leader of DOGE. Musk's role in the second Trump administration, particularly in response to DOGE, has attracted public backlash. He was criticized for his treatment of federal government employees, including his influence over the mass layoffs of the federal workforce. He has prioritized secrecy within the organization and has accused others of violating privacy laws. A Senate report alleged that Musk could avoid up to $2 billion in legal liability as a result of DOGE's actions. In May 2025, Bill Gates accused Musk of "killing the world's poorest children" through his cuts to USAID, which modeling by Boston University estimated had resulted in 300,000 deaths by this time, most of them of children. By November 2025, the estimated death toll had increased to 400,000 children and 200,000 adults. Musk announced on May 28, 2025, that he would depart from the Trump administration as planned when the special government employee's 130 day deadline expired, with a White House official confirming that Musk's offboarding from the Trump administration was already underway. His departure was officially confirmed during a joint Oval Office press conference with Trump on May 30, 2025. @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. June 5, 2025 After leaving office, Musk criticized the Trump administration's Big Beautiful Bill, calling it a "disgusting abomination" due to its provisions increasing the deficit. A feud began between Musk and Trump, with its most notable event being Musk alleging Trump had ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on X (formerly Twitter) on June 5, 2025. Trump responded on Truth Social stating that Musk went "CRAZY" after the "EV Mandate" was purportedly taken away and threatened to cut Musk's government contracts. Musk then called for a third Trump impeachment. The next day, Trump stated that he did not wish to reconcile with Musk, and added that Musk would face "very serious consequences" if he funds Democratic candidates. On June 11, Musk publicly apologized for the tweets against Trump, saying they "went too far". Views November 6, 2022 Rejecting the conservative label, Musk has described himself as a political moderate, even as his views have become more right-wing over time. His views have been characterized as libertarian and far-right, and after his involvement in European politics, they have received criticism from world leaders such as Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz. Within the context of American politics, Musk supported Democratic candidates up until 2022, at which point he voted for a Republican for the first time. He has stated support for universal basic income, gun rights, freedom of speech, a tax on carbon emissions, and H-1B visas. Musk has expressed concern about issues such as artificial intelligence (AI) and climate change, and has been a critic of wealth tax, short-selling, and government subsidies. An immigrant himself, Musk has been accused of being anti-immigration, and regularly blames immigration policies for illegal immigration. He is also a pronatalist who believes population decline is the biggest threat to civilization, and identifies as a cultural Christian. Musk has long been an advocate for space colonization, especially the colonization of Mars. He has repeatedly pushed for humanity colonizing Mars, in order to become an interplanetary species and lower the risks of human extinction. Musk has promoted conspiracy theories and made controversial statements that have led to accusations of racism, sexism, antisemitism, transphobia, disseminating disinformation, and support of white pride. While describing himself as a "pro-Semite", his comments regarding George Soros and Jewish communities have been condemned by the Anti-Defamation League and the Biden White House. Musk was criticized during the COVID-19 pandemic for making unfounded epidemiological claims, defying COVID-19 lockdowns restrictions, and supporting the Canada convoy protest against vaccine mandates. He has amplified false claims of white genocide in South Africa. Musk has been critical of Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip during the Gaza war, praised China's economic and climate goals, suggested that Taiwan and China should resolve cross-strait relations, and was described as having a close relationship with the Chinese government. In Europe, Musk expressed support for Ukraine in 2022 during the Russian invasion, recommended referendums and peace deals on the annexed Russia-occupied territories, and supported the far-right Alternative for Germany political party in 2024. Regarding British politics, Musk blamed the 2024 UK riots on mass migration and open borders, criticized Prime Minister Keir Starmer for what he described as a "two-tier" policing system, and was subsequently attacked as being responsible for spreading misinformation and amplifying the far-right. He has also voiced his support for far-right activist Tommy Robinson and pledged electoral support for Reform UK. In February 2026, Musk described Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez as a "tyrant" following Sánchez's proposal to prohibit minors under the age of 16 from accessing social media platforms. Legal affairs In 2018, Musk was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a tweet stating that funding had been secured for potentially taking Tesla private.[f] The securities fraud lawsuit characterized the tweet as false, misleading, and damaging to investors, and sought to bar Musk from serving as CEO of publicly traded companies. Two days later, Musk settled with the SEC, without admitting or denying the SEC's allegations. As a result, Musk and Tesla were fined $20 million each, and Musk was forced to step down for three years as Tesla chairman but was able to remain as CEO. Shareholders filed a lawsuit over the tweet, and in February 2023, a jury found Musk and Tesla not liable. Musk has stated in interviews that he does not regret posting the tweet that triggered the SEC investigation. In 2019, Musk stated in a tweet that Tesla would build half a million cars that year. The SEC reacted by asking a court to hold him in contempt for violating the terms of the 2018 settlement agreement. A joint agreement between Musk and the SEC eventually clarified the previous agreement details, including a list of topics about which Musk needed preclearance. In 2020, a judge blocked a lawsuit that claimed a tweet by Musk regarding Tesla stock price ("too high imo") violated the agreement. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)-released records showed that the SEC concluded Musk had subsequently violated the agreement twice by tweeting regarding "Tesla's solar roof production volumes and its stock price". In October 2023, the SEC sued Musk over his refusal to testify a third time in an investigation into whether he violated federal law by purchasing Twitter stock in 2022. In February 2024, Judge Laurel Beeler ruled that Musk must testify again. In January 2025, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Musk for securities violations related to his purchase of Twitter. In January 2024, Delaware judge Kathaleen McCormick ruled in a 2018 lawsuit that Musk's $55 billion pay package from Tesla be rescinded. McCormick called the compensation granted by the company's board "an unfathomable sum" that was unfair to shareholders. The Delaware Supreme Court overturned McCormick's decision in December 2025, restoring Musk's compensation package and awarding $1 in nominal damages. Personal life Musk became a U.S. citizen in 2002. From the early 2000s until late 2020, Musk resided in California, where both Tesla and SpaceX were founded. He then relocated to Cameron County, Texas, saying that California had become "complacent" about its economic success. While hosting Saturday Night Live in 2021, Musk stated that he has Asperger syndrome (an outdated term for autism spectrum disorder). When asked about his experience growing up with Asperger's syndrome in a TED2022 conference in Vancouver, Musk stated that "the social cues were not intuitive ... I would just tend to take things very literally ... but then that turned out to be wrong — [people were not] simply saying exactly what they mean, there's all sorts of other things that are meant, and [it] took me a while to figure that out." Musk suffers from back pain and has undergone several spine-related surgeries, including a disc replacement. In 2000, he contracted a severe case of malaria while on vacation in South Africa. Musk has stated he uses doctor-prescribed ketamine for occasional depression and that he doses "a small amount once every other week or something like that"; since January 2024, some media outlets have reported that he takes ketamine, marijuana, LSD, ecstasy, mushrooms, cocaine and other drugs. Musk at first refused to comment on his alleged drug use, before responding that he had not tested positive for drugs, and that if drugs somehow improved his productivity, "I would definitely take them!". The New York Times' investigations revealed Musk's overuse of ketamine and numerous other drugs, as well as strained family relationships and concerns from close associates who have become troubled by his public behavior as he became more involved in political activities and government work. According to The Washington Post, President Trump described Musk as "a big-time drug addict". Through his own label Emo G Records, Musk released a rap track, "RIP Harambe", on SoundCloud in March 2019. The following year, he released an EDM track, "Don't Doubt Ur Vibe", featuring his own lyrics and vocals. Musk plays video games, which he stated has a "'restoring effect' that helps his 'mental calibration'". Some games he plays include Quake, Diablo IV, Elden Ring, and Polytopia. Musk once claimed to be one of the world's top video game players but has since admitted to "account boosting", or cheating by hiring outside services to achieve top player rankings. Musk has justified the boosting by claiming that all top accounts do it so he has to as well to remain competitive. In 2024 and 2025, Musk criticized the video game Assassin's Creed Shadows and its creator Ubisoft for "woke" content. Musk posted to X that "DEI kills art" and specified the inclusion of the historical figure Yasuke in the Assassin's Creed game as offensive; he also called the game "terrible". Ubisoft responded by saying that Musk's comments were "just feeding hatred" and that they were focused on producing a game not pushing politics. Musk has fathered at least 14 children, one of whom died as an infant. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2025 that sources close to Musk suggest that the "true number of Musk's children is much higher than publicly known". He had six children with his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson, whom he met while attending Queen's University in Ontario, Canada; they married in 2000. In 2002, their first child Nevada Musk died of sudden infant death syndrome at the age of 10 weeks. After his death, the couple used in vitro fertilization (IVF) to continue their family; they had twins in 2004, followed by triplets in 2006. The couple divorced in 2008 and have shared custody of their children. The elder twin he had with Wilson came out as a trans woman and, in 2022, officially changed her name to Vivian Jenna Wilson, adopting her mother's surname because she no longer wished to be associated with Musk. Musk began dating English actress Talulah Riley in 2008. They married two years later at Dornoch Cathedral in Scotland. In 2012, the couple divorced, then remarried the following year. After briefly filing for divorce in 2014, Musk finalized a second divorce from Riley in 2016. Musk then dated the American actress Amber Heard for several months in 2017; he had reportedly been "pursuing" her since 2012. In 2018, Musk and Canadian musician Grimes confirmed they were dating. Grimes and Musk have three children, born in 2020, 2021, and 2022.[g] Musk and Grimes originally gave their eldest child the name "X Æ A-12", which would have violated California regulations as it contained characters that are not in the modern English alphabet; the names registered on the birth certificate are "X" as a first name, "Æ A-Xii" as a middle name, and "Musk" as a last name. They received criticism for choosing a name perceived to be impractical and difficult to pronounce; Musk has said the intended pronunciation is "X Ash A Twelve". Their second child was born via surrogacy. Despite the pregnancy, Musk confirmed reports that the couple were "semi-separated" in September 2021; in an interview with Time in December 2021, he said he was single. In October 2023, Grimes sued Musk over parental rights and custody of X Æ A-Xii. Elon Musk has taken X Æ A-Xii to multiple official events in Washington, D.C. during Trump's second term in office. Also in July 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk allegedly had an affair with Nicole Shanahan, the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, in 2021, leading to their divorce the following year. Musk denied the report. Musk also had a relationship with Australian actress Natasha Bassett, who has been described as "an occasional girlfriend". In October 2024, The New York Times reported Musk bought a Texas compound for his children and their mothers, though Musk denied having done so. Musk also has four children with Shivon Zilis, director of operations and special projects at Neuralink: twins born via IVF in 2021, a child born in 2024 via surrogacy and a child born in 2025.[h] On February 14, 2025, Ashley St. Clair, an influencer and author, posted on X claiming to have given birth to Musk's son Romulus five months earlier, which media outlets reported as Musk's supposed thirteenth child.[i] On February 22, 2025, it was reported that St Clair had filed for sole custody of her five-month-old son and for Musk to be recognised as the child's father. On March 31, 2025, Musk wrote that, while he was unsure if he was the father of St. Clair's child, he had paid St. Clair $2.5 million and would continue paying her $500,000 per year.[j] Later reporting from the Wall Street Journal indicated that $1 million of these payments to St. Clair were structured as a loan. In 2014, Musk and Ghislaine Maxwell appeared together in a photograph taken at an Academy Awards after-party, which Musk later described as a "photobomb". The January 2026 Epstein files contain emails between Musk and Epstein from 2012 to 2013, after Epstein's first conviction. Emails released on January 30, 2026, indicated that Epstein invited Musk to visit his private island on multiple occasions. The correspondence showed that while Epstein repeatedly encouraged Musk to attend, Musk did not visit the island. In one instance, Musk discussed the possibility of attending a party with his then-wife Talulah Riley and asked which day would be the "wildest party"; according to the emails, the visit did not take place after Epstein later cancelled the plans.[k] On Christmas day in 2012, Musk emailed Epstein asking "Do you have any parties planned? I’ve been working to the edge of sanity this year and so, once my kids head home after Christmas, I really want to hit the party scene in St Barts or elsewhere and let loose. The invitation is much appreciated, but a peaceful island experience is the opposite of what I’m looking for". Epstein replied that the "ratio on my island" might make Musk's wife uncomfortable to which Musk responded, "Ratio is not a problem for Talulah". On September 11, 2013, Epstein sent an email asking Musk if he had any plans for coming to New York for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly where many "interesting people" would be coming to his house to which Musk responded that "Flying to NY to see UN diplomats do nothing would be an unwise use of time". Epstein responded by stating "Do you think i am retarded. Just kidding, there is no one over 25 and all very cute." Musk has denied any close relationship with Epstein and described him as a "creep" who attempted to ingratiate himself with influential people. When Musk was asked in 2019 if he introduced Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg, Musk responded: "I don’t recall introducing Epstein to anyone, as I don’t know the guy well enough to do so." The released emails nonetheless showed cordial exchanges on a range of topics, including Musk's inquiry about parties on the island. The correspondence also indicated that Musk suggested hosting Epstein at SpaceX, while Epstein separately discussed plans to tour SpaceX and bring "the girls", though there is no evidence that such a visit occurred. Musk has described the release of the files a "distraction", later accusing the second Trump administration of suppressing them to protect powerful individuals, including Trump himself.[l] Wealth Elon Musk is the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$690 billion as of January 2026, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and $852 billion according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership stakes in SpaceX and Tesla. Having been first listed on the Forbes Billionaires List in 2012, around 75% of Musk's wealth was derived from Tesla stock in November 2020, although he describes himself as "cash poor". According to Forbes, he became the first person in the world to achieve a net worth of $300 billion in 2021; $400 billion in December 2024; $500 billion in October 2025; $600 billion in mid-December 2025; $700 billion later that month; and $800 billion in February 2026. In November 2025, a Tesla pay package worth potentially $1 trillion for Musk was approved, which he is to receive over 10 years if he meets specific goals. Public image Although his ventures have been highly influential within their separate industries starting in the 2000s, Musk only became a public figure in the early 2010s. He has been described as an eccentric who makes spontaneous and impactful decisions, while also often making controversial statements, contrary to other billionaires who prefer reclusiveness to protect their businesses. Musk's actions and his expressed views have made him a polarizing figure. Biographer Ashlee Vance described people's opinions of Musk as polarized due to his "part philosopher, part troll" persona on Twitter. He has drawn denouncement for using his platform to mock the self-selection of personal pronouns, while also receiving praise for bringing international attention to matters like British survivors of grooming gangs. Musk has been described as an American oligarch due to his extensive influence over public discourse, social media, industry, politics, and government policy. After Trump's re-election, Musk's influence and actions during the transition period and the second presidency of Donald Trump led some to call him "President Musk", the "actual president-elect", "shadow president" or "co-president". Awards for his contributions to the development of the Falcon rockets include the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics George Low Transportation Award in 2008, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Gold Space Medal in 2010, and the Royal Aeronautical Society Gold Medal in 2012. In 2015, he received an honorary doctorate in engineering and technology from Yale University and an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Honorary Membership. Musk was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018.[m] In 2022, Musk was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Time has listed Musk as one of the most influential people in the world in 2010, 2013, 2018, and 2021. Musk was selected as Time's "Person of the Year" for 2021. Then Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote that, "Person of the Year is a marker of influence, and few individuals have had more influence than Musk on life on Earth, and potentially life off Earth too." Notes References Works cited Further reading External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Landau] | [TOKENS: 2672] |
Contents Lev Landau Lev Davidovich Landau (Russian: Лев Дави́дович Ланда́у; 22 January 1908 – 1 April 1968) was a Soviet physicist who made fundamental contributions to many areas of theoretical physics. He was considered as one of the last scientists who were universally well-versed and made seminal contributions to all branches of physics. He is credited with laying the foundations of twentieth century condensed matter physics, and is also considered arguably the greatest Soviet theoretical physicist. His accomplishments include the independent co-discovery of the density matrix method in quantum mechanics (alongside John von Neumann), the quantum mechanical theory of diamagnetism, the theory of superfluidity, the theory of second-order phase transitions, invention of order parameter technique, the Ginzburg–Landau theory of superconductivity, the theory of Fermi liquids, the explanation of Landau damping in plasma physics, the Landau pole in quantum electrodynamics, the two-component theory of neutrinos, and Landau's equations for S-matrix singularities. He received the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physics for his development of a mathematical theory of superfluidity that accounts for the properties of liquid helium II at a temperature below 2.17 K (−270.98 °C). Life Landau was born on 22 January 1908 to Jewish parents in Baku, the Russian Empire, in what is now Azerbaijan. Landau's father, David Lvovich Landau, was an engineer with the local oil industry, and his mother, Lyubov Veniaminovna Garkavi-Landau, was a doctor. Both came to Baku from Mogilev and both graduated the Mogilev gymnasium. He learned differential calculus at age 12 and integral calculus at age 13. Landau graduated in 1920 at age 13 from gymnasium. His parents considered him too young to attend university, so for a year he attended the Baku Economical Technical School. In 1922, at age 14, he matriculated at the Baku State University, studying in two departments simultaneously: the Departments of Physics and Mathematics, and the Department of Chemistry. Subsequently, he ceased studying chemistry, but remained interested in the field throughout his life. In 1924, he moved to the main centre of Soviet physics at the time: the Physics Department of Leningrad State University, where he dedicated himself to the study of theoretical physics, graduating in 1927. Landau subsequently enrolled for post-graduate studies at the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute where he eventually received a doctorate in Physical and Mathematical Sciences in 1934. Landau got his first chance to travel abroad during the period 1929–1931, on a Soviet government—People's Commissariat for Education—travelling fellowship supplemented by a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship. By that time he was fluent in German and French and could communicate in English. He later improved his English and learned Danish. After brief stays in Göttingen and Leipzig, he went to Copenhagen on 8 April 1930 to work at the Niels Bohr's Institute for Theoretical Physics. He stayed there until 3 May of the same year. After the visit, Landau always considered himself a pupil of Niels Bohr and Landau's approach to physics was greatly influenced by Bohr. After his stay in Copenhagen, he visited Cambridge (mid-1930), where he worked with Paul Dirac, Copenhagen (September to November 1930), and Zürich (December 1930 to January 1931), where he worked with Wolfgang Pauli. From Zürich Landau went back to Copenhagen for the third time and stayed there from 25 February until 19 March 1931 before returning to Leningrad the same year. Between 1932 and 1937, Landau headed the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Ukrainian Physics and Technology Institute (UPTI) in Kharkov, and he lectured at the University of Kharkov and the Kharkov Polytechnic Institute. Apart from his theoretical accomplishments, Landau was the principal founder of a great tradition of theoretical physics in Kharkov, Ukraine, sometimes referred to as the "Landau school". In Kharkov, he and his friend and former student, Evgeny Lifshitz, began writing the Course of Theoretical Physics, ten volumes that together span the whole of the subject and are still widely used as graduate-level physics texts. During the Great Purge, Landau was investigated within the UPTI Affair in Kharkov, but he managed to leave for Moscow to take up a new post. Landau developed a famous comprehensive exam called the "Theoretical Minimum" which students were expected to pass before admission to the school. The exam covered all aspects of theoretical physics, and between 1934 and 1961 only 43 candidates passed, but those who did later became quite notable theoretical physicists. In 1932, Landau computed the Chandrasekhar limit; however, he did not apply it to white dwarf stars. From 1937 until 1962, Landau was the head of the Theoretical Division at the Institute for Physical Problems. On 27 April 1938, Landau was arrested for the possession of a leaflet which compared Stalinism to German Nazism and Italian Fascism. He was held in the NKVD's Lubyanka prison until his release, on 29 April 1939, after Pyotr Kapitsa (an experimental low-temperature physicist and the founder and head of the institute) and Bohr wrote letters to Joseph Stalin. Kapitsa personally vouched for Landau's behaviour and threatened to quit the institute if Landau was not released. After his release, Landau discovered how to explain Kapitsa's superfluidity using sound waves, or phonons, and a new excitation called a roton. Landau led a team of mathematicians supporting Soviet atomic and hydrogen bomb development. He calculated the dynamics of the first Soviet thermonuclear bomb, including predicting the yield. For this work Landau received the Stalin Prize in 1949 and 1953, and was awarded the title "Hero of Socialist Labour" in 1954. Landau's students included Lev Pitaevskii, Alexei Abrikosov, Aleksandr Akhiezer, Igor Dzyaloshinskii, Evgeny Lifshitz, Lev Gor'kov, Isaak Khalatnikov, Roald Sagdeev and Isaak Pomeranchuk. Landau's accomplishments include the independent co-discovery of the density matrix method in quantum mechanics (alongside John von Neumann), the quantum mechanical theory of diamagnetism, the theory of superfluidity, the theory of second-order phase transitions, the Ginzburg–Landau theory of superconductivity, the theory of Fermi liquids, the explanation of Landau damping in plasma physics, the Landau pole in quantum electrodynamics, the two-component theory of neutrinos, the explanation of flame instability (the Darrieus-Landau instability), and Landau's equations for S matrix singularities. Landau received the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physics for his development of a mathematical theory of superfluidity that accounts for the properties of liquid helium II at a temperature below 2.17 K (−270.98 °C)." In 1937, Landau married Kora T. Drobanzeva from Kharkov. Their son Igor (1946–2011) became a theoretical physicist. Lev Landau believed in "free love" rather than monogamy and encouraged his wife and his students to practise "free love". However, his wife was not enthusiastic. Landau is generally described as an atheist, although when Soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky asked Landau whether he believed in the existence of God, Landau pondered the matter in silence for three minutes before responding, "I think so." In 1957, a lengthy report to the CPSU Central Committee by the KGB recorded Landau's views on the 1956 Hungarian Uprising, Vladimir Lenin and what he termed "red fascism". Hendrik Casimir recalls him as a passionate communist, emboldened by his revolutionary ideology. Landau's drive in establishing Soviet science was in part due to his devotion to socialism. In 1935 he published a piece titled “Bourgeoisie and Contemporary Physics” in the Soviet newspaper Izvestia in which he criticized religious superstition and the dominance of capital, which he saw as bourgeois tendencies, citing “unprecedented opportunities for the development of physics in our country, provided by the Party and the government.” On 7 January 1962, Landau's car collided with an oncoming truck. He was severely injured and spent two months in a coma. Although Landau recovered in many ways, his scientific creativity was destroyed, and he never returned fully to scientific work. His injuries prevented him from accepting the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physics in person. Throughout his life Landau was known for his sharp humour, as illustrated by the following dialogue with a psychologist, Alexander Luria, who tried to test for possible brain damage while Landau was recovering from the car crash: In 1965 former students and co-workers of Landau founded the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics, located in the town of Chernogolovka near Moscow, and led for the following three decades by Isaak Khalatnikov. In June 1965, Lev Landau and Evsei Liberman published a letter in the New York Times, stating that as Soviet Jews they opposed U.S. intervention on behalf of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. However, there are doubts that Landau authored this letter. Landau died on 1 April 1968, aged 60, from complications of the injuries sustained in the car accident six years earlier. He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery. Fields of contribution Legacy Two celestial objects are named in his honour: The highest prize in theoretical physics awarded by the Russian Academy of Sciences is named in his honour: On 22 January 2019, Google celebrated what would have been Landau's 111th birthday with a Google Doodle. The Landau-Spitzer Award (American Physical Society), which recognizes outstanding contributions to plasma physics and European-United States collaboration, is named in-part in his honor. Landau's ranking of physicists Landau kept a list of names of physicists which he ranked on a logarithmic scale of productivity and genius, such as creativity and innate talent, ranging from 0 to 5. The highest ranking, 0, was assigned to Isaac Newton. Albert Einstein was ranked 0.5. A rank of 1 was awarded to the founding fathers of quantum mechanics, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Satyendra Nath Bose, Paul Dirac and Erwin Schrödinger, and others, while members of rank of 5 were deemed "pathologists". Landau ranked himself as a 2.5 but later promoted to a 2. N. David Mermin, writing about Landau, referred to the scale, and ranked himself in the fourth division, in the article "My Life with Landau: Homage of a 4.5 to a 2". Landau had a lesser-known scale to measure the genius of a scientist using diagrams instead. He had four classes of diagrams, with the first being a simple triangle, which included those who were the most original and brilliant, such as Dirac and Einstein. The diagrams were formed by two parallel lines, bottom representing tenacity, while the top measured genius and originality. In popular culture Works Landau wrote his first paper On the derivation of Klein–Fock equation, co-authored with Dmitri Ivanenko in 1926, when he was 18 years old. His last paper titled Fundamental problems appeared in 1960 in an edited version of tributes to Wolfgang Pauli. A complete list of Landau's works appeared in 1998 in the Russian journal Physics-Uspekhi. Landau would allow himself to be listed as a co-author of a journal article on two conditions: 1) he brought up the idea of the work, partly or entirely, and 2) he performed at least some calculations presented in the article. Consequently, he removed his name from numerous publications of his students where his contribution was less significant. Landau and Lifshitz suggested in the third volume of the Course of Theoretical Physics that the then-standard periodic table had a mistake in it, and that lutetium should be regarded as a d-block rather than an f-block element. Their suggestion was fully vindicated by later findings, and in 1988 was endorsed by a report of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). See also References Further reading External links |
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Contents IBM PC compatible An IBM PC compatible is any personal computer that is hardware- and software-compatible with the IBM Personal Computer (IBM PC) and its subsequent models. Like the original IBM PC, an IBM PC–compatible computer uses an x86-based central processing unit, sourced either from Intel or a second source like AMD, Cyrix or other vendors such as Texas Instruments, Fujitsu, OKI, Mitsubishi or NEC and is capable of using interchangeable commodity hardware such as expansion cards. Initially such computers were referred to as PC clones, IBM clones or IBM PC clones, but the term "IBM PC compatible" is now a historical description only, as the vast majority of microcomputers produced since the 1990s are IBM compatible[dubious – discuss]. IBM itself no longer sells personal computers, having sold its division to Lenovo in 2005. "Wintel" is a similar description that is more commonly used for modern computers. The designation "PC", as used in much of personal computer history, has not meant "personal computer" generally, but rather an x86 computer capable of running the same software that a contemporary IBM PC could. The term was initially in contrast to the variety of home computer systems available in the early 1980s, such as the Apple II, TRS-80, and Commodore 64. Later, the term was primarily used in contrast to Commodore's Amiga and Apple's Macintosh computers. Overview These "clones" duplicated almost all the significant features of the original IBM PC architectures. This was facilitated by IBM's choice of commodity hardware components, which were cheap, and by various manufacturers' ability to reverse-engineer the BIOS firmware using a "clean room design" technique. Columbia Data Products built the first clone of the IBM personal computer, the MPC 1600 by a clean-room reverse-engineered implementation of its BIOS. Other rival companies, Corona Data Systems, Eagle Computer, and the Handwell Corporation were threatened with legal action by IBM, who settled with them. Soon after in 1982, Compaq released the very successful Compaq Portable, also with a clean-room reverse-engineered BIOS, and also not challenged legally by IBM. Early IBM PC compatibles used the same computer buses as their IBM counterparts, switching from the 8-bit IBM PC and XT bus to the 16-bit IBM AT bus with the release of the AT. IBM's introduction of the proprietary Micro Channel architecture (MCA) in its Personal System/2 (PS/2) series resulted in the establishment of the Extended Industry Standard Architecture bus open standard by a consortium of IBM PC compatible vendors, redefining the 16-bit IBM AT bus as the Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus. Additional bus standards were subsequently adopted to improve compatibility between IBM PC compatibles, including the VESA Local Bus (VLB), Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI), and the Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP). Descendants of the x86 IBM PC compatibles, namely 64-bit computers based on "x86-64/AMD64" chips comprise the majority of desktop computers on the market as of 2021, with the dominant operating system being Microsoft Windows. Interoperability with the bus structure and peripherals of the original PC architecture may be limited or non-existent. Many modern computers are unable to use old software or hardware that depends on portions of the IBM PC compatible architecture which are missing or do not have equivalents in modern computers. For example, computers which boot using Unified Extensible Firmware Interface-based firmware that lack a Compatibility Support Module, or CSM, required to emulate the old BIOS-based firmware interface, or have their CSMs disabled, cannot natively run MS-DOS since MS-DOS depends on a BIOS interface to boot. Only the Macintosh had kept significant market share without having compatibility with the IBM PC, except in the period between the transition to Intel processors and transition to Apple silicon, when Macs used standard PC components and were capable of dual-booting Windows with Boot Camp. Origins IBM decided in 1980 to market a low-cost single-user computer as quickly as possible. On August 12, 1981, the first IBM PC went on sale. There were three operating systems (OS) available for it. The least expensive and most popular was PC DOS made by Microsoft. In a crucial concession, IBM's agreement allowed Microsoft to sell its own version, MS-DOS, for non-IBM computers. The only component of the original PC architecture exclusive to IBM was the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System). IBM at first asked developers to avoid writing software that addressed the computer's hardware directly and to instead make standard calls to BIOS functions that carried out hardware-dependent operations. This software would run on any machine using MS-DOS or PC DOS. Software that directly addressed the hardware instead of making standard calls was faster, however; this was particularly relevant to games. Software addressing IBM PC hardware in this way would not run on MS-DOS machines with different hardware (for example, the PC-98). The IBM PC was sold in high enough volumes to justify writing software specifically for it, and this encouraged other manufacturers to produce machines that could use the same programs, expansion cards, and peripherals as the PC. The x86 computer marketplace rapidly excluded all machines which were not hardware-compatible or software-compatible with the PC. The 640 KB barrier on "conventional" system memory available to MS-DOS is a legacy of that period; other non-clone machines, while subject to a limit, could exceed 640 KB. Rumors of "lookalike," compatible computers, created without IBM's approval, began almost immediately after the IBM PC's release. InfoWorld wrote on the first anniversary of the IBM PC that The dark side of an open system is its imitators. If the specs are clear enough for you to design peripherals, they are clear enough for you to design imitations. Apple ... has patents on two important components of its systems ... IBM, which reportedly has no special patents on the PC, is even more vulnerable. Numerous PC-compatible machines—the grapevine says 60 or more—have begun to appear in the marketplace. By June 1983 PC Magazine defined "PC 'clone'" as "a computer [that can] accommodate the user who takes a disk home from an IBM PC, walks across the room, and plugs it into the 'foreign' machine". Demand for the PC by then was so strong that dealers received 60% or less of the inventory they wanted, and many customers purchased clones instead. Columbia Data Products produced the first computer more or less compatible with the IBM PC standard during June 1982, soon followed by Eagle Computer. Compaq announced its first product, an IBM PC compatible in November 1982, the Compaq Portable. The Compaq was the first sewing machine-sized portable computer that was essentially 100% PC-compatible. The court decision in Apple v. Franklin, was that BIOS code was protected by copyright law, but it could reverse-engineer the IBM BIOS and then write its own BIOS using clean room design. Note this was over a year after Compaq released the Portable. The money and research put into reverse-engineering the BIOS was a calculated risk. Compatibility issues At the same time, many manufacturers such as Tandy/RadioShack, Xerox, Hewlett-Packard, Digital Equipment Corporation, Sanyo, Texas Instruments, Tulip, Wang and Olivetti introduced personal computers that supported MS-DOS, but were not completely software- or hardware-compatible with the IBM PC. Tandy described the Tandy 2000, for example, as having a "'next generation' true 16-bit CPU", and with "More speed. More disk storage. More expansion" than the IBM PC or "other MS-DOS computers". While admitting in 1984 that many PC DOS programs did not work on the computer, the company stated that "the most popular, sophisticated software on the market" was available, either immediately or "over the next six months". Like IBM, Microsoft's apparent intention was that application writers would write to the application programming interfaces in MS-DOS or the firmware BIOS, and that this would form what would now be termed a hardware abstraction layer. Each computer would have its own Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) version of MS-DOS, customized to its hardware. Any software written for MS-DOS would operate on any MS-DOS computer, despite variations in hardware design. This expectation seemed reasonable in the computer marketplace of the time. Until then Microsoft's business was based primarily on computer languages such as BASIC. The established small system operating software was CP/M from Digital Research which was in use both at the hobbyist level and by the more professional of those using microcomputers. To achieve such widespread use, and thus make the product viable economically, the OS had to operate across a range of machines from different vendors that had widely varying hardware. Those customers who needed other applications than the starter programs could reasonably expect publishers to offer their products for a variety of computers, on suitable media for each. Microsoft's competing OS was intended initially to operate on a similar varied spectrum of hardware, although all based on the 8086 processor. Thus, MS-DOS was for several years sold only as an OEM product. There was no Microsoft-branded MS-DOS: MS-DOS could not be purchased directly from Microsoft, and each OEM release was packaged with the trade dress of the given PC vendor. Malfunctions were to be reported to the OEM, not to Microsoft. However, as machines that were compatible with IBM hardware—thus supporting direct calls to the hardware—became widespread, it soon became clear that the OEM versions of MS-DOS were virtually identical, except perhaps for the provision of a few utility programs. MS-DOS provided adequate functionality for character-oriented applications such as those that could have been implemented on a text-only terminal. Had the bulk of commercially important software been of this nature, low-level hardware compatibility might not have mattered. However, in order to provide maximum performance and leverage hardware features (or work around hardware bugs), PC applications quickly developed beyond the simple terminal applications that MS-DOS supported directly. Spreadsheets, WYSIWYG word processors, presentation software and remote communication software established new markets that exploited the PC's strengths, but required capabilities beyond what MS-DOS provided. Thus, from very early in the development of the MS-DOS software environment, many significant commercial software products were written directly to the hardware, for a variety of reasons: First-generation PC workalikes by IBM competitors The first thing to think about when considering an IBM-compatible computer is, "How compatible is it?" — BYTE, September 1983 In May 1983, Future Computing defined four levels of compatibility: During development, Compaq engineers found that Microsoft Flight Simulator would not run because of what subLOGIC's Bruce Artwick described as "a bug in one of Intel's chips", forcing them to make their new computer bug compatible with the IBM PC. At first, few clones other than Compaq's offered truly full compatibility. Compaq developed its own MS-DOS variant, COMPAQ-DOS, slightly more compatible with PC DOS than MS-DOS itself; Microsoft later discontinued MS-DOS development and resold COMPAQ-DOS as MS-DOS. Jerry Pournelle purchased an IBM PC in mid-1983, "rotten keyboard and all", because he had "four cubic feet of unevaluated software, much of which won't run on anything but an IBM PC. Although a lot of machines claim to be 100 percent IBM PC compatible, I've yet to have one arrive ... Alas, a lot of stuff doesn't run with Eagle, Z-100, Compupro, or anything else we have around here". Columbia Data Products's November 1983 sales brochure stated that during tests with retail-purchased computers in October 1983, its own and Compaq's products were compatible with all tested PC software, while Corona and Eagle's were less compatible. Columbia University reported in January 1984 that Kermit ran without modification on Compaq and Columbia Data Products clones, but not on those from Eagle or Seequa. Other MS-DOS computers also required custom code. By December 1983 Future Computing stated that companies like Compaq, Columbia Data Products, and Corona that emphasized IBM PC compatibility had been successful, while non-compatible computers had hurt the reputations of others like TI and DEC despite superior technology. At a San Francisco meeting it warned 200 attendees, from many American and foreign computer companies as well as IBM itself, to "Jump on the IBM PC-compatible bandwagon—quickly, and as compatibly as possible". Future Computing said in February 1984 that some computers were "press-release compatible", exaggerating their actual compatibility with the IBM PC. Many companies were reluctant to have their products' PC compatibility tested. When PC Magazine requested samples from computer manufacturers that claimed to produce compatibles for an April 1984 review, 14 of 31 declined. Corona specified that "Our systems run all software that conforms to IBM PC programming standards. And the most popular software does." When a BYTE journalist asked to test Peachtext at the Spring 1983 COMDEX, Corona representatives "hemmed and hawed a bit, but they finally led me ... off in the corner where no one would see it should it fail". The magazine reported that "Their hesitancy was unnecessary. The disk booted up without a problem". Zenith Data Systems was bolder, bragging that its Z-150 ran all applications people brought to test with at the 1984 West Coast Computer Faire. Creative Computing in 1985 stated, "we reiterate our standard line regarding the IBM PC compatibles: try the package you want to use before you buy the computer." Companies modified their computers' BIOS to work with newly discovered incompatible applications, and reviewers and users developed stress tests to measure compatibility; by 1984 the ability to operate Lotus 1-2-3 and Flight Simulator became the standard, with compatibles specifically designed to run them and prominently advertising their compatibility. IBM believed that some companies such as Eagle, Corona, and Handwell infringed on its copyright, and after Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp. successfully forced the clone makers to stop using the BIOS. The Phoenix BIOS in 1984, however, and similar products such as AMI BIOS, permitted computer makers to legally build essentially 100%-compatible clones without having to reverse-engineer the PC BIOS themselves. A September 1985 InfoWorld chart listed seven compatibles with 256 KB RAM, two disk drives, and monochrome monitors for $1,495 to $2,320, while the equivalent IBM PC cost $2,820. The Zenith Z-150 and inexpensive Leading Edge Model D are even compatible with IBM proprietary diagnostic software, unlike the Compaq Portable. By 1986 Compute! stated that "clones are generally reliable and about 99 percent compatible", and a 1987 survey in the magazine of the clone industry did not mention software compatibility, stating that "PC by now has come to stand for a computer capable of running programs that are managed by MS-DOS". The decreasing influence of IBM The main reason why an IBM standard is not worrying is that it can help competition to flourish. IBM will soon be as much a prisoner of its standards as its competitors are. Once enough IBM machines have been bought, IBM cannot make sudden changes in their basic design; what might be useful for shedding competitors would shake off even more customers. — The Economist, November 1983 In February 1984 Byte wrote that "IBM's burgeoning influence in the PC community is stifling innovation because so many other companies are mimicking Big Blue", but The Economist stated in November 1983, "The main reason why an IBM standard is not worrying is that it can help competition to flourish". By 1983, IBM had about 25% of sales of personal computers between $1,000 and $10,000, and computers with some PC compatibility were another 25%. The president of a company that sold compatibles for $2000 wholesale told PC that they could still be profitable at $1000 wholesale. As the market and competition grew IBM's influence diminished. Writing that even "IBM has to continue to be IBM compatible", in November 1985 PC Magazine stated "Now that it has created the [PC] market, the market doesn't necessarily need IBM for the machines. It may depend on IBM to set standards and to develop higher-performance machines, but IBM had better conform to existing standards so as to not hurt users". Observers noted IBM's silence when the industry that year quickly adopted the expanded memory standard, created by Lotus and Intel without IBM's participation; PC said that IBM would not be able to introduce its own standard "without creating utter chaos in the market". In January 1987, Bruce Webster wrote in Byte of rumors that IBM would introduce proprietary personal computers with a proprietary operating system: "Who cares? If IBM does it, they will most likely just isolate themselves from the largest marketplace, in which they really can't compete anymore anyway". He predicted that in 1987 the market "will complete its transition from an IBM standard to an Intel/MS-DOS/expansion bus standard ... Folks aren't so much concerned about IBM compatibility as they are about Lotus 1-2-3 compatibility". By 1992, Macworld stated that because of clones, "IBM lost control of its own market and became a minor player with its own technology". The Economist predicted in 1983 that "IBM will soon be as much a prisoner of its standards as its competitors are", because "Once enough IBM machines have been bought, IBM cannot make sudden changes in their basic design; what might be useful for shedding competitors would shake off even more customers". After the Compaq Deskpro 386 became the first 80386-based PC, PC wrote that owners of the new computer did not need to fear that future IBM products would be incompatible with the Compaq, because such changes would also affect millions of real IBM PCs: "In sticking it to the competition, IBM would be doing the same to its own people". After IBM announced the OS/2-oriented PS/2 line in early 1987, sales of existing DOS-compatible PC compatibles rose, in part because the proprietary operating system was not available. In 1988, Gartner Group estimated that the public purchased 1.5 clones for every IBM PC. By 1989 Compaq was so influential that industry executives spoke of "Compaq compatible", with observers stating that customers saw the company as IBM's equal or superior. A 1990 American Institute of Certified Public Accountants member survey found that 23% of respondents used IBM computer hardware, and 16% used Compaq. After 1987, IBM PC compatibles dominated both the home and business markets of commodity computers, with other notable alternative architectures being used in niche markets, like the Macintosh computers offered by Apple Inc. and used mainly for desktop publishing at the time, the aging 8-bit Commodore 64 which was selling for $150 by this time and became the world's bestselling computer, the 16-bit Commodore Amiga line used for television and video production and the 16-bit Atari ST used by the music industry. However, IBM itself lost the main role in the market for IBM PC compatibles by 1990. A few events are important in retrospect: Despite popularity of its ThinkPad set of laptop PC's, IBM finally relinquished its role as a consumer PC manufacturer during April 2005, when it sold its laptop and desktop PC divisions (ThinkPad/ThinkCentre) to Lenovo for US$1.75 billion. As of October 2007, Hewlett-Packard and Dell had the largest shares of the PC market in North America. They were also successful overseas, with Acer, Lenovo, and Toshiba also notable. Worldwide, a huge number of PCs are "white box" systems assembled by myriad local systems builders. Despite advances of computer technology, the IBM PC compatibles remained very much compatible with the original IBM PC computers, although most of the components implement the compatibility in special backward compatibility modes used only during a system boot. It was often more practical to run old software on a modern system using an emulator rather than relying on these features. In 2014 Lenovo acquired IBM's x86-based server (System x) business for US$2.1 billion. Expandability One of the strengths of the PC-compatible design is its modular hardware design. End-users could readily upgrade peripherals and, to some degree, processor and memory without modifying the computer's motherboard or replacing the whole computer, as was the case with many of the microcomputers of the time. However, as processor speed and memory width increased, the limits of the original XT/AT bus design were soon reached, particularly when driving graphics video cards. IBM did introduce an upgraded bus in the IBM PS/2 computer that overcame many of the technical limits of the XT/AT bus, but this was rarely used as the basis for IBM-compatible computers since it required license payments to IBM both for the PS/2 bus and any prior AT-bus designs produced by the company seeking a license. This was unpopular with hardware manufacturers and several competing bus standards were developed by consortiums, with more agreeable license terms. Various attempts to standardize the interfaces were made, but in practice, many of these attempts were either flawed or ignored. Even so, there were many expansion options, and despite the confusion of its users, the PC compatible design advanced much faster than other competing designs of the time, even if only because of its market dominance. "IBM PC compatible" becomes "Wintel" During the 1990s, IBM's influence on PC architecture started to decline. "IBM PC compatible" becomes "Standard PC" in 1990s, and later "ACPI PC" in 2000s. An IBM-brand PC became the exception rather than the rule. Instead of placing importance on compatibility with the IBM PC, vendors began to emphasize compatibility with Windows. In 1993, a version of Windows NT was released that could operate on processors other than the x86 set. While it required that applications be recompiled, which most developers did not do, its hardware independence was used for Silicon Graphics (SGI) x86 workstations–thanks to NT's Hardware abstraction layer (HAL), they could operate NT (and its vast application library)[clarification needed]. No mass-market personal computer hardware vendor dared to be incompatible with the latest version of Windows, and Microsoft's annual WinHEC conferences provided a setting in which Microsoft could lobby for—and in some cases dictate—the pace and direction of the hardware of the PC industry. Microsoft and Intel had become so important to the ongoing development of PC hardware that industry writers began using the word Wintel to refer to the combined hardware-software system. This terminology itself is becoming a misnomer, as Intel has lost absolute control over the direction of x86 hardware development with AMD's AMD64. Additionally, non-Windows operating systems like macOS and Linux have established a presence on the x86 architecture. Design limitations and more compatibility issues Although the IBM PC was designed for expandability, the designers could not anticipate the hardware developments of the 1980s, nor the size of the industry they would engender. To make things worse, IBM's choice of the Intel 8088 for the CPU introduced several limitations for developing software for the PC compatible platform. For example, the 8088 processor only had a 20-bit memory addressing space. To expand PCs beyond one megabyte, Lotus, Intel, and Microsoft jointly created expanded memory (EMS), a bank-switching scheme to allow more memory provided by add-in hardware, and accessed by a set of four 16-kilobyte "windows" inside the 20-bit addressing. Later, Intel CPUs had larger address spaces and could directly address 16 MB (80286) or more, causing Microsoft to develop extended memory (XMS) which did not require additional hardware. "Expanded" and "extended" memory have incompatible interfaces, so anyone writing software that used more than one megabyte had to provide for both systems for the greatest compatibility until MS-DOS began including EMM386, which simulated EMS memory using XMS memory. A protected mode OS can also be written for the 80286, but DOS application compatibility was more difficult than expected, not only because most DOS applications accessed the hardware directly, bypassing BIOS routines intended to ensure compatibility, but also that most BIOS requests were made by the first 32 interrupt vectors, which were marked as "reserved" for protected mode processor exceptions by Intel. Video cards suffered from their own incompatibilities. There was no standard interface for using higher-resolution SVGA graphics modes supported by later video cards. Each manufacturer developed their own methods of accessing the screen memory, including different mode numberings and different bank switching arrangements. The latter were used to address large images within a single 64 KB segment of memory. Previously, the VGA standard had used planar video memory arrangements to the same effect, but this did not easily extend to the greater color depths and higher resolutions offered by SVGA adapters. An attempt at creating a standard named VESA BIOS Extensions (VBE) was made, but not all manufacturers used it. When the 386 was introduced, again a protected mode OS could be written for it. This time, DOS compatibility was much easier because of virtual 8086 mode. Unfortunately programs could not switch directly between them, so eventually, some new memory-model APIs were developed, VCPI and DPMI, the latter becoming the most popular. Because of the great number of third-party adapters and no standard for them, programming the PC could be difficult. Professional developers would operate a large test-suite of various known-to-be-popular hardware combinations. To give consumers some idea of what sort of PC they would need to operate their software, the Multimedia PC (MPC) standard was set during 1990. A PC that met the minimum MPC standard could be marketed with the MPC logo, giving consumers an easy-to-understand specification to look for. Software that could operate on the most minimally MPC-compliant PC would be guaranteed[who?] to operate on any MPC. The MPC level 2 and MPC level 3 standards were set later, but the term "MPC compliant" never became popular. After MPC level 3 during 1996, no further MPC standards were established. Challenges to Wintel domination (of which 490 with Windows) (of which 11,056 with Windows) By the late 1990s, the success of Microsoft Windows had driven rival commercial operating systems into near-extinction, and had ensured that the "IBM PC compatible" computer was the dominant computing platform. This meant that if a developer made their software only for the Wintel platform, they would still be able to reach the vast majority of computer users. The only major competitor to Windows with more than a few percentage points of market share was Apple Inc.'s Macintosh. The Mac started out billed as "the computer for the rest of us", but high prices and closed architecture drove the Macintosh into an education and desktop publishing niche, from which it only emerged in the mid-2000s. By the mid-1990s the Mac's market share had dwindled to around 5% and introducing a new rival operating system had become too risky a commercial venture. Experience had shown that even if an operating system was technically superior to Windows, it would be a failure in the market (BeOS and OS/2 for example). In 1989, Steve Jobs said of his new NeXT system, "It will either be the last new hardware platform to succeed, or the first to fail."[citation needed] Four years later in 1993, NeXT announced it was ending production of the NeXTcube and porting NeXTSTEP to Intel processors. Very early on in PC history, some companies introduced their own XT-compatible chipsets. For example, Chips and Technologies introduced their 82C100 XT Controller which integrated and replaced six of the original XT circuits: one 8237 DMA controller, one 8253 interrupt timer, one 8255 parallel interface controller, one 8259 interrupt controller, one 8284 clock generator, and one 8288 bus controller. Similar non-Intel chipsets appeared for the AT-compatibles, for example OPTi's 82C206 or 82C495XLC which were found in many 486 and early Pentium systems. The x86 chipset market was very volatile though. In 1993, VLSI Technology had become the dominant market player only to be virtually wiped out by Intel a year later. Intel has been the uncontested leader ever since. As the "Wintel" platform gained dominance Intel gradually abandoned the practice of licensing its technologies to other chipset makers; in 2010 Intel was involved in litigation related to their refusal to license their processor bus and related technologies to other companies like Nvidia. Companies such as AMD and Cyrix developed alternative x86 CPUs that were functionally compatible with Intel's. Towards the end of the 1990s, AMD was taking an increasing share of the CPU market for PCs. AMD even ended up playing a significant role in directing the development of the x86 platform when its Athlon line of processors continued to develop the classic x86 architecture as Intel deviated with its NetBurst architecture for the Pentium 4 CPUs and the IA-64 architecture for the Itanium set of server CPUs. AMD developed AMD64, the first major extension not created by Intel, which Intel later adopted as x86-64. During 2006 Intel began abandoning NetBurst with the release of their set of "Core" processors that represented a development of the earlier Pentium III. A major alternative to Wintel domination is the rise of alternative operating systems since the early 2000s, which marked as the start of the post-PC era.[citation needed] This would include both the rapid growth of the smartphones (using Android or iOS) as an alternative to the personal computer; and the increasing prevalence of Linux and Unix-like operating systems in the server farms of large corporations such as Google or Amazon. The IBM PC compatible today The term "IBM PC compatible" is not commonly used presently because[citation needed] many current mainstream desktop and laptop computers are based on the PC architecture,: 39–40 and IBM no longer makes PCs. The competing hardware architectures have either been discontinued or, like the Amiga, have been relegated to niche, enthusiast markets. The most successful exception is Apple's Macintosh platform, which has used non-Intel processors for the majority of its existence. Macintosh was initially based on the Motorola 68000 series, then transitioned to the PowerPC architecture in 1994 before transitioning to Intel processors beginning in 2006. Until the transition to the internally developed ARM-based Apple silicon in 2020, Macs shared the same system architecture as their Wintel counterparts and could boot Microsoft Windows without a DOS Compatibility Card. The processor speed and memory capacity of modern PCs are many orders of magnitude greater than they were for the original IBM PC and yet backwards compatibility has been largely maintained – a 32-bit operating system released during the 2000s[update] can still operate many of the simpler programs written for the OS of the early 1980s without needing an emulator, though an emulator like DOSBox now has near-native functionality at full speed (and is necessary for certain games which may run too fast on modern processors). Additionally, many modern PCs can still run DOS directly, although special options such as USB legacy mode and SATA-to-PATA emulation may need to be set in the BIOS setup utility. Computers using the UEFI might need to be set at legacy BIOS mode to be able to boot DOS. However, the BIOS/UEFI options in most mass-produced consumer-grade computers are very limited and cannot be configured to truly handle OSes such as the original variants of DOS. The spread of the x86-64 architecture has further distanced current computers' and operating systems' internal similarity with the original IBM PC by introducing yet another processor mode with an instruction set modified for 64-bit addressing, but x86-64 capable processors also retain standard x86 compatibility. See also References |
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Contents Thirty-seventh government of Israel The thirty-seventh government of Israel is the current cabinet of Israel, formed on 29 December 2022, following the Knesset election the previous month. The coalition government currently consists of five parties — Likud, Shas, Otzma Yehudit, Religious Zionist Party and New Hope — and is led by Benjamin Netanyahu, who took office as the prime minister of Israel for the sixth time. The government is widely regarded as the most right-wing government in the country's history, and includes far-right politicians. Several of the government's policy proposals have led to controversies, both within Israel and abroad, with the government's attempts at reforming the judiciary leading to a wave of demonstrations across the country. Following the outbreak of the Gaza war, opposition leader Yair Lapid initiated discussions with Netanyahu on the formation of an emergency government. On 11 October 2023, National Unity MKs Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot, Gideon Sa'ar, Hili Tropper, and Yifat Shasha-Biton joined the Security Cabinet of Israel to form an emergency national unity government. Their accession to the Security Cabinet and to the government (as ministers without portfolio) was approved by the Knesset the following day. Gantz, Netanyahu, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant became part of the newly formed Israeli war cabinet, with Eisenkot and Ron Dermer serving as observers. National Unity left the government in June 2024. New Hope rejoined the government in September. Otzma Yehudit announced on 19 January 2025 that it had withdrawn from the government, which took effect on 21 January, following the cabinet's acceptance of the three-phase Gaza war ceasefire proposal, though it rejoined two months later. United Torah Judaism left the government in July 2025 over dissatisfaction with the government's draft conscription law. Shas left the government several days later, though it remains part of the coalition. Background The right-wing bloc of parties, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, known in Israel as the national camp, won 64 of the 120 seats in the elections for the Knesset, while the coalition led by the incumbent prime minister Yair Lapid won 51 seats. The new majority has been variously described as the most right-wing government in Israeli history, as well as Israel's most religious government. Shortly after the elections, Lapid conceded to Netanyahu, and congratulated him, wishing him luck "for the sake of the Israeli people". On 15 November, the swearing-in ceremony for the newly elected members of the 25th Knesset was held during the opening session. The vote to appoint a new Speaker of the Knesset, which is usually conducted at the opening session, as well as the swearing in of cabinet members were postponed since ongoing coalition negotiations had not yet resulted in agreement on these positions. Government formation Yair Lapid Yesh Atid Benjamin Netanyahu Likud On 3 November 2022, Netanyahu told his aide Yariv Levin to begin informal coalition talks with allied parties, after 97% of the vote was counted. The leader of the Shas party Aryeh Deri met with Yitzhak Goldknopf, the leader of United Torah Judaism and its Agudat Yisrael faction, on 4 November. The two parties agreed to cooperate as members of the next government. The Degel HaTorah faction of United Torah Judaism stated on 5 November that it will maintain its ideological stance about not seeking any ministerial posts, as per the instruction of its spiritual leader Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, but will seek other senior posts like Knesset committee chairmen and deputy ministers. Netanyahu himself started holding talks on 6 November. He first met with Moshe Gafni, the leader of Degel HaTorah, and then with Goldknopf. Meanwhile, the Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich and the leader of its Otzma Yehudit faction Itamar Ben-Gvir pledged that they would not enter the coalition without the other faction. Gafni later met with Smotrich for coalition talks. Smotrich then met with Netanyahu. On 7 November, Netanyahu met with Ben-Gvir who demanded the Ministry of Public Security with expanded powers for himself and the Ministry of Education or Transport and Road Safety for Yitzhak Wasserlauf. A major demand among all of Netanyahu's allies was that the Knesset be allowed to ignore the rulings of the Supreme Court. Netanyahu met with the Noam faction leader and its sole MK Avi Maoz on 8 November after he threatened to boycott the coalition. He demanded complete control of the Western Wall by the Haredi rabbinate and removal of what he considered as anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish content in schoolbooks. President Isaac Herzog began consultations with heads of all the political parties on 9 November after the election results were certified. During the consultations, he expressed his reservations about Ben-Gvir becoming a member in the next government. Shas met with Likud for coalition talks on 10 November. By 11 November, Netanyahu had secured recommendations from 64 MKs, which constituted a majority. He was given the mandate to form the thirty-seventh government of Israel by President Herzog on 13 November. Otzma Yehudit and Noam officially split from Religious Zionism on 20 November as per a pre-election agreement. On 25 November, Otzma Yehudit and Likud signed a coalition agreement, under which Ben-Gvir will assume the newly created position of National Security Minister, whose powers would be more expansive than that of the Minister of Public Security, including overseeing the Israel Police and the Israel Border Police in the West Bank, as well as giving powers to authorities to shoot thieves stealing from military bases. Yitzhak Wasserlauf was given the Ministry for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee with expanded powers to regulate new West Bank settlements, while separating it from the "Periphery" portfolio, which will be given to Shas. The deal also includes giving the Ministry of Heritage to Amihai Eliyahu, separating it from the "Jerusalem Affairs" portfolio, the chairmanship of the Knesset's Public Security Committee to Zvika Fogel and that of the Special Committee for the Israeli Citizens' Fund to Limor Son Har-Melech, the post of Deputy Economic Minister to Almog Cohen, establishment of a national guard, and expansion of mobilization of reservists in the Border Police. Netanyahu and Maoz signed a coalition agreement on 27 November, under which the latter would become a deputy minister, would head an agency on Jewish identity in the Prime Minister's Office, and would also head Nativ, which processes the aliyah from the former Soviet Union. The agency for Jewish identity would have authority over educational content taught outside the regular curriculum in schools, in addition to the department of the Ministry of Education overseeing external teaching and partnerships, which would bring nonofficial organisations permitted to teach and lecture at schools under its purview. Likud signed a coalition agreement with the Religious Zionist Party on 1 December. Under the deal, Smotrich would serve as the Minister of Finance in rotation with Aryeh Deri, and the party will receive the post of a minister within the Ministry of Defense with control over the departments administering settlement and open lands under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, in addition to another post of a deputy minister. The deal also includes giving the post of Minister of Aliyah and Integration to Ofir Sofer, the newly created National Missions Ministry to Orit Strook, and the chairmanship of the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee to Simcha Rothman. Likud and United Torah Judaism signed a coalition agreement on 6 December, to allow request for an extension to the deadline. Under it, the party would receive the Ministry of Construction and Housing, the chairmanship of the Knesset Finance Committee which will be given to Moshe Gafni, the Ministry of Jerusalem and Tradition (which would replace the Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage), in addition to several posts of deputy ministers and chairmanships of Knesset committees. Likud also signed a deal with Shas by 8 December, securing interim coalition agreements with all of their allies. Under the deal, Deri will first serve as the Minister of Interior and Health, before rotating posts with Smotrich after two years. The party will also receive the Ministry of Religious Services and Welfare Ministries, as well as posts of deputy ministers in the Ministry of Education and Interior. The vote to replace then-incumbent Knesset speaker Mickey Levy was scheduled for 13 December, after Likud and its allies secured the necessary number of signatures for it. Yariv Levin of Likud was elected as an interim speaker by 64 votes, while his opponents Merav Ben-Ari of Yesh Atid and Ayman Odeh of Hadash received 45 and five votes respectively. Netanyahu asked Herzog for a 14-day extension after the agreement with Shas to finalise the roles his allied parties would play. Herzog on 9 December extended the deadline to 21 December. On that date, Netanyahu informed Herzog that he had succeeded in forming a coalition, with the new government expected to be sworn in by 2 January 2023. The government was sworn in on 29 December 2022. Timeline Israeli law stated that people convicted of crimes cannot serve in the government. An amendment to that law was made in late 2022, known colloquially as the Deri Law, to allow those who had been convicted without prison time to serve. This allowed Deri to be appointed to the cabinet. Shas leader Aryeh Deri was appointed to be Minister of Health, Minister of the Interior, and Vice Prime Minister in December 2022. He was fired in January 2023, following a Supreme Court decision that his appointment was unreasonable, since he had been convicted of fraud, and had promised not to seek government roles through a plea deal. In March 2023, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant called on the government to delay legislation related to the judicial reform. Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that he had been dismissed from his position, leading to the continuation of mass protests across the country (which had started in January in Tel Aviv). Gallant continued to serve as a minister as he had not received formal notice of dismissal, and two weeks later it was announced that Netanyahu had reversed his decision. Public Safety Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (Otzma Yehudit leader) and Minister of Justice Yariv Levin (Likud) both threatened to resign if the judicial reform was delayed.[better source needed] After the outbreak of the Gaza war, five members of the National Unity party joined the government as ministers without portfolio, with leader Benny Gantz being made a member of the new Israeli war cabinet (along with Netanyahu and Gallant). As the war progressed, minister of national security Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened to leave the government if the war was ended. A month later in mid December, he again threatened to leave if the war did not maintain "full strength". Gideon Sa'ar stated on 16 March that his New Hope party would resign from the government and join the opposition if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not appoint him to the Israeli war cabinet. Netanyahu did not do so, resulting in Sa'ar's New Hope party leaving the government nine days later, reducing the size of the coalition from 76 MKs to 72. Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, of the National Religious Party–Religious Zionism party, have indicated that they will withdraw their parties from the government if the January 2025 Gaza war ceasefire is adopted, which would bring down the government. Ben-Gvir announced on 5 June that the members of his party would be allowed to vote as they wish, though his party resumed support on 9 June. On 18 May, Gantz set an 8 June deadline for withdrawal from the coalition, which was delayed by a day following the 2024 Nuseirat rescue operation. Gantz and his party left the government on 9 June, giving the government 64 seats in the Knesset. Sa'ar and his New Hope party rejoined the Netanyahu government on 30 September, increasing the number of seats held by the government to 68. The High Court of Justice ruled on 28 March 2024 that yeshiva funds would no longer be available for students who are "eligible for enlistment", effectively allowing ultra-Orthodox Jews to be drafted into the IDF. Attorney general Gali Baharav-Miara indicated on 31 March that the conscription process must begin on 1 April. The court ruled on 25 June that the IDF must begin to draft yeshiva students. Likud announced on 7 July that it would not put forward any legislation after Shas and United Torah Judaism said that they would boycott the plenary session over the lack of legislation dealing with the Haredi draft. The Ultra-Orthodox boycott continued for a second day, with UTJ briefly ending its boycott on 9 July to unsuccessfully vote in favor of a bill which would have weakened the Law of Return. Yuli Edelstein, who was replaced by Boaz Bismuth on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in early August, published a draft version of the conscription law shortly before his ouster. Bismuth cancelled the work on the draft law in September 2025, which Edelstein called "a shame." Bismuth released the official version of the draft law in late November 2025. It weakened penalties for draft evaders, with Edelstein saying it was "the exact opposite" of the bill which he attempted to pass. Members of Otzma Yehudit resigned from the government on 19 January 2025 over the January 2025 Gaza war ceasefire, which took effect on 21 January. The members rejoined in March, following the "resumption" of the war in Gaza. Avi Maoz of the Noam party left the government in March 2025. On 4 June 2025, senior rabbis for United Torah Judaism Dov Lando and Moshe Hillel Hirsch instructed the party's MKs to pass a bill which would dissolve the Knesset. Yesh Atid, Yisrael Beytenu and The Democrats announced that they will "submit a bill" for dissolution on 11 June, with Yesh Atid tabling the bill on 4 June. There were also reports that Shas would vote in favor of Knesset dissolution amidst division within the governing coalition on Haredi conscription. This jeopardized the coalition's majority and would have triggered new elections if the bill passed. The following day, Agudat Yisrael, one of the United Torah Judaism factions, confirmed that it would submit a bill to dissolve the Knesset. Asher Medina, a Shas spokesman, indicated on 9 June that the party would vote in favor of a preliminary bill to dissolve the Knesset. The rabbis of Degel HaTorah instructed the parties' MKs on 12 June 2025 to oppose the dissolution of the Knesset, which was followed by Yuli Edelstein and the Shas and Degel HaTorah parties announcing that a deal had been reached, with "rabbinical leaders" telling their parties to delay the dissolution vote by a week. Shas and Degel HaTorah voted against the dissolution bill, which led to the bill failing its preliminary reading in a vote of 61 against and 53 in favor. MKs Ya'akov Tessler and Moshe Roth of Agudat Yisrael voted in favor of dissolution. Another dissolution bill will be unable to be brought forward for six months. If the bill had passed its preliminary reading, in addition to three more readings, an election would have been held in approximately three months; The Jerusalem Post posited it would have been held in October. Degel HaTorah announced on 14 July 2025 that it would leave the government because members of the party were dissatisfied after viewing the proposed draft bill by Yuli Edelstein regarding Haredi exemptions from the Israeli draft. Several hours later, Agudat Yisrael announced that it would also leave the government. Deputy Transportation Minister Uri Maklev, Moshe Gafni, the head of the Knesset Finance Committee, Ya'akov Asher, the head of the Knesset Interior and Environment Protection Committee and Jerusalem Affairs minister Meir Porush all submitted their resignations, with their resignations taking effect in 48 hours. Sports Minister Ya'akov Tessler and "Special Committee for Public Petitions Chair" Yitzhak Pindrus also submitted resignations. Yisrael Eichler submitted his resignation as the "head of the Knesset Labor and Welfare Committee" the same day. The resignations will leave Netanyahu's government with a 60-seat majority in the Knesset, as Avi Maoz, of the Noam party, left the government in March 2025. Despite Edelstein's ouster in August, a spokesman for UTJ head Yitzhak Goldknopf remarked that it would not change the faction's withdrawal from the government. The religious council for Shas, called the Moetzet Chachmei HaTorah, instructed the party on 16 July to leave the government, but stay in the coalition. The following day, various cabinet ministers submitted their resignations, including "Interior Minister Moshe Arbel, Social Affairs Minister Ya'akov Margi and Religious Services Minister Michael Malchieli." Malchieli reportedly has postponed his resignation so he could attend a 20 July meeting of the panel investigating whether attorney general Gali Baharav-Miara should be dismissed. Deputy Minister of Agriculture Moshe Abutbul, Minister of Health Uriel Buso and Haim Biton, a minister in the Education Ministry, also submitted their resignation letters, while Arbel retracted his resignation letter. The last cabinet member from the party to submit it was Labor Minister Yoav Ben-Tzur. The ministers who resigned will return to the Knesset, replacing MKs Moshe Roth, Yitzhak Pindrus and Eliyahu Baruchi. Members of government Listed below are the current ministers in the government: Principles and priorities According to the agreements signed between Likud and each of its coalition partners, and the incoming government's published guideline principles, its stated priorities are to combat the cost of living, further centralize Orthodox control over the state religious services, pass judicial reforms which include legislation to reduce judicial controls on executive and legislative power, expand settlements in the West Bank, and consider an annexation of the West Bank. Before the vote of confidence in his new government in the Knesset, Netanyahu presented three top priorities for the new government: internal security and governance, halting the nuclear program of Iran, and the development of infrastructure, with a focus on further connecting the center of the country with its periphery. Policies The government's flagship program, centered around reforms in the judicial branch, drew widespread criticism. Critics said it would have negative effects on the separation of powers, the office of the Attorney General, the economy, public health, women and minorities, workers' rights, scientific research, the overall strength of Israel's democracy and its foreign relations. After weeks of public protests on Israel's streets, joined by a growing number of military reservists, Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant spoke against the reform on 25 March, calling for a halt of the legislative process "for the sake of Israel's security". The next day, Netanyahu announced that he would be removed from his post, sparking another wave of protest across Israel and ultimately leading to Netanyahu agreeing to pause the legislation. On 10 April, Netanyahu announced that Gallant would keep his post. On 27 March 2023, after the public protests and general strikes, Netanyahu announced a pause in the reform process to allow for dialogue with opposition parties. However, negotiations aimed at reaching a compromise collapsed in June, and the government resumed its plans to unilaterally pass parts of the legislation. On 24 July 2023, the Knesset passed a bill that curbs the power of the Supreme Court to declare government decisions unreasonable; on 1 January 2024, the Supreme Court struck the bill down. The Knesset passed a "watered-down" version of the judicial reform package in late March 2025 which "changes the composition" of the judicial selection committee. In December 2022 Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir sought to amend the law that regulates the operations of the Israel Police, such that the ministry will have more direct control of its forces and policies, including its investigative priorities. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara objected to the draft proposal, raising concerns that the law would enable the politicization of police work, and the draft was amended to partially address those concerns. Nevertheless, in March 2023 Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon stated that the Attorney General's fears had been realized, referring to several instances of ministerial involvement in the day-to-day work of the otherwise independent police force – statements that were repeated by the Attorney General herself two days later. Separately, Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai instructed Deputy Commissioners to avoid direct communication with the minister, later stating that "the Israel Police will remain apolitical, and act only according to law". Following appeals by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, the High Court of Justice instructed Ben-Gvir "to refrain from giving operational directions to the police... [especially] as regards to protests and demonstrations against the government." As talks of halting the judicial reform gained wind during March 2023, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened to resign if the legislation implementing the changes was suspended. To appease Ben-Gvir, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that the government would promote the creation of a new National Guard, to be headed by Ben-Gvir. On 29 March, thousands of Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem against this decision. On 1 April, the New York Times quoted Gadeer Nicola, head of the Arab department at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, as saying "If this thing passes, it will be an imminent danger to the rights of Arab citizens in this country. This will create two separate systems of applying the law. The regular police which will operate against Jewish citizens — and a militarized militia to deal only with Arab citizens." The same day, while speaking on Israel's Channel 13 about those whom he'd like to see enlist in the National Guard, Ben-Gvir specifically mentioned La Familia, the far-right fan club of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team. On 2 April, Israel's cabinet approved the establishment of a law enforcement body that would operate independently of the police, under Ben-Gvir's authority. According to the decision, the Minister was to establish a committee chaired by the Director General of the Ministry of National Security, with representatives of the ministries of defense, justice and finance, as well as the police and the IDF, to outline the operations of the new organization. The committee's recommendations will be submitted to the government for consideration. Addressing a conference on 4 April, Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai said that he is not opposed to the establishment of a security body which would answer to the police, but "a separate body? Absolutely not." The police chief said he had warned Ben-Gvir that the establishment of a security body separate from the police is "unnecessary, with extremely high costs that may harm citizens' personal security." During a press conference on 10 April, Prime Minister Netanyahu said, in what has been seen by some news outlets as a concession to the protesters, that "This will not be anyone's militia, it will be a security body, orderly, professional, that will be subordinate to one of the [existing] security bodies." The committee established by the government recommended the government to order the establishment of the National Guard immediately while allocating budgets. The National Guard, under whose command will be a superintendent of the police, will not be subordinate to Ben-Gvir. It will be subordinate to the police commissioner and will be part of Israel Border Police. The Ministry of Defense and Finance opposed the conclusions. The Israeli National Security Council called for further discussion on this. The coalition's efforts to expand the purview of Rabbinical courts; force some organizations, such as hospitals, to enforce certain religious practices; amend the Law Prohibiting Discrimination to allow gender segregation and discrimination on the grounds of religious belief; expand funding for religious causes; and put into law the exemption of yeshiva and kolel students from conscription have drawn criticism. According to the Haaretz op-ed of 7 March 2023, "the current coalition is interested... in modifying the public space so it suits the religious lifestyle. The legal coup is meant to castrate anyone who can prevent it, most of all the HCJ." Several banks and institutional investors, including the Israel Discount Bank and AIG have committed to avoid investing in, or providing credit to any organization that will discriminate against others on ground of religion, race, gender or sexual orientation. A series of technology companies and investment firms including Wiz, Intel Israel, Salesforce and Microsoft Israel Research and Development, have criticized the proposed changes to the Law Prohibiting Discrimination, with Wiz stating that it will require its suppliers to commit to preventing discrimination. Over sixty prominent law firms pledged that they will neither represent, nor do business with discriminating individuals and organizations. Insight Partners, a major private equity fund operating in Israel, released a statement warning against intolerance and any attempt to harm personal liberties. Orit Lahav, chief executive of the women's rights organization Mavoi Satum ("Dead End"), said that "the Rabbinical courts are the most discriminatory institution in the State of Israel... Limiting the HCJ[d] while expanding the jurisdiction of the Rabbinical courts would... cause significant harm to women." Anat Thon Ashkenazy, Director of the Center for Democratic Values and Institutions at the Israel Democracy Institute, said that "almost every part of the reform could harm women... the meaning of an override clause is that even if the court says that the law on gender segregation is illegitimate, is harmful, the Knesset could say 'Okay, we say otherwise'". She added that "there is a very broad institutional framework here, after which there will come legislation that harms women's right and we will have no way of protecting or stopping it." During July 2023, 20 professional medical associations signed a letter of position warning against the ramifications to public health that would result from the exclusion of women from the public sphere. They cited, among others, a rise in prevalence of risk factors for cardiovascular disease, pregnancy-related ailments, psychological distress, and the risk of suicide. On 30 July the Knesset passed an amendment to penal law adding sexual offenses to those offenses whose penalty can be doubled if done on grounds of "nationalistic terrorism, racism or hostility towards a certain community". According to MK Limor Son Har-Melech, the bill is meant to penalize any individual who "[intends to] harm a woman sexually based on her Jewishness". The law was criticized by MK Gilad Kariv as "populist, nationalistic, and dangerous towards the Arab citizens of Israel", and by MK Ahmad Tibi as a "race law", and was objected to by legal advisors at the Ministry of Justice and the Knesset Committee on National Security. Activist Orit Kamir wrote that "the amendment... is neither feminist, equal, nor progressive, but the opposite: it subordinates women's sexuality to the nationalistic, racist patriarchy. It hijacks the Law for Prevention of Sexual Harassment to serve a world view that tags women as sexual objects that personify the nation's honor." Yael Sherer, director of the Lobby to Combat Sexual Violence, criticized the law as being informed by dated ideas about sexual assault, and proposed that MKs "dedicate a session... to give victims of sexual assault an opportunity to come out of the darkness... instead of [submitting] declarative bills that change nothing and are not meant but for grabbing headlines". In Israel, during 2022, 24 women "were murdered because they were women," which was an increase of 50% compared to 2021. A law permitting courts to order men subject to a restraining order following domestic violence offenses to wear electronic tags was drafted during the previous Knesset and had passed its first reading unanimously. On 22 March 2023, the Knesset voted to reject the bill. It had been urged to do so by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who said that the bill was unfair to men. Earlier in the week, Ben-Gvir had blocked the measure from advancing in the ministerial legislative committee. The MKs voting against the bill included Prime Minister Netanyahu. The Association of Families of Murder Victims said that by rejecting the law, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir "brings joy to violent men and abandons the women threatened with murder… unsupervised restraining orders endanger women's lives even more. They give women the illusion of being protected, and then they are murdered." MK Pnina Tamano-Shata, chairwoman of the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality, said that "the coalition proved today that it despises women's lives." The NGO Amutat Bat Melech [he], which assists Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox women who suffer from domestic violence, said that: "Rejecting the electronic bracelet bill is disconnected from the terrible reality of seven femicides since the beginning of the year. This is an effective tool of the first degree that could have saved lives and reduced the threat to women suffering from domestic violence. This is a matter of life and death, whose whole purpose is to provide a solution to defend women." The agreement signed by the coalition parties includes the setting up of a committee to draft changes to the Law of Return. Israeli religious parties have long demanded that the "grandchild clause" of the Law of Return be cancelled. This clause grants citizenship to anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent, as long as they do not practice another religion. If the grandchild clause were to be removed from the Law of Return then around 3 million people who are currently eligible for aliyah would no longer be eligible. The heads of the Jewish Agency, the Jewish Federations of North America, the World Zionist Organization and Keren Hayesod sent a joint letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu, expressing their "deep concern" about any changes to the Law of Return, adding that "Any change in the delicate and sensitive status quo on issues such as the Law of Return or conversion could threaten to unravel the ties between us and keep us away from each other." The Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the Zionist Federation of Australia issued a joint statement saying "We… view with deep concern… proposals in relation to religious pluralism and the law of return that risk damaging Israel's… relationship with Diaspora Jewry." On 19 March 2023, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich spoke in Paris at a memorial service for a Likud activist. The lectern at which Smotrich spoke was covered with a flag depicting the 'Greater Land of Israel,' encompassing the whole of Mandatory Palestine, as well as Trans-Jordan. During his speech, Smotrich said that "there's no such thing as Palestinians because there's no such thing as a Palestinian people." He added that the Palestinian people are a fictitious nation invented only to fight the Zionist movement, asking "Is there a Palestinian history or culture? There isn't any." The event received widespread media coverage. On 21 March, a spokesman for the US State Department sharply criticized Smotrich's comments. "The comments, which were delivered at a podium adorned with an inaccurate and provocative map, are offensive, they are deeply concerning, and, candidly, they're dangerous. The Palestinians have a rich history and culture, and the United States greatly values our partnership with the Palestinian people," he said. The Jordanian Foreign Ministry also voiced disapproval: "The Israeli Minister of Finance's use, during his participation in an event held yesterday in Paris, of a map of Israel that includes the borders of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the occupied Palestinian territories represents a reckless inflammatory act, and a violation of international norms and the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty." Additionally, a map encompassing Mandatory Palestine and Trans-Jordan with a Jordanian flag on it was placed on a central lectern in the Jordanian Parliament. Jordan's parliament voted to expel the Israeli ambassador. Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a clarification relating to the matter, stating that "Israel is committed to the 1994 peace agreement with Jordan. There has been no change in the position of the State of Israel, which recognizes the territorial integrity of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan". Ahead of a Europe Day event due to take place on 9 May 2023, far-right wing National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was assigned as a representative of the government and a speaker at the event by the government secretariat, which deals with placing ministers at receptions on the occasion of the national days of the foreign embassies. The European Union requested that Ben-Gvir not attend, but the government did not make changes to the plan. On 8 May, the European delegation to Israel cancelled the reception, stating that: "The EU Delegation to Israel is looking forward to celebrating Europe Day on May 9, as it does every year. Regrettably, this year we have decided to cancel the diplomatic reception, as we do not want to offer a platform to someone whose views contradict the values the European Union stands for. However, the Europe Day cultural event for the Israeli public will be maintained to celebrate with our friends and partners in Israel the strong and constructive bilateral relationship". Israel's Opposition Leader Yair Lapid stated: "Sending Itamar Ben-Gvir to a gathering of EU ambassadors is a serious professional mistake. The government is embarrassing a large group of friendly countries, jeopardizing future votes in international institutions, and damaging our foreign relations. Last year, after a decade of efforts, we succeeded in signing an economic-political agreement with the European Union that will contribute to the Israeli economy and our foreign relations. Why risk it, and for what? Ben-Gvir is not a legitimate person in the international community (and not really in Israel either), and sometimes you have to be both wise and just and simply send someone else". On 23 February 2023, Defense Minister Gallant signed an agreement assigning governmental powers in the West Bank to a body to be headed by Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who will effectively become the governor of the West Bank, controlling almost all areas of life in the area, including planning, building and infrastructure. Israeli governments have hitherto been careful to keep the occupation as a military government. The temporary holding of power by an occupying military force, pending a negotiated settlement, is a principle of international law – an expression of the prohibition against obtaining sovereignty through conquest that was introduced in the wake of World War II. An editorial in Haaretz noted that the assignment of governmental powers in the West Bank to a civilian governor, alongside the plan to expand the dual justice system so that Israeli law will apply fully to settlers in the West Bank, constitutes de jure annexation of the West Bank. On 26 February 2023, following the 2023 Huwara shooting in which two Israelis were killed by an unidentified attacker, hundreds of Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian town of Huwara and three nearby villages, setting alight hundreds of Palestinian homes (some with people in them), businesses, a school, and numerous vehicles, killing one Palestinian man and injuring 100 others. Bezalel Smotrich subsequently called on Twitter for Huwara to be "wiped out" by the Israeli government. Zvika Fogel MK, of the ultra-nationalist Otzma Yehudit, which forms part of the governing coalition, said that he "looks very favorably upon" the results of the rampage. Members of the coalition proposed an amendment to the Disengagement Law, which would allow Israelis to resettle settlements vacated during the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza and the northern West Bank. The evacuated settlements were considered illegal under international law, according to most countries. The proposal was approved for voting by the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on 9 March 2023, while the committee was still waiting for briefing materials from the NSS, IDF, MFA and Shin Bet, and was passed on 21 March. The US has requested clarification from Israeli ambassador Michael Herzog. A US State Department spokesman stated that "The U.S. strongly urges Israel to refrain from allowing the return of settlers to the area covered by the legislation, consistent with both former Prime Minister Sharon and the current Israeli Government's commitment to the United States," noting that the actions represent a clear violation of undertakings given by the Sharon government to the Bush administration in 2005 and Netanyahu's far-right coalition to the Biden administration the previous week. Minister of Communication Shlomo Karhi had initially intended to cut the funding of the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (also known by its blanket branding Kan) by 400 million shekels – roughly half of its total budget – closing several departments, and privatizing content creation. In response, the Director-General of the European Broadcasting Union, Noel Curran, sent two urgent letters to Netanyahu, expressing his concerns and calling on the Israeli government to "safeguard the independence of our Member KAN and ensure it is allowed to operate in a sustainable way, with funding that is both stable, adequate, fair, and transparent." On 25 January 2023, nine journalist organizations representing some of Kan's competitors issued a statement of concern, acknowledging the "important contribution of public broadcasting in creating a worthy, unbiased and non-prejudicial journalistic platform", and noting that "the existence of the [broadcasting] corporation as a substantial public broadcast organization strengthens media as a whole, adding to the competition in the market rather than weakening it." They also expressed their concern that the "real reason" for the proposal was actually "an attempt to silence voices from which... [the Minister] doesn't always draw satisfaction". The same day, hundreds of journalists, actors and filmmakers protested in Tel Aviv. The proposal was eventually put on hold. On 22 February 2023 it was reported that Prime Minister Netanyahu was attempting to appoint his close associate Yossi Shelley as the deputy to the National Statistician — a highly sensitive position in charge of providing accurate data for decision makers. The appointment of Shelley, who did not possess the required qualifications for the role, was withdrawn following publication. In its daily editorial, Haaretz tied this attempt with the judicial reform: "once they take control of the judiciary, law enforcement and public media, they wish to control the state's data base, the dry numerical data it uses to plan its future". Netanyahu also proposed Avi Simhon for the role, and eventually froze all appointments at the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. Also on 22 February 2023, it was revealed that Yoav Kish, the Minister of Education, was promoting a draft government decision change to the National Library of Israel board of directors which would grant him more power over the institution. In response, the Hebrew University — which owned the library until 2008 – announced that if the draft is accepted, it will withdraw its collections from the library. The university's collections, which according to the university constitute some 80% of the library's collection, include the Agnon archive, the original manuscript of Hatikvah, and the Rothschild Haggadah, the oldest known Haggadah. A group of 300 authors and poets signed an open letter against the move, further noting their objection against "political takeover" of public broadcasting, as well as "any legislation that will castrate the judiciary and damage the democratic foundations of the state of Israel". Several days later, it was reported that a series of donors decided to withhold their donations to the library, totaling some 80 million shekels. On 3 March a petition against the move by 1,500 academics, including Israel Prize laureates, was sent to Kish. The proposal has been seen by some as retribution against Shai Nitzan, the former State Attorney and the library's current rector. On 5 March it was reported that the Legal Advisor to the Ministry of Finance, Asi Messing, was withholding the proposal. According to Messing, the proposal – which was being promoted as part of the Economic Arrangements Law – "was not reviewed... by the qualified personnel in the Ministry of Finance, does not align with any of the common goals of the economic plan, was not agreed to by myself and was not approved by the Attorney General." As of February 2023, the government has been debating several proposals that will significantly weaken the Ministry of Environmental Protection, including reducing the environmental regulation of planning and development and electricity production. One of the main proposals, the transferal of a 3 billion shekel fund meant to finance waste management plants from the Ministry of Environmental Protection to the Ministry of the Interior, was eventually withdrawn. The Minister of Environmental Protection, Idit Silman, has been criticized for using for meeting with climate change denialists, for wasteful and personally-motivated travel on the ministry's expense, for politicizing the role, and for engaging in political activity on the ministry's time. The government has been noted for an unusually high number of dismissals and resignations of senior career civil servants, and for the frequent attempts to replace them with candidates with known political associations, who are often less competent. According to sources, Netanyahu and people in his vicinity are seeking out civil servants who were appointed by the previous government, intent on replacing them with people loyal to him. Governmental nominees for various positions have been criticized for lack of expertise. In addition to the nominee to the position of Deputy National Statistician (see above), the Director General of the Ministry of Finance, Shlomi Heisler; the Director General of the Ministry of Justice, Itamar Donenfeld; and the Director General of Ministry of Transport, Moshe Ben Zaken, have all been criticized for incompetence, lack of familiarity with their Ministries' subject matter, lack of interest in the job, or lack of experience in managing large organizations. It has been reported that in some ministries, senior officials were enacting slowdowns as a means for dealing with the new ministers and director generals. On 28 July the director general of the Ministry of Education resigned, citing as reason the societal "rift". Asaf Zalel, a retired Air Force Brigadier General, was appointed in January. When asked about attempts to appoint his personal friend and attorney to the board of directors of a state-owned company, Minister David Amsalem replied: "that is my job, due to my authority to appoint directors. I put forward people that I know and hold in esteem". Under Minister of Transport Miri Regev, the ministry has either dismissed or lost the heads of the National Public Transport Authority, Israel Airports Authority, National Road Safety Authority, Israel Railways, and several officials in Netivei Israel. The current chair of Netivei Israel is Likud member and Regev associate Yigal Amadi, and the legal counsel is Einav Abuhzira, daughter of a former Likud branch chair. Abuhzira was appointed instead of Elad Berdugo, nephew of Netanyahu surrogate Yaakov Bardugo, after he was disqualified for the role by the Israel Government Companies Authority. In July 2023 the Ministry of Communications, Shlomo Karhi, and the minister in charge of the Israel Government Companies Authority, Dudi Amsalem, deposed the chair of the Israel Postal Company, Michael Vaknin. The chair, who was hired to lead the company's financial recovery after years of operational loss and towards privatization, has gained the support of officials at the Authority and at the Ministry of Finance; nevertheless, the ministers claimed that his performance is inadequate, and nominated in his place Yiftah Ron-Tal, who has known ties to Netanyahu and Smotrich. They also nominated four new directors, two of which have known political associations, and a third who was a witness in Netanyahu's trial. The coalition is allowed to spend a portion of the state's budget on a discretionary basis, meant to coax member parties to reach an agreement on the budget. As of May 2023, the government was pushing an allocation of over 13 billion shekels over two years - almost seven times the amount allocated by the previous government. Most of the funds will be allocated for uses associated with the religious, orthodox and settler communities. The head of the Budget Department at the Ministry of Finance, Yoav Gardos, objected to the allocations, claiming they would exacerbate unemployment in the Orthodox community, which is projected to cost the economy a total of 6.7 trillion shekels in lost produce by 2065. At the onset of the Gaza war and the declaration of a state of national emergency, Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich instructed government agencies to continue with the planned distribution of discretionary funds. Corruption During March 2023, the government was promoting an amendment to the Law on Public Service (Gifts) that would allow Netanyahu to receive donations to fund his legal defense. The amendment follows a decision by the High Court of Justice (HCJ) that forced Netanyahu to refund US$270,000 given to him and his wife by his late cousin, Nathan Mileikowsky, for their legal defense. This is in contrast to past statements by Minister of Justice Yariv Levin, who spoke against the possible conflict of interests that can result from such transactions. The bill was opposed by the Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who stressed that it could "create a real opportunity for governmental corruption", and was eventually withdrawn at the end of March. As of March 2023, the coalition was promoting a bill that would prevent judicial review of ministerial appointments. The bill is intended to prevent the HCJ from reviewing the appointment of the twice-convicted chairman of Shas, Aryeh Deri (convicted of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust), to a ministerial position, after his previous appointment was annulled on grounds of unreasonableness. The bill follows on the heels of another amendment, that relaxed the ban on the appointment of convicted criminals, so that Deri - who was handed a suspended sentence after his second conviction - could be appointed. The bill is opposed by the Attorney General, as well as by the Knesset Legal Adviser, Sagit Afik. Israeli law allows for declaring a Prime Minister (as well as several other high-ranking public officials) to be temporarily or permanently incapacitated, but does not specify the conditions which can lead to a declaration of incapacitation. In the case of the Prime Minister, the authority to do so is given to the Attorney General. In March 2023, the coalition advanced a bill that passes this authority from the Attorney General to the government with the approval of the Knesset committee, and clarified that incapacitation can only result from medical or mental conditions. On 3 January 2024, the Supreme Court ruled by a majority of 6 out of 11 that the validity of the law will be postponed to the next Knesset because the bill in its immediate application is a personal law and is intended to serve a distinct personal purpose. Later, the court rejected a petition regarding the definition of Netanyahu as an incapacitated prime minister due to his ongoing trial and conflict of interests. Notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars#cite_note-bbc061206-170] | [TOKENS: 11899] |
Contents Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", for its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous atmosphere that is primarily carbon dioxide (CO2). At the average surface level the atmospheric pressure is a few thousandths of Earth's, atmospheric temperature ranges from −153 to 20 °C (−243 to 68 °F), and cosmic radiation is high. Mars retains some water, in the ground as well as thinly in the atmosphere, forming cirrus clouds, fog, frost, larger polar regions of permafrost and ice caps (with seasonal CO2 snow), but no bodies of liquid surface water. Its surface gravity is roughly a third of Earth's or double that of the Moon. Its diameter, 6,779 km (4,212 mi), is about half the Earth's, or twice the Moon's, and its surface area is the size of all the dry land of Earth. Fine dust is prevalent across the surface and the atmosphere, being picked up and spread at the low Martian gravity even by the weak wind of the tenuous atmosphere. The terrain of Mars roughly follows a north-south divide, the Martian dichotomy, with the northern hemisphere mainly consisting of relatively flat, low lying plains, and the southern hemisphere of cratered highlands. Geologically, the planet is fairly active with marsquakes trembling underneath the ground, but also hosts many enormous volcanoes that are extinct (the tallest is Olympus Mons, 21.9 km or 13.6 mi tall), as well as one of the largest canyons in the Solar System (Valles Marineris, 4,000 km or 2,500 mi long). Mars has two natural satellites that are small and irregular in shape: Phobos and Deimos. With a significant axial tilt of 25 degrees, Mars experiences seasons, like Earth (which has an axial tilt of 23.5 degrees). A Martian solar year is equal to 1.88 Earth years (687 Earth days), a Martian solar day (sol) is equal to 24.6 hours. Mars formed along with the other planets approximately 4.5 billion years ago. During the martian Noachian period (4.5 to 3.5 billion years ago), its surface was marked by meteor impacts, valley formation, erosion, the possible presence of water oceans and the loss of its magnetosphere. The Hesperian period (beginning 3.5 billion years ago and ending 3.3–2.9 billion years ago) was dominated by widespread volcanic activity and flooding that carved immense outflow channels. The Amazonian period, which continues to the present, is the currently dominating and remaining influence on geological processes. Because of Mars's geological history, the possibility of past or present life on Mars remains an area of active scientific investigation, with some possible traces needing further examination. Being visible with the naked eye in Earth's sky as a red wandering star, Mars has been observed throughout history, acquiring diverse associations in different cultures. In 1963 the first flight to Mars took place with Mars 1, but communication was lost en route. The first successful flyby exploration of Mars was conducted in 1965 with Mariner 4. In 1971 Mariner 9 entered orbit around Mars, being the first spacecraft to orbit any body other than the Moon, Sun or Earth; following in the same year were the first uncontrolled impact (Mars 2) and first successful landing (Mars 3) on Mars. Probes have been active on Mars continuously since 1997. At times, more than ten probes have simultaneously operated in orbit or on the surface, more than at any other planet beyond Earth. Mars is an often proposed target for future crewed exploration missions, though no such mission is currently planned. Natural history Scientists have theorized that during the Solar System's formation, Mars was created as the result of a random process of run-away accretion of material from the protoplanetary disk that orbited the Sun. Mars has many distinctive chemical features caused by its position in the Solar System. Elements with comparatively low boiling points, such as chlorine, phosphorus, and sulfur, are much more common on Mars than on Earth; these elements were probably pushed outward by the young Sun's energetic solar wind. After the formation of the planets, the inner Solar System may have been subjected to the so-called Late Heavy Bombardment. About 60% of the surface of Mars shows a record of impacts from that era, whereas much of the remaining surface is probably underlain by immense impact basins caused by those events. However, more recent modeling has disputed the existence of the Late Heavy Bombardment. There is evidence of an enormous impact basin in the Northern Hemisphere of Mars, spanning 10,600 by 8,500 kilometres (6,600 by 5,300 mi), or roughly four times the size of the Moon's South Pole–Aitken basin, which would be the largest impact basin yet discovered if confirmed. It has been hypothesized that the basin was formed when Mars was struck by a Pluto-sized body about four billion years ago. The event, thought to be the cause of the Martian hemispheric dichotomy, created the smooth Borealis basin that covers 40% of the planet. A 2023 study shows evidence, based on the orbital inclination of Deimos (a small moon of Mars), that Mars may once have had a ring system 3.5 billion years to 4 billion years ago. This ring system may have been formed from a moon, 20 times more massive than Phobos, orbiting Mars billions of years ago; and Phobos would be a remnant of that ring. Epochs: The geological history of Mars can be split into many periods, but the following are the three primary periods: Geological activity is still taking place on Mars. The Athabasca Valles is home to sheet-like lava flows created about 200 million years ago. Water flows in the grabens called the Cerberus Fossae occurred less than 20 million years ago, indicating equally recent volcanic intrusions. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured images of avalanches. Physical characteristics Mars is approximately half the diameter of Earth or twice that of the Moon, with a surface area only slightly less than the total area of Earth's dry land. Mars is less dense than Earth, having about 15% of Earth's volume and 11% of Earth's mass, resulting in about 38% of Earth's surface gravity. Mars is the only presently known example of a desert planet, a rocky planet with a surface akin to that of Earth's deserts. The red-orange appearance of the Martian surface is caused by iron(III) oxide (nanophase Fe2O3) and the iron(III) oxide-hydroxide mineral goethite. It can look like butterscotch; other common surface colors include golden, brown, tan, and greenish, depending on the minerals present. Like Earth, Mars is differentiated into a dense metallic core overlaid by less dense rocky layers. The outermost layer is the crust, which is on average about 42–56 kilometres (26–35 mi) thick, with a minimum thickness of 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) in Isidis Planitia, and a maximum thickness of 117 kilometres (73 mi) in the southern Tharsis plateau. For comparison, Earth's crust averages 27.3 ± 4.8 km in thickness. The most abundant elements in the Martian crust are silicon, oxygen, iron, magnesium, aluminum, calcium, and potassium. Mars is confirmed to be seismically active; in 2019, it was reported that InSight had detected and recorded over 450 marsquakes and related events. Beneath the crust is a silicate mantle responsible for many of the tectonic and volcanic features on the planet's surface. The upper Martian mantle is a low-velocity zone, where the velocity of seismic waves is lower than surrounding depth intervals. The mantle appears to be rigid down to the depth of about 250 km, giving Mars a very thick lithosphere compared to Earth. Below this the mantle gradually becomes more ductile, and the seismic wave velocity starts to grow again. The Martian mantle does not appear to have a thermally insulating layer analogous to Earth's lower mantle; instead, below 1050 km in depth, it becomes mineralogically similar to Earth's transition zone. At the bottom of the mantle lies a basal liquid silicate layer approximately 150–180 km thick. The Martian mantle appears to be highly heterogenous, with dense fragments up to 4 km across, likely injected deep into the planet by colossal impacts ~4.5 billion years ago; high-frequency waves from eight marsquakes slowed as they passed these localized regions, and modeling indicates the heterogeneities are compositionally distinct debris preserved because Mars lacks plate tectonics and has a sluggishly convecting interior that prevents complete homogenization. Mars's iron and nickel core is at least partially molten, and may have a solid inner core. It is around half of Mars's radius, approximately 1650–1675 km, and is enriched in light elements such as sulfur, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. The temperature of the core is estimated to be 2000–2400 K, compared to 5400–6230 K for Earth's solid inner core. In 2025, based on data from the InSight lander, a group of researchers reported the detection of a solid inner core 613 kilometres (381 mi) ± 67 kilometres (42 mi) in radius. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a surface that consists of minerals containing silicon and oxygen, metals, and other elements that typically make up rock. The Martian surface is primarily composed of tholeiitic basalt, although parts are more silica-rich than typical basalt and may be similar to andesitic rocks on Earth, or silica glass. Regions of low albedo suggest concentrations of plagioclase feldspar, with northern low albedo regions displaying higher than normal concentrations of sheet silicates and high-silicon glass. Parts of the southern highlands include detectable amounts of high-calcium pyroxenes. Localized concentrations of hematite and olivine have been found. Much of the surface is deeply covered by finely grained iron(III) oxide dust. The Phoenix lander returned data showing Martian soil to be slightly alkaline and containing elements such as magnesium, sodium, potassium and chlorine. These nutrients are found in soils on Earth, and are necessary for plant growth. Experiments performed by the lander showed that the Martian soil has a basic pH of 7.7, and contains 0.6% perchlorate by weight, concentrations that are toxic to humans. Streaks are common across Mars and new ones appear frequently on steep slopes of craters, troughs, and valleys. The streaks are dark at first and get lighter with age. The streaks can start in a tiny area, then spread out for hundreds of metres. They have been seen to follow the edges of boulders and other obstacles in their path. The commonly accepted hypotheses include that they are dark underlying layers of soil revealed after avalanches of bright dust or dust devils. Several other explanations have been put forward, including those that involve water or even the growth of organisms. Environmental radiation levels on the surface are on average 0.64 millisieverts of radiation per day, and significantly less than the radiation of 1.84 millisieverts per day or 22 millirads per day during the flight to and from Mars. For comparison the radiation levels in low Earth orbit, where Earth's space stations orbit, are around 0.5 millisieverts of radiation per day. Hellas Planitia has the lowest surface radiation at about 0.342 millisieverts per day, featuring lava tubes southwest of Hadriacus Mons with potentially levels as low as 0.064 millisieverts per day, comparable to radiation levels during flights on Earth. Although Mars has no evidence of a structured global magnetic field, observations show that parts of the planet's crust have been magnetized, suggesting that alternating polarity reversals of its dipole field have occurred in the past. This paleomagnetism of magnetically susceptible minerals is similar to the alternating bands found on Earth's ocean floors. One hypothesis, published in 1999 and re-examined in October 2005 (with the help of the Mars Global Surveyor), is that these bands suggest plate tectonic activity on Mars four billion years ago, before the planetary dynamo ceased to function and the planet's magnetic field faded. Geography and features Although better remembered for mapping the Moon, Johann Heinrich von Mädler and Wilhelm Beer were the first areographers. They began by establishing that most of Mars's surface features were permanent and by more precisely determining the planet's rotation period. In 1840, Mädler combined ten years of observations and drew the first map of Mars. Features on Mars are named from a variety of sources. Albedo features are named for classical mythology. Craters larger than roughly 50 km are named for deceased scientists and writers and others who have contributed to the study of Mars. Smaller craters are named for towns and villages of the world with populations of less than 100,000. Large valleys are named for the word "Mars" or "star" in various languages; smaller valleys are named for rivers. Large albedo features retain many of the older names but are often updated to reflect new knowledge of the nature of the features. For example, Nix Olympica (the snows of Olympus) has become Olympus Mons (Mount Olympus). The surface of Mars as seen from Earth is divided into two kinds of areas, with differing albedo. The paler plains covered with dust and sand rich in reddish iron oxides were once thought of as Martian "continents" and given names like Arabia Terra (land of Arabia) or Amazonis Planitia (Amazonian plain). The dark features were thought to be seas, hence their names Mare Erythraeum, Mare Sirenum and Aurorae Sinus. The largest dark feature seen from Earth is Syrtis Major Planum. The permanent northern polar ice cap is named Planum Boreum. The southern cap is called Planum Australe. Mars's equator is defined by its rotation, but the location of its Prime Meridian was specified, as was Earth's (at Greenwich), by choice of an arbitrary point; Mädler and Beer selected a line for their first maps of Mars in 1830. After the spacecraft Mariner 9 provided extensive imagery of Mars in 1972, a small crater (later called Airy-0), located in the Sinus Meridiani ("Middle Bay" or "Meridian Bay"), was chosen by Merton E. Davies, Harold Masursky, and Gérard de Vaucouleurs for the definition of 0.0° longitude to coincide with the original selection. Because Mars has no oceans, and hence no "sea level", a zero-elevation surface had to be selected as a reference level; this is called the areoid of Mars, analogous to the terrestrial geoid. Zero altitude was defined by the height at which there is 610.5 Pa (6.105 mbar) of atmospheric pressure. This pressure corresponds to the triple point of water, and it is about 0.6% of the sea level surface pressure on Earth (0.006 atm). For mapping purposes, the United States Geological Survey divides the surface of Mars into thirty cartographic quadrangles, each named for a classical albedo feature it contains. In April 2023, The New York Times reported an updated global map of Mars based on images from the Hope spacecraft. A related, but much more detailed, global Mars map was released by NASA on 16 April 2023. The vast upland region Tharsis contains several massive volcanoes, which include the shield volcano Olympus Mons. The edifice is over 600 km (370 mi) wide. Because the mountain is so large, with complex structure at its edges, giving a definite height to it is difficult. Its local relief, from the foot of the cliffs which form its northwest margin to its peak, is over 21 km (13 mi), a little over twice the height of Mauna Kea as measured from its base on the ocean floor. The total elevation change from the plains of Amazonis Planitia, over 1,000 km (620 mi) to the northwest, to the summit approaches 26 km (16 mi), roughly three times the height of Mount Everest, which in comparison stands at just over 8.8 kilometres (5.5 mi). Consequently, Olympus Mons is either the tallest or second-tallest mountain in the Solar System; the only known mountain which might be taller is the Rheasilvia peak on the asteroid Vesta, at 20–25 km (12–16 mi). The dichotomy of Martian topography is striking: northern plains flattened by lava flows contrast with the southern highlands, pitted and cratered by ancient impacts. It is possible that, four billion years ago, the Northern Hemisphere of Mars was struck by an object one-tenth to two-thirds the size of Earth's Moon. If this is the case, the Northern Hemisphere of Mars would be the site of an impact crater 10,600 by 8,500 kilometres (6,600 by 5,300 mi) in size, or roughly the area of Europe, Asia, and Australia combined, surpassing Utopia Planitia and the Moon's South Pole–Aitken basin as the largest impact crater in the Solar System. Mars is scarred by 43,000 impact craters with a diameter of 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) or greater. The largest exposed crater is Hellas, which is 2,300 kilometres (1,400 mi) wide and 7,000 metres (23,000 ft) deep, and is a light albedo feature clearly visible from Earth. There are other notable impact features, such as Argyre, which is around 1,800 kilometres (1,100 mi) in diameter, and Isidis, which is around 1,500 kilometres (930 mi) in diameter. Due to the smaller mass and size of Mars, the probability of an object colliding with the planet is about half that of Earth. Mars is located closer to the asteroid belt, so it has an increased chance of being struck by materials from that source. Mars is more likely to be struck by short-period comets, i.e., those that lie within the orbit of Jupiter. Martian craters can[discuss] have a morphology that suggests the ground became wet after the meteor impact. The large canyon, Valles Marineris (Latin for 'Mariner Valleys, also known as Agathodaemon in the old canal maps), has a length of 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi) and a depth of up to 7 kilometres (4.3 mi). The length of Valles Marineris is equivalent to the length of Europe and extends across one-fifth the circumference of Mars. By comparison, the Grand Canyon on Earth is only 446 kilometres (277 mi) long and nearly 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) deep. Valles Marineris was formed due to the swelling of the Tharsis area, which caused the crust in the area of Valles Marineris to collapse. In 2012, it was proposed that Valles Marineris is not just a graben, but a plate boundary where 150 kilometres (93 mi) of transverse motion has occurred, making Mars a planet with possibly a two-tectonic plate arrangement. Images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) aboard NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter have revealed seven possible cave entrances on the flanks of the volcano Arsia Mons. The caves, named after loved ones of their discoverers, are collectively known as the "seven sisters". Cave entrances measure from 100 to 252 metres (328 to 827 ft) wide and they are estimated to be at least 73 to 96 metres (240 to 315 ft) deep. Because light does not reach the floor of most of the caves, they may extend much deeper than these lower estimates and widen below the surface. "Dena" is the only exception; its floor is visible and was measured to be 130 metres (430 ft) deep. The interiors of these caverns may be protected from micrometeoroids, UV radiation, solar flares and high energy particles that bombard the planet's surface. Martian geysers (or CO2 jets) are putative sites of small gas and dust eruptions that occur in the south polar region of Mars during the spring thaw. "Dark dune spots" and "spiders" – or araneiforms – are the two most visible types of features ascribed to these eruptions. Similarly sized dust will settle from the thinner Martian atmosphere sooner than it would on Earth. For example, the dust suspended by the 2001 global dust storms on Mars only remained in the Martian atmosphere for 0.6 years, while the dust from Mount Pinatubo took about two years to settle. However, under current Martian conditions, the mass movements involved are generally much smaller than on Earth. Even the 2001 global dust storms on Mars moved only the equivalent of a very thin dust layer – about 3 μm thick if deposited with uniform thickness between 58° north and south of the equator. Dust deposition at the two rover sites has proceeded at a rate of about the thickness of a grain every 100 sols. Atmosphere Mars lost its magnetosphere 4 billion years ago, possibly because of numerous asteroid strikes, so the solar wind interacts directly with the Martian ionosphere, lowering the atmospheric density by stripping away atoms from the outer layer. Both Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Express have detected ionized atmospheric particles trailing off into space behind Mars, and this atmospheric loss is being studied by the MAVEN orbiter. Compared to Earth, the atmosphere of Mars is quite rarefied. Atmospheric pressure on the surface today ranges from a low of 30 Pa (0.0044 psi) on Olympus Mons to over 1,155 Pa (0.1675 psi) in Hellas Planitia, with a mean pressure at the surface level of 600 Pa (0.087 psi). The highest atmospheric density on Mars is equal to that found 35 kilometres (22 mi) above Earth's surface. The resulting mean surface pressure is only 0.6% of Earth's 101.3 kPa (14.69 psi). The scale height of the atmosphere is about 10.8 kilometres (6.7 mi), which is higher than Earth's 6 kilometres (3.7 mi), because the surface gravity of Mars is only about 38% of Earth's. The atmosphere of Mars consists of about 96% carbon dioxide, 1.93% argon and 1.89% nitrogen along with traces of oxygen and water. The atmosphere is quite dusty, containing particulates about 1.5 μm in diameter which give the Martian sky a tawny color when seen from the surface. It may take on a pink hue due to iron oxide particles suspended in it. Despite repeated detections of methane on Mars, there is no scientific consensus as to its origin. One suggestion is that methane exists on Mars and that its concentration fluctuates seasonally. The existence of methane could be produced by non-biological process such as serpentinization involving water, carbon dioxide, and the mineral olivine, which is known to be common on Mars, or by Martian life. Compared to Earth, its higher concentration of atmospheric CO2 and lower surface pressure may be why sound is attenuated more on Mars, where natural sources are rare apart from the wind. Using acoustic recordings collected by the Perseverance rover, researchers concluded that the speed of sound there is approximately 240 m/s for frequencies below 240 Hz, and 250 m/s for those above. Auroras have been detected on Mars. Because Mars lacks a global magnetic field, the types and distribution of auroras there differ from those on Earth; rather than being mostly restricted to polar regions as is the case on Earth, a Martian aurora can encompass the planet. In September 2017, NASA reported radiation levels on the surface of the planet Mars were temporarily doubled, and were associated with an aurora 25 times brighter than any observed earlier, due to a massive, and unexpected, solar storm in the middle of the month. Mars has seasons, alternating between its northern and southern hemispheres, similar to on Earth. Additionally the orbit of Mars has, compared to Earth's, a large eccentricity and approaches perihelion when it is summer in its southern hemisphere and winter in its northern, and aphelion when it is winter in its southern hemisphere and summer in its northern. As a result, the seasons in its southern hemisphere are more extreme and the seasons in its northern are milder than would otherwise be the case. The summer temperatures in the south can be warmer than the equivalent summer temperatures in the north by up to 30 °C (54 °F). Martian surface temperatures vary from lows of about −110 °C (−166 °F) to highs of up to 35 °C (95 °F) in equatorial summer. The wide range in temperatures is due to the thin atmosphere which cannot store much solar heat, the low atmospheric pressure (about 1% that of the atmosphere of Earth), and the low thermal inertia of Martian soil. The planet is 1.52 times as far from the Sun as Earth, resulting in just 43% of the amount of sunlight. Mars has the largest dust storms in the Solar System, reaching speeds of over 160 km/h (100 mph). These can vary from a storm over a small area, to gigantic storms that cover the entire planet. They tend to occur when Mars is closest to the Sun, and have been shown to increase global temperature. Seasons also produce dry ice covering polar ice caps. Hydrology While Mars contains water in larger amounts, most of it is dust covered water ice at the Martian polar ice caps. The volume of water ice in the south polar ice cap, if melted, would be enough to cover most of the surface of the planet with a depth of 11 metres (36 ft). Water in its liquid form cannot persist on the surface due to Mars's low atmospheric pressure, which is less than 1% that of Earth. Only at the lowest of elevations are the pressure and temperature high enough for liquid water to exist for short periods. Although little water is present in the atmosphere, there is enough to produce clouds of water ice and different cases of snow and frost, often mixed with snow of carbon dioxide dry ice. Landforms visible on Mars strongly suggest that liquid water has existed on the planet's surface. Huge linear swathes of scoured ground, known as outflow channels, cut across the surface in about 25 places. These are thought to be a record of erosion caused by the catastrophic release of water from subsurface aquifers, though some of these structures have been hypothesized to result from the action of glaciers or lava. One of the larger examples, Ma'adim Vallis, is 700 kilometres (430 mi) long, much greater than the Grand Canyon, with a width of 20 kilometres (12 mi) and a depth of 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) in places. It is thought to have been carved by flowing water early in Mars's history. The youngest of these channels is thought to have formed only a few million years ago. Elsewhere, particularly on the oldest areas of the Martian surface, finer-scale, dendritic networks of valleys are spread across significant proportions of the landscape. Features of these valleys and their distribution strongly imply that they were carved by runoff resulting from precipitation in early Mars history. Subsurface water flow and groundwater sapping may play important subsidiary roles in some networks, but precipitation was probably the root cause of the incision in almost all cases. Along craters and canyon walls, there are thousands of features that appear similar to terrestrial gullies. The gullies tend to be in the highlands of the Southern Hemisphere and face the Equator; all are poleward of 30° latitude. A number of authors have suggested that their formation process involves liquid water, probably from melting ice, although others have argued for formation mechanisms involving carbon dioxide frost or the movement of dry dust. No partially degraded gullies have formed by weathering and no superimposed impact craters have been observed, indicating that these are young features, possibly still active. Other geological features, such as deltas and alluvial fans preserved in craters, are further evidence for warmer, wetter conditions at an interval or intervals in earlier Mars history. Such conditions necessarily require the widespread presence of crater lakes across a large proportion of the surface, for which there is independent mineralogical, sedimentological and geomorphological evidence. Further evidence that liquid water once existed on the surface of Mars comes from the detection of specific minerals such as hematite and goethite, both of which sometimes form in the presence of water. The chemical signature of water vapor on Mars was first unequivocally demonstrated in 1963 by spectroscopy using an Earth-based telescope. In 2004, Opportunity detected the mineral jarosite. This forms only in the presence of acidic water, showing that water once existed on Mars. The Spirit rover found concentrated deposits of silica in 2007 that indicated wet conditions in the past, and in December 2011, the mineral gypsum, which also forms in the presence of water, was found on the surface by NASA's Mars rover Opportunity. It is estimated that the amount of water in the upper mantle of Mars, represented by hydroxyl ions contained within Martian minerals, is equal to or greater than that of Earth at 50–300 parts per million of water, which is enough to cover the entire planet to a depth of 200–1,000 metres (660–3,280 ft). On 18 March 2013, NASA reported evidence from instruments on the Curiosity rover of mineral hydration, likely hydrated calcium sulfate, in several rock samples including the broken fragments of "Tintina" rock and "Sutton Inlier" rock as well as in veins and nodules in other rocks like "Knorr" rock and "Wernicke" rock. Analysis using the rover's DAN instrument provided evidence of subsurface water, amounting to as much as 4% water content, down to a depth of 60 centimetres (24 in), during the rover's traverse from the Bradbury Landing site to the Yellowknife Bay area in the Glenelg terrain. In September 2015, NASA announced that they had found strong evidence of hydrated brine flows in recurring slope lineae, based on spectrometer readings of the darkened areas of slopes. These streaks flow downhill in Martian summer, when the temperature is above −23 °C, and freeze at lower temperatures. These observations supported earlier hypotheses, based on timing of formation and their rate of growth, that these dark streaks resulted from water flowing just below the surface. However, later work suggested that the lineae may be dry, granular flows instead, with at most a limited role for water in initiating the process. A definitive conclusion about the presence, extent, and role of liquid water on the Martian surface remains elusive. Researchers suspect much of the low northern plains of the planet were covered with an ocean hundreds of meters deep, though this theory remains controversial. In March 2015, scientists stated that such an ocean might have been the size of Earth's Arctic Ocean. This finding was derived from the ratio of protium to deuterium in the modern Martian atmosphere compared to that ratio on Earth. The amount of Martian deuterium (D/H = 9.3 ± 1.7 10−4) is five to seven times the amount on Earth (D/H = 1.56 10−4), suggesting that ancient Mars had significantly higher levels of water. Results from the Curiosity rover had previously found a high ratio of deuterium in Gale Crater, though not significantly high enough to suggest the former presence of an ocean. Other scientists caution that these results have not been confirmed, and point out that Martian climate models have not yet shown that the planet was warm enough in the past to support bodies of liquid water. Near the northern polar cap is the 81.4 kilometres (50.6 mi) wide Korolev Crater, which the Mars Express orbiter found to be filled with approximately 2,200 cubic kilometres (530 cu mi) of water ice. In November 2016, NASA reported finding a large amount of underground ice in the Utopia Planitia region. The volume of water detected has been estimated to be equivalent to the volume of water in Lake Superior (which is 12,100 cubic kilometers). During observations from 2018 through 2021, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter spotted indications of water, probably subsurface ice, in the Valles Marineris canyon system. Orbital motion Mars's average distance from the Sun is roughly 230 million km (143 million mi), and its orbital period is 687 (Earth) days. The solar day (or sol) on Mars is only slightly longer than an Earth day: 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds. A Martian year is equal to 1.8809 Earth years, or 1 year, 320 days, and 18.2 hours. The gravitational potential difference and thus the delta-v needed to transfer between Mars and Earth is the second lowest for Earth. The axial tilt of Mars is 25.19° relative to its orbital plane, which is similar to the axial tilt of Earth. As a result, Mars has seasons like Earth, though on Mars they are nearly twice as long because its orbital period is that much longer. In the present day, the orientation of the north pole of Mars is close to the star Deneb. Mars has a relatively pronounced orbital eccentricity of about 0.09; of the seven other planets in the Solar System, only Mercury has a larger orbital eccentricity. It is known that in the past, Mars has had a much more circular orbit. At one point, 1.35 million Earth years ago, Mars had an eccentricity of roughly 0.002, much less than that of Earth today. Mars's cycle of eccentricity is 96,000 Earth years compared to Earth's cycle of 100,000 years. Mars has its closest approach to Earth (opposition) in a synodic period of 779.94 days. It should not be confused with Mars conjunction, where the Earth and Mars are at opposite sides of the Solar System and form a straight line crossing the Sun. The average time between the successive oppositions of Mars, its synodic period, is 780 days; but the number of days between successive oppositions can range from 764 to 812. The distance at close approach varies between about 54 and 103 million km (34 and 64 million mi) due to the planets' elliptical orbits, which causes comparable variation in angular size. At their furthest Mars and Earth can be as far as 401 million km (249 million mi) apart. Mars comes into opposition from Earth every 2.1 years. The planets come into opposition near Mars's perihelion in 2003, 2018 and 2035, with the 2020 and 2033 events being particularly close to perihelic opposition. The mean apparent magnitude of Mars is +0.71 with a standard deviation of 1.05. Because the orbit of Mars is eccentric, the magnitude at opposition from the Sun can range from about −3.0 to −1.4. The minimum brightness is magnitude +1.86 when the planet is near aphelion and in conjunction with the Sun. At its brightest, Mars (along with Jupiter) is second only to Venus in apparent brightness. Mars usually appears distinctly yellow, orange, or red. When farthest away from Earth, it is more than seven times farther away than when it is closest. Mars is usually close enough for particularly good viewing once or twice at 15-year or 17-year intervals. Optical ground-based telescopes are typically limited to resolving features about 300 kilometres (190 mi) across when Earth and Mars are closest because of Earth's atmosphere. As Mars approaches opposition, it begins a period of retrograde motion, which means it will appear to move backwards in a looping curve with respect to the background stars. This retrograde motion lasts for about 72 days, and Mars reaches its peak apparent brightness in the middle of this interval. Moons Mars has two relatively small (compared to Earth's) natural moons, Phobos (about 22 km (14 mi) in diameter) and Deimos (about 12 km (7.5 mi) in diameter), which orbit at 9,376 km (5,826 mi) and 23,460 km (14,580 mi) around the planet. The origin of both moons is unclear, although a popular theory states that they were asteroids captured into Martian orbit. Both satellites were discovered in 1877 by Asaph Hall and were named after the characters Phobos (the deity of panic and fear) and Deimos (the deity of terror and dread), twins from Greek mythology who accompanied their father Ares, god of war, into battle. Mars was the Roman equivalent to Ares. In modern Greek, the planet retains its ancient name Ares (Aris: Άρης). From the surface of Mars, the motions of Phobos and Deimos appear different from that of the Earth's satellite, the Moon. Phobos rises in the west, sets in the east, and rises again in just 11 hours. Deimos, being only just outside synchronous orbit – where the orbital period would match the planet's period of rotation – rises as expected in the east, but slowly. Because the orbit of Phobos is below a synchronous altitude, tidal forces from Mars are gradually lowering its orbit. In about 50 million years, it could either crash into Mars's surface or break up into a ring structure around the planet. The origin of the two satellites is not well understood. Their low albedo and carbonaceous chondrite composition have been regarded as similar to asteroids, supporting a capture theory. The unstable orbit of Phobos would seem to point toward a relatively recent capture. But both have circular orbits near the equator, which is unusual for captured objects, and the required capture dynamics are complex. Accretion early in the history of Mars is plausible, but would not account for a composition resembling asteroids rather than Mars itself, if that is confirmed. Mars may have yet-undiscovered moons, smaller than 50 to 100 metres (160 to 330 ft) in diameter, and a dust ring is predicted to exist between Phobos and Deimos. A third possibility for their origin as satellites of Mars is the involvement of a third body or a type of impact disruption. More-recent lines of evidence for Phobos having a highly porous interior, and suggesting a composition containing mainly phyllosilicates and other minerals known from Mars, point toward an origin of Phobos from material ejected by an impact on Mars that reaccreted in Martian orbit, similar to the prevailing theory for the origin of Earth's satellite. Although the visible and near-infrared (VNIR) spectra of the moons of Mars resemble those of outer-belt asteroids, the thermal infrared spectra of Phobos are reported to be inconsistent with chondrites of any class. It is also possible that Phobos and Deimos were fragments of an older moon, formed by debris from a large impact on Mars, and then destroyed by a more recent impact upon the satellite. More recently, a study conducted by a team of researchers from multiple countries suggests that a lost moon, at least fifteen times the size of Phobos, may have existed in the past. By analyzing rocks which point to tidal processes on the planet, it is possible that these tides may have been regulated by a past moon. Human observations and exploration The history of observations of Mars is marked by oppositions of Mars when the planet is closest to Earth and hence is most easily visible, which occur every couple of years. Even more notable are the perihelic oppositions of Mars, which are distinguished because Mars is close to perihelion, making it even closer to Earth. The ancient Sumerians named Mars Nergal, the god of war and plague. During Sumerian times, Nergal was a minor deity of little significance, but, during later times, his main cult center was the city of Nineveh. In Mesopotamian texts, Mars is referred to as the "star of judgement of the fate of the dead". The existence of Mars as a wandering object in the night sky was also recorded by the ancient Egyptian astronomers and, by 1534 BCE, they were familiar with the retrograde motion of the planet. By the period of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the Babylonian astronomers were making regular records of the positions of the planets and systematic observations of their behavior. For Mars, they knew that the planet made 37 synodic periods, or 42 circuits of the zodiac, every 79 years. They invented arithmetic methods for making minor corrections to the predicted positions of the planets. In Ancient Greece, the planet was known as Πυρόεις. Commonly, the Greek name for the planet now referred to as Mars, was Ares. It was the Romans who named the planet Mars, for their god of war, often represented by the sword and shield of the planet's namesake. In the fourth century BCE, Aristotle noted that Mars disappeared behind the Moon during an occultation, indicating that the planet was farther away. Ptolemy, a Greek living in Alexandria, attempted to address the problem of the orbital motion of Mars. Ptolemy's model and his collective work on astronomy was presented in the multi-volume collection later called the Almagest (from the Arabic for "greatest"), which became the authoritative treatise on Western astronomy for the next fourteen centuries. Literature from ancient China confirms that Mars was known by Chinese astronomers by no later than the fourth century BCE. In the East Asian cultures, Mars is traditionally referred to as the "fire star" (火星) based on the Wuxing system. In 1609 Johannes Kepler published a 10 year study of Martian orbit, using the diurnal parallax of Mars, measured by Tycho Brahe, to make a preliminary calculation of the relative distance to the planet. From Brahe's observations of Mars, Kepler deduced that the planet orbited the Sun not in a circle, but in an ellipse. Moreover, Kepler showed that Mars sped up as it approached the Sun and slowed down as it moved farther away, in a manner that later physicists would explain as a consequence of the conservation of angular momentum.: 433–437 In 1610 the first use of a telescope for astronomical observation, including Mars, was performed by Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei. With the telescope the diurnal parallax of Mars was again measured in an effort to determine the Sun-Earth distance. This was first performed by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1672. The early parallax measurements were hampered by the quality of the instruments. The only occultation of Mars by Venus observed was that of 13 October 1590, seen by Michael Maestlin at Heidelberg. By the 19th century, the resolution of telescopes reached a level sufficient for surface features to be identified. On 5 September 1877, a perihelic opposition to Mars occurred. The Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli used a 22-centimetre (8.7 in) telescope in Milan to help produce the first detailed map of Mars. These maps notably contained features he called canali, which, with the possible exception of the natural canyon Valles Marineris, were later shown to be an optical illusion. These canali were supposedly long, straight lines on the surface of Mars, to which he gave names of famous rivers on Earth. His term, which means "channels" or "grooves", was popularly mistranslated in English as "canals". Influenced by the observations, the orientalist Percival Lowell founded an observatory which had 30- and 45-centimetre (12- and 18-in) telescopes. The observatory was used for the exploration of Mars during the last good opportunity in 1894, and the following less favorable oppositions. He published several books on Mars and life on the planet, which had a great influence on the public. The canali were independently observed by other astronomers, like Henri Joseph Perrotin and Louis Thollon in Nice, using one of the largest telescopes of that time. The seasonal changes (consisting of the diminishing of the polar caps and the dark areas formed during Martian summers) in combination with the canals led to speculation about life on Mars, and it was a long-held belief that Mars contained vast seas and vegetation. As bigger telescopes were used, fewer long, straight canali were observed. During observations in 1909 by Antoniadi with an 84-centimetre (33 in) telescope, irregular patterns were observed, but no canali were seen. The first spacecraft from Earth to visit Mars was Mars 1 of the Soviet Union, which flew by in 1963, but contact was lost en route. NASA's Mariner 4 followed and became the first spacecraft to successfully transmit from Mars; launched on 28 November 1964, it made its closest approach to the planet on 15 July 1965. Mariner 4 detected the weak Martian radiation belt, measured at about 0.1% that of Earth, and captured the first images of another planet from deep space. Once spacecraft visited the planet during the 1960s and 1970s, many previous concepts of Mars were radically broken. After the results of the Viking life-detection experiments, the hypothesis of a dead planet was generally accepted. The data from Mariner 9 and Viking allowed better maps of Mars to be made. Until 1997 and after Viking 1 shut down in 1982, Mars was only visited by three unsuccessful probes, two flying past without contact (Phobos 1, 1988; Mars Observer, 1993), and one (Phobos 2 1989) malfunctioning in orbit before reaching its destination Phobos. In 1997 Mars Pathfinder became the first successful rover mission beyond the Moon and started together with Mars Global Surveyor (operated until late 2006) an uninterrupted active robotic presence at Mars that has lasted until today. It produced complete, extremely detailed maps of the Martian topography, magnetic field and surface minerals. Starting with these missions a range of new improved crewless spacecraft, including orbiters, landers, and rovers, have been sent to Mars, with successful missions by the NASA (United States), Jaxa (Japan), ESA, United Kingdom, ISRO (India), Roscosmos (Russia), the United Arab Emirates, and CNSA (China) to study the planet's surface, climate, and geology, uncovering the different elements of the history and dynamic of the hydrosphere of Mars and possible traces of ancient life. As of 2023[update], Mars is host to ten functioning spacecraft. Eight are in orbit: 2001 Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, the Hope orbiter, and the Tianwen-1 orbiter. Another two are on the surface: the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover and the Perseverance rover. Collected maps are available online at websites including Google Mars. NASA provides two online tools: Mars Trek, which provides visualizations of the planet using data from 50 years of exploration, and Experience Curiosity, which simulates traveling on Mars in 3-D with Curiosity. Planned missions to Mars include: As of February 2024[update], debris from these types of missions has reached over seven tons. Most of it consists of crashed and inactive spacecraft as well as discarded components. In April 2024, NASA selected several companies to begin studies on providing commercial services to further enable robotic science on Mars. Key areas include establishing telecommunications, payload delivery and surface imaging. Habitability and habitation During the late 19th century, it was widely accepted in the astronomical community that Mars had life-supporting qualities, including the presence of oxygen and water. However, in 1894 W. W. Campbell at Lick Observatory observed the planet and found that "if water vapor or oxygen occur in the atmosphere of Mars it is in quantities too small to be detected by spectroscopes then available". That observation contradicted many of the measurements of the time and was not widely accepted. Campbell and V. M. Slipher repeated the study in 1909 using better instruments, but with the same results. It was not until the findings were confirmed by W. S. Adams in 1925 that the myth of the Earth-like habitability of Mars was finally broken. However, even in the 1960s, articles were published on Martian biology, putting aside explanations other than life for the seasonal changes on Mars. The current understanding of planetary habitability – the ability of a world to develop environmental conditions favorable to the emergence of life – favors planets that have liquid water on their surface. Most often this requires the orbit of a planet to lie within the habitable zone, which for the Sun is estimated to extend from within the orbit of Earth to about that of Mars. During perihelion, Mars dips inside this region, but Mars's thin (low-pressure) atmosphere prevents liquid water from existing over large regions for extended periods. The past flow of liquid water demonstrates the planet's potential for habitability. Recent evidence has suggested that any water on the Martian surface may have been too salty and acidic to support regular terrestrial life. The environmental conditions on Mars are a challenge to sustaining organic life: the planet has little heat transfer across its surface, it has poor insulation against bombardment by the solar wind due to the absence of a magnetosphere and has insufficient atmospheric pressure to retain water in a liquid form (water instead sublimes to a gaseous state). Mars is nearly, or perhaps totally, geologically dead; the end of volcanic activity has apparently stopped the recycling of chemicals and minerals between the surface and interior of the planet. Evidence suggests that the planet was once significantly more habitable than it is today, but whether living organisms ever existed there remains unknown. The Viking probes of the mid-1970s carried experiments designed to detect microorganisms in Martian soil at their respective landing sites and had positive results, including a temporary increase in CO2 production on exposure to water and nutrients. This sign of life was later disputed by scientists, resulting in a continuing debate, with NASA scientist Gilbert Levin asserting that Viking may have found life. A 2014 analysis of Martian meteorite EETA79001 found chlorate, perchlorate, and nitrate ions in sufficiently high concentrations to suggest that they are widespread on Mars. UV and X-ray radiation would turn chlorate and perchlorate ions into other, highly reactive oxychlorines, indicating that any organic molecules would have to be buried under the surface to survive. Small quantities of methane and formaldehyde detected by Mars orbiters are both claimed to be possible evidence for life, as these chemical compounds would quickly break down in the Martian atmosphere. Alternatively, these compounds may instead be replenished by volcanic or other geological means, such as serpentinite. Impact glass, formed by the impact of meteors, which on Earth can preserve signs of life, has also been found on the surface of the impact craters on Mars. Likewise, the glass in impact craters on Mars could have preserved signs of life, if life existed at the site. The Cheyava Falls rock discovered on Mars in June 2024 has been designated by NASA as a "potential biosignature" and was core sampled by the Perseverance rover for possible return to Earth and further examination. Although highly intriguing, no definitive final determination on a biological or abiotic origin of this rock can be made with the data currently available. Several plans for a human mission to Mars have been proposed, but none have come to fruition. The NASA Authorization Act of 2017 directed NASA to study the feasibility of a crewed Mars mission in the early 2030s; the resulting report concluded that this would be unfeasible. In addition, in 2021, China was planning to send a crewed Mars mission in 2033. Privately held companies such as SpaceX have also proposed plans to send humans to Mars, with the eventual goal to settle on the planet. As of 2024, SpaceX has proceeded with the development of the Starship launch vehicle with the goal of Mars colonization. In plans shared with the company in April 2024, Elon Musk envisions the beginning of a Mars colony within the next twenty years. This would be enabled by the planned mass manufacturing of Starship and initially sustained by resupply from Earth, and in situ resource utilization on Mars, until the Mars colony reaches full self sustainability. Any future human mission to Mars will likely take place within the optimal Mars launch window, which occurs every 26 months. The moon Phobos has been proposed as an anchor point for a space elevator. Besides national space agencies and space companies, groups such as the Mars Society and The Planetary Society advocate for human missions to Mars. In culture Mars is named after the Roman god of war (Greek Ares), but was also associated with the demi-god Heracles (Roman Hercules) by ancient Greek astronomers, as detailed by Aristotle. This association between Mars and war dates back at least to Babylonian astronomy, in which the planet was named for the god Nergal, deity of war and destruction. It persisted into modern times, as exemplified by Gustav Holst's orchestral suite The Planets, whose famous first movement labels Mars "The Bringer of War". The planet's symbol, a circle with a spear pointing out to the upper right, is also used as a symbol for the male gender. The symbol dates from at least the 11th century, though a possible predecessor has been found in the Greek Oxyrhynchus Papyri. The idea that Mars was populated by intelligent Martians became widespread in the late 19th century. Schiaparelli's "canali" observations combined with Percival Lowell's books on the subject put forward the standard notion of a planet that was a drying, cooling, dying world with ancient civilizations constructing irrigation works. Many other observations and proclamations by notable personalities added to what has been termed "Mars Fever". In the present day, high-resolution mapping of the surface of Mars has revealed no artifacts of habitation, but pseudoscientific speculation about intelligent life on Mars still continues. Reminiscent of the canali observations, these speculations are based on small scale features perceived in the spacecraft images, such as "pyramids" and the "Face on Mars". In his book Cosmos, planetary astronomer Carl Sagan wrote: "Mars has become a kind of mythic arena onto which we have projected our Earthly hopes and fears." The depiction of Mars in fiction has been stimulated by its dramatic red color and by nineteenth-century scientific speculations that its surface conditions might support not just life but intelligent life. This gave way to many science fiction stories involving these concepts, such as H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, in which Martians seek to escape their dying planet by invading Earth; Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, in which human explorers accidentally destroy a Martian civilization; as well as Edgar Rice Burroughs's series Barsoom, C. S. Lewis's novel Out of the Silent Planet (1938), and a number of Robert A. Heinlein stories before the mid-sixties. Since then, depictions of Martians have also extended to animation. A comic figure of an intelligent Martian, Marvin the Martian, appeared in Haredevil Hare (1948) as a character in the Looney Tunes animated cartoons of Warner Brothers, and has continued as part of popular culture to the present. After the Mariner and Viking spacecraft had returned pictures of Mars as a lifeless and canal-less world, these ideas about Mars were abandoned; for many science-fiction authors, the new discoveries initially seemed like a constraint, but eventually the post-Viking knowledge of Mars became itself a source of inspiration for works like Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. See also Notes References Further reading External links Solar System → Local Interstellar Cloud → Local Bubble → Gould Belt → Orion Arm → Milky Way → Milky Way subgroup → Local Group → Local Sheet → Local Volume → Virgo Supercluster → Laniakea Supercluster → Pisces–Cetus Supercluster Complex → Local Hole → Observable universe → UniverseEach arrow (→) may be read as "within" or "part of". |
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Contents Thirty-seventh government of Israel The thirty-seventh government of Israel is the current cabinet of Israel, formed on 29 December 2022, following the Knesset election the previous month. The coalition government currently consists of five parties — Likud, Shas, Otzma Yehudit, Religious Zionist Party and New Hope — and is led by Benjamin Netanyahu, who took office as the prime minister of Israel for the sixth time. The government is widely regarded as the most right-wing government in the country's history, and includes far-right politicians. Several of the government's policy proposals have led to controversies, both within Israel and abroad, with the government's attempts at reforming the judiciary leading to a wave of demonstrations across the country. Following the outbreak of the Gaza war, opposition leader Yair Lapid initiated discussions with Netanyahu on the formation of an emergency government. On 11 October 2023, National Unity MKs Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot, Gideon Sa'ar, Hili Tropper, and Yifat Shasha-Biton joined the Security Cabinet of Israel to form an emergency national unity government. Their accession to the Security Cabinet and to the government (as ministers without portfolio) was approved by the Knesset the following day. Gantz, Netanyahu, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant became part of the newly formed Israeli war cabinet, with Eisenkot and Ron Dermer serving as observers. National Unity left the government in June 2024. New Hope rejoined the government in September. Otzma Yehudit announced on 19 January 2025 that it had withdrawn from the government, which took effect on 21 January, following the cabinet's acceptance of the three-phase Gaza war ceasefire proposal, though it rejoined two months later. United Torah Judaism left the government in July 2025 over dissatisfaction with the government's draft conscription law. Shas left the government several days later, though it remains part of the coalition. Background The right-wing bloc of parties, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, known in Israel as the national camp, won 64 of the 120 seats in the elections for the Knesset, while the coalition led by the incumbent prime minister Yair Lapid won 51 seats. The new majority has been variously described as the most right-wing government in Israeli history, as well as Israel's most religious government. Shortly after the elections, Lapid conceded to Netanyahu, and congratulated him, wishing him luck "for the sake of the Israeli people". On 15 November, the swearing-in ceremony for the newly elected members of the 25th Knesset was held during the opening session. The vote to appoint a new Speaker of the Knesset, which is usually conducted at the opening session, as well as the swearing in of cabinet members were postponed since ongoing coalition negotiations had not yet resulted in agreement on these positions. Government formation Yair Lapid Yesh Atid Benjamin Netanyahu Likud On 3 November 2022, Netanyahu told his aide Yariv Levin to begin informal coalition talks with allied parties, after 97% of the vote was counted. The leader of the Shas party Aryeh Deri met with Yitzhak Goldknopf, the leader of United Torah Judaism and its Agudat Yisrael faction, on 4 November. The two parties agreed to cooperate as members of the next government. The Degel HaTorah faction of United Torah Judaism stated on 5 November that it will maintain its ideological stance about not seeking any ministerial posts, as per the instruction of its spiritual leader Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, but will seek other senior posts like Knesset committee chairmen and deputy ministers. Netanyahu himself started holding talks on 6 November. He first met with Moshe Gafni, the leader of Degel HaTorah, and then with Goldknopf. Meanwhile, the Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich and the leader of its Otzma Yehudit faction Itamar Ben-Gvir pledged that they would not enter the coalition without the other faction. Gafni later met with Smotrich for coalition talks. Smotrich then met with Netanyahu. On 7 November, Netanyahu met with Ben-Gvir who demanded the Ministry of Public Security with expanded powers for himself and the Ministry of Education or Transport and Road Safety for Yitzhak Wasserlauf. A major demand among all of Netanyahu's allies was that the Knesset be allowed to ignore the rulings of the Supreme Court. Netanyahu met with the Noam faction leader and its sole MK Avi Maoz on 8 November after he threatened to boycott the coalition. He demanded complete control of the Western Wall by the Haredi rabbinate and removal of what he considered as anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish content in schoolbooks. President Isaac Herzog began consultations with heads of all the political parties on 9 November after the election results were certified. During the consultations, he expressed his reservations about Ben-Gvir becoming a member in the next government. Shas met with Likud for coalition talks on 10 November. By 11 November, Netanyahu had secured recommendations from 64 MKs, which constituted a majority. He was given the mandate to form the thirty-seventh government of Israel by President Herzog on 13 November. Otzma Yehudit and Noam officially split from Religious Zionism on 20 November as per a pre-election agreement. On 25 November, Otzma Yehudit and Likud signed a coalition agreement, under which Ben-Gvir will assume the newly created position of National Security Minister, whose powers would be more expansive than that of the Minister of Public Security, including overseeing the Israel Police and the Israel Border Police in the West Bank, as well as giving powers to authorities to shoot thieves stealing from military bases. Yitzhak Wasserlauf was given the Ministry for the Development of the Negev and the Galilee with expanded powers to regulate new West Bank settlements, while separating it from the "Periphery" portfolio, which will be given to Shas. The deal also includes giving the Ministry of Heritage to Amihai Eliyahu, separating it from the "Jerusalem Affairs" portfolio, the chairmanship of the Knesset's Public Security Committee to Zvika Fogel and that of the Special Committee for the Israeli Citizens' Fund to Limor Son Har-Melech, the post of Deputy Economic Minister to Almog Cohen, establishment of a national guard, and expansion of mobilization of reservists in the Border Police. Netanyahu and Maoz signed a coalition agreement on 27 November, under which the latter would become a deputy minister, would head an agency on Jewish identity in the Prime Minister's Office, and would also head Nativ, which processes the aliyah from the former Soviet Union. The agency for Jewish identity would have authority over educational content taught outside the regular curriculum in schools, in addition to the department of the Ministry of Education overseeing external teaching and partnerships, which would bring nonofficial organisations permitted to teach and lecture at schools under its purview. Likud signed a coalition agreement with the Religious Zionist Party on 1 December. Under the deal, Smotrich would serve as the Minister of Finance in rotation with Aryeh Deri, and the party will receive the post of a minister within the Ministry of Defense with control over the departments administering settlement and open lands under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, in addition to another post of a deputy minister. The deal also includes giving the post of Minister of Aliyah and Integration to Ofir Sofer, the newly created National Missions Ministry to Orit Strook, and the chairmanship of the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee to Simcha Rothman. Likud and United Torah Judaism signed a coalition agreement on 6 December, to allow request for an extension to the deadline. Under it, the party would receive the Ministry of Construction and Housing, the chairmanship of the Knesset Finance Committee which will be given to Moshe Gafni, the Ministry of Jerusalem and Tradition (which would replace the Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage), in addition to several posts of deputy ministers and chairmanships of Knesset committees. Likud also signed a deal with Shas by 8 December, securing interim coalition agreements with all of their allies. Under the deal, Deri will first serve as the Minister of Interior and Health, before rotating posts with Smotrich after two years. The party will also receive the Ministry of Religious Services and Welfare Ministries, as well as posts of deputy ministers in the Ministry of Education and Interior. The vote to replace then-incumbent Knesset speaker Mickey Levy was scheduled for 13 December, after Likud and its allies secured the necessary number of signatures for it. Yariv Levin of Likud was elected as an interim speaker by 64 votes, while his opponents Merav Ben-Ari of Yesh Atid and Ayman Odeh of Hadash received 45 and five votes respectively. Netanyahu asked Herzog for a 14-day extension after the agreement with Shas to finalise the roles his allied parties would play. Herzog on 9 December extended the deadline to 21 December. On that date, Netanyahu informed Herzog that he had succeeded in forming a coalition, with the new government expected to be sworn in by 2 January 2023. The government was sworn in on 29 December 2022. Timeline Israeli law stated that people convicted of crimes cannot serve in the government. An amendment to that law was made in late 2022, known colloquially as the Deri Law, to allow those who had been convicted without prison time to serve. This allowed Deri to be appointed to the cabinet. Shas leader Aryeh Deri was appointed to be Minister of Health, Minister of the Interior, and Vice Prime Minister in December 2022. He was fired in January 2023, following a Supreme Court decision that his appointment was unreasonable, since he had been convicted of fraud, and had promised not to seek government roles through a plea deal. In March 2023, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant called on the government to delay legislation related to the judicial reform. Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that he had been dismissed from his position, leading to the continuation of mass protests across the country (which had started in January in Tel Aviv). Gallant continued to serve as a minister as he had not received formal notice of dismissal, and two weeks later it was announced that Netanyahu had reversed his decision. Public Safety Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (Otzma Yehudit leader) and Minister of Justice Yariv Levin (Likud) both threatened to resign if the judicial reform was delayed.[better source needed] After the outbreak of the Gaza war, five members of the National Unity party joined the government as ministers without portfolio, with leader Benny Gantz being made a member of the new Israeli war cabinet (along with Netanyahu and Gallant). As the war progressed, minister of national security Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened to leave the government if the war was ended. A month later in mid December, he again threatened to leave if the war did not maintain "full strength". Gideon Sa'ar stated on 16 March that his New Hope party would resign from the government and join the opposition if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not appoint him to the Israeli war cabinet. Netanyahu did not do so, resulting in Sa'ar's New Hope party leaving the government nine days later, reducing the size of the coalition from 76 MKs to 72. Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, of the National Religious Party–Religious Zionism party, have indicated that they will withdraw their parties from the government if the January 2025 Gaza war ceasefire is adopted, which would bring down the government. Ben-Gvir announced on 5 June that the members of his party would be allowed to vote as they wish, though his party resumed support on 9 June. On 18 May, Gantz set an 8 June deadline for withdrawal from the coalition, which was delayed by a day following the 2024 Nuseirat rescue operation. Gantz and his party left the government on 9 June, giving the government 64 seats in the Knesset. Sa'ar and his New Hope party rejoined the Netanyahu government on 30 September, increasing the number of seats held by the government to 68. The High Court of Justice ruled on 28 March 2024 that yeshiva funds would no longer be available for students who are "eligible for enlistment", effectively allowing ultra-Orthodox Jews to be drafted into the IDF. Attorney general Gali Baharav-Miara indicated on 31 March that the conscription process must begin on 1 April. The court ruled on 25 June that the IDF must begin to draft yeshiva students. Likud announced on 7 July that it would not put forward any legislation after Shas and United Torah Judaism said that they would boycott the plenary session over the lack of legislation dealing with the Haredi draft. The Ultra-Orthodox boycott continued for a second day, with UTJ briefly ending its boycott on 9 July to unsuccessfully vote in favor of a bill which would have weakened the Law of Return. Yuli Edelstein, who was replaced by Boaz Bismuth on the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in early August, published a draft version of the conscription law shortly before his ouster. Bismuth cancelled the work on the draft law in September 2025, which Edelstein called "a shame." Bismuth released the official version of the draft law in late November 2025. It weakened penalties for draft evaders, with Edelstein saying it was "the exact opposite" of the bill which he attempted to pass. Members of Otzma Yehudit resigned from the government on 19 January 2025 over the January 2025 Gaza war ceasefire, which took effect on 21 January. The members rejoined in March, following the "resumption" of the war in Gaza. Avi Maoz of the Noam party left the government in March 2025. On 4 June 2025, senior rabbis for United Torah Judaism Dov Lando and Moshe Hillel Hirsch instructed the party's MKs to pass a bill which would dissolve the Knesset. Yesh Atid, Yisrael Beytenu and The Democrats announced that they will "submit a bill" for dissolution on 11 June, with Yesh Atid tabling the bill on 4 June. There were also reports that Shas would vote in favor of Knesset dissolution amidst division within the governing coalition on Haredi conscription. This jeopardized the coalition's majority and would have triggered new elections if the bill passed. The following day, Agudat Yisrael, one of the United Torah Judaism factions, confirmed that it would submit a bill to dissolve the Knesset. Asher Medina, a Shas spokesman, indicated on 9 June that the party would vote in favor of a preliminary bill to dissolve the Knesset. The rabbis of Degel HaTorah instructed the parties' MKs on 12 June 2025 to oppose the dissolution of the Knesset, which was followed by Yuli Edelstein and the Shas and Degel HaTorah parties announcing that a deal had been reached, with "rabbinical leaders" telling their parties to delay the dissolution vote by a week. Shas and Degel HaTorah voted against the dissolution bill, which led to the bill failing its preliminary reading in a vote of 61 against and 53 in favor. MKs Ya'akov Tessler and Moshe Roth of Agudat Yisrael voted in favor of dissolution. Another dissolution bill will be unable to be brought forward for six months. If the bill had passed its preliminary reading, in addition to three more readings, an election would have been held in approximately three months; The Jerusalem Post posited it would have been held in October. Degel HaTorah announced on 14 July 2025 that it would leave the government because members of the party were dissatisfied after viewing the proposed draft bill by Yuli Edelstein regarding Haredi exemptions from the Israeli draft. Several hours later, Agudat Yisrael announced that it would also leave the government. Deputy Transportation Minister Uri Maklev, Moshe Gafni, the head of the Knesset Finance Committee, Ya'akov Asher, the head of the Knesset Interior and Environment Protection Committee and Jerusalem Affairs minister Meir Porush all submitted their resignations, with their resignations taking effect in 48 hours. Sports Minister Ya'akov Tessler and "Special Committee for Public Petitions Chair" Yitzhak Pindrus also submitted resignations. Yisrael Eichler submitted his resignation as the "head of the Knesset Labor and Welfare Committee" the same day. The resignations will leave Netanyahu's government with a 60-seat majority in the Knesset, as Avi Maoz, of the Noam party, left the government in March 2025. Despite Edelstein's ouster in August, a spokesman for UTJ head Yitzhak Goldknopf remarked that it would not change the faction's withdrawal from the government. The religious council for Shas, called the Moetzet Chachmei HaTorah, instructed the party on 16 July to leave the government, but stay in the coalition. The following day, various cabinet ministers submitted their resignations, including "Interior Minister Moshe Arbel, Social Affairs Minister Ya'akov Margi and Religious Services Minister Michael Malchieli." Malchieli reportedly has postponed his resignation so he could attend a 20 July meeting of the panel investigating whether attorney general Gali Baharav-Miara should be dismissed. Deputy Minister of Agriculture Moshe Abutbul, Minister of Health Uriel Buso and Haim Biton, a minister in the Education Ministry, also submitted their resignation letters, while Arbel retracted his resignation letter. The last cabinet member from the party to submit it was Labor Minister Yoav Ben-Tzur. The ministers who resigned will return to the Knesset, replacing MKs Moshe Roth, Yitzhak Pindrus and Eliyahu Baruchi. Members of government Listed below are the current ministers in the government: Principles and priorities According to the agreements signed between Likud and each of its coalition partners, and the incoming government's published guideline principles, its stated priorities are to combat the cost of living, further centralize Orthodox control over the state religious services, pass judicial reforms which include legislation to reduce judicial controls on executive and legislative power, expand settlements in the West Bank, and consider an annexation of the West Bank. Before the vote of confidence in his new government in the Knesset, Netanyahu presented three top priorities for the new government: internal security and governance, halting the nuclear program of Iran, and the development of infrastructure, with a focus on further connecting the center of the country with its periphery. Policies The government's flagship program, centered around reforms in the judicial branch, drew widespread criticism. Critics said it would have negative effects on the separation of powers, the office of the Attorney General, the economy, public health, women and minorities, workers' rights, scientific research, the overall strength of Israel's democracy and its foreign relations. After weeks of public protests on Israel's streets, joined by a growing number of military reservists, Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant spoke against the reform on 25 March, calling for a halt of the legislative process "for the sake of Israel's security". The next day, Netanyahu announced that he would be removed from his post, sparking another wave of protest across Israel and ultimately leading to Netanyahu agreeing to pause the legislation. On 10 April, Netanyahu announced that Gallant would keep his post. On 27 March 2023, after the public protests and general strikes, Netanyahu announced a pause in the reform process to allow for dialogue with opposition parties. However, negotiations aimed at reaching a compromise collapsed in June, and the government resumed its plans to unilaterally pass parts of the legislation. On 24 July 2023, the Knesset passed a bill that curbs the power of the Supreme Court to declare government decisions unreasonable; on 1 January 2024, the Supreme Court struck the bill down. The Knesset passed a "watered-down" version of the judicial reform package in late March 2025 which "changes the composition" of the judicial selection committee. In December 2022 Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir sought to amend the law that regulates the operations of the Israel Police, such that the ministry will have more direct control of its forces and policies, including its investigative priorities. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara objected to the draft proposal, raising concerns that the law would enable the politicization of police work, and the draft was amended to partially address those concerns. Nevertheless, in March 2023 Deputy Attorney General Gil Limon stated that the Attorney General's fears had been realized, referring to several instances of ministerial involvement in the day-to-day work of the otherwise independent police force – statements that were repeated by the Attorney General herself two days later. Separately, Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai instructed Deputy Commissioners to avoid direct communication with the minister, later stating that "the Israel Police will remain apolitical, and act only according to law". Following appeals by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, the High Court of Justice instructed Ben-Gvir "to refrain from giving operational directions to the police... [especially] as regards to protests and demonstrations against the government." As talks of halting the judicial reform gained wind during March 2023, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened to resign if the legislation implementing the changes was suspended. To appease Ben-Gvir, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that the government would promote the creation of a new National Guard, to be headed by Ben-Gvir. On 29 March, thousands of Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem against this decision. On 1 April, the New York Times quoted Gadeer Nicola, head of the Arab department at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, as saying "If this thing passes, it will be an imminent danger to the rights of Arab citizens in this country. This will create two separate systems of applying the law. The regular police which will operate against Jewish citizens — and a militarized militia to deal only with Arab citizens." The same day, while speaking on Israel's Channel 13 about those whom he'd like to see enlist in the National Guard, Ben-Gvir specifically mentioned La Familia, the far-right fan club of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team. On 2 April, Israel's cabinet approved the establishment of a law enforcement body that would operate independently of the police, under Ben-Gvir's authority. According to the decision, the Minister was to establish a committee chaired by the Director General of the Ministry of National Security, with representatives of the ministries of defense, justice and finance, as well as the police and the IDF, to outline the operations of the new organization. The committee's recommendations will be submitted to the government for consideration. Addressing a conference on 4 April, Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai said that he is not opposed to the establishment of a security body which would answer to the police, but "a separate body? Absolutely not." The police chief said he had warned Ben-Gvir that the establishment of a security body separate from the police is "unnecessary, with extremely high costs that may harm citizens' personal security." During a press conference on 10 April, Prime Minister Netanyahu said, in what has been seen by some news outlets as a concession to the protesters, that "This will not be anyone's militia, it will be a security body, orderly, professional, that will be subordinate to one of the [existing] security bodies." The committee established by the government recommended the government to order the establishment of the National Guard immediately while allocating budgets. The National Guard, under whose command will be a superintendent of the police, will not be subordinate to Ben-Gvir. It will be subordinate to the police commissioner and will be part of Israel Border Police. The Ministry of Defense and Finance opposed the conclusions. The Israeli National Security Council called for further discussion on this. The coalition's efforts to expand the purview of Rabbinical courts; force some organizations, such as hospitals, to enforce certain religious practices; amend the Law Prohibiting Discrimination to allow gender segregation and discrimination on the grounds of religious belief; expand funding for religious causes; and put into law the exemption of yeshiva and kolel students from conscription have drawn criticism. According to the Haaretz op-ed of 7 March 2023, "the current coalition is interested... in modifying the public space so it suits the religious lifestyle. The legal coup is meant to castrate anyone who can prevent it, most of all the HCJ." Several banks and institutional investors, including the Israel Discount Bank and AIG have committed to avoid investing in, or providing credit to any organization that will discriminate against others on ground of religion, race, gender or sexual orientation. A series of technology companies and investment firms including Wiz, Intel Israel, Salesforce and Microsoft Israel Research and Development, have criticized the proposed changes to the Law Prohibiting Discrimination, with Wiz stating that it will require its suppliers to commit to preventing discrimination. Over sixty prominent law firms pledged that they will neither represent, nor do business with discriminating individuals and organizations. Insight Partners, a major private equity fund operating in Israel, released a statement warning against intolerance and any attempt to harm personal liberties. Orit Lahav, chief executive of the women's rights organization Mavoi Satum ("Dead End"), said that "the Rabbinical courts are the most discriminatory institution in the State of Israel... Limiting the HCJ[d] while expanding the jurisdiction of the Rabbinical courts would... cause significant harm to women." Anat Thon Ashkenazy, Director of the Center for Democratic Values and Institutions at the Israel Democracy Institute, said that "almost every part of the reform could harm women... the meaning of an override clause is that even if the court says that the law on gender segregation is illegitimate, is harmful, the Knesset could say 'Okay, we say otherwise'". She added that "there is a very broad institutional framework here, after which there will come legislation that harms women's right and we will have no way of protecting or stopping it." During July 2023, 20 professional medical associations signed a letter of position warning against the ramifications to public health that would result from the exclusion of women from the public sphere. They cited, among others, a rise in prevalence of risk factors for cardiovascular disease, pregnancy-related ailments, psychological distress, and the risk of suicide. On 30 July the Knesset passed an amendment to penal law adding sexual offenses to those offenses whose penalty can be doubled if done on grounds of "nationalistic terrorism, racism or hostility towards a certain community". According to MK Limor Son Har-Melech, the bill is meant to penalize any individual who "[intends to] harm a woman sexually based on her Jewishness". The law was criticized by MK Gilad Kariv as "populist, nationalistic, and dangerous towards the Arab citizens of Israel", and by MK Ahmad Tibi as a "race law", and was objected to by legal advisors at the Ministry of Justice and the Knesset Committee on National Security. Activist Orit Kamir wrote that "the amendment... is neither feminist, equal, nor progressive, but the opposite: it subordinates women's sexuality to the nationalistic, racist patriarchy. It hijacks the Law for Prevention of Sexual Harassment to serve a world view that tags women as sexual objects that personify the nation's honor." Yael Sherer, director of the Lobby to Combat Sexual Violence, criticized the law as being informed by dated ideas about sexual assault, and proposed that MKs "dedicate a session... to give victims of sexual assault an opportunity to come out of the darkness... instead of [submitting] declarative bills that change nothing and are not meant but for grabbing headlines". In Israel, during 2022, 24 women "were murdered because they were women," which was an increase of 50% compared to 2021. A law permitting courts to order men subject to a restraining order following domestic violence offenses to wear electronic tags was drafted during the previous Knesset and had passed its first reading unanimously. On 22 March 2023, the Knesset voted to reject the bill. It had been urged to do so by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who said that the bill was unfair to men. Earlier in the week, Ben-Gvir had blocked the measure from advancing in the ministerial legislative committee. The MKs voting against the bill included Prime Minister Netanyahu. The Association of Families of Murder Victims said that by rejecting the law, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir "brings joy to violent men and abandons the women threatened with murder… unsupervised restraining orders endanger women's lives even more. They give women the illusion of being protected, and then they are murdered." MK Pnina Tamano-Shata, chairwoman of the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality, said that "the coalition proved today that it despises women's lives." The NGO Amutat Bat Melech [he], which assists Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox women who suffer from domestic violence, said that: "Rejecting the electronic bracelet bill is disconnected from the terrible reality of seven femicides since the beginning of the year. This is an effective tool of the first degree that could have saved lives and reduced the threat to women suffering from domestic violence. This is a matter of life and death, whose whole purpose is to provide a solution to defend women." The agreement signed by the coalition parties includes the setting up of a committee to draft changes to the Law of Return. Israeli religious parties have long demanded that the "grandchild clause" of the Law of Return be cancelled. This clause grants citizenship to anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent, as long as they do not practice another religion. If the grandchild clause were to be removed from the Law of Return then around 3 million people who are currently eligible for aliyah would no longer be eligible. The heads of the Jewish Agency, the Jewish Federations of North America, the World Zionist Organization and Keren Hayesod sent a joint letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu, expressing their "deep concern" about any changes to the Law of Return, adding that "Any change in the delicate and sensitive status quo on issues such as the Law of Return or conversion could threaten to unravel the ties between us and keep us away from each other." The Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the Zionist Federation of Australia issued a joint statement saying "We… view with deep concern… proposals in relation to religious pluralism and the law of return that risk damaging Israel's… relationship with Diaspora Jewry." On 19 March 2023, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich spoke in Paris at a memorial service for a Likud activist. The lectern at which Smotrich spoke was covered with a flag depicting the 'Greater Land of Israel,' encompassing the whole of Mandatory Palestine, as well as Trans-Jordan. During his speech, Smotrich said that "there's no such thing as Palestinians because there's no such thing as a Palestinian people." He added that the Palestinian people are a fictitious nation invented only to fight the Zionist movement, asking "Is there a Palestinian history or culture? There isn't any." The event received widespread media coverage. On 21 March, a spokesman for the US State Department sharply criticized Smotrich's comments. "The comments, which were delivered at a podium adorned with an inaccurate and provocative map, are offensive, they are deeply concerning, and, candidly, they're dangerous. The Palestinians have a rich history and culture, and the United States greatly values our partnership with the Palestinian people," he said. The Jordanian Foreign Ministry also voiced disapproval: "The Israeli Minister of Finance's use, during his participation in an event held yesterday in Paris, of a map of Israel that includes the borders of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the occupied Palestinian territories represents a reckless inflammatory act, and a violation of international norms and the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty." Additionally, a map encompassing Mandatory Palestine and Trans-Jordan with a Jordanian flag on it was placed on a central lectern in the Jordanian Parliament. Jordan's parliament voted to expel the Israeli ambassador. Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a clarification relating to the matter, stating that "Israel is committed to the 1994 peace agreement with Jordan. There has been no change in the position of the State of Israel, which recognizes the territorial integrity of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan". Ahead of a Europe Day event due to take place on 9 May 2023, far-right wing National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was assigned as a representative of the government and a speaker at the event by the government secretariat, which deals with placing ministers at receptions on the occasion of the national days of the foreign embassies. The European Union requested that Ben-Gvir not attend, but the government did not make changes to the plan. On 8 May, the European delegation to Israel cancelled the reception, stating that: "The EU Delegation to Israel is looking forward to celebrating Europe Day on May 9, as it does every year. Regrettably, this year we have decided to cancel the diplomatic reception, as we do not want to offer a platform to someone whose views contradict the values the European Union stands for. However, the Europe Day cultural event for the Israeli public will be maintained to celebrate with our friends and partners in Israel the strong and constructive bilateral relationship". Israel's Opposition Leader Yair Lapid stated: "Sending Itamar Ben-Gvir to a gathering of EU ambassadors is a serious professional mistake. The government is embarrassing a large group of friendly countries, jeopardizing future votes in international institutions, and damaging our foreign relations. Last year, after a decade of efforts, we succeeded in signing an economic-political agreement with the European Union that will contribute to the Israeli economy and our foreign relations. Why risk it, and for what? Ben-Gvir is not a legitimate person in the international community (and not really in Israel either), and sometimes you have to be both wise and just and simply send someone else". On 23 February 2023, Defense Minister Gallant signed an agreement assigning governmental powers in the West Bank to a body to be headed by Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who will effectively become the governor of the West Bank, controlling almost all areas of life in the area, including planning, building and infrastructure. Israeli governments have hitherto been careful to keep the occupation as a military government. The temporary holding of power by an occupying military force, pending a negotiated settlement, is a principle of international law – an expression of the prohibition against obtaining sovereignty through conquest that was introduced in the wake of World War II. An editorial in Haaretz noted that the assignment of governmental powers in the West Bank to a civilian governor, alongside the plan to expand the dual justice system so that Israeli law will apply fully to settlers in the West Bank, constitutes de jure annexation of the West Bank. On 26 February 2023, following the 2023 Huwara shooting in which two Israelis were killed by an unidentified attacker, hundreds of Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian town of Huwara and three nearby villages, setting alight hundreds of Palestinian homes (some with people in them), businesses, a school, and numerous vehicles, killing one Palestinian man and injuring 100 others. Bezalel Smotrich subsequently called on Twitter for Huwara to be "wiped out" by the Israeli government. Zvika Fogel MK, of the ultra-nationalist Otzma Yehudit, which forms part of the governing coalition, said that he "looks very favorably upon" the results of the rampage. Members of the coalition proposed an amendment to the Disengagement Law, which would allow Israelis to resettle settlements vacated during the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza and the northern West Bank. The evacuated settlements were considered illegal under international law, according to most countries. The proposal was approved for voting by the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on 9 March 2023, while the committee was still waiting for briefing materials from the NSS, IDF, MFA and Shin Bet, and was passed on 21 March. The US has requested clarification from Israeli ambassador Michael Herzog. A US State Department spokesman stated that "The U.S. strongly urges Israel to refrain from allowing the return of settlers to the area covered by the legislation, consistent with both former Prime Minister Sharon and the current Israeli Government's commitment to the United States," noting that the actions represent a clear violation of undertakings given by the Sharon government to the Bush administration in 2005 and Netanyahu's far-right coalition to the Biden administration the previous week. Minister of Communication Shlomo Karhi had initially intended to cut the funding of the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (also known by its blanket branding Kan) by 400 million shekels – roughly half of its total budget – closing several departments, and privatizing content creation. In response, the Director-General of the European Broadcasting Union, Noel Curran, sent two urgent letters to Netanyahu, expressing his concerns and calling on the Israeli government to "safeguard the independence of our Member KAN and ensure it is allowed to operate in a sustainable way, with funding that is both stable, adequate, fair, and transparent." On 25 January 2023, nine journalist organizations representing some of Kan's competitors issued a statement of concern, acknowledging the "important contribution of public broadcasting in creating a worthy, unbiased and non-prejudicial journalistic platform", and noting that "the existence of the [broadcasting] corporation as a substantial public broadcast organization strengthens media as a whole, adding to the competition in the market rather than weakening it." They also expressed their concern that the "real reason" for the proposal was actually "an attempt to silence voices from which... [the Minister] doesn't always draw satisfaction". The same day, hundreds of journalists, actors and filmmakers protested in Tel Aviv. The proposal was eventually put on hold. On 22 February 2023 it was reported that Prime Minister Netanyahu was attempting to appoint his close associate Yossi Shelley as the deputy to the National Statistician — a highly sensitive position in charge of providing accurate data for decision makers. The appointment of Shelley, who did not possess the required qualifications for the role, was withdrawn following publication. In its daily editorial, Haaretz tied this attempt with the judicial reform: "once they take control of the judiciary, law enforcement and public media, they wish to control the state's data base, the dry numerical data it uses to plan its future". Netanyahu also proposed Avi Simhon for the role, and eventually froze all appointments at the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. Also on 22 February 2023, it was revealed that Yoav Kish, the Minister of Education, was promoting a draft government decision change to the National Library of Israel board of directors which would grant him more power over the institution. In response, the Hebrew University — which owned the library until 2008 – announced that if the draft is accepted, it will withdraw its collections from the library. The university's collections, which according to the university constitute some 80% of the library's collection, include the Agnon archive, the original manuscript of Hatikvah, and the Rothschild Haggadah, the oldest known Haggadah. A group of 300 authors and poets signed an open letter against the move, further noting their objection against "political takeover" of public broadcasting, as well as "any legislation that will castrate the judiciary and damage the democratic foundations of the state of Israel". Several days later, it was reported that a series of donors decided to withhold their donations to the library, totaling some 80 million shekels. On 3 March a petition against the move by 1,500 academics, including Israel Prize laureates, was sent to Kish. The proposal has been seen by some as retribution against Shai Nitzan, the former State Attorney and the library's current rector. On 5 March it was reported that the Legal Advisor to the Ministry of Finance, Asi Messing, was withholding the proposal. According to Messing, the proposal – which was being promoted as part of the Economic Arrangements Law – "was not reviewed... by the qualified personnel in the Ministry of Finance, does not align with any of the common goals of the economic plan, was not agreed to by myself and was not approved by the Attorney General." As of February 2023, the government has been debating several proposals that will significantly weaken the Ministry of Environmental Protection, including reducing the environmental regulation of planning and development and electricity production. One of the main proposals, the transferal of a 3 billion shekel fund meant to finance waste management plants from the Ministry of Environmental Protection to the Ministry of the Interior, was eventually withdrawn. The Minister of Environmental Protection, Idit Silman, has been criticized for using for meeting with climate change denialists, for wasteful and personally-motivated travel on the ministry's expense, for politicizing the role, and for engaging in political activity on the ministry's time. The government has been noted for an unusually high number of dismissals and resignations of senior career civil servants, and for the frequent attempts to replace them with candidates with known political associations, who are often less competent. According to sources, Netanyahu and people in his vicinity are seeking out civil servants who were appointed by the previous government, intent on replacing them with people loyal to him. Governmental nominees for various positions have been criticized for lack of expertise. In addition to the nominee to the position of Deputy National Statistician (see above), the Director General of the Ministry of Finance, Shlomi Heisler; the Director General of the Ministry of Justice, Itamar Donenfeld; and the Director General of Ministry of Transport, Moshe Ben Zaken, have all been criticized for incompetence, lack of familiarity with their Ministries' subject matter, lack of interest in the job, or lack of experience in managing large organizations. It has been reported that in some ministries, senior officials were enacting slowdowns as a means for dealing with the new ministers and director generals. On 28 July the director general of the Ministry of Education resigned, citing as reason the societal "rift". Asaf Zalel, a retired Air Force Brigadier General, was appointed in January. When asked about attempts to appoint his personal friend and attorney to the board of directors of a state-owned company, Minister David Amsalem replied: "that is my job, due to my authority to appoint directors. I put forward people that I know and hold in esteem". Under Minister of Transport Miri Regev, the ministry has either dismissed or lost the heads of the National Public Transport Authority, Israel Airports Authority, National Road Safety Authority, Israel Railways, and several officials in Netivei Israel. The current chair of Netivei Israel is Likud member and Regev associate Yigal Amadi, and the legal counsel is Einav Abuhzira, daughter of a former Likud branch chair. Abuhzira was appointed instead of Elad Berdugo, nephew of Netanyahu surrogate Yaakov Bardugo, after he was disqualified for the role by the Israel Government Companies Authority. In July 2023 the Ministry of Communications, Shlomo Karhi, and the minister in charge of the Israel Government Companies Authority, Dudi Amsalem, deposed the chair of the Israel Postal Company, Michael Vaknin. The chair, who was hired to lead the company's financial recovery after years of operational loss and towards privatization, has gained the support of officials at the Authority and at the Ministry of Finance; nevertheless, the ministers claimed that his performance is inadequate, and nominated in his place Yiftah Ron-Tal, who has known ties to Netanyahu and Smotrich. They also nominated four new directors, two of which have known political associations, and a third who was a witness in Netanyahu's trial. The coalition is allowed to spend a portion of the state's budget on a discretionary basis, meant to coax member parties to reach an agreement on the budget. As of May 2023, the government was pushing an allocation of over 13 billion shekels over two years - almost seven times the amount allocated by the previous government. Most of the funds will be allocated for uses associated with the religious, orthodox and settler communities. The head of the Budget Department at the Ministry of Finance, Yoav Gardos, objected to the allocations, claiming they would exacerbate unemployment in the Orthodox community, which is projected to cost the economy a total of 6.7 trillion shekels in lost produce by 2065. At the onset of the Gaza war and the declaration of a state of national emergency, Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich instructed government agencies to continue with the planned distribution of discretionary funds. Corruption During March 2023, the government was promoting an amendment to the Law on Public Service (Gifts) that would allow Netanyahu to receive donations to fund his legal defense. The amendment follows a decision by the High Court of Justice (HCJ) that forced Netanyahu to refund US$270,000 given to him and his wife by his late cousin, Nathan Mileikowsky, for their legal defense. This is in contrast to past statements by Minister of Justice Yariv Levin, who spoke against the possible conflict of interests that can result from such transactions. The bill was opposed by the Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who stressed that it could "create a real opportunity for governmental corruption", and was eventually withdrawn at the end of March. As of March 2023, the coalition was promoting a bill that would prevent judicial review of ministerial appointments. The bill is intended to prevent the HCJ from reviewing the appointment of the twice-convicted chairman of Shas, Aryeh Deri (convicted of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust), to a ministerial position, after his previous appointment was annulled on grounds of unreasonableness. The bill follows on the heels of another amendment, that relaxed the ban on the appointment of convicted criminals, so that Deri - who was handed a suspended sentence after his second conviction - could be appointed. The bill is opposed by the Attorney General, as well as by the Knesset Legal Adviser, Sagit Afik. Israeli law allows for declaring a Prime Minister (as well as several other high-ranking public officials) to be temporarily or permanently incapacitated, but does not specify the conditions which can lead to a declaration of incapacitation. In the case of the Prime Minister, the authority to do so is given to the Attorney General. In March 2023, the coalition advanced a bill that passes this authority from the Attorney General to the government with the approval of the Knesset committee, and clarified that incapacitation can only result from medical or mental conditions. On 3 January 2024, the Supreme Court ruled by a majority of 6 out of 11 that the validity of the law will be postponed to the next Knesset because the bill in its immediate application is a personal law and is intended to serve a distinct personal purpose. Later, the court rejected a petition regarding the definition of Netanyahu as an incapacitated prime minister due to his ongoing trial and conflict of interests. Notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4040] | [TOKENS: 1274] |
Contents Intel 4040 The Intel 4040 ("forty-forty") is the second 4-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. Introduced in 1974 as a successor to the Intel 4004, the 4040 was produced with a 10 μm process and includes silicon gate enhancement-load PMOS logic technology. The 4040 contained 3,000 transistors and could execute approximately 62,000 instructions per second. General performance, bus layout and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) were identical to the 4004. The main improvement was to use a larger 24-pin dual in-line package, giving it 8 more pins than the 16-pin 4004. Two of these were used to implement interrupts, which were lacking in the 4004 and considered a major oversight. Two more implemented a halt/stop system, which put the processor into a low-power mode and also allowed for single-step operation that made debugging much easier. Another pin was used to bank select a second read-only memory (ROM), doubling the amount of ROM the processor could address compared to the 4004. To make use of these new pins, the instruction set was expanded, increasing it to 60 instructions from the original 46. Additionally, the internal register file and pushdown stack were expanded to support rapid interrupt processing. Description The 4004 was designed to be used in an electronic calculator and many of its design notes are related to this role. For instance, program code can only be read from an area dedicated to read-only memory, not RAM. Although one could implement the "ROM space" using RAM chips, there were no instructions able to write to that area of memory, and no instructions able to read program code from RAM space. The idea was that systems would supply the system program on ROM, and small amounts of RAM would be used only for data, if at all. In typical use, the internal "index registers" would be used for storage during calculations, with the 16 4-bit registers able to hold a single 8-digit binary-coded decimal value, the data format used by calculators. It also had four 12-bit registers for holding program addresses, the top-most was the program counter and the next three operated as a push-down stack for subroutine calls. To reduce pin count to only 16, the original 4004 had only four data pins, multiplexed for both data and addresses. Additional pins indicated whether the address was in ROM or one of several "banks" of RAM. As addresses were 12 bits long, expressing an address took three cycles along with the subsequent read or write, and external circuitry had to latch each 4 bit part of the address between cycles. Instructions were 8 bits, so loading the next instruction required at least another two cycles, which led to the slow performance in spite of what was a relatively fast clock for the era. The 4040 was essentially an expansion of the 4004, with additional pins, more registers and new instructions to take advantage of both. The 4004 had a single ROM pin, whereas the 4040 added another ROM pin to allow two banks of ROM. This effectively increased the ROM address from 12 to 13 bits, or 8 KB. Unlike later designs where the two lines could be binary encoded and thus support four banks, the ROM chips used with the 4004 and 4040 used these lines like chip select pins, and thus the two lines could only support two banks. The 4004 lacked interrupts, a serious limitation for some real-time applications. The 4040 added a new input pin for calling an interrupt, as well an output pin to indicate the interrupt signal had been noticed and was being acted on. As interrupts also need to save a return address, the stack register file was expanded to seven entries, up from three.[Note 1] Interrupt handler code normally starts by saving out values in the registers to allow the interrupt code to use them, and then at the end it copies the values back from memory so that the processor returns to its original pre-interrupt state. With the multi-cycle memory access of the design, this would have been extremely slow. To address this, eight additional registers were added in a new "bank 1", the original sixteen registers retroactively becoming "bank 0". When an interrupt was received, the handler code would call an instruction to swap banks, which would cause bank 1's registers to override bank 0's registers 0 through 7. The handler code would then use these first eight registers for any local data, leaving the original values untouched. When the handler completed, it simply swapped bank 0 back in. This reduced the switching time to a single instruction, greatly improving interrupt response times. Another addition was the input stop pin, and the associated output stop acknowledge. These could be used to stop the processor while the system performed input/output or other non-CPU tasks, but was more widely used for debugging by allowing the processor to be single-stepped. When the processor was in stopped mode, most of the chip hardware put into a low-drain, high-impedance condition, reducing power use. The machine cycle clocks were kept running for the benefit of external devices, including any interrupt controllers needed to wake the chip back up, which relied on these controllers staying in sync. To take advantage of these new features, and to support the new logical AND and OR operators, the instruction set added 14 new instructions, bringing the total to 60. Characteristics Designers Federico Faggin proposed the project, formulated the architecture and led the design. The detailed design was done by Tom Innes. The original mask show next to Tom Innes‘ initials (TI) two further initials from sofar unidentified other designers (JO, EL). New support chips Use in computers The 4040 was first used in a microcomputer in Intel's Intellec 4 Mod 40 development system, released in early 1975. According to Byte magazine, the first third-party microcomputer designed around the Intel 4040 was the Micro 440, released by Comp-Sultants of Huntsville, Alabama, in late 1975. See also Notes References Further reading |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/55_Orionis] | [TOKENS: 209] |
Contents List of stars in Orion This is the list of notable stars in the constellation Orion, sorted by decreasing brightness. • Name = Proper name • B = Bayer designation • F or/and G. = Flamsteed designation or Gould designation • Var = Variable star designation • HD = Henry Draper Catalogue designation number • HIP = Hipparcos Catalogue designation number • RA = Right ascension for the Epoch/Equinox J2000.0 • Dec = Declination for the Epoch/Equinox J2000.0 • vis. mag. = visual magnitude (m or mv), also known as apparent magnitude • abs. mag. = absolute magnitude (Mv) • Dist. (ly) = Distance in light-years from Earth • Sp. class = Spectral class of the star in the stellar classification system • Notes = Common name(s) or alternate name(s); comments; notable properties [for example: multiple star status, range of variability if it is a variable star, exoplanets, etc.] See also References |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/56_Orionis] | [TOKENS: 283] |
Contents 56 Orionis 56 Orionis is a single, variable star in the equatorial constellation of Orion. It has an orange hue and is faintly visible to the naked eye with an apparent visual magnitude that fluctuates around 4.76. The star is located at a distance of approximately 1,130 light years from the Sun based on parallax. It is drifting further away with a radial velocity of +11 km/s. The star has a peculiar velocity of 19.0+2.9−3.1 km/s relative to its neighbors, and may be a runaway star. This object is a bright giant star with a stellar classification of K2-IIb. It is a suspected variable star of unknown type with a brightness that has been measured varying from 4.73 down to 4.78. The star is about 61 million years old with 6.4 times the mass of the Sun and is spinning with a projected rotational velocity of 3.5. Having exhausted the supply of hydrogen at its core, the star has expanded to 92 times the radius of the Sun. It is radiating 2,547 times the Sun's luminosity from its enlarged photosphere at an effective temperature of 4,270 K. It has one reported visual companion, designated component B, with magnitude 13.5 and angular separation 42.9″. References |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterrestrial_life#cite_note-58] | [TOKENS: 11349] |
Contents Extraterrestrial life Extraterrestrial life, or alien life (colloquially aliens), is life that originates from another world rather than on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been scientifically or conclusively detected. Such life might range from simple forms such as prokaryotes to intelligent beings, possibly bringing forth civilizations that might be far more, or far less, advanced than humans. The Drake equation speculates about the existence of sapient life elsewhere in the universe. The science of extraterrestrial life is known as astrobiology. Speculation about inhabited worlds beyond Earth dates back to antiquity. Early Christian writers, including Augustine, discussed ideas from thinkers like Democritus and Epicurus about countless worlds in the vast universe. Pre-modern writers typically assumed extraterrestrial "worlds" were inhabited by living beings. William Vorilong, in the 15th century, acknowledged the possibility Jesus could have visited extraterrestrial worlds to redeem their inhabitants.: 26 In 1440, Nicholas of Cusa suggested Earth is a "brilliant star"; he theorized that all celestial bodies, even the Sun, could host life. Descartes wrote that there were no means to prove the stars were not inhabited by "intelligent creatures", but their existence was a matter of speculation.: 67 In comparison to the life-abundant Earth, the vast majority of intrasolar and extrasolar planets and moons have harsh surface conditions and disparate atmospheric chemistry, or lack an atmosphere. However, there are many extreme and chemically harsh ecosystems on Earth that do support forms of life and are often hypothesized to be the origin of life on Earth. Examples include life surrounding hydrothermal vents, acidic hot springs, and volcanic lakes, as well as halophiles and the deep biosphere. Since the mid-20th century, researchers have searched for extraterrestrial life and intelligence. Solar system studies focus on Venus, Mars, Europa, and Titan, while exoplanet discoveries now total 6,022 confirmed planets in 4,490 systems as of October 2025. Depending on the category of search, methods range from analysis of telescope and specimen data to radios used to detect and transmit interstellar communication. Interstellar travel remains largely hypothetical, with only the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes confirmed to have entered the interstellar medium. The concept of extraterrestrial life, especially intelligent life, has greatly influenced culture and fiction. A key debate centers on contacting extraterrestrial intelligence: some advocate active attempts, while others warn it could be risky, given human history of exploiting other societies. Context Initially, after the Big Bang, the universe was too hot to allow life. It is estimated that the temperature of the universe was around 10 billion Kelvin at the one-second mark. Roughly 15 million years later, it cooled to temperate levels, though the elements of organic life were yet nonexistent. The only freely available elements at that point were hydrogen and helium. Carbon and oxygen (and later, water) would not appear until 50 million years later, created through stellar fusion. At that point, the difficulty for life to appear was not the temperature, but the scarcity of free heavy elements. Planetary systems emerged, and the first organic compounds may have formed in the protoplanetary disk of dust grains that would eventually create rocky planets like Earth. Although Earth was in a molten state after its birth and may have burned any organics that fell on it, it would have been more receptive once it cooled down. Once the right conditions on Earth were met, life started by a chemical process known as abiogenesis. Alternatively, life may have formed less frequently, then spread—by meteoroids, for example—between habitable planets in a process called panspermia. During most of its stellar evolution, stars combine hydrogen nuclei to make helium nuclei by stellar fusion, and the comparatively lighter weight of helium allows the star to release the extra energy. The process continues until the star uses all of its available fuel, with the speed of consumption being related to the size of the star. During its last stages, stars start combining helium nuclei to form carbon nuclei. The larger stars can further combine carbon nuclei to create oxygen and silicon, oxygen into neon and sulfur, and so on until iron. Ultimately, the star blows much of its content back into the stellar medium, where it would join clouds that would eventually become new generations of stars and planets. Many of those materials are the raw components of life on Earth. As this process takes place in all the universe, said materials are ubiquitous in the cosmos and not a rarity from the Solar System. Earth is a planet in the Solar System, a planetary system formed by a star at the center, the Sun, and the objects that orbit it: other planets, moons, asteroids, and comets. The sun is part of the Milky Way, a galaxy. The Milky Way is part of the Local Group, a galaxy group that is in turn part of the Laniakea Supercluster. The universe is composed of all similar structures in existence. The immense distances between celestial objects are a difficulty for studying extraterrestrial life. So far, humans have only set foot on the Moon and sent robotic probes to other planets and moons in the Solar System. Although probes can withstand conditions that may be lethal to humans, the distances cause time delays: the New Horizons took nine years after launch to reach Pluto. No probe has ever reached extrasolar planetary systems. The Voyager 2 left the Solar System at a speed of 50,000 kilometers per hour; if it headed towards the Alpha Centauri system, the closest one to Earth at 4.4 light years, it would reach it in 100,000 years. Under current technology, such systems can only be studied by telescopes, which have limitations. It is estimated that dark matter has a larger amount of combined matter than stars and gas clouds, but as it plays no role in the stellar evolution of stars and planets, it is usually not taken into account by astrobiology. There is an area around a star, the circumstellar habitable zone or "Goldilocks zone", wherein water may be at the right temperature to exist in liquid form at a planetary surface. This area is neither too close to the star, where water would become steam, nor too far away, where water would be frozen as ice. However, although useful as an approximation, planetary habitability is complex and defined by several factors. Being in the habitable zone is not enough for a planet to be habitable, not even to actually have such liquid water. Venus is located in the solar system's habitable zone, but does not have liquid water because of the conditions of its atmosphere. Jovian planets or gas giants are not considered habitable even if they orbit close enough to their stars as hot Jupiters, due to crushing atmospheric pressures. The actual distances for the habitable zones vary according to the type of star, and even the solar activity of each specific star influences the local habitability. The type of star also defines the time the habitable zone will exist, as its presence and limits will change along with the star's stellar evolution. The Big Bang occurred 13.8 billion years ago, the Solar System was formed 4.6 billion years ago, and the first hominids appeared 6 million years ago. Life on other planets may have started, evolved, given birth to extraterrestrial intelligences, and perhaps even faced a planetary extinction event millions or billions of years ago. When considered from a cosmic perspective, the brief times of existence of Earth's species may suggest that extraterrestrial life may be equally fleeting under such a scale. During a period of about 7 million years, from about 10 to 17 million years after the Big Bang, the background temperature was between 373 and 273 K (100 and 0 °C; 212 and 32 °F), allowing the possibility of liquid water if any planets existed. Avi Loeb (2014) speculated that primitive life might in principle have appeared during this window, which he called "the Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe". Life on Earth is quite ubiquitous across the planet and has adapted over time to almost all the available environments in it, extremophiles and the deep biosphere thrive at even the most hostile ones. As a result, it is inferred that life in other celestial bodies may be equally adaptive. However, the origin of life is unrelated to its ease of adaptation and may have stricter requirements. A celestial body may not have any life on it, even if it were habitable. Likelihood of existence Life in the cosmos beyond Earth has been observed. The hypothesis of ubiquitous extraterrestrial life relies on three main ideas. The first one, the size of the universe, allows for plenty of planets to have a similar habitability to Earth, and the age of the universe gives enough time for a long process analog to the history of Earth to happen there. The second is that the substances that make life, such as carbon and water, are ubiquitous in the universe. The third is that the physical laws are universal, which means that the forces that would facilitate or prevent the existence of life would be the same ones as on Earth. According to this argument, made by scientists such as Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking, it would be improbable for life not to exist somewhere else other than Earth. This argument is embodied in the Copernican principle, which states that Earth does not occupy a unique position in the Universe, and the mediocrity principle, which states that there is nothing special about life on Earth. Other authors consider instead that life in the cosmos, or at least multicellular life, may actually be rare. The Rare Earth hypothesis maintains that life on Earth is possible because of a series of factors that range from the location in the galaxy and the configuration of the Solar System to local characteristics of the planet, and that it is unlikely that another planet simultaneously meets all such requirements. The proponents of this hypothesis consider that very little evidence suggests the existence of extraterrestrial life and that, at this point, it is just a desired result and not a reasonable scientific explanation for any gathered data. In 1961, astronomer and astrophysicist Frank Drake devised the Drake equation as a way to stimulate scientific dialogue at a meeting on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). The Drake equation is a probabilistic argument used to estimate the number of active, communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy. The Drake equation is:: xix where: and Drake's proposed estimates are as follows, but numbers on the right side of the equation are agreed as speculative and open to substitution: 10,000 = 5 ⋅ 0.5 ⋅ 2 ⋅ 1 ⋅ 0.2 ⋅ 1 ⋅ 10,000 {\displaystyle 10{,}000=5\cdot 0.5\cdot 2\cdot 1\cdot 0.2\cdot 1\cdot 10{,}000} [better source needed] The Drake equation has proved controversial since, although it is written as a math equation, none of its values were known at the time. Although some values may eventually be measured, others are based on social sciences and are not knowable by their very nature. This does not allow one to make noteworthy conclusions from the equation. Based on observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, there are nearly 2 trillion galaxies in the observable universe. It is estimated that at least ten percent of all Sun-like stars have a system of planets. In other words, there are 6.25×1018 stars with planets orbiting them in the observable universe. Even if it is assumed that only one out of a billion of these stars has planets supporting life, there would be some 6.25 billion life-supporting planetary systems in the observable universe. A 2013 study based on results from the Kepler spacecraft estimated that the Milky Way contains at least as many planets as it does stars, resulting in 100–400 billion exoplanets. The Nebular hypothesis that explains the formation of the Solar System and other planetary systems would suggest that those can have several configurations, and not all of them may have rocky planets within the habitable zone. The apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilisations and the lack of evidence for such civilisations is known as the Fermi paradox. Dennis W. Sciama claimed that life's existence in the universe depends on various fundamental constants. Zhi-Wei Wang and Samuel L. Braunstein suggest that a random universe capable of supporting life is likely to be just barely able to do so, giving a potential explanation to the Fermi paradox. Biochemical basis If extraterrestrial life exists, it could range from simple microorganisms and multicellular organisms similar to animals or plants, to complex alien intelligences akin to humans. When scientists talk about extraterrestrial life, they consider all those types. Although it is possible that extraterrestrial life may have other configurations, scientists use the hierarchy of lifeforms from Earth for simplicity, as it is the only one known to exist. The first basic requirement for life is an environment with non-equilibrium thermodynamics, which means that the thermodynamic equilibrium must be broken by a source of energy. The traditional sources of energy in the cosmos are the stars, such as for life on Earth, which depends on the energy of the sun. However, there are other alternative energy sources, such as volcanoes, plate tectonics, and hydrothermal vents. There are ecosystems on Earth in deep areas of the ocean that do not receive sunlight, and take energy from black smokers instead. Magnetic fields and radioactivity have also been proposed as sources of energy, although they would be less efficient ones. Life on Earth requires water in a liquid state as a solvent in which biochemical reactions take place. It is highly unlikely that an abiogenesis process can start within a gaseous or solid medium: the atom speeds, either too fast or too slow, make it difficult for specific ones to meet and start chemical reactions. A liquid medium also allows the transport of nutrients and substances required for metabolism. Sufficient quantities of carbon and other elements, along with water, might enable the formation of living organisms on terrestrial planets with a chemical make-up and temperature range similar to that of Earth. Life based on ammonia rather than water has been suggested as an alternative, though this solvent appears less suitable than water. It is also conceivable that there are forms of life whose solvent is a liquid hydrocarbon, such as methane, ethane or propane. Another unknown aspect of potential extraterrestrial life would be the chemical elements that would compose it. Life on Earth is largely composed of carbon, but there could be other hypothetical types of biochemistry. A replacement for carbon would need to be able to create complex molecules, store information required for evolution, and be freely available in the medium. To create DNA, RNA, or a close analog, such an element should be able to bind its atoms with many others, creating complex and stable molecules. It should be able to create at least three covalent bonds: two for making long strings and at least a third to add new links and allow for diverse information. Only nine elements meet this requirement: boron, nitrogen, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony (three bonds), carbon, silicon, germanium and tin (four bonds). As for abundance, carbon, nitrogen, and silicon are the most abundant ones in the universe, far more than the others. On Earth's crust the most abundant of those elements is silicon, in the Hydrosphere it is carbon and in the atmosphere, it is carbon and nitrogen. Silicon, however, has disadvantages over carbon. The molecules formed with silicon atoms are less stable, and more vulnerable to acids, oxygen, and light. An ecosystem of silicon-based lifeforms would require very low temperatures, high atmospheric pressure, an atmosphere devoid of oxygen, and a solvent other than water. The low temperatures required would add an extra problem, the difficulty to kickstart a process of abiogenesis to create life in the first place. Norman Horowitz, head of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory bioscience section for the Mariner and Viking missions from 1965 to 1976 considered that the great versatility of the carbon atom makes it the element most likely to provide solutions, even exotic solutions, to the problems of survival of life on other planets. However, he also considered that the conditions found on Mars were incompatible with carbon based life. Even if extraterrestrial life is based on carbon and uses water as a solvent, like Earth life, it may still have a radically different biochemistry. Life is generally considered to be a product of natural selection. It has been proposed that to undergo natural selection a living entity must have the capacity to replicate itself, the capacity to avoid damage/decay, and the capacity to acquire and process resources in support of the first two capacities. Life on Earth may have started with an RNA world and later evolved to its current form, where some of the RNA tasks were transferred to DNA and proteins. Extraterrestrial life may still be stuck using RNA, or evolve into other configurations. It is unclear if our biochemistry is the most efficient one that could be generated, or which elements would follow a similar pattern. However, it is likely that, even if cells had a different composition to those from Earth, they would still have a cell membrane. Life on Earth jumped from prokaryotes to eukaryotes and from unicellular organisms to multicellular organisms through evolution. So far no alternative process to achieve such a result has been conceived, even if hypothetical. Evolution requires life to be divided into individual organisms, and no alternative organisation has been satisfactorily proposed either. At the basic level, membranes define the limit of a cell, between it and its environment, while remaining partially open to exchange energy and resources with it. The evolution from simple cells to eukaryotes, and from them to multicellular lifeforms, is not guaranteed. The Cambrian explosion took place thousands of millions of years after the origin of life, and its causes are not fully known yet. On the other hand, the jump to multicellularity took place several times, which suggests that it could be a case of convergent evolution, and so likely to take place on other planets as well. Palaeontologist Simon Conway Morris considers that convergent evolution would lead to kingdoms similar to our plants and animals, and that many features are likely to develop in alien animals as well, such as bilateral symmetry, limbs, digestive systems and heads with sensory organs. Scientists from the University of Oxford analysed it from the perspective of evolutionary theory and wrote in a study in the International Journal of Astrobiology that aliens may be similar to humans. The planetary context would also have an influence: a planet with higher gravity would have smaller animals, and other types of stars can lead to non-green photosynthesizers. The amount of energy available would also affect biodiversity, as an ecosystem sustained by black smokers or hydrothermal vents would have less energy available than those sustained by a star's light and heat, and so its lifeforms would not grow beyond a certain complexity. There is also research in assessing the capacity of life for developing intelligence. It has been suggested that this capacity arises with the number of potential niches a planet contains, and that the complexity of life itself is reflected in the information density of planetary environments, which in turn can be computed from its niches. It is common knowledge that the conditions on other planets in the solar system, in addition to the many galaxies outside of the Milky Way galaxy, are very harsh and seem to be too extreme to harbor any life. The environmental conditions on these planets can have intense UV radiation paired with extreme temperatures, lack of water, and much more that can lead to conditions that don't seem to favor the creation or maintenance of extraterrestrial life. However, there has been much historical evidence that some of the earliest and most basic forms of life on Earth originated in some extreme environments that seem unlikely to have harbored life at least at one point in Earth's history. Fossil evidence as well as many historical theories backed up by years of research and studies have marked environments like hydrothermal vents or acidic hot springs as some of the first places that life could have originated on Earth. These environments can be considered extreme when compared to the typical ecosystems that the majority of life on Earth now inhabit, as hydrothermal vents are scorching hot due to the magma escaping from the Earth's mantle and meeting the much colder oceanic water. Even in today's world, there can be a diverse population of bacteria found inhabiting the area surrounding these hydrothermal vents which can suggest that some form of life can be supported even in the harshest of environments like the other planets in the solar system. The aspects of these harsh environments that make them ideal for the origin of life on Earth, as well as the possibility of creation of life on other planets, is the chemical reactions forming spontaneously. For example, the hydrothermal vents found on the ocean floor are known to support many chemosynthetic processes which allow organisms to utilize energy through reduced chemical compounds that fix carbon. In return, these reactions will allow for organisms to live in relatively low oxygenated environments while maintaining enough energy to support themselves. The early Earth environment was reducing and therefore, these carbon fixing compounds were necessary for the survival and possible origin of life on Earth. With the little amount of information that scientists have found regarding the atmosphere on other planets in the Milky Way galaxy and beyond, the atmospheres are most likely reducing or with very low oxygen levels, especially when compared with Earth's atmosphere. If there were the necessary elements and ions on these planets, the same carbon fixing, reduced chemical compounds occurring around hydrothermal vents could also occur on these planets' surfaces and possibly result in the origin of extraterrestrial life. Planetary habitability in the Solar System The Solar System has a wide variety of planets, dwarf planets, and moons, and each one is studied for its potential to host life. Each one has its own specific conditions that may benefit or harm life. So far, the only lifeforms found are those from Earth. No extraterrestrial intelligence other than humans exists or has ever existed within the Solar System. Astrobiologist Mary Voytek points out that it would be unlikely to find large ecosystems, as they would have already been detected by now. The inner Solar System is likely devoid of life. However, Venus is still of interest to astrobiologists, as it is a terrestrial planet that was likely similar to Earth in its early stages and developed in a different way. There is a greenhouse effect, the surface is the hottest in the Solar System, sulfuric acid clouds, all surface liquid water is lost, and it has a thick carbon-dioxide atmosphere with huge pressure. Comparing both helps to understand the precise differences that lead to beneficial or harmful conditions for life. And despite the conditions against life on Venus, there are suspicions that microbial life-forms may still survive in high-altitude clouds. Mars is a cold and almost airless desert, inhospitable to life. However, recent studies revealed that water on Mars used to be quite abundant, forming rivers, lakes, and perhaps even oceans. Mars may have been habitable back then, and life on Mars may have been possible. But when the planetary core ceased to generate a magnetic field, solar winds removed the atmosphere and the planet became vulnerable to solar radiation. Ancient life-forms may still have left fossilised remains, and microbes may still survive deep underground. As mentioned, the gas giants and ice giants are unlikely to contain life. The most distant solar system bodies, found in the Kuiper Belt and outwards, are locked in permanent deep-freeze, but cannot be ruled out completely. Although the giant planets themselves are highly unlikely to have life, there is much hope to find it on moons orbiting these planets. Europa, from the Jovian system, has a subsurface ocean below a thick layer of ice. Ganymede and Callisto also have subsurface oceans, but life is less likely in them because water is sandwiched between layers of solid ice. Europa would have contact between the ocean and the rocky surface, which helps the chemical reactions. It may be difficult to dig so deep in order to study those oceans, though. Enceladus, a tiny moon of Saturn with another subsurface ocean, may not need to be dug, as it releases water to space in eruption columns. The space probe Cassini flew inside one of these, but could not make a full study because NASA did not expect this phenomenon and did not equip the probe to study ocean water. Still, Cassini detected complex organic molecules, salts, evidence of hydrothermal activity, hydrogen, and methane. Titan is the only celestial body in the Solar System besides Earth that has liquid bodies on the surface. It has rivers, lakes, and rain of hydrocarbons, methane, and ethane, and even a cycle similar to Earth's water cycle. This special context encourages speculations about lifeforms with different biochemistry, but the cold temperatures would make such chemistry take place at a very slow pace. Water is rock-solid on the surface, but Titan does have a subsurface water ocean like several other moons. However, it is of such a great depth that it would be very difficult to access it for study. Scientific search The science that searches and studies life in the universe, both on Earth and elsewhere, is called astrobiology. With the study of Earth's life, the only known form of life, astrobiology seeks to study how life starts and evolves and the requirements for its continuous existence. This helps to determine what to look for when searching for life in other celestial bodies. This is a complex area of study, and uses the combined perspectives of several scientific disciplines, such as astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, oceanography, and atmospheric sciences. The scientific search for extraterrestrial life is being carried out both directly and indirectly. As of September 2017[update], 3,667 exoplanets in 2,747 systems have been identified, and other planets and moons in the Solar System hold the potential for hosting primitive life such as microorganisms. As of 8 February 2021, an updated status of studies considering the possible detection of lifeforms on Venus (via phosphine) and Mars (via methane) was reported. Scientists search for biosignatures within the Solar System by studying planetary surfaces and examining meteorites. Some claim to have identified evidence that microbial life has existed on Mars. In 1996, a controversial report stated that structures resembling nanobacteria were discovered in a meteorite, ALH84001, formed of rock ejected from Mars. Although all the unusual properties of the meteorite were eventually explained as the result of inorganic processes, the controversy over its discovery laid the groundwork for the development of astrobiology. An experiment on the two Viking Mars landers reported gas emissions from heated Martian soil samples that some scientists argue are consistent with the presence of living microorganisms. Lack of corroborating evidence from other experiments on the same samples suggests that a non-biological reaction is a more likely hypothesis. In February 2005 NASA scientists reported they may have found some evidence of extraterrestrial life on Mars. The two scientists, Carol Stoker and Larry Lemke of NASA's Ames Research Center, based their claim on methane signatures found in Mars's atmosphere resembling the methane production of some forms of primitive life on Earth, as well as on their own study of primitive life near the Rio Tinto river in Spain. NASA officials soon distanced NASA from the scientists' claims, and Stoker herself backed off from her initial assertions. In November 2011, NASA launched the Mars Science Laboratory that landed the Curiosity rover on Mars. It is designed to assess the past and present habitability on Mars using a variety of scientific instruments. The rover landed on Mars at Gale Crater in August 2012. A group of scientists at Cornell University started a catalog of microorganisms, with the way each one reacts to sunlight. The goal is to help with the search for similar organisms in exoplanets, as the starlight reflected by planets rich in such organisms would have a specific spectrum, unlike that of starlight reflected from lifeless planets. If Earth was studied from afar with this system, it would reveal a shade of green, as a result of the abundance of plants with photosynthesis. In August 2011, NASA studied meteorites found on Antarctica, finding adenine, guanine, hypoxanthine, and xanthine. Adenine and guanine are components of DNA, and the others are used in other biological processes. The studies ruled out pollution of the meteorites on Earth, as those components would not be freely available the way they were found in the samples. This discovery suggests that several organic molecules that serve as building blocks of life may be generated within asteroids and comets. In October 2011, scientists reported that cosmic dust contains complex organic compounds ("amorphous organic solids with a mixed aromatic-aliphatic structure") that could be created naturally, and rapidly, by stars. It is still unclear if those compounds played a role in the creation of life on Earth, but Sun Kwok, of the University of Hong Kong, thinks so. "If this is the case, life on Earth may have had an easier time getting started as these organics can serve as basic ingredients for life." In August 2012, and in a world first, astronomers at Copenhagen University reported the detection of a specific sugar molecule, glycolaldehyde, in a distant star system. The molecule was found around the protostellar binary IRAS 16293-2422, which is located 400 light years from Earth. Glycolaldehyde is needed to form ribonucleic acid, or RNA, which is similar in function to DNA. This finding suggests that complex organic molecules may form in stellar systems prior to the formation of planets, eventually arriving on young planets early in their formation. In December 2023, astronomers reported the first time discovery, in the plumes of Enceladus, moon of the planet Saturn, of hydrogen cyanide, a possible chemical essential for life as we know it, as well as other organic molecules, some of which are yet to be better identified and understood. According to the researchers, "these [newly discovered] compounds could potentially support extant microbial communities or drive complex organic synthesis leading to the origin of life." Although most searches are focused on the biology of extraterrestrial life, an extraterrestrial intelligence capable enough to develop a civilization may be detectable by other means as well. Technology may generate technosignatures, effects on the native planet that may not be caused by natural causes. There are three main types of techno-signatures considered: interstellar communications, effects on the atmosphere, and planetary-sized structures such as Dyson spheres. Organizations such as the SETI Institute search the cosmos for potential forms of communication. They started with radio waves, and now search for laser pulses as well. The challenge for this search is that there are natural sources of such signals as well, such as gamma-ray bursts and supernovae, and the difference between a natural signal and an artificial one would be in its specific patterns. Astronomers intend to use artificial intelligence for this, as it can manage large amounts of data and is devoid of biases and preconceptions. Besides, even if there is an advanced extraterrestrial civilization, there is no guarantee that it is transmitting radio communications in the direction of Earth. The length of time required for a signal to travel across space means that a potential answer may arrive decades or centuries after the initial message. The atmosphere of Earth is rich in nitrogen dioxide as a result of air pollution, which can be detectable. The natural abundance of carbon, which is also relatively reactive, makes it likely to be a basic component of the development of a potential extraterrestrial technological civilization, as it is on Earth. Fossil fuels may likely be generated and used on such worlds as well. The abundance of chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere can also be a clear technosignature, considering their role in ozone depletion. Light pollution may be another technosignature, as multiple lights on the night side of a rocky planet can be a sign of advanced technological development. However, modern telescopes are not strong enough to study exoplanets with the required level of detail to perceive it. The Kardashev scale proposes that a civilization may eventually start consuming energy directly from its local star. This would require giant structures built next to it, called Dyson spheres. Those speculative structures would cause an excess infrared radiation, that telescopes may notice. The infrared radiation is typical of young stars, surrounded by dusty protoplanetary disks that will eventually form planets. An older star such as the Sun would have no natural reason to have excess infrared radiation. The presence of heavy elements in a star's light-spectrum is another potential biosignature; such elements would (in theory) be found if the star were being used as an incinerator/repository for nuclear waste products. Some astronomers search for extrasolar planets that may be conducive to life, narrowing the search to terrestrial planets within the habitable zones of their stars. Since 1992, over four thousand exoplanets have been discovered (6,128 planets in 4,584 planetary systems including 1,017 multiple planetary systems as of 30 October 2025). The extrasolar planets so far discovered range in size from that of terrestrial planets similar to Earth's size to that of gas giants larger than Jupiter. The number of observed exoplanets is expected to increase greatly in the coming years.[better source needed] The Kepler space telescope has also detected a few thousand candidate planets, of which about 11% may be false positives. There is at least one planet on average per star. About 1 in 5 Sun-like stars[a] have an "Earth-sized"[b] planet in the habitable zone,[c] with the nearest expected to be within 12 light-years distance from Earth. Assuming 200 billion stars in the Milky Way,[d] that would be 11 billion potentially habitable Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way, rising to 40 billion if red dwarfs are included. The rogue planets in the Milky Way possibly number in the trillions. The nearest known exoplanet is Proxima Centauri b, located 4.2 light-years (1.3 pc) from Earth in the southern constellation of Centaurus. As of March 2014[update], the least massive exoplanet known is PSR B1257+12 A, which is about twice the mass of the Moon. The most massive planet listed on the NASA Exoplanet Archive is DENIS-P J082303.1−491201 b, about 29 times the mass of Jupiter, although according to most definitions of a planet, it is too massive to be a planet and may be a brown dwarf instead. Almost all of the planets detected so far are within the Milky Way, but there have also been a few possible detections of extragalactic planets. The study of planetary habitability also considers a wide range of other factors in determining the suitability of a planet for hosting life. One sign that a planet probably already contains life is the presence of an atmosphere with significant amounts of oxygen, since that gas is highly reactive and generally would not last long without constant replenishment. This replenishment occurs on Earth through photosynthetic organisms. One way to analyse the atmosphere of an exoplanet is through spectrography when it transits its star, though this might only be feasible with dim stars like white dwarfs. History and cultural impact The modern concept of extraterrestrial life is based on assumptions that were not commonplace during the early days of astronomy. The first explanations for the celestial objects seen in the night sky were based on mythology. Scholars from Ancient Greece were the first to consider that the universe is inherently understandable and rejected explanations based on supernatural incomprehensible forces, such as the myth of the Sun being pulled across the sky in the chariot of Apollo. They had not developed the scientific method yet and based their ideas on pure thought and speculation, but they developed precursor ideas to it, such as that explanations had to be discarded if they contradict observable facts. The discussions of those Greek scholars established many of the pillars that would eventually lead to the idea of extraterrestrial life, such as Earth being round and not flat. The cosmos was first structured in a geocentric model that considered that the sun and all other celestial bodies revolve around Earth. However, they did not consider them as worlds. In Greek understanding, the world was composed by both Earth and the celestial objects with noticeable movements. Anaximander thought that the cosmos was made from apeiron, a substance that created the world, and that the world would eventually return to the cosmos. Eventually two groups emerged, the atomists that thought that matter at both Earth and the cosmos was equally made of small atoms of the classical elements (earth, water, fire and air), and the Aristotelians who thought that those elements were exclusive of Earth and that the cosmos was made of a fifth one, the aether. Atomist Epicurus thought that the processes that created the world, its animals and plants should have created other worlds elsewhere, along with their own animals and plants. Aristotle thought instead that all the earth element naturally fell towards the center of the universe, and that would make it impossible for other planets to exist elsewhere. Under that reasoning, Earth was not only in the center, it was also the only planet in the universe. Cosmic pluralism, the plurality of worlds, or simply pluralism, describes the philosophical belief in numerous "worlds" in addition to Earth, which might harbor extraterrestrial life. The earliest recorded assertion of extraterrestrial human life is found in ancient scriptures of Jainism. There are multiple "worlds" mentioned in Jain scriptures that support human life. These include, among others, Bharat Kshetra, Mahavideh Kshetra, Airavat Kshetra, and Hari kshetra. Medieval Muslim writers like Fakhr al-Din al-Razi and Muhammad al-Baqir supported cosmic pluralism on the basis of the Qur'an. Chaucer's poem The House of Fame engaged in medieval thought experiments that postulated the plurality of worlds. However, those ideas about other worlds were different from the current knowledge about the structure of the universe, and did not postulate the existence of planetary systems other than the Solar System. When those authors talk about other worlds, they talk about places located at the center of their own systems, and with their own stellar vaults and cosmos surrounding them. The Greek ideas and the disputes between atomists and Aristotelians outlived the fall of the Greek empire. The Great Library of Alexandria compiled information about it, part of which was translated by Islamic scholars and thus survived the end of the Library. Baghdad combined the knowledge of the Greeks, the Indians, the Chinese and its own scholars, and the knowledge expanded through the Byzantine Empire. From there it eventually returned to Europe by the time of the Middle Ages. However, as the Greek atomist doctrine held that the world was created by random movements of atoms, with no need for a creator deity, it became associated with atheism, and the dispute intertwined with religious ones. Still, the Church did not react to those topics in a homogeneous way, and there were stricter and more permissive views within the church itself. The first known mention of the term 'panspermia' was in the writings of the 5th-century BC Greek philosopher Anaxagoras. He proposed the idea that life exists everywhere. By the time of the late Middle Ages there were many known inaccuracies in the geocentric model, but it was kept in use because naked eye observations provided limited data. Nicolaus Copernicus started the Copernican Revolution by proposing that the planets revolve around the sun rather than Earth. His proposal had little acceptance at first because, as he kept the assumption that orbits were perfect circles, his model led to as many inaccuracies as the geocentric one. Tycho Brahe improved the available data with naked-eye observatories, which worked with highly complex sextants and quadrants. Tycho could not make sense of his observations, but Johannes Kepler did: orbits were not perfect circles, but ellipses. This knowledge benefited the Copernican model, which worked now almost perfectly. The invention of the telescope a short time later, perfected by Galileo Galilei, clarified the final doubts, and the paradigm shift was completed. Under this new understanding, the notion of extraterrestrial life became feasible: if Earth is but just a planet orbiting around a star, there may be planets similar to Earth elsewhere. The astronomical study of distant bodies also proved that physical laws are the same elsewhere in the universe as on Earth, with nothing making the planet truly special. The new ideas were met with resistance from the Catholic church. Galileo was tried for the heliocentric model, which was considered heretical, and forced to recant it. The best-known early-modern proponent of ideas of extraterrestrial life was the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno, who argued in the 16th century for an infinite universe in which every star is surrounded by its own planetary system. Bruno wrote that other worlds "have no less virtue nor a nature different to that of our earth" and, like Earth, "contain animals and inhabitants". Bruno's belief in the plurality of worlds was one of the charges leveled against him by the Venetian Holy Inquisition, which tried and executed him. The heliocentric model was further strengthened by the postulation of the theory of gravity by Sir Isaac Newton. This theory provided the mathematics that explains the motions of all things in the universe, including planetary orbits. By this point, the geocentric model was definitely discarded. By this time, the use of the scientific method had become a standard, and new discoveries were expected to provide evidence and rigorous mathematical explanations. Science also took a deeper interest in the mechanics of natural phenomena, trying to explain not just the way nature works but also the reasons for working that way. There was very little actual discussion about extraterrestrial life before this point, as the Aristotelian ideas remained influential while geocentrism was still accepted. When it was finally proved wrong, it not only meant that Earth was not the center of the universe, but also that the lights seen in the sky were not just lights, but physical objects. The notion that life may exist in them as well soon became an ongoing topic of discussion, although one with no practical ways to investigate. The possibility of extraterrestrials remained a widespread speculation as scientific discovery accelerated. William Herschel, the discoverer of Uranus, was one of many 18th–19th-century astronomers who believed that the Solar System is populated by alien life. Other scholars of the period who championed "cosmic pluralism" included Immanuel Kant and Benjamin Franklin. At the height of the Enlightenment, even the Sun and Moon were considered candidates for extraterrestrial inhabitants. Speculation about life on Mars increased in the late 19th century, following telescopic observation of apparent Martian canals – which soon, however, turned out to be optical illusions. Despite this, in 1895, American astronomer Percival Lowell published his book Mars, followed by Mars and its Canals in 1906, proposing that the canals were the work of a long-gone civilisation. Spectroscopic analysis of Mars's atmosphere began in earnest in 1894, when U.S. astronomer William Wallace Campbell showed that neither water nor oxygen was present in the Martian atmosphere. By 1909 better telescopes and the best perihelic opposition of Mars since 1877 conclusively put an end to the canal hypothesis. As a consequence of the belief in the spontaneous generation there was little thought about the conditions of each celestial body: it was simply assumed that life would thrive anywhere. This theory was disproved by Louis Pasteur in the 19th century. Popular belief in thriving alien civilisations elsewhere in the solar system still remained strong until Mariner 4 and Mariner 9 provided close images of Mars, which debunked forever the idea of the existence of Martians and decreased the previous expectations of finding alien life in general. The end of the spontaneous generation belief forced investigation into the origin of life. Although abiogenesis is the more accepted theory, a number of authors reclaimed the term "panspermia" and proposed that life was brought to Earth from elsewhere. Some of those authors are Jöns Jacob Berzelius (1834), Kelvin (1871), Hermann von Helmholtz (1879) and, somewhat later, by Svante Arrhenius (1903). The science fiction genre, although not so named during the time, developed during the late 19th century. The expansion of the genre of extraterrestrials in fiction influenced the popular perception over the real-life topic, making people eager to jump to conclusions about the discovery of aliens. Science marched at a slower pace, some discoveries fueled expectations and others dashed excessive hopes. For example, with the advent of telescopes, most structures seen on the Moon or Mars were immediately attributed to Selenites or Martians, and later ones (such as more powerful telescopes) revealed that all such discoveries were natural features. A famous case is the Cydonia region of Mars, first imaged by the Viking 1 orbiter. The low-resolution photos showed a rock formation that resembled a human face, but later spacecraft took photos in higher detail that showed that there was nothing special about the site. The search and study of extraterrestrial life became a science of its own, astrobiology. Also known as exobiology, this discipline is studied by the NASA, the ESA, the INAF, and others. Astrobiology studies life from Earth as well, but with a cosmic perspective. For example, abiogenesis is of interest to astrobiology, not because of the origin of life on Earth, but for the chances of a similar process taking place in other celestial bodies. Many aspects of life, from its definition to its chemistry, are analyzed as either likely to be similar in all forms of life across the cosmos or only native to Earth. Astrobiology, however, remains constrained by the current lack of extraterrestrial life-forms to study, as all life on Earth comes from the same ancestor, and it is hard to infer general characteristics from a group with a single example to analyse. The 20th century came with great technological advances, speculations about future hypothetical technologies, and an increased basic knowledge of science by the general population thanks to science divulgation through the mass media. The public interest in extraterrestrial life and the lack of discoveries by mainstream science led to the emergence of pseudosciences that provided affirmative, if questionable, answers to the existence of aliens. Ufology claims that many unidentified flying objects (UFOs) would be spaceships from alien species, and ancient astronauts hypothesis claim that aliens would have visited Earth in antiquity and prehistoric times but people would have failed to understand it by then. Most UFOs or UFO sightings can be readily explained as sightings of Earth-based aircraft (including top-secret aircraft), known astronomical objects or weather phenomenons, or as hoaxes. Looking beyond the pseudosciences, Lewis White Beck strove to elevate the level of public discourse on the topic of extraterrestrial life by tracing the evolution of philosophical thought over the centuries from ancient times into the modern era. His review of the contributions made by Lucretius, Plutarch, Aristotle, Copernicus, Immanuel Kant, John Wilkins, Charles Darwin and Karl Marx demonstrated that even in modern times, humanity could be profoundly influenced in its search for extraterrestrial life by subtle and comforting archetypal ideas which are largely derived from firmly held religious, philosophical and existential belief systems. On a positive note, however, Beck further argued that even if the search for extraterrestrial life proves to be unsuccessful, the endeavor itself could have beneficial consequences by assisting humanity in its attempt to actualize superior ways of living here on Earth. By the 21st century, it was accepted that multicellular life in the Solar System can only exist on Earth, but the interest in extraterrestrial life increased regardless. This is a result of the advances in several sciences. The knowledge of planetary habitability allows to consider on scientific terms the likelihood of finding life at each specific celestial body, as it is known which features are beneficial and harmful for life. Astronomy and telescopes also improved to the point exoplanets can be confirmed and even studied, increasing the number of search places. Life may still exist elsewhere in the Solar System in unicellular form, but the advances in spacecraft allow to send robots to study samples in situ, with tools of growing complexity and reliability. Although no extraterrestrial life has been found and life may still be just a rarity from Earth, there are scientific reasons to suspect that it can exist elsewhere, and technological advances that may detect it if it does. Many scientists are optimistic about the chances of finding alien life. In the words of SETI's Frank Drake, "All we know for sure is that the sky is not littered with powerful microwave transmitters". Drake noted that it is entirely possible that advanced technology results in communication being carried out in some way other than conventional radio transmission. At the same time, the data returned by space probes, and giant strides in detection methods, have allowed science to begin delineating habitability criteria on other worlds, and to confirm that at least other planets are plentiful, though aliens remain a question mark. The Wow! signal, detected in 1977 by a SETI project, remains a subject of speculative debate. On the other hand, other scientists are pessimistic. Jacques Monod wrote that "Man knows at last that he is alone in the indifferent immensity of the universe, whence which he has emerged by chance". In 2000, geologist and paleontologist Peter Ward and astrobiologist Donald Brownlee published a book entitled Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe.[better source needed] In it, they discussed the Rare Earth hypothesis, in which they claim that Earth-like life is rare in the universe, whereas microbial life is common. Ward and Brownlee are open to the idea of evolution on other planets that is not based on essential Earth-like characteristics such as DNA and carbon. As for the possible risks, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking warned in 2010 that humans should not try to contact alien life forms. He warned that aliens might pillage Earth for resources. "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans", he said. Jared Diamond had earlier expressed similar concerns. On 20 July 2015, Hawking and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, along with the SETI Institute, announced a well-funded effort, called the Breakthrough Initiatives, to expand efforts to search for extraterrestrial life. The group contracted the services of the 100-meter Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia in the United States and the 64-meter Parkes Telescope in New South Wales, Australia. On 13 February 2015, scientists (including Geoffrey Marcy, Seth Shostak, Frank Drake and David Brin) at a convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, discussed Active SETI and whether transmitting a message to possible intelligent extraterrestrials in the Cosmos was a good idea; one result was a statement, signed by many, that a "worldwide scientific, political and humanitarian discussion must occur before any message is sent". Government responses The 1967 Outer Space Treaty and the 1979 Moon Agreement define rules of planetary protection against potentially hazardous extraterrestrial life. COSPAR also provides guidelines for planetary protection. A committee of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs had in 1977 discussed for a year strategies for interacting with extraterrestrial life or intelligence. The discussion ended without any conclusions. As of 2010, the UN lacks response mechanisms for the case of an extraterrestrial contact. One of the NASA divisions is the Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA), also known as the Planetary Protection Office. A part of its mission is to "rigorously preclude backward contamination of Earth by extraterrestrial life." In 2016, the Chinese Government released a white paper detailing its space program. According to the document, one of the research objectives of the program is the search for extraterrestrial life. It is also one of the objectives of the Chinese Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) program. In 2020, Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the Russian space agency, said the search for extraterrestrial life is one of the main goals of deep space research. He also acknowledged the possibility of existence of primitive life on other planets of the Solar System. The French space agency has an office for the study of "non-identified aero spatial phenomena". The agency is maintaining a publicly accessible database of such phenomena, with over 1600 detailed entries. According to the head of the office, the vast majority of entries have a mundane explanation; but for 25% of entries, their extraterrestrial origin can neither be confirmed nor denied. In 2020, chairman of the Israel Space Agency Isaac Ben-Israel stated that the probability of detecting life in outer space is "quite large". But he disagrees with his former colleague Haim Eshed who stated that there are contacts between an advanced alien civilisation and some of Earth's governments. In fiction Although the idea of extraterrestrial peoples became feasible once astronomy developed enough to understand the nature of planets, they were not thought of as being any different from humans. Having no scientific explanation for the origin of mankind and its relation to other species, there was no reason to expect them to be any other way. This was changed by the 1859 book On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, which proposed the theory of evolution. Now with the notion that evolution on other planets may take other directions, science fiction authors created bizarre aliens, clearly distinct from humans. A usual way to do that was to add body features from other animals, such as insects or octopuses. Costuming and special effects feasibility alongside budget considerations forced films and TV series to tone down the fantasy, but these limitations lessened since the 1990s with the advent of computer-generated imagery (CGI), and later on as CGI became more effective and less expensive. Real-life events sometimes captivate people's imagination and this influences the works of fiction. For example, during the Barney and Betty Hill incident, the first recorded claim of an alien abduction, the couple reported that they were abducted and experimented on by aliens with oversized heads, big eyes, pale grey skin, and small noses, a description that eventually became the grey alien archetype once used in works of fiction. See also Notes References Further reading External links |
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Contents Jonathan Franzen Jonathan Earl Franzen (born August 17, 1959) is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel The Corrections drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist, earned a James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. His novel Freedom (2010) garnered similar praise and led to an appearance on the cover of Time magazine alongside the headline "Great American Novelist". Franzen's latest novel Crossroads was published in 2021, and is the first in a projected trilogy. Franzen has contributed to The New Yorker magazine since 1994. His 1996 Harper's essay "Perchance to Dream" bemoaned the state of contemporary literature. Oprah Winfrey's book club selection in 2001 of The Corrections led to a much publicized feud with the talk show host. Early life and education Franzen was born in Western Springs, Illinois, the son of Irene (née Super) and Earl T. Franzen. His father, raised in Minnesota, was the son of a Swedish immigrant; his mother's ancestry was Eastern European. Franzen grew up in an affluent neighborhood in the St. Louis suburb of Webster Groves, Missouri, and graduated with high honors from Swarthmore College, receiving a degree in German in 1981. As part of his undergraduate education, he studied abroad in Germany during the 1979–80 academic year with Wayne State University's Junior Year in Munich program. While there, he met Michael A. Martone, on whom he would later base the character Walter Berglund in Freedom. He also studied on a Fulbright Scholarship at Freie Universität Berlin in Berlin in 1981–82; he speaks fluent German. Franzen married in 1982 and moved with his wife to Somerville, Massachusetts, to pursue a career as a novelist. While writing his first novel, The Twenty-Seventh City, he worked as a research assistant at Harvard University's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, coauthoring several dozen papers. In September 1987, a month after he and his wife moved to New York City, Franzen sold The Twenty-Seventh City to Farrar Straus & Giroux. Career The Twenty-Seventh City, published in 1988, is set in Franzen's hometown, St. Louis, and deals with the city's fall from grace, St. Louis having been the "fourth city" in the 1870s. This sprawling novel was warmly received and established Franzen as an author to watch. In a conversation with novelist Donald Antrim for Bomb Magazine, Franzen described The Twenty-Seventh City as "a conversation with the literary figures of my parents' generation[,] the great sixties and seventies Postmoderns", adding in a later interview "I was a skinny, scared kid trying to write a big novel. The mask I donned was that of a rhetorically airtight, extremely smart, extremely knowledgeable middle-aged writer." Strong Motion (1992) focuses mainly on a dysfunctional family, the Hollands, and uses seismic events on the American East Coast as a metaphor for the quakes that occur in family life (as Franzen put it, "I imagined static lives being disrupted from without—literally shaken. I imagined violent scenes that would strip away the veneer and get people shouting angry moral truths at each other."). A 'systems novel', the key 'systems' of Strong Motion according to Franzen are "... the systems of science and religion—two violently opposing systems of making sense in the world." The novel was not a financial success at the time of its publication. Franzen subsequently defended the novel in his 2010 Paris Review interview, remarking "I think they [critics and readers] may be overlooking Strong Motion a little bit." Franzen taught a fiction-writing seminar at Swarthmore in the spring of 1992 and 1994: On that first day of class, Franzen wrote two words on the blackboard: "truth" and "beauty," and told his students that these were the goals of fiction. Haslett describes Franzen's classroom manner as "serious." "He meant what he said and didn't suffer fools gladly." But this seriousness was leavened by a "great relish for words and writing," adds Kathleen Lawton-Trask '96, a 1994 workshop student who is now a writer and high school English teacher. "People who teach fiction workshops aren't always starry-eyed about writing, but he was. He read our stories so closely that he often started class with a rundown of words that were not used quite correctly in stories from that week's workshop. (I still remember him explaining to us the difference between cement and concrete.) At the same time, he was eminently supportive and sympathetic; I don't remember those corrections ever feeling condescending." For the 1992 class, Franzen invited David Foster Wallace to be a guest judge of the workshop pieces. Franzen's The Corrections, a novel of social criticism, garnered considerable critical acclaim in the United States, winning both the 2001 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2002 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. The novel was also a finalist for the 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award, and the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (won by Richard Russo for Empire Falls). In September 2001, The Corrections was selected for Oprah Winfrey's book club. Franzen initially participated in the selection, sitting down for a lengthy interview with Oprah and appearing in B-roll footage in his hometown of St. Louis (described in an essay in How To Be Alone titled "Meet Me In St. Louis"). In October 2001, however, The Oregonian printed an article in which Franzen expressed unease with the selection. In an interview on National Public Radio's Fresh Air, he expressed his worry that the Oprah logo on the cover dissuaded men from reading the book: I had some hope of actually reaching a male audience and I've heard more than one reader in signing lines now at bookstores say "If I hadn't heard you, I would have been put off by the fact that it is an Oprah pick. I figure those books are for women. I would never touch it." Those are male readers speaking. I see this as my book, my creation. Soon afterward, Franzen's invitation to appear on Oprah's show was rescinded. Winfrey announced, "Jonathan Franzen will not be on the Oprah Winfrey show because he is seemingly uncomfortable and conflicted about being chosen as a book club selection. It is never my intention to make anyone uncomfortable or cause anyone conflict. We have decided to skip the dinner and we're moving on to the next book." These events gained Franzen and his novel widespread media attention. The Corrections soon became one of the decade's best-selling works of literary fiction. At the National Book Award ceremony, Franzen said "I'd also like to thank Oprah Winfrey for her enthusiasm and advocacy on behalf of The Corrections." Following the success of The Corrections and the publication of The Discomfort Zone and How to Be Alone, Franzen began work on his next novel. In the interim, he published two short stories in The New Yorker: "Breakup Stories", published November 8, 2004, concerned the disintegration of four relationships; and "Two's Company", published May 23, 2005, concerned a couple who write for TV, then split up. In 2011, it was announced that Franzen would write a multi-part television adaptation of The Corrections in collaboration with The Squid and the Whale director Noah Baumbach for HBO. HBO has since passed on Corrections, citing "difficulty" in "adapting the book's challenging narrative, which moves through time and cuts forwards and back": that would be "difficult to sustain in a series and challenging for viewers to follow, hampering the potential show's accessibility." In September 2019, The Corrections was voted sixteenth in a list of the 100 best books of the twenty-first century so far by writers and critics of the Guardian newspaper. On June 8, 2009, Franzen published an excerpt from Freedom, his novel in progress, in The New Yorker. The excerpt, titled "Good Neighbors", concerned the trials and tribulations of a couple in St. Paul, Minnesota. On May 31, 2010, a second excerpt — titled "Agreeable" — was published, also in The New Yorker. On October 16, 2009, Franzen made an appearance alongside David Bezmozgis at the New Yorker Festival at the Cedar Lake Theatre, reading a portion of his forthcoming novel. Sam Allard, writing for North By Northwestern about the event, said that the "...material from his new (reportedly massive) novel" was "as buoyant and compelling as ever" and "marked by his familiar undercurrent of tragedy". Franzen read "an extended clip from the second chapter." On September 9, 2010, Franzen appeared on Fresh Air to discuss Freedom in the wake of its release. Franzen has drawn what he describes as a "feminist critique" for the attention that male authors receive over female authors—a critique he supports. Franzen also discussed his friendship with David Foster Wallace and the impact of Wallace's suicide on his writing process. Freedom was the subject of a highly unusual "recall" in the United Kingdom starting in early October 2010. An earlier draft of the manuscript, to which Franzen had made over 200 changes, had been published by mistake. The publisher, HarperCollins, initiated an exchange program, but thousands of books had been distributed by that time. While promoting the book, Franzen became the first American author to appear on the cover of Time magazine since Stephen King in 2000. Franzen appeared alongside the headline "Great American Novelist". He discussed the implications of the Time coverage, and the reasoning behind the title of Freedom in an interview in Manchester, England, in October 2010. On September 17, 2010, Oprah Winfrey announced that Jonathan Franzen's Freedom would be an Oprah book club selection, the first of the last season of The Oprah Winfrey Show. On December 6, 2010, he appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to promote Freedom where they discussed that book and the controversy over his reservations about her picking The Corrections and what that would entail. Franzen has stated the writing of Freedom was influenced by the death of his close friend and fellow novelist David Foster Wallace. In an interview with Portland Monthly on December 18, 2012, Franzen revealed that he currently had "a four-page, single-spaced proposal" for a fifth novel he was currently working on, although he went on to suggest that while he had a proposal there was no guarantee that what was proposed would make the final cut, saying of similar proposals for previous novels, "I look at the old proposals now, and I see the one part of them that actually got made into a book, and I think, 'How come I couldn't see that? What is all this other stuff?'". Franzen also hinted that the new novel would probably also be long, adding "I've let go of any illusion that I'm a writer of 150-page novels. I need room to let things turn around over time and see them from the whole lives of other characters, not just the single character. For better or worse, one point of view never seems to do it for me." In October 2014, during a discussion at Colgate University, Franzen read a "self-contained first-person narrative" that is part of a novel that he hoped will be out in the summer of 2015. On November 17, 2014, The New York Times Artsbeat Blog reported that the novel, titled Purity, would be out in September. Jonathan Galassi, president and publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, described Purity as a multigenerational American epic that spans decades and continents. The story centers on a young woman named Purity Tyler, or Pip, who doesn't know who her father is and sets out to uncover his identity. The narrative stretches from contemporary America to South America to East Germany before the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and hinges on the mystery of Pip's family history and her relationship with a charismatic hacker and whistleblower. In 2016, Daily Variety reported that the novel was in the process of being adapted into a 20-hour limited series for Showtime by Todd Field who would share writing duties with Franzen and the playwright Sir David Hare. It would star Daniel Craig as Andreas Wolf and be executive produced by Field, Franzen, Craig, Hare & Scott Rudin. However, in a February 2018 interview with The Times London, Hare said that, given the budget for Field's adaptation (170 million), he doubted it would ever be made, but added "It was one of the richest and most interesting six weeks of my life, sitting in a room with Todd Field, Jonathan Franzen and Daniel Craig bashing out the story. They're extremely interesting people." Purity was a relative commercial disappointment compared to Franzen's two previous novels, selling only 255,476 copies, compared to 1.15 million copies of Freedom and 1.6 million copies of The Corrections. On November 13, 2020, Franzen's publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux announced the publication of Franzen's new novel, Crossroads, the first volume in a trilogy titled A Key to All Mythologies. Crossroads was published October 5, 2021. Bookforum called it Franzen's "finest novel yet," his "greatest and most perfect novel," and Dwight Garner of the New York Times said it was "warmer than anything he's yet written, wider in its human sympathies, weightier of image and intellect." According to the Times Literary Supplement: Crossroads is largely free from the vices to which Franzen's previous work has been addicted: the self-conscious topicality; the show-off sophistication; the formal heavy-handedness. It retains many of his familiar virtues: the robust characterization; the escalating comedy; the virtuosic command of narrative rhythm. Critics especially praised the character of Marion, whom Garner called "one of the glorious characters in recent American fiction." The novel is about a pastor, his wife, and four children. It's split into two sections called 'Advent' and 'Easter.' Writing for The Nation, Rumaan Alam says "in Crossroads, every plotline leads to God." In 1996, while still working on The Corrections, Franzen published a literary manifesto in Harper's Magazine entitled "Perchance to Dream". Referencing manifestos written by Philip Roth and Tom Wolfe, among others, Franzen grappled with the novelist's role in an advanced media culture which seemed to no longer need the novel. In the end, Franzen rejects the goal of writing a great social novel about issues and ideas, in favor of focusing on the internal lives of characters and their emotions. Given the huge success of The Corrections, this essay offers a prescient look into Franzen's goals as both a literary and commercially minded author. In 2002, Franzen published a critique of the novels of William Gaddis, entitled "Mr. Difficult", in The New Yorker. He begins by recounting how some readers felt The Corrections was spoiled by being too high-brow in parts, and summarizes his own views of reading difficult fiction. He proposes a "Status model", whereby the point of fiction is to be Art, and also a "Contract model", whereby the point of fiction is to be Entertainment, and finds that he subscribes to both models. He praises The Recognitions, admits that he only got halfway through J R, and explains why he does not like the rest of Gaddis's novels. In 2004, Franzen published "The Discomfort Zone", a personal essay about his childhood and family life in Missouri and his love of Charles M. Schulz's Peanuts, in The New Yorker. Susan Orlean selected it for the subsequent volume of The Best American Essays. Since The Corrections Franzen has published How to Be Alone (2002), a collection of essays including "Perchance To Dream", and The Discomfort Zone (2006), a memoir. How To Be Alone is essentially an apologia for reading, articulating Franzen's uncomfortable relationship with the place of fiction in contemporary society. It also probes the influence of his childhood and adolescence on his creative life, which is then further explored in The Discomfort Zone. In September 2007, Franzen's translation of Frank Wedekind's play Spring Awakening (German: Frühlings Erwachen) was published. In his introduction, Franzen describes the Broadway musical version as "insipid" and "overpraised." In an interview with New York magazine, Franzen stated that he had in fact made the translation for Swarthmore College's theater department for $50 in 1986 and that it had sat in a drawer for 20 years since. After the Broadway show stirred up so much interest, Franzen said he was inspired to publish it because "I knew it was a good translation, better than anything else out there." Franzen published a social commentary on cell phones, sentimentality, and the decline of public space, "I Just Called To Say I Love You" (2008), in the September/October 2008 issue of MIT Technology Review. In 2012 he published Farther Away, a collection of essays dealing with such topics as his love of birds, his friendship with David Foster Wallace, and his thoughts on technology. In 2013, Franzen published The Kraus Project. It consists of three major essays by the "Perennially ... impossible to translate" Austrian "playwright, poet, social commentator and satirical genius" Karl Kraus – "Heine and the Consequences" a takedown of the beloved German poet, "Nestroy and Posterity" which established that playwright's reputation in Austria to this day, and "Afterword to Heine and the Consequences"". The essays are accompanied by "Franzen's [own] plentiful, trenchant yet off-beat annotations" taking on "... Kraus' mantle-commenting on what Kraus would say (and what Franzen's opinion is) about Macs and PCs; decrying Twitter's claim of credit for the Arab Spring; and unfurling how media conglomerates influence politics in their quest for profits." Franzen published his third essay collection, The End of the End of the Earth: Essays, in November 2018. According to advance press for the book, the collection "gathers essays and speeches written mostly in the past five years, [and] Jonathan Franzen returns with renewed vigor to the themes—both human and literary—that have long preoccupied him. Whether exploring his complex relationship with his uncle, recounting his young adulthood in New York, or offering an illuminating look at the global seabird crisis, these pieces contain all the wit and disabused realism that we've come to expect from Franzen. Taken together, these essays trace the progress of a unique and mature mind wrestling with itself, with literature, and with some of the most important issues of our day, made more pressing by the current political milieu. The End of the End of the Earth is remarkable, provocative, and necessary." In September 2019, Franzen published an essay on climate change in The New Yorker entitled "What If We Stopped Pretending?", which generated controversy among scientists and online pundits because of its alleged pessimism. The term doomerism became popular amid the response to the piece. A Sierra Club interview with Franzen, from January 2019 further explores Franzen's feelings about climate change and action.[example needed] In an interview with Transatlantica conducted in March 2018, Franzen mentioned that he had just started work on a new novel, having recently sold it to publishers on the basis of a three-page proposal. Later that year, in a profile piece for The New York Times Magazine in June 2018, Franzen confirmed that he was currently at work on the early stages of his sixth novel, which he speculated could be his last. "So, I may be wrong ... But somehow this new one really does feel like my last.". Subsequently, in an interview reproduced on The Millions website in April 2020, Franzen mentioned that he was "almost done" with writing this sixth novel. Crossroads: A Novel was published on October 5, 2021. Philosophy of writing In February 2010, Franzen (along with writers such as Richard Ford, Margaret Atwood, and Anne Enright) was asked by The Guardian to contribute what he believed were ten serious rules to abide by for aspiring writers. His rules included treating the reader as a friend, and avoiding the Internet. Personal life In 1982, when in his early twenties, Franzen married fellow writer Valerie Cornell. They lived in New York City and were married for fourteen years. His marriage and divorce are mentioned in some of his essays in the collection Farther Away. Franzen lives in Santa Cruz, California, with his "spouse-equivalent", writer Kathy Chetkovich. As first reported in his essay "My Bird Problem," Franzen is well known as a serious birdwatcher. He appeared on CBS Sunday Morning in March 2018 to discuss his love of birds and birdwatching. Franzen served for nine years on the board of the American Bird Conservancy. A feature-length documentary based on Franzen's essay "Emptying the Skies" was released in 2013. Franzen is a longtime fan of the punk-rock collective The Mekons; he appeared in the 2014 documentary Revenge of the Mekons to discuss the group's importance to him. In 2010, at an event at the Serpentine Pavilion in London celebrating the launch of Freedom, Franzen's glasses were stolen from his face by a gate-crasher, who jokingly attempted to ransom them for $100,000 before being apprehended by police elsewhere in Hyde Park. Awards and honors Honors and other recognition Television appearances Works References Further reading Notes External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merman] | [TOKENS: 4143] |
Contents Merman A merman (pl.: mermen; also merlad or merboy in youth), the male counterpart of the mythical female mermaid, is a legendary creature which is human from the waist up and fish-like from the waist down, but may assume normal human shape. Sometimes mermen are described as hideous and other times as handsome. Antiquity Perhaps the first recorded merman was the Assyrian-Babylonian sea-god Ea (called Enki by the Sumerians), linked to the figure known to the Greeks as Oannes. However, while some popular writers have equated Oannes of the Greek period to the god Ea (and to Dagon), Oannes was rather one of the apkallu servants to Ea. The apkallu have been described as "fish-men" in cuneiform texts, and if Berossus is to be believed, Oannes was indeed a being possessed of a fish head and man's head beneath, and both a fish tail and manlike legs.[a] But Berossus was writing much later during the era of Greek rule, engaging in the "construction" of the past. Thus even though figurines have been unearth to corroborate this fish-man iconography, these can be regarded as representing "human figures clad in fish cloaks", rather than a being with a fish head growing above the human head. And the god Ea is also seen as depicted wearing a fish cloak by modern scholars. Triton of Greek mythology was depicted as a half-man, half-fish merman in ancient Greek art. Triton was the son of the sea-god Poseidon and sea-goddess Amphitrite. Neither Poseidon nor Amphitrite were merfolk, although both were able to live underwater as easily as on land. Tritons later became generic mermen, so that multiple numbers of them were depicted in art. Tritons were also associated with using a conch shell in the later Hellenistic period. In the 16th century, Triton was referred to as the "trumpeter of Neptune (Neptuni tubicen)" in Marius Nizolius's Thesaurus (1551),[b] and this phrase has been used in modern commentary. The Elizabethan period poet Edmund Spenser referred to Triton's "trompet" as well. Another notable merman from Greek mythology was Glaucus. He was born a human and lived his early life as a fisherman. One day, while fishing, he saw that the fish he caught would jump from the grass and into the sea. He ate some of the grass, believing it to have magical properties, and felt an overwhelming desire to be in the sea. He jumped in the ocean and refused to go back on land. The sea gods nearby heard his prayers and transformed him into a sea god. Ovid describes the transformation of Glaucus in the Metamorphoses, describing him as a blue-green man with a fishy member where his legs had been. Medieval period A merman is called marmennill in Old Norse, attested in the Ladnámabók. An early settler in Iceland (c. 11th century)[c] allegedly caught a merman while fishing, and the creature prophesied one thing: the man's son will gain possession of the piece of land where the mare Skálm chooses to "lie down under her load". In a subsequent fishing trip the man was drowned, survived by the boy who stayed behind.[d] The hafstrambr is a merman, described as a counterpart to the hideous mermaid margýgr in the Konungs skuggsjá ("King's mirror", c. 1250). He is said to generally match her anthropomorphic appearance on the top half, though his lower half is said to have been never been seen. In actuality, it may have been just a sea-mammal (hooded seal, Cystophora cristata), or the phenomenon of some sea creature appearing magnified in size, caused by mid-range mirage. Medieval Norsemen may have regarded the hafstrambr as the largest sorts of mermen, which would explain why the word for marmennill ('little mer-man') would be given in the diminutive. Other commentators treat the hafstrambr merely as an imaginary sea-monster. A twin-tailed merman is depicted on the Bianco world map (1436).[e] A merman and a mermaid are shown on the Behaim globe (c. 1490–1493). Renaissance period Konrad Gesner in his chapter on Triton in Historia animalium IV (1558) gave the name of "sea-Pan" or "sea-satyr" (Latin: Pan- vel satyrus marinus) to an artist's image he obtained, which he said was that of an "ichthyocentaur" or "sea-devil".[f] Gesner's sea-devil (German: Meerteufel) has been described by a modern commentator as having "the lower body of a fish and the upper body of a man, the head an horns of a buck-goat or the devil, and the breasts of a woman", and lacks the horse-legs of a typical centaur. Gesner made reference to a passage where Aelian writes of satyrs that inhabit Taprobana's seas, counted among the fishes and cete (Ancient Greek: κήτη, romanized: kḗtē, "sea monsters"). This illustration was apparently ultimately based on a skeletal specimen and mummies.[g] Gesner explained that such a creature was placed on exhibit in Rome on 3 November 1523. Elsewhere in Gesner's book it is stated the "sea monster (monstrum marinum)" viewed on this same date was the size of a 5-year-old child.[h] It has been remarked in connection to this by one ichthyologist that mermen created by joining the monkey's upper body with a fish's lower extremity have been manufactured in China for centuries; and such merchandise may have been imported into Europe by the likes of the Dutch East India Company by this time (cf. Bartholin's siren). Mummies (Feejee mermaids) were certainly being manufactured in Japan in some quantity by the 19th century or even earlier (cf. §Hoaxes and sideshows). The "sea-satyr[e]" appears in Edmund Spenser's poem The Faerie Queene (1590), and glossed by Francis J. Child as a type of "ichthyocentaur", on the authority of Gesner. Scandinavian folklore Icelandic folklore beliefs speak of sea-dwelling humans (humanoids) known as marbendlar (sing. marbendill), which is the later Norse, and modern Icelandic form of marmennill. Jón lærði Guðmundsson ('the Learned', d. 1658)'s writings concerning elves[i] includes the merman or marbendill as a "water-elf". This merman is described as seal-like from the waist down. Jón the Learned also wrote down a short tale or folktale concerning it, which has been translated under the titles "The Merman" and "Of Marbendill". Jón Árnasson, building on this classification, divided the water-elves into two groups: the male marbendill vs. the female known variously as hafgýgur, haffrú, margýgur, or meyfiskur. But in current times, hafmey is the common designation of the mermaid. This gender classification however is not in alignment with the medieval source described above, which pairs the margýgr with the (hafstrambr). According to Norwegian folklore dating back to the 18th century, havmand [no] takes the mermaid (havfrue) as wife, and the offspring or young they produce are called marmæler (sing. Norwegian: marmæle). Norwegian mermen (havmænd) were later ascribed the general characteristic that they are of "a dusky hue, with a long beard, black hair, and from the waist upwards resemble a man, but downwards are like a fish."[j] While the marmæler does literally mean 'sea-talker', the word is thought to be a corruption of marmenill, the aforementioned Old Norse term for merman. An alleged marmennill prophesying to an early Icelandic settler has already been noted (cf. §Medieval period). In the story "The Merman", a captured marbendill laughs thrice, and when pressed, reveals to the peasant his insight (buried gold, wife's infidelity, dog's fidelity) on promise of release. The peasant finds wonderful gray milk-cows next to his property, which he presumes were the merman's gift; the unruly cows were made obedient by bursting the strange bladder or sac on their muzzle (with the stick he carried). In Sweden, the superstition of the merman (Swedish: hafsman) abducting a human girl to become his wife has been documented (Hälsingland, early 19th century); the merman's consort is said to be occasionally spotted sitting on a holme (small island), laundering her linen or combing her hair. There is a Swedish ballad (Swedish: visa [sv]) entitled "Hafsmannen" about a merman abducting a girl; the Danish ballad "Rosmer Havmand" is a cognate ballad based on the same legend. "Agnete og Havmanden" is another Scandinavian ballad work with this theme, but it is of late composition (late 18th century). It tells of a merman who had been mated to a human woman named Agnete; the merman unsuccessfully pleaded with her to come back to him and their children in the sea. English folklore English folklorist Jacqueline Simpson surmises that as in Nordic (Scandinavian) countries, the original man-like water-dwellers of England probably lacked fish-like tails. A "wildman" caught in a fishnet, described by Ralph of Coggeshall (c. 1210) was entirely man-like though he liked to eat raw fish and eventually returned to the sea. Katharine Mary Briggs opined that the mermen are "often uglier and rougher in the British Isles".[k] Mermen, which seldom frequent American folklore, are supposedly depicted as less beautiful than mermaids. Celtic folklore The Irish fakelore story of "The Soul Cages" features a male merrow named Coomara, a hideous creature with green hair, teeth and skin, narrow eyes and a red nose. The tale was created by Thomas Keightley, who lifted the plot from one of the Grimms' collected tales (Deutsche Sagen No. 25, "Der Wassermann und der Bauer" or "The Waterman and the Peasant"). In Cornish folklore into early modern times, the Bucca, described as a lonely, mournful character with the skin of a conger eel and hair of seaweed, was still placated with votive offerings of fish left on the beach by fishermen. Similarly vengeful water spirits occur in Breton and Gaelic lore, which may relate to pre-Christian gods such as Nechtan. China and Japan In China and in Japan, there are various accounts of "human-fish" (人魚, Chinese: rényú, Japanese: ningyo), and these presumably occurred in male forms also. However, Chinese human-fish have been described (and illustrated) as resembling a catfish, and not quite so human-like (cf. merfolk#Renyu or human-fish). Illustrated depictions of male ningyo do exist from the Edo Period (cf. Ningyo§Male ningyo). One example is the picture of male human-fish (男人魚, otoko ningyo) hand-copied by the young lord of Hirosaki Domain. Another is the illustrated sheet of kawaraban newspaper carrying news of the "ningyo from Holland" (阿蘭陀渡り人魚), bearing the face of an old man. In China and Japan there are also accounts of the "sea human" (海人, Chinese: hairen, Japanese: kaijin), some of these accounts are of European origin. A known description of the hairen occurs in a work in Chinese called Zhifang waiji (職方外紀), actually written by a European. Here Ai Rulüe (Giulio Aleni) stated that there are two kinds of hairen. The example of the first kind had a beard.[l] The second type of hairen described by Aleni was actually a female woman,[m] identifiable as the Mermaid of Edam [nl] captured in 1403, with drooping skin, as if she were dressed in [a pao 袍 type of robe].[n] Later, a Japanese source (Nagasaki bunkenroku) gave description of the kaijin encompassing features of both types: it had chin hair[o] as well as a skin flap around the waist similar to a hakama. These trouser-like hakama was worn by men, as well as women in some cases. An older (though perhaps lesser known) account of hairen occurs in Shaozi or Shao Yong's work called Caomuzi (草木子), which describes the creature as having the shape of a (Buddhist) priest, though diminutive in stature. It has been equated with the umibōzu ("sea-priest, sea acolyte priest") yōkai of Japan. Folklore elsewhere In Finnish mythology, a vetehinen [fi], a type of neck, is sometimes portrayed as a magical, powerful, bearded man with the tail of a fish. He can cure illnesses, lift curses and brew potions, but he can also cause unintended harm by becoming too curious about human life. In the Inuit folklore of Greenland and northern Canada, the Auvekoejak is a furry merman. In an Italian folktale with medieval roots, Cola Pesce (Nicholas Fish) was a human boy until his mother cursed him to become part fish. As a merman, he occasionally assisted fishermen, but was summoned by a king who ordered him to explore the seabed and bring back items. Cola Pesce reluctantly went on the king's errands, only to disappear. The boto (river dolphins) of the Amazon River regions of northern Brazil, is described according to local lore as taking the form of a human or merman, also known as encantado ("enchanted one" in Portuguese) and with the habit of seducing human women and impregnating them. In the folklore of the Dogon of Mali, ancestral spirits called Nommo had humanoid upper torsos, legs and feet, and a fish-like lower torso and tail. In heraldry Mermen or "tritons" see uncommon use in British heraldry, where they appear with the torso, head and arms of a man upon the tail of a fish. They are typically used as supporters, and are rarely used as charges. Hoaxes and sideshows A stuffed specimen of the merfolk was exhibited in London in 1822 was later billed "Fiji mermaid" by P.T. Barnum and put on display in the Barnum's American Museum, New York, in 1842. Although billed as a "mermaid", this has also been bluntly referred to as a "Barnum's merman" in one piece of journalism. This specimen was an example of fake mermaids posed in "The Scream" style, named after Edvard Munch's painting; mermaids in this pose were commonly made in the late 18th and early 19th century in Japan. A similar fake "mermaid" at the Horniman Museum has also been relabeled by another curator as a "merman", where "mermen" or "feejee mermaids" are used as generic terms for such concocted mummies. DNA testing was inconclusive as to species (and nothing on gender was disclosed), but despite being catalogued as a "Japanese Monkey-fish", it was determined to contain no monkey parts, but only the teeth, scales, etc. of fish. Another "merman" specimen supposedly found in Banff, Alberta, is displayed at the Indian Trading Post. Other such "mermen", which may be composites of wood carvings, parts of monkeys and fish, are found in museums around the world; for example, at the Booth Museum in Brighton. Such fake mermaids handcrafted from monkeys and fish were being made in China and the Malay Archipelago, and imported by the Dutch since the mid-16th century, according to ichthyologist E. W. Gudger.[better source needed] Several natural history books published around this time (c. 1550s) carried entries on the mermaid-like monk-fish (sea monk) and the bishopfish (sea bishop), and Gudger suspected these were misinformation based on the aforementioned hoax mermaids from the East.[p] Gudger also noted that the mermaid-like bishopfish could well be simulated by a dried specimen of a ray. A dried ray bears a vaguely anthropomorphic shape, and can be further manipulated to enhance its desired monstrous look. Such figures made of sharks and rays eventually came to be known as Jenny Hanivers in Great Britain. Literature and popular culture Matthew Arnold wrote a poem called "The Forsaken Merman" about a merman whose human wife abandoned him and their children. Mermen may feature in science fiction and fantasy literature. The Merman's Children by American writer Poul Anderson is inspired by the ballad Agnete og Havmanden. Science fiction writer Joe Haldeman wrote two books on Attar the Merman in which genetically enhanced mermen can communicate telepathically with dolphins. Samuel R. Delany wrote the short story Driftglass in which mermen are deliberately created surgically as amphibious human beings with gills, while in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter, a race of merpeople live in a lake outside Hogwarts. Mermen sometimes appear in modern comics, games, television shows and films. Although they were once depicted largely as being unattractive in some traditions as described in previous sections, in some modern works, mermen are portrayed as handsome, strong and brave. In the 1977–1978 television series Man from Atlantis, the merman as played by Patrick Duffy is described as a survivor from Atlantis. In the DC Comics mythology, mermen are a common fixture of the Aquaman mythos, often showing a parochialistic rivalry with humanoid water-breathers. In the Supergirl comics of the 1960s, Supergirl had a relationship with a merman named Jerro, similar to Supermans relationship with mermaid Lori Lemaris. The mermen or merfolk also appear in the Dungeons & Dragons game. Three mermen are featured in the music video for Madonna's 1989 song "Cherish". The Australian TV series Mako: Island of Secrets (2013–2016), a spin-off of H2O: Just Add Water, includes a teenage boy named Zac (played by Chai Hansen) who turns into a merman. The 2006 CG-animated film Barbie: Mermaidia features a merman character named Prince Nalu. The monster known as the Gill-man from the film Creature from the Black Lagoon could be seen as a modern adaptation of the merman myth. See also Explanatory notes References |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars#cite_note-nasa061206b-171] | [TOKENS: 11899] |
Contents Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", for its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous atmosphere that is primarily carbon dioxide (CO2). At the average surface level the atmospheric pressure is a few thousandths of Earth's, atmospheric temperature ranges from −153 to 20 °C (−243 to 68 °F), and cosmic radiation is high. Mars retains some water, in the ground as well as thinly in the atmosphere, forming cirrus clouds, fog, frost, larger polar regions of permafrost and ice caps (with seasonal CO2 snow), but no bodies of liquid surface water. Its surface gravity is roughly a third of Earth's or double that of the Moon. Its diameter, 6,779 km (4,212 mi), is about half the Earth's, or twice the Moon's, and its surface area is the size of all the dry land of Earth. Fine dust is prevalent across the surface and the atmosphere, being picked up and spread at the low Martian gravity even by the weak wind of the tenuous atmosphere. The terrain of Mars roughly follows a north-south divide, the Martian dichotomy, with the northern hemisphere mainly consisting of relatively flat, low lying plains, and the southern hemisphere of cratered highlands. Geologically, the planet is fairly active with marsquakes trembling underneath the ground, but also hosts many enormous volcanoes that are extinct (the tallest is Olympus Mons, 21.9 km or 13.6 mi tall), as well as one of the largest canyons in the Solar System (Valles Marineris, 4,000 km or 2,500 mi long). Mars has two natural satellites that are small and irregular in shape: Phobos and Deimos. With a significant axial tilt of 25 degrees, Mars experiences seasons, like Earth (which has an axial tilt of 23.5 degrees). A Martian solar year is equal to 1.88 Earth years (687 Earth days), a Martian solar day (sol) is equal to 24.6 hours. Mars formed along with the other planets approximately 4.5 billion years ago. During the martian Noachian period (4.5 to 3.5 billion years ago), its surface was marked by meteor impacts, valley formation, erosion, the possible presence of water oceans and the loss of its magnetosphere. The Hesperian period (beginning 3.5 billion years ago and ending 3.3–2.9 billion years ago) was dominated by widespread volcanic activity and flooding that carved immense outflow channels. The Amazonian period, which continues to the present, is the currently dominating and remaining influence on geological processes. Because of Mars's geological history, the possibility of past or present life on Mars remains an area of active scientific investigation, with some possible traces needing further examination. Being visible with the naked eye in Earth's sky as a red wandering star, Mars has been observed throughout history, acquiring diverse associations in different cultures. In 1963 the first flight to Mars took place with Mars 1, but communication was lost en route. The first successful flyby exploration of Mars was conducted in 1965 with Mariner 4. In 1971 Mariner 9 entered orbit around Mars, being the first spacecraft to orbit any body other than the Moon, Sun or Earth; following in the same year were the first uncontrolled impact (Mars 2) and first successful landing (Mars 3) on Mars. Probes have been active on Mars continuously since 1997. At times, more than ten probes have simultaneously operated in orbit or on the surface, more than at any other planet beyond Earth. Mars is an often proposed target for future crewed exploration missions, though no such mission is currently planned. Natural history Scientists have theorized that during the Solar System's formation, Mars was created as the result of a random process of run-away accretion of material from the protoplanetary disk that orbited the Sun. Mars has many distinctive chemical features caused by its position in the Solar System. Elements with comparatively low boiling points, such as chlorine, phosphorus, and sulfur, are much more common on Mars than on Earth; these elements were probably pushed outward by the young Sun's energetic solar wind. After the formation of the planets, the inner Solar System may have been subjected to the so-called Late Heavy Bombardment. About 60% of the surface of Mars shows a record of impacts from that era, whereas much of the remaining surface is probably underlain by immense impact basins caused by those events. However, more recent modeling has disputed the existence of the Late Heavy Bombardment. There is evidence of an enormous impact basin in the Northern Hemisphere of Mars, spanning 10,600 by 8,500 kilometres (6,600 by 5,300 mi), or roughly four times the size of the Moon's South Pole–Aitken basin, which would be the largest impact basin yet discovered if confirmed. It has been hypothesized that the basin was formed when Mars was struck by a Pluto-sized body about four billion years ago. The event, thought to be the cause of the Martian hemispheric dichotomy, created the smooth Borealis basin that covers 40% of the planet. A 2023 study shows evidence, based on the orbital inclination of Deimos (a small moon of Mars), that Mars may once have had a ring system 3.5 billion years to 4 billion years ago. This ring system may have been formed from a moon, 20 times more massive than Phobos, orbiting Mars billions of years ago; and Phobos would be a remnant of that ring. Epochs: The geological history of Mars can be split into many periods, but the following are the three primary periods: Geological activity is still taking place on Mars. The Athabasca Valles is home to sheet-like lava flows created about 200 million years ago. Water flows in the grabens called the Cerberus Fossae occurred less than 20 million years ago, indicating equally recent volcanic intrusions. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured images of avalanches. Physical characteristics Mars is approximately half the diameter of Earth or twice that of the Moon, with a surface area only slightly less than the total area of Earth's dry land. Mars is less dense than Earth, having about 15% of Earth's volume and 11% of Earth's mass, resulting in about 38% of Earth's surface gravity. Mars is the only presently known example of a desert planet, a rocky planet with a surface akin to that of Earth's deserts. The red-orange appearance of the Martian surface is caused by iron(III) oxide (nanophase Fe2O3) and the iron(III) oxide-hydroxide mineral goethite. It can look like butterscotch; other common surface colors include golden, brown, tan, and greenish, depending on the minerals present. Like Earth, Mars is differentiated into a dense metallic core overlaid by less dense rocky layers. The outermost layer is the crust, which is on average about 42–56 kilometres (26–35 mi) thick, with a minimum thickness of 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) in Isidis Planitia, and a maximum thickness of 117 kilometres (73 mi) in the southern Tharsis plateau. For comparison, Earth's crust averages 27.3 ± 4.8 km in thickness. The most abundant elements in the Martian crust are silicon, oxygen, iron, magnesium, aluminum, calcium, and potassium. Mars is confirmed to be seismically active; in 2019, it was reported that InSight had detected and recorded over 450 marsquakes and related events. Beneath the crust is a silicate mantle responsible for many of the tectonic and volcanic features on the planet's surface. The upper Martian mantle is a low-velocity zone, where the velocity of seismic waves is lower than surrounding depth intervals. The mantle appears to be rigid down to the depth of about 250 km, giving Mars a very thick lithosphere compared to Earth. Below this the mantle gradually becomes more ductile, and the seismic wave velocity starts to grow again. The Martian mantle does not appear to have a thermally insulating layer analogous to Earth's lower mantle; instead, below 1050 km in depth, it becomes mineralogically similar to Earth's transition zone. At the bottom of the mantle lies a basal liquid silicate layer approximately 150–180 km thick. The Martian mantle appears to be highly heterogenous, with dense fragments up to 4 km across, likely injected deep into the planet by colossal impacts ~4.5 billion years ago; high-frequency waves from eight marsquakes slowed as they passed these localized regions, and modeling indicates the heterogeneities are compositionally distinct debris preserved because Mars lacks plate tectonics and has a sluggishly convecting interior that prevents complete homogenization. Mars's iron and nickel core is at least partially molten, and may have a solid inner core. It is around half of Mars's radius, approximately 1650–1675 km, and is enriched in light elements such as sulfur, oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. The temperature of the core is estimated to be 2000–2400 K, compared to 5400–6230 K for Earth's solid inner core. In 2025, based on data from the InSight lander, a group of researchers reported the detection of a solid inner core 613 kilometres (381 mi) ± 67 kilometres (42 mi) in radius. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a surface that consists of minerals containing silicon and oxygen, metals, and other elements that typically make up rock. The Martian surface is primarily composed of tholeiitic basalt, although parts are more silica-rich than typical basalt and may be similar to andesitic rocks on Earth, or silica glass. Regions of low albedo suggest concentrations of plagioclase feldspar, with northern low albedo regions displaying higher than normal concentrations of sheet silicates and high-silicon glass. Parts of the southern highlands include detectable amounts of high-calcium pyroxenes. Localized concentrations of hematite and olivine have been found. Much of the surface is deeply covered by finely grained iron(III) oxide dust. The Phoenix lander returned data showing Martian soil to be slightly alkaline and containing elements such as magnesium, sodium, potassium and chlorine. These nutrients are found in soils on Earth, and are necessary for plant growth. Experiments performed by the lander showed that the Martian soil has a basic pH of 7.7, and contains 0.6% perchlorate by weight, concentrations that are toxic to humans. Streaks are common across Mars and new ones appear frequently on steep slopes of craters, troughs, and valleys. The streaks are dark at first and get lighter with age. The streaks can start in a tiny area, then spread out for hundreds of metres. They have been seen to follow the edges of boulders and other obstacles in their path. The commonly accepted hypotheses include that they are dark underlying layers of soil revealed after avalanches of bright dust or dust devils. Several other explanations have been put forward, including those that involve water or even the growth of organisms. Environmental radiation levels on the surface are on average 0.64 millisieverts of radiation per day, and significantly less than the radiation of 1.84 millisieverts per day or 22 millirads per day during the flight to and from Mars. For comparison the radiation levels in low Earth orbit, where Earth's space stations orbit, are around 0.5 millisieverts of radiation per day. Hellas Planitia has the lowest surface radiation at about 0.342 millisieverts per day, featuring lava tubes southwest of Hadriacus Mons with potentially levels as low as 0.064 millisieverts per day, comparable to radiation levels during flights on Earth. Although Mars has no evidence of a structured global magnetic field, observations show that parts of the planet's crust have been magnetized, suggesting that alternating polarity reversals of its dipole field have occurred in the past. This paleomagnetism of magnetically susceptible minerals is similar to the alternating bands found on Earth's ocean floors. One hypothesis, published in 1999 and re-examined in October 2005 (with the help of the Mars Global Surveyor), is that these bands suggest plate tectonic activity on Mars four billion years ago, before the planetary dynamo ceased to function and the planet's magnetic field faded. Geography and features Although better remembered for mapping the Moon, Johann Heinrich von Mädler and Wilhelm Beer were the first areographers. They began by establishing that most of Mars's surface features were permanent and by more precisely determining the planet's rotation period. In 1840, Mädler combined ten years of observations and drew the first map of Mars. Features on Mars are named from a variety of sources. Albedo features are named for classical mythology. Craters larger than roughly 50 km are named for deceased scientists and writers and others who have contributed to the study of Mars. Smaller craters are named for towns and villages of the world with populations of less than 100,000. Large valleys are named for the word "Mars" or "star" in various languages; smaller valleys are named for rivers. Large albedo features retain many of the older names but are often updated to reflect new knowledge of the nature of the features. For example, Nix Olympica (the snows of Olympus) has become Olympus Mons (Mount Olympus). The surface of Mars as seen from Earth is divided into two kinds of areas, with differing albedo. The paler plains covered with dust and sand rich in reddish iron oxides were once thought of as Martian "continents" and given names like Arabia Terra (land of Arabia) or Amazonis Planitia (Amazonian plain). The dark features were thought to be seas, hence their names Mare Erythraeum, Mare Sirenum and Aurorae Sinus. The largest dark feature seen from Earth is Syrtis Major Planum. The permanent northern polar ice cap is named Planum Boreum. The southern cap is called Planum Australe. Mars's equator is defined by its rotation, but the location of its Prime Meridian was specified, as was Earth's (at Greenwich), by choice of an arbitrary point; Mädler and Beer selected a line for their first maps of Mars in 1830. After the spacecraft Mariner 9 provided extensive imagery of Mars in 1972, a small crater (later called Airy-0), located in the Sinus Meridiani ("Middle Bay" or "Meridian Bay"), was chosen by Merton E. Davies, Harold Masursky, and Gérard de Vaucouleurs for the definition of 0.0° longitude to coincide with the original selection. Because Mars has no oceans, and hence no "sea level", a zero-elevation surface had to be selected as a reference level; this is called the areoid of Mars, analogous to the terrestrial geoid. Zero altitude was defined by the height at which there is 610.5 Pa (6.105 mbar) of atmospheric pressure. This pressure corresponds to the triple point of water, and it is about 0.6% of the sea level surface pressure on Earth (0.006 atm). For mapping purposes, the United States Geological Survey divides the surface of Mars into thirty cartographic quadrangles, each named for a classical albedo feature it contains. In April 2023, The New York Times reported an updated global map of Mars based on images from the Hope spacecraft. A related, but much more detailed, global Mars map was released by NASA on 16 April 2023. The vast upland region Tharsis contains several massive volcanoes, which include the shield volcano Olympus Mons. The edifice is over 600 km (370 mi) wide. Because the mountain is so large, with complex structure at its edges, giving a definite height to it is difficult. Its local relief, from the foot of the cliffs which form its northwest margin to its peak, is over 21 km (13 mi), a little over twice the height of Mauna Kea as measured from its base on the ocean floor. The total elevation change from the plains of Amazonis Planitia, over 1,000 km (620 mi) to the northwest, to the summit approaches 26 km (16 mi), roughly three times the height of Mount Everest, which in comparison stands at just over 8.8 kilometres (5.5 mi). Consequently, Olympus Mons is either the tallest or second-tallest mountain in the Solar System; the only known mountain which might be taller is the Rheasilvia peak on the asteroid Vesta, at 20–25 km (12–16 mi). The dichotomy of Martian topography is striking: northern plains flattened by lava flows contrast with the southern highlands, pitted and cratered by ancient impacts. It is possible that, four billion years ago, the Northern Hemisphere of Mars was struck by an object one-tenth to two-thirds the size of Earth's Moon. If this is the case, the Northern Hemisphere of Mars would be the site of an impact crater 10,600 by 8,500 kilometres (6,600 by 5,300 mi) in size, or roughly the area of Europe, Asia, and Australia combined, surpassing Utopia Planitia and the Moon's South Pole–Aitken basin as the largest impact crater in the Solar System. Mars is scarred by 43,000 impact craters with a diameter of 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) or greater. The largest exposed crater is Hellas, which is 2,300 kilometres (1,400 mi) wide and 7,000 metres (23,000 ft) deep, and is a light albedo feature clearly visible from Earth. There are other notable impact features, such as Argyre, which is around 1,800 kilometres (1,100 mi) in diameter, and Isidis, which is around 1,500 kilometres (930 mi) in diameter. Due to the smaller mass and size of Mars, the probability of an object colliding with the planet is about half that of Earth. Mars is located closer to the asteroid belt, so it has an increased chance of being struck by materials from that source. Mars is more likely to be struck by short-period comets, i.e., those that lie within the orbit of Jupiter. Martian craters can[discuss] have a morphology that suggests the ground became wet after the meteor impact. The large canyon, Valles Marineris (Latin for 'Mariner Valleys, also known as Agathodaemon in the old canal maps), has a length of 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi) and a depth of up to 7 kilometres (4.3 mi). The length of Valles Marineris is equivalent to the length of Europe and extends across one-fifth the circumference of Mars. By comparison, the Grand Canyon on Earth is only 446 kilometres (277 mi) long and nearly 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) deep. Valles Marineris was formed due to the swelling of the Tharsis area, which caused the crust in the area of Valles Marineris to collapse. In 2012, it was proposed that Valles Marineris is not just a graben, but a plate boundary where 150 kilometres (93 mi) of transverse motion has occurred, making Mars a planet with possibly a two-tectonic plate arrangement. Images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) aboard NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter have revealed seven possible cave entrances on the flanks of the volcano Arsia Mons. The caves, named after loved ones of their discoverers, are collectively known as the "seven sisters". Cave entrances measure from 100 to 252 metres (328 to 827 ft) wide and they are estimated to be at least 73 to 96 metres (240 to 315 ft) deep. Because light does not reach the floor of most of the caves, they may extend much deeper than these lower estimates and widen below the surface. "Dena" is the only exception; its floor is visible and was measured to be 130 metres (430 ft) deep. The interiors of these caverns may be protected from micrometeoroids, UV radiation, solar flares and high energy particles that bombard the planet's surface. Martian geysers (or CO2 jets) are putative sites of small gas and dust eruptions that occur in the south polar region of Mars during the spring thaw. "Dark dune spots" and "spiders" – or araneiforms – are the two most visible types of features ascribed to these eruptions. Similarly sized dust will settle from the thinner Martian atmosphere sooner than it would on Earth. For example, the dust suspended by the 2001 global dust storms on Mars only remained in the Martian atmosphere for 0.6 years, while the dust from Mount Pinatubo took about two years to settle. However, under current Martian conditions, the mass movements involved are generally much smaller than on Earth. Even the 2001 global dust storms on Mars moved only the equivalent of a very thin dust layer – about 3 μm thick if deposited with uniform thickness between 58° north and south of the equator. Dust deposition at the two rover sites has proceeded at a rate of about the thickness of a grain every 100 sols. Atmosphere Mars lost its magnetosphere 4 billion years ago, possibly because of numerous asteroid strikes, so the solar wind interacts directly with the Martian ionosphere, lowering the atmospheric density by stripping away atoms from the outer layer. Both Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Express have detected ionized atmospheric particles trailing off into space behind Mars, and this atmospheric loss is being studied by the MAVEN orbiter. Compared to Earth, the atmosphere of Mars is quite rarefied. Atmospheric pressure on the surface today ranges from a low of 30 Pa (0.0044 psi) on Olympus Mons to over 1,155 Pa (0.1675 psi) in Hellas Planitia, with a mean pressure at the surface level of 600 Pa (0.087 psi). The highest atmospheric density on Mars is equal to that found 35 kilometres (22 mi) above Earth's surface. The resulting mean surface pressure is only 0.6% of Earth's 101.3 kPa (14.69 psi). The scale height of the atmosphere is about 10.8 kilometres (6.7 mi), which is higher than Earth's 6 kilometres (3.7 mi), because the surface gravity of Mars is only about 38% of Earth's. The atmosphere of Mars consists of about 96% carbon dioxide, 1.93% argon and 1.89% nitrogen along with traces of oxygen and water. The atmosphere is quite dusty, containing particulates about 1.5 μm in diameter which give the Martian sky a tawny color when seen from the surface. It may take on a pink hue due to iron oxide particles suspended in it. Despite repeated detections of methane on Mars, there is no scientific consensus as to its origin. One suggestion is that methane exists on Mars and that its concentration fluctuates seasonally. The existence of methane could be produced by non-biological process such as serpentinization involving water, carbon dioxide, and the mineral olivine, which is known to be common on Mars, or by Martian life. Compared to Earth, its higher concentration of atmospheric CO2 and lower surface pressure may be why sound is attenuated more on Mars, where natural sources are rare apart from the wind. Using acoustic recordings collected by the Perseverance rover, researchers concluded that the speed of sound there is approximately 240 m/s for frequencies below 240 Hz, and 250 m/s for those above. Auroras have been detected on Mars. Because Mars lacks a global magnetic field, the types and distribution of auroras there differ from those on Earth; rather than being mostly restricted to polar regions as is the case on Earth, a Martian aurora can encompass the planet. In September 2017, NASA reported radiation levels on the surface of the planet Mars were temporarily doubled, and were associated with an aurora 25 times brighter than any observed earlier, due to a massive, and unexpected, solar storm in the middle of the month. Mars has seasons, alternating between its northern and southern hemispheres, similar to on Earth. Additionally the orbit of Mars has, compared to Earth's, a large eccentricity and approaches perihelion when it is summer in its southern hemisphere and winter in its northern, and aphelion when it is winter in its southern hemisphere and summer in its northern. As a result, the seasons in its southern hemisphere are more extreme and the seasons in its northern are milder than would otherwise be the case. The summer temperatures in the south can be warmer than the equivalent summer temperatures in the north by up to 30 °C (54 °F). Martian surface temperatures vary from lows of about −110 °C (−166 °F) to highs of up to 35 °C (95 °F) in equatorial summer. The wide range in temperatures is due to the thin atmosphere which cannot store much solar heat, the low atmospheric pressure (about 1% that of the atmosphere of Earth), and the low thermal inertia of Martian soil. The planet is 1.52 times as far from the Sun as Earth, resulting in just 43% of the amount of sunlight. Mars has the largest dust storms in the Solar System, reaching speeds of over 160 km/h (100 mph). These can vary from a storm over a small area, to gigantic storms that cover the entire planet. They tend to occur when Mars is closest to the Sun, and have been shown to increase global temperature. Seasons also produce dry ice covering polar ice caps. Hydrology While Mars contains water in larger amounts, most of it is dust covered water ice at the Martian polar ice caps. The volume of water ice in the south polar ice cap, if melted, would be enough to cover most of the surface of the planet with a depth of 11 metres (36 ft). Water in its liquid form cannot persist on the surface due to Mars's low atmospheric pressure, which is less than 1% that of Earth. Only at the lowest of elevations are the pressure and temperature high enough for liquid water to exist for short periods. Although little water is present in the atmosphere, there is enough to produce clouds of water ice and different cases of snow and frost, often mixed with snow of carbon dioxide dry ice. Landforms visible on Mars strongly suggest that liquid water has existed on the planet's surface. Huge linear swathes of scoured ground, known as outflow channels, cut across the surface in about 25 places. These are thought to be a record of erosion caused by the catastrophic release of water from subsurface aquifers, though some of these structures have been hypothesized to result from the action of glaciers or lava. One of the larger examples, Ma'adim Vallis, is 700 kilometres (430 mi) long, much greater than the Grand Canyon, with a width of 20 kilometres (12 mi) and a depth of 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) in places. It is thought to have been carved by flowing water early in Mars's history. The youngest of these channels is thought to have formed only a few million years ago. Elsewhere, particularly on the oldest areas of the Martian surface, finer-scale, dendritic networks of valleys are spread across significant proportions of the landscape. Features of these valleys and their distribution strongly imply that they were carved by runoff resulting from precipitation in early Mars history. Subsurface water flow and groundwater sapping may play important subsidiary roles in some networks, but precipitation was probably the root cause of the incision in almost all cases. Along craters and canyon walls, there are thousands of features that appear similar to terrestrial gullies. The gullies tend to be in the highlands of the Southern Hemisphere and face the Equator; all are poleward of 30° latitude. A number of authors have suggested that their formation process involves liquid water, probably from melting ice, although others have argued for formation mechanisms involving carbon dioxide frost or the movement of dry dust. No partially degraded gullies have formed by weathering and no superimposed impact craters have been observed, indicating that these are young features, possibly still active. Other geological features, such as deltas and alluvial fans preserved in craters, are further evidence for warmer, wetter conditions at an interval or intervals in earlier Mars history. Such conditions necessarily require the widespread presence of crater lakes across a large proportion of the surface, for which there is independent mineralogical, sedimentological and geomorphological evidence. Further evidence that liquid water once existed on the surface of Mars comes from the detection of specific minerals such as hematite and goethite, both of which sometimes form in the presence of water. The chemical signature of water vapor on Mars was first unequivocally demonstrated in 1963 by spectroscopy using an Earth-based telescope. In 2004, Opportunity detected the mineral jarosite. This forms only in the presence of acidic water, showing that water once existed on Mars. The Spirit rover found concentrated deposits of silica in 2007 that indicated wet conditions in the past, and in December 2011, the mineral gypsum, which also forms in the presence of water, was found on the surface by NASA's Mars rover Opportunity. It is estimated that the amount of water in the upper mantle of Mars, represented by hydroxyl ions contained within Martian minerals, is equal to or greater than that of Earth at 50–300 parts per million of water, which is enough to cover the entire planet to a depth of 200–1,000 metres (660–3,280 ft). On 18 March 2013, NASA reported evidence from instruments on the Curiosity rover of mineral hydration, likely hydrated calcium sulfate, in several rock samples including the broken fragments of "Tintina" rock and "Sutton Inlier" rock as well as in veins and nodules in other rocks like "Knorr" rock and "Wernicke" rock. Analysis using the rover's DAN instrument provided evidence of subsurface water, amounting to as much as 4% water content, down to a depth of 60 centimetres (24 in), during the rover's traverse from the Bradbury Landing site to the Yellowknife Bay area in the Glenelg terrain. In September 2015, NASA announced that they had found strong evidence of hydrated brine flows in recurring slope lineae, based on spectrometer readings of the darkened areas of slopes. These streaks flow downhill in Martian summer, when the temperature is above −23 °C, and freeze at lower temperatures. These observations supported earlier hypotheses, based on timing of formation and their rate of growth, that these dark streaks resulted from water flowing just below the surface. However, later work suggested that the lineae may be dry, granular flows instead, with at most a limited role for water in initiating the process. A definitive conclusion about the presence, extent, and role of liquid water on the Martian surface remains elusive. Researchers suspect much of the low northern plains of the planet were covered with an ocean hundreds of meters deep, though this theory remains controversial. In March 2015, scientists stated that such an ocean might have been the size of Earth's Arctic Ocean. This finding was derived from the ratio of protium to deuterium in the modern Martian atmosphere compared to that ratio on Earth. The amount of Martian deuterium (D/H = 9.3 ± 1.7 10−4) is five to seven times the amount on Earth (D/H = 1.56 10−4), suggesting that ancient Mars had significantly higher levels of water. Results from the Curiosity rover had previously found a high ratio of deuterium in Gale Crater, though not significantly high enough to suggest the former presence of an ocean. Other scientists caution that these results have not been confirmed, and point out that Martian climate models have not yet shown that the planet was warm enough in the past to support bodies of liquid water. Near the northern polar cap is the 81.4 kilometres (50.6 mi) wide Korolev Crater, which the Mars Express orbiter found to be filled with approximately 2,200 cubic kilometres (530 cu mi) of water ice. In November 2016, NASA reported finding a large amount of underground ice in the Utopia Planitia region. The volume of water detected has been estimated to be equivalent to the volume of water in Lake Superior (which is 12,100 cubic kilometers). During observations from 2018 through 2021, the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter spotted indications of water, probably subsurface ice, in the Valles Marineris canyon system. Orbital motion Mars's average distance from the Sun is roughly 230 million km (143 million mi), and its orbital period is 687 (Earth) days. The solar day (or sol) on Mars is only slightly longer than an Earth day: 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds. A Martian year is equal to 1.8809 Earth years, or 1 year, 320 days, and 18.2 hours. The gravitational potential difference and thus the delta-v needed to transfer between Mars and Earth is the second lowest for Earth. The axial tilt of Mars is 25.19° relative to its orbital plane, which is similar to the axial tilt of Earth. As a result, Mars has seasons like Earth, though on Mars they are nearly twice as long because its orbital period is that much longer. In the present day, the orientation of the north pole of Mars is close to the star Deneb. Mars has a relatively pronounced orbital eccentricity of about 0.09; of the seven other planets in the Solar System, only Mercury has a larger orbital eccentricity. It is known that in the past, Mars has had a much more circular orbit. At one point, 1.35 million Earth years ago, Mars had an eccentricity of roughly 0.002, much less than that of Earth today. Mars's cycle of eccentricity is 96,000 Earth years compared to Earth's cycle of 100,000 years. Mars has its closest approach to Earth (opposition) in a synodic period of 779.94 days. It should not be confused with Mars conjunction, where the Earth and Mars are at opposite sides of the Solar System and form a straight line crossing the Sun. The average time between the successive oppositions of Mars, its synodic period, is 780 days; but the number of days between successive oppositions can range from 764 to 812. The distance at close approach varies between about 54 and 103 million km (34 and 64 million mi) due to the planets' elliptical orbits, which causes comparable variation in angular size. At their furthest Mars and Earth can be as far as 401 million km (249 million mi) apart. Mars comes into opposition from Earth every 2.1 years. The planets come into opposition near Mars's perihelion in 2003, 2018 and 2035, with the 2020 and 2033 events being particularly close to perihelic opposition. The mean apparent magnitude of Mars is +0.71 with a standard deviation of 1.05. Because the orbit of Mars is eccentric, the magnitude at opposition from the Sun can range from about −3.0 to −1.4. The minimum brightness is magnitude +1.86 when the planet is near aphelion and in conjunction with the Sun. At its brightest, Mars (along with Jupiter) is second only to Venus in apparent brightness. Mars usually appears distinctly yellow, orange, or red. When farthest away from Earth, it is more than seven times farther away than when it is closest. Mars is usually close enough for particularly good viewing once or twice at 15-year or 17-year intervals. Optical ground-based telescopes are typically limited to resolving features about 300 kilometres (190 mi) across when Earth and Mars are closest because of Earth's atmosphere. As Mars approaches opposition, it begins a period of retrograde motion, which means it will appear to move backwards in a looping curve with respect to the background stars. This retrograde motion lasts for about 72 days, and Mars reaches its peak apparent brightness in the middle of this interval. Moons Mars has two relatively small (compared to Earth's) natural moons, Phobos (about 22 km (14 mi) in diameter) and Deimos (about 12 km (7.5 mi) in diameter), which orbit at 9,376 km (5,826 mi) and 23,460 km (14,580 mi) around the planet. The origin of both moons is unclear, although a popular theory states that they were asteroids captured into Martian orbit. Both satellites were discovered in 1877 by Asaph Hall and were named after the characters Phobos (the deity of panic and fear) and Deimos (the deity of terror and dread), twins from Greek mythology who accompanied their father Ares, god of war, into battle. Mars was the Roman equivalent to Ares. In modern Greek, the planet retains its ancient name Ares (Aris: Άρης). From the surface of Mars, the motions of Phobos and Deimos appear different from that of the Earth's satellite, the Moon. Phobos rises in the west, sets in the east, and rises again in just 11 hours. Deimos, being only just outside synchronous orbit – where the orbital period would match the planet's period of rotation – rises as expected in the east, but slowly. Because the orbit of Phobos is below a synchronous altitude, tidal forces from Mars are gradually lowering its orbit. In about 50 million years, it could either crash into Mars's surface or break up into a ring structure around the planet. The origin of the two satellites is not well understood. Their low albedo and carbonaceous chondrite composition have been regarded as similar to asteroids, supporting a capture theory. The unstable orbit of Phobos would seem to point toward a relatively recent capture. But both have circular orbits near the equator, which is unusual for captured objects, and the required capture dynamics are complex. Accretion early in the history of Mars is plausible, but would not account for a composition resembling asteroids rather than Mars itself, if that is confirmed. Mars may have yet-undiscovered moons, smaller than 50 to 100 metres (160 to 330 ft) in diameter, and a dust ring is predicted to exist between Phobos and Deimos. A third possibility for their origin as satellites of Mars is the involvement of a third body or a type of impact disruption. More-recent lines of evidence for Phobos having a highly porous interior, and suggesting a composition containing mainly phyllosilicates and other minerals known from Mars, point toward an origin of Phobos from material ejected by an impact on Mars that reaccreted in Martian orbit, similar to the prevailing theory for the origin of Earth's satellite. Although the visible and near-infrared (VNIR) spectra of the moons of Mars resemble those of outer-belt asteroids, the thermal infrared spectra of Phobos are reported to be inconsistent with chondrites of any class. It is also possible that Phobos and Deimos were fragments of an older moon, formed by debris from a large impact on Mars, and then destroyed by a more recent impact upon the satellite. More recently, a study conducted by a team of researchers from multiple countries suggests that a lost moon, at least fifteen times the size of Phobos, may have existed in the past. By analyzing rocks which point to tidal processes on the planet, it is possible that these tides may have been regulated by a past moon. Human observations and exploration The history of observations of Mars is marked by oppositions of Mars when the planet is closest to Earth and hence is most easily visible, which occur every couple of years. Even more notable are the perihelic oppositions of Mars, which are distinguished because Mars is close to perihelion, making it even closer to Earth. The ancient Sumerians named Mars Nergal, the god of war and plague. During Sumerian times, Nergal was a minor deity of little significance, but, during later times, his main cult center was the city of Nineveh. In Mesopotamian texts, Mars is referred to as the "star of judgement of the fate of the dead". The existence of Mars as a wandering object in the night sky was also recorded by the ancient Egyptian astronomers and, by 1534 BCE, they were familiar with the retrograde motion of the planet. By the period of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, the Babylonian astronomers were making regular records of the positions of the planets and systematic observations of their behavior. For Mars, they knew that the planet made 37 synodic periods, or 42 circuits of the zodiac, every 79 years. They invented arithmetic methods for making minor corrections to the predicted positions of the planets. In Ancient Greece, the planet was known as Πυρόεις. Commonly, the Greek name for the planet now referred to as Mars, was Ares. It was the Romans who named the planet Mars, for their god of war, often represented by the sword and shield of the planet's namesake. In the fourth century BCE, Aristotle noted that Mars disappeared behind the Moon during an occultation, indicating that the planet was farther away. Ptolemy, a Greek living in Alexandria, attempted to address the problem of the orbital motion of Mars. Ptolemy's model and his collective work on astronomy was presented in the multi-volume collection later called the Almagest (from the Arabic for "greatest"), which became the authoritative treatise on Western astronomy for the next fourteen centuries. Literature from ancient China confirms that Mars was known by Chinese astronomers by no later than the fourth century BCE. In the East Asian cultures, Mars is traditionally referred to as the "fire star" (火星) based on the Wuxing system. In 1609 Johannes Kepler published a 10 year study of Martian orbit, using the diurnal parallax of Mars, measured by Tycho Brahe, to make a preliminary calculation of the relative distance to the planet. From Brahe's observations of Mars, Kepler deduced that the planet orbited the Sun not in a circle, but in an ellipse. Moreover, Kepler showed that Mars sped up as it approached the Sun and slowed down as it moved farther away, in a manner that later physicists would explain as a consequence of the conservation of angular momentum.: 433–437 In 1610 the first use of a telescope for astronomical observation, including Mars, was performed by Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei. With the telescope the diurnal parallax of Mars was again measured in an effort to determine the Sun-Earth distance. This was first performed by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1672. The early parallax measurements were hampered by the quality of the instruments. The only occultation of Mars by Venus observed was that of 13 October 1590, seen by Michael Maestlin at Heidelberg. By the 19th century, the resolution of telescopes reached a level sufficient for surface features to be identified. On 5 September 1877, a perihelic opposition to Mars occurred. The Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli used a 22-centimetre (8.7 in) telescope in Milan to help produce the first detailed map of Mars. These maps notably contained features he called canali, which, with the possible exception of the natural canyon Valles Marineris, were later shown to be an optical illusion. These canali were supposedly long, straight lines on the surface of Mars, to which he gave names of famous rivers on Earth. His term, which means "channels" or "grooves", was popularly mistranslated in English as "canals". Influenced by the observations, the orientalist Percival Lowell founded an observatory which had 30- and 45-centimetre (12- and 18-in) telescopes. The observatory was used for the exploration of Mars during the last good opportunity in 1894, and the following less favorable oppositions. He published several books on Mars and life on the planet, which had a great influence on the public. The canali were independently observed by other astronomers, like Henri Joseph Perrotin and Louis Thollon in Nice, using one of the largest telescopes of that time. The seasonal changes (consisting of the diminishing of the polar caps and the dark areas formed during Martian summers) in combination with the canals led to speculation about life on Mars, and it was a long-held belief that Mars contained vast seas and vegetation. As bigger telescopes were used, fewer long, straight canali were observed. During observations in 1909 by Antoniadi with an 84-centimetre (33 in) telescope, irregular patterns were observed, but no canali were seen. The first spacecraft from Earth to visit Mars was Mars 1 of the Soviet Union, which flew by in 1963, but contact was lost en route. NASA's Mariner 4 followed and became the first spacecraft to successfully transmit from Mars; launched on 28 November 1964, it made its closest approach to the planet on 15 July 1965. Mariner 4 detected the weak Martian radiation belt, measured at about 0.1% that of Earth, and captured the first images of another planet from deep space. Once spacecraft visited the planet during the 1960s and 1970s, many previous concepts of Mars were radically broken. After the results of the Viking life-detection experiments, the hypothesis of a dead planet was generally accepted. The data from Mariner 9 and Viking allowed better maps of Mars to be made. Until 1997 and after Viking 1 shut down in 1982, Mars was only visited by three unsuccessful probes, two flying past without contact (Phobos 1, 1988; Mars Observer, 1993), and one (Phobos 2 1989) malfunctioning in orbit before reaching its destination Phobos. In 1997 Mars Pathfinder became the first successful rover mission beyond the Moon and started together with Mars Global Surveyor (operated until late 2006) an uninterrupted active robotic presence at Mars that has lasted until today. It produced complete, extremely detailed maps of the Martian topography, magnetic field and surface minerals. Starting with these missions a range of new improved crewless spacecraft, including orbiters, landers, and rovers, have been sent to Mars, with successful missions by the NASA (United States), Jaxa (Japan), ESA, United Kingdom, ISRO (India), Roscosmos (Russia), the United Arab Emirates, and CNSA (China) to study the planet's surface, climate, and geology, uncovering the different elements of the history and dynamic of the hydrosphere of Mars and possible traces of ancient life. As of 2023[update], Mars is host to ten functioning spacecraft. Eight are in orbit: 2001 Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, the Hope orbiter, and the Tianwen-1 orbiter. Another two are on the surface: the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover and the Perseverance rover. Collected maps are available online at websites including Google Mars. NASA provides two online tools: Mars Trek, which provides visualizations of the planet using data from 50 years of exploration, and Experience Curiosity, which simulates traveling on Mars in 3-D with Curiosity. Planned missions to Mars include: As of February 2024[update], debris from these types of missions has reached over seven tons. Most of it consists of crashed and inactive spacecraft as well as discarded components. In April 2024, NASA selected several companies to begin studies on providing commercial services to further enable robotic science on Mars. Key areas include establishing telecommunications, payload delivery and surface imaging. Habitability and habitation During the late 19th century, it was widely accepted in the astronomical community that Mars had life-supporting qualities, including the presence of oxygen and water. However, in 1894 W. W. Campbell at Lick Observatory observed the planet and found that "if water vapor or oxygen occur in the atmosphere of Mars it is in quantities too small to be detected by spectroscopes then available". That observation contradicted many of the measurements of the time and was not widely accepted. Campbell and V. M. Slipher repeated the study in 1909 using better instruments, but with the same results. It was not until the findings were confirmed by W. S. Adams in 1925 that the myth of the Earth-like habitability of Mars was finally broken. However, even in the 1960s, articles were published on Martian biology, putting aside explanations other than life for the seasonal changes on Mars. The current understanding of planetary habitability – the ability of a world to develop environmental conditions favorable to the emergence of life – favors planets that have liquid water on their surface. Most often this requires the orbit of a planet to lie within the habitable zone, which for the Sun is estimated to extend from within the orbit of Earth to about that of Mars. During perihelion, Mars dips inside this region, but Mars's thin (low-pressure) atmosphere prevents liquid water from existing over large regions for extended periods. The past flow of liquid water demonstrates the planet's potential for habitability. Recent evidence has suggested that any water on the Martian surface may have been too salty and acidic to support regular terrestrial life. The environmental conditions on Mars are a challenge to sustaining organic life: the planet has little heat transfer across its surface, it has poor insulation against bombardment by the solar wind due to the absence of a magnetosphere and has insufficient atmospheric pressure to retain water in a liquid form (water instead sublimes to a gaseous state). Mars is nearly, or perhaps totally, geologically dead; the end of volcanic activity has apparently stopped the recycling of chemicals and minerals between the surface and interior of the planet. Evidence suggests that the planet was once significantly more habitable than it is today, but whether living organisms ever existed there remains unknown. The Viking probes of the mid-1970s carried experiments designed to detect microorganisms in Martian soil at their respective landing sites and had positive results, including a temporary increase in CO2 production on exposure to water and nutrients. This sign of life was later disputed by scientists, resulting in a continuing debate, with NASA scientist Gilbert Levin asserting that Viking may have found life. A 2014 analysis of Martian meteorite EETA79001 found chlorate, perchlorate, and nitrate ions in sufficiently high concentrations to suggest that they are widespread on Mars. UV and X-ray radiation would turn chlorate and perchlorate ions into other, highly reactive oxychlorines, indicating that any organic molecules would have to be buried under the surface to survive. Small quantities of methane and formaldehyde detected by Mars orbiters are both claimed to be possible evidence for life, as these chemical compounds would quickly break down in the Martian atmosphere. Alternatively, these compounds may instead be replenished by volcanic or other geological means, such as serpentinite. Impact glass, formed by the impact of meteors, which on Earth can preserve signs of life, has also been found on the surface of the impact craters on Mars. Likewise, the glass in impact craters on Mars could have preserved signs of life, if life existed at the site. The Cheyava Falls rock discovered on Mars in June 2024 has been designated by NASA as a "potential biosignature" and was core sampled by the Perseverance rover for possible return to Earth and further examination. Although highly intriguing, no definitive final determination on a biological or abiotic origin of this rock can be made with the data currently available. Several plans for a human mission to Mars have been proposed, but none have come to fruition. The NASA Authorization Act of 2017 directed NASA to study the feasibility of a crewed Mars mission in the early 2030s; the resulting report concluded that this would be unfeasible. In addition, in 2021, China was planning to send a crewed Mars mission in 2033. Privately held companies such as SpaceX have also proposed plans to send humans to Mars, with the eventual goal to settle on the planet. As of 2024, SpaceX has proceeded with the development of the Starship launch vehicle with the goal of Mars colonization. In plans shared with the company in April 2024, Elon Musk envisions the beginning of a Mars colony within the next twenty years. This would be enabled by the planned mass manufacturing of Starship and initially sustained by resupply from Earth, and in situ resource utilization on Mars, until the Mars colony reaches full self sustainability. Any future human mission to Mars will likely take place within the optimal Mars launch window, which occurs every 26 months. The moon Phobos has been proposed as an anchor point for a space elevator. Besides national space agencies and space companies, groups such as the Mars Society and The Planetary Society advocate for human missions to Mars. In culture Mars is named after the Roman god of war (Greek Ares), but was also associated with the demi-god Heracles (Roman Hercules) by ancient Greek astronomers, as detailed by Aristotle. This association between Mars and war dates back at least to Babylonian astronomy, in which the planet was named for the god Nergal, deity of war and destruction. It persisted into modern times, as exemplified by Gustav Holst's orchestral suite The Planets, whose famous first movement labels Mars "The Bringer of War". The planet's symbol, a circle with a spear pointing out to the upper right, is also used as a symbol for the male gender. The symbol dates from at least the 11th century, though a possible predecessor has been found in the Greek Oxyrhynchus Papyri. The idea that Mars was populated by intelligent Martians became widespread in the late 19th century. Schiaparelli's "canali" observations combined with Percival Lowell's books on the subject put forward the standard notion of a planet that was a drying, cooling, dying world with ancient civilizations constructing irrigation works. Many other observations and proclamations by notable personalities added to what has been termed "Mars Fever". In the present day, high-resolution mapping of the surface of Mars has revealed no artifacts of habitation, but pseudoscientific speculation about intelligent life on Mars still continues. Reminiscent of the canali observations, these speculations are based on small scale features perceived in the spacecraft images, such as "pyramids" and the "Face on Mars". In his book Cosmos, planetary astronomer Carl Sagan wrote: "Mars has become a kind of mythic arena onto which we have projected our Earthly hopes and fears." The depiction of Mars in fiction has been stimulated by its dramatic red color and by nineteenth-century scientific speculations that its surface conditions might support not just life but intelligent life. This gave way to many science fiction stories involving these concepts, such as H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, in which Martians seek to escape their dying planet by invading Earth; Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, in which human explorers accidentally destroy a Martian civilization; as well as Edgar Rice Burroughs's series Barsoom, C. S. Lewis's novel Out of the Silent Planet (1938), and a number of Robert A. Heinlein stories before the mid-sixties. Since then, depictions of Martians have also extended to animation. A comic figure of an intelligent Martian, Marvin the Martian, appeared in Haredevil Hare (1948) as a character in the Looney Tunes animated cartoons of Warner Brothers, and has continued as part of popular culture to the present. After the Mariner and Viking spacecraft had returned pictures of Mars as a lifeless and canal-less world, these ideas about Mars were abandoned; for many science-fiction authors, the new discoveries initially seemed like a constraint, but eventually the post-Viking knowledge of Mars became itself a source of inspiration for works like Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. See also Notes References Further reading External links Solar System → Local Interstellar Cloud → Local Bubble → Gould Belt → Orion Arm → Milky Way → Milky Way subgroup → Local Group → Local Sheet → Local Volume → Virgo Supercluster → Laniakea Supercluster → Pisces–Cetus Supercluster Complex → Local Hole → Observable universe → UniverseEach arrow (→) may be read as "within" or "part of". |
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Contents Middle East The Middle East[b] is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, the Levant, and Turkey. The term came into widespread usage by Western European nations in the early 20th century as a replacement of the term Near East (both were in contrast to the Far East). The term "Middle East" has led to some confusion over its changing definitions. Since the late 20th century, it has been criticized as being too Eurocentric. The region includes the vast majority of the territories included in the closely associated definition of West Asia, but without the South Caucasus. It also includes all of Egypt (not just the Sinai region) and all of Turkey (including East Thrace). Most Middle Eastern countries (13 out of 18) are part of the Arab world. The three most populous countries in the region are Egypt, Iran, and Turkey, while Saudi Arabia is the largest Middle Eastern country by area. The history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, and it was long considered the "cradle of civilization". The geopolitical importance of the region has been recognized and competed for during millennia. The Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) have their origins in the Middle East. Arabs constitute the main ethnic group in the region, followed by Turks, Persians, Kurds, Jews, and Assyrians. The Middle East generally has a hot, arid climate, especially in the Arabian and Egyptian regions. Several major rivers provide irrigation to support agriculture in limited areas here, such as the Nile Delta in Egypt, the Tigris and Euphrates watersheds of Mesopotamia, and the basin of the Jordan River that spans most of the Levant. These regions are collectively known as the Fertile Crescent, and comprise the core of what historians had long referred to as the cradle of civilization; multiple regions of the world have since been classified as also having developed independent, original civilizations. Conversely, the Levantine coast and most of Turkey have relatively temperate climates typical of the Mediterranean, with dry summers and cool, wet winters. Most of the countries that border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of petroleum. Monarchs of the Arabian Peninsula in particular have benefitted economically from petroleum exports. Because of the arid climate and dependence on the fossil fuel industry, the Middle East is both a major contributor to climate change and a region that is expected to be severely adversely affected by it. Other concepts of the region exist, including the broader Middle East and North Africa (MENA), which includes states of the Maghreb and the Sudan. The term the "Greater Middle East" also includes Afghanistan, Mauritania, Pakistan, as well as parts of East Africa, and sometimes Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Terminology The term "Middle East" may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office. However, it became more widely known when United States naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902 to "designate the area between Arabia and India". During this time the British and Russian empires were vying for influence in Central Asia, a rivalry that would become known as the Great Game. Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its center, the Persian Gulf. He labeled the area surrounding the Persian Gulf as the Middle East. He said that, beyond Egypt's Suez Canal, the Gulf was the most important passage for Britain to control in order to keep the Russians from advancing towards British India. Mahan first used the term in his article "The Persian Gulf and International Relations", published in September 1902 in the National Review, a British journal. The Middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen, will some day need its Malta, as well as its Gibraltar; it does not follow that either will be in the Persian Gulf. Naval force has the quality of mobility which carries with it the privilege of temporary absences; but it needs to find on every scene of operation established bases of refit, of supply, and in case of disaster, of security. The British Navy should have the facility to concentrate in force if occasion arise, about Aden, India, and the Persian Gulf. Mahan's article was reprinted in The Times and followed in October by a 20-article series entitled "The Middle Eastern Question", written by Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol. During this series, Sir Ignatius expanded the definition of Middle East to include "those regions of Asia which extend to the borders of India or command the approaches to India." After the series ended in 1903, The Times removed quotation marks from subsequent uses of the term. Until World War II, it was customary to refer to areas centered on Turkey and the eastern shore of the Mediterranean as the "Near East", while the "Far East" centered on China, India and Japan. The Middle East was then defined as the area from Mesopotamia to Burma; namely, the area between the Near East and the Far East. This area broadly corresponds to South Asia. In the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term "Middle East" gained broader usage in Europe and the United States. Following World War II, for example, the Middle East Institute was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1946. The corresponding adjective is Middle Eastern and the derived noun is Middle Easterner. While non-Eurocentric terms such as "Southwest Asia" or "Swasia" have been sparsely used, the classification of the African country, Egypt, among those counted in the Middle East challenges the usefulness of using such terms. The description Middle has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the First World War, "Near East" was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while "Middle East" referred to the Caucasus, Persia, and Arabian lands, and sometimes Afghanistan, India and others. In contrast, "Far East" referred to the countries of East Asia (e.g. China, Japan, and Korea). With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, "Near East" largely fell out of common use in English, while "Middle East" came to be applied to the emerging independent countries of the Islamic world. However, the usage "Near East" was retained by a variety of academic disciplines, including archaeology and ancient history. In their usage, the term describes an area identical to the term Middle East, which is not used by these disciplines (see ancient Near East).[citation needed] The first official use of the term "Middle East" by the United States government was in the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine, which pertained to the Suez Crisis. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles defined the Middle East as "the area lying between and including Libya on the west and Pakistan on the east, Syria and Iraq on the North and the Arabian peninsula to the south, plus the Sudan and Ethiopia." In 1958, the State Department explained that the terms "Near East" and "Middle East" were interchangeable, and defined the region as including only Egypt, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar. Since the late 20th century, scholars and journalists from the region, such as journalist Louay Khraish and historian Hassan Hanafi have criticized the use of "Middle East" as a Eurocentric and colonialist term. The Associated Press Stylebook of 2004 says that Near East formerly referred to the farther west countries while Middle East referred to the eastern ones, but that now they are synonymous. It instructs: Use Middle East unless Near East is used by a source in a story. Mideast is also acceptable, but Middle East is preferred. European languages have adopted terms similar to Near East and Middle East. Since these are based on a relative description, the meanings depend on the country and are generally different from the English terms. In German the term Naher Osten (Near East) is still in common use (nowadays the term Mittlerer Osten is more and more common in press texts translated from English sources, albeit having a distinct meaning). In the four Slavic languages, Russian Ближний Восток or Blizhniy Vostok, Bulgarian Близкия Изток, Polish Bliski Wschód or Croatian Bliski istok (terms meaning Near East are the only appropriate ones for the region). However, some European languages do have "Middle East" equivalents, such as French Moyen-Orient, Swedish Mellanöstern, Spanish Oriente Medio or Medio Oriente, Greek is Μέση Ανατολή (Mesi Anatoli), and Italian Medio Oriente.[c] Perhaps because of the political influence of the United States and Europe, and the prominence of Western press, the Arabic equivalent of Middle East (Arabic: الشرق الأوسط ash-Sharq al-Awsaṭ) has become standard usage in the mainstream Arabic press. It comprises the same meaning as the term "Middle East" in North American and Western European usage. The designation, Mashriq, also from the Arabic root for East, also denotes a variously defined region around the Levant, the eastern part of the Arabic-speaking world (as opposed to the Maghreb, the western part). Even though the term originated in the West, countries of the Middle East that use languages other than Arabic also use that term in translation. For instance, the Persian equivalent for Middle East is خاورمیانه (Khāvar-e miyāneh), the Hebrew is המזרח התיכון (hamizrach hatikhon), and the Turkish is Orta Doğu. Countries and territory Traditionally included within the Middle East are Arabia, Asia Minor, East Thrace, Egypt, Iran, the Levant, Mesopotamia, and the Socotra Archipelago. The region includes 17 UN-recognized countries and one British Overseas Territory. Various concepts are often paralleled to the Middle East, most notably the Near East, Fertile Crescent, and Levant. These are geographical concepts, which refer to large sections of the modern-day Middle East, with the Near East being the closest to the Middle East in its geographical meaning. Due to it primarily being Arabic speaking, the Maghreb region of North Africa is sometimes included. "Greater Middle East" is a political term coined by the second Bush administration in the first decade of the 21st century to denote various countries, pertaining to the Muslim world, specifically Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey. Various Central Asian countries are sometimes also included. History The Middle East lies at the juncture of Africa and Eurasia and of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea (see also: Indo-Mediterranean). It is the birthplace and spiritual center of religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Manichaeism, Yezidi, Druze, Yarsan, and Mandeanism, and in Iran, Mithraism, Zoroastrianism, Manicheanism, and the Baháʼí Faith. Throughout its history the Middle East has been a major center of world affairs; a strategically, economically, politically, culturally, and religiously sensitive area. The region is one of the regions where agriculture was independently discovered, and from the Middle East it was spread, during the Neolithic, to different regions of the world such as Europe, the Indus Valley and Eastern Africa. Prior to the formation of civilizations, advanced cultures formed all over the Middle East during the Stone Age. The search for agricultural lands by agriculturalists, and pastoral lands by herdsmen meant different migrations took place within the region and shaped its ethnic and demographic makeup. The Middle East is widely and most famously known as the cradle of civilization. The world's earliest civilizations, Mesopotamia (Sumer, Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia), ancient Egypt and Kish in the Levant, all originated in the Fertile Crescent and Nile Valley regions of the ancient Near East. These were followed by the Hittite, Greek, Hurrian and Urartian civilisations of Asia Minor; Elam, Persia and Median civilizations in Iran, as well as the civilizations of the Levant (such as Ebla, Mari, Nagar, Ugarit, Canaan, Aramea, Mitanni, Phoenicia and Israel) and the Arabian Peninsula (Magan, Sheba, Ubar). The Near East was first largely unified under the Neo Assyrian Empire, then the Achaemenid Empire followed later by the Macedonian Empire and after this to some degree by the Iranian empires (namely the Parthian and Sassanid Empires), the Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire. The region served as the intellectual and economic center of the Roman Empire and played an exceptionally important role due to its periphery on the Sassanid Empire. Thus, the Romans stationed up to five or six of their legions in the region for the sole purpose of defending it from Sassanid and Bedouin raids and invasions. From the 4th century CE onwards, the Middle East became the center of the two main powers at the time, the Byzantine Empire and the Sassanid Empire. However, it would be the later Islamic Caliphates of the Middle Ages, or Islamic Golden Age which began with the Islamic conquest of the region in the 7th century AD, that would first unify the entire Middle East as a distinct region and create the dominant Islamic Arab ethnic identity that largely (but not exclusively) persists today. The 4 caliphates that dominated the Middle East for more than 600 years were the Rashidun Caliphate, the Umayyad caliphate, the Abbasid caliphate and the Fatimid caliphate. Additionally, the Mongols would come to dominate the region, the Kingdom of Armenia would incorporate parts of the region to their domain, the Seljuks would rule the region and spread Turko-Persian culture, and the Franks would found the Crusader states that would stand for roughly two centuries. Josiah Russell estimates the population of what he calls "Islamic territory" as roughly 12.5 million in 1000 – Anatolia 8 million, Syria 2 million, and Egypt 1.5 million. From the 16th century onward, the Middle East came to be dominated, once again, by two main powers: the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid dynasty. The modern Middle East began after World War I, when the Ottoman Empire, which was allied with the Central Powers, was defeated by the Allies and partitioned into a number of separate nations, initially under British and French Mandates. Other defining events in this transformation included the establishment of Israel in 1948 and the eventual departure of European powers, notably Britain and France by the end of the 1960s. They were supplanted in some part by the rising influence of the United States from the 1970s onwards. In the 20th century, the region's significant stocks of crude oil gave it new strategic and economic importance. Mass production of oil began around 1945, with Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates having large quantities of oil. Estimated oil reserves, especially in Saudi Arabia and Iran, are some of the highest in the world, and the international oil cartel OPEC is dominated by Middle Eastern countries. During the Cold War, the Middle East was a theater of ideological struggle between the two superpowers and their allies: NATO and the United States on one side, and the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact on the other, as they competed to influence regional allies. Besides the political reasons there was also the "ideological conflict" between the two systems. Moreover, as Louise Fawcett argues, among many important areas of contention, or perhaps more accurately of anxiety, were, first, the desires of the superpowers to gain strategic advantage in the region, second, the fact that the region contained some two-thirds of the world's oil reserves in a context where oil was becoming increasingly vital to the economy of the Western world [...] Within this contextual framework, the United States sought to divert the Arab world from Soviet influence. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, the region has experienced both periods of relative peace and tolerance and periods of conflict particularly between Sunnis and Shiites. Geography In 2018, the MENA region emitted 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide and produced 8.7% of global greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) despite making up only 6% of the global population. These emissions are mostly from the energy sector, an integral component of many Middle Eastern and North African economies due to the extensive oil and natural gas reserves that are found within the region. The Middle East region is one of the most vulnerable to climate change. The impacts include increase in drought conditions, aridity, heatwaves and sea level rise. Sharp global temperature and sea level changes, shifting precipitation patterns and increased frequency of extreme weather events are some of the main impacts of climate change as identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The MENA region is especially vulnerable to such impacts due to its arid and semi-arid environment, facing climatic challenges such as low rainfall, high temperatures and dry soil. The climatic conditions that foster such challenges for MENA are projected by the IPCC to worsen throughout the 21st century. If greenhouse gas emissions are not significantly reduced, part of the MENA region risks becoming uninhabitable before the year 2100. Climate change is expected to put significant strain on already scarce water and agricultural resources within the MENA region, threatening the national security and political stability of all included countries. Over 60 percent of the region's population lives in high and very high water-stressed areas compared to the global average of 35 percent. This has prompted some MENA countries to engage with the issue of climate change on an international level through environmental accords such as the Paris Agreement. Law and policy are also being established on a national level amongst MENA countries, with a focus on the development of renewable energies. Economy Middle Eastern economies range from being very poor (such as Gaza and Yemen) to extremely wealthy nations (such as Qatar and UAE). According to the International Monetary Fund, the three largest Middle Eastern economies in nominal GDP in 2023 were Saudi Arabia ($1.06 trillion), Turkey ($1.03 trillion), and Israel ($0.54 trillion). For nominal GDP per person, the highest ranking countries are Qatar ($83,891), Israel ($55,535), the United Arab Emirates ($49,451) and Cyprus ($33,807). Turkey ($3.6 trillion), Saudi Arabia ($2.3 trillion), and Iran ($1.7 trillion) had the largest economies in terms of GDP PPP. For GDP PPP per person, the highest-ranking countries are Qatar ($124,834), the United Arab Emirates ($88,221), Saudi Arabia ($64,836), Bahrain ($60,596) and Israel ($54,997). The lowest-ranking country in the Middle East, in terms of GDP nominal per capita, is Yemen ($573). The economic structure of Middle Eastern nations are different because while some are heavily dependent on export of only oil and oil-related products (Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait), others have a highly diverse economic base (such as Cyprus, Israel, Turkey and Egypt). Industries of the Middle Eastern region include oil and oil-related products, agriculture, cotton, cattle, dairy, textiles, leather products, surgical instruments, defence equipment (guns, ammunition, tanks, submarines, fighter jets, UAVs, and missiles). Banking is an important sector, especially for UAE and Bahrain. With the exception of Cyprus, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon and Israel, tourism has been a relatively undeveloped area of the economy, in part because of the socially conservative nature of the region as well as political turmoil in certain regions. Since the end of the COVID pandemic however, countries such as the UAE, Bahrain, and Jordan have begun attracting greater numbers of tourists because of improving tourist facilities and the relaxing of tourism-related restrictive policies. Unemployment is high in the Middle East and North Africa region, particularly among people aged 15–29, a demographic representing 30% of the region's population. The total regional unemployment rate in 2025 is 10.8%, and among youth is as high as 28%. Demographics Arabs constitute the largest ethnic group in the Middle East, followed by various Iranian peoples and then by Turkic peoples (Turkish, Azeris, Syrian Turkmen, and Iraqi Turkmen). Native ethnic groups of the region include, in addition to Arabs, Arameans, Assyrians, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Greek Cypriots, Jews, Kurds, Lurs, Mandaeans, Persians, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, and Zazas. European ethnic groups that form a diaspora in the region include Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians (including Kabardians), Crimean Tatars, Greeks, Franco-Levantines, Italo-Levantines, and Iraqi Turkmens. Among other migrant populations are Chinese, Filipinos, Indians, Indonesians, Pakistanis, Pashtuns, Romani, and Afro-Arabs. "Migration has always provided an important vent for labor market pressures in the Middle East. For the period between the 1970s and 1990s, the Arab states of the Persian Gulf in particular provided a rich source of employment for workers from Egypt, Yemen and the countries of the Levant, while Europe had attracted young workers from North African countries due both to proximity and the legacy of colonial ties between France and the majority of North African states." According to the International Organization for Migration, there are 13 million first-generation migrants from Arab nations in the world, of which 5.8 reside in other Arab countries. Expatriates from Arab countries contribute to the circulation of financial and human capital in the region and thus significantly promote regional development. In 2009 Arab countries received a total of US$35.1 billion in remittance in-flows and remittances sent to Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon from other Arab countries are 40 to 190 per cent higher than trade revenues between these and other Arab countries. In Somalia, the Somali Civil War has greatly increased the size of the Somali diaspora, as many of the best educated Somalis left for Middle Eastern countries as well as Europe and North America. Non-Arab Middle Eastern countries such as Turkey, Israel and Iran are also subject to important migration dynamics. A fair proportion of those migrating from Arab nations are from ethnic and religious minorities facing persecution and are not necessarily ethnic Arabs, Iranians or Turks.[citation needed] Large numbers of Kurds, Jews, Assyrians, Greeks and Armenians as well as many Mandeans have left nations such as Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey for these reasons during the last century. In Iran, many religious minorities such as Christians, Baháʼís, Jews and Zoroastrians have left since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The Middle East is very diverse when it comes to religions, many of which originated there. Islam is the largest religion in the Middle East, but other faiths that originated there, such as Judaism and Christianity, are also well represented. Christian communities have played a vital role in the Middle East, and they represent 78% of Cyprus population, and 40.5% of Lebanon, where the Lebanese president, half of the cabinet, and half of the parliament follow one of the various Lebanese Christian rites. There are also important minority religions like the Baháʼí Faith, Yarsanism, Yazidism, Zoroastrianism, Mandaeism, Druze, and Shabakism, and in ancient times the region was home to Mesopotamian religions, Canaanite religions, Manichaeism, Mithraism and various monotheist gnostic sects. The six top languages, in terms of numbers of speakers, are Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Kurdish, Modern Hebrew and Greek. About 20 minority languages are also spoken in the Middle East. Arabic, with all its dialects, is the most widely spoken language in the Middle East, with Literary Arabic being official in all North African and in most West Asian countries. Arabic dialects are also spoken in some adjacent areas in neighbouring Middle Eastern non-Arab countries. It is a member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Several Modern South Arabian languages such as Mehri and Soqotri are also spoken in Yemen and Oman. Another Semitic language is Aramaic and its dialects are spoken mainly by Assyrians and Mandaeans, with Western Aramaic still spoken in two villages near Damascus, Syria. There is also an Oasis Berber-speaking community in Egypt where the language is also known as Siwa. It is a non-Semitic Afro-Asiatic sister language. Persian is the second most spoken language. While it is primarily spoken in Iran and some border areas in neighbouring countries, the country is one of the region's largest and most populous. It belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of the family of Indo-European languages. Other Western Iranic languages spoken in the region include Achomi, Daylami, Kurdish dialects, Semmani, Lurish, amongst many others. The close third-most widely spoken language, Turkish, is largely confined to Turkey, which is also one of the region's largest and most populous countries, but it is present in areas in neighboring countries. It is a member of the Turkic languages, which have their origins in East Asia. Another Turkic language, Azerbaijani, is spoken by Azerbaijanis in Iran. The fourth-most widely spoken language, Kurdish, is spoken in the countries of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, Sorani Kurdish is the second official language in Iraq (instated after the 2005 constitution) after Arabic. Hebrew is the official language of Israel, with Arabic given a special status after the 2018 Basic law lowered its status from an official language prior to 2018. Hebrew is spoken and used by over 80% of Israel's population, the other 20% using Arabic. Modern Hebrew only began being spoken in the 20th century after being revived in the late 19th century by Elizer Ben-Yehuda (Elizer Perlman) and European Jewish settlers, with the first native Hebrew speaker being born in 1882. Greek is one of the two official languages of Cyprus, and the country's main language. Small communities of Greek speakers exist all around the Middle East; until the 20th century it was also widely spoken in Asia Minor (being the second most spoken language there, after Turkish) and Egypt. During the antiquity, Ancient Greek was the lingua franca for many areas of the western Middle East and until the Muslim expansion it was widely spoken there as well. Until the late 11th century, it was also the main spoken language in Asia Minor; after that it was gradually replaced by the Turkish language as the Anatolian Turks expanded and the local Greeks were assimilated, especially in the interior. English is one of the official languages of Akrotiri and Dhekelia. It is also commonly taught and used as a foreign second language, in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. It is also a main language in some Emirates of the United Arab Emirates. It is also spoken as native language by Jewish immigrants from Anglophone countries (UK, US, Australia) in Israel and understood widely as second language there. French is taught and used in many government facilities and media in Lebanon, and is taught in some primary and secondary schools of Egypt and Syria. Maltese, a Semitic language mainly spoken in Europe, is used by the Franco-Maltese diaspora in Egypt. Due to widespread immigration of French Jews to Israel, it is the native language of approximately 200,000 Jews in Israel. Armenian speakers are to be found in the region. Georgian is spoken by the Georgian diaspora. Russian is spoken by a large portion of the Israeli population, because of emigration in the late 1990s. Russian today is a popular unofficial language in use in Israel; news, radio and sign boards can be found in Russian around the country after Hebrew and Arabic. Circassian is also spoken by the diaspora in the region and by almost all Circassians in Israel who speak Hebrew and English as well. The largest Romanian-speaking community in the Middle East is found in Israel, where as of 1995[update] Romanian is spoken by 5% of the population.[d] Bengali, Hindi and Urdu are widely spoken by migrant communities in many Middle Eastern countries, such as Saudi Arabia (where 20–25% of the population is South Asian), the United Arab Emirates (where 50–55% of the population is South Asian), and Qatar, which have large numbers of Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian immigrants. Culture The Middle East has recently become more prominent in hosting global sport events due to its wealth and desire to diversify its economy. The South Asian diaspora is a major backer of cricket in the region. See also Notes References Further reading External links 29°N 41°E / 29°N 41°E / 29; 41 |
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Contents Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk (/ˈiːlɒn/ EE-lon; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman and entrepreneur known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, and xAI. Musk has been the wealthiest person in the world since 2025; as of February 2026,[update] Forbes estimates his net worth to be around US$852 billion. Born into a wealthy family in Pretoria, South Africa, Musk emigrated in 1989 to Canada; he has Canadian citizenship since his mother was born there. He received bachelor's degrees in 1997 from the University of Pennsylvania before moving to California to pursue business ventures. In 1995, Musk co-founded the software company Zip2. Following its sale in 1999, he co-founded X.com, an online payment company that later merged to form PayPal, which was acquired by eBay in 2002. Musk also became an American citizen in 2002. In 2002, Musk founded the space technology company SpaceX, becoming its CEO and chief engineer; the company has since led innovations in reusable rockets and commercial spaceflight. Musk joined the automaker Tesla as an early investor in 2004 and became its CEO and product architect in 2008; it has since become a leader in electric vehicles. In 2015, he co-founded OpenAI to advance artificial intelligence (AI) research, but later left; growing discontent with the organization's direction and their leadership in the AI boom in the 2020s led him to establish xAI, which became a subsidiary of SpaceX in 2026. In 2022, he acquired the social network Twitter, implementing significant changes, and rebranding it as X in 2023. His other businesses include the neurotechnology company Neuralink, which he co-founded in 2016, and the tunneling company the Boring Company, which he founded in 2017. In November 2025, a Tesla pay package worth $1 trillion for Musk was approved, which he is to receive over 10 years if he meets specific goals. Musk was the largest donor in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, where he supported Donald Trump. After Trump was inaugurated as president in early 2025, Musk served as Senior Advisor to the President and as the de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). After a public feud with Trump, Musk left the Trump administration and returned to managing his companies. Musk is a supporter of global far-right figures, causes, and political parties. His political activities, views, and statements have made him a polarizing figure. Musk has been criticized for COVID-19 misinformation, promoting conspiracy theories, and affirming antisemitic, racist, and transphobic comments. His acquisition of Twitter was controversial due to a subsequent increase in hate speech and the spread of misinformation on the service, following his pledge to decrease censorship. His role in the second Trump administration attracted public backlash, particularly in response to DOGE. The emails he sent to Jeffrey Epstein are included in the Epstein files, which were published between 2025–26 and became a topic of worldwide debate. Early life Elon Reeve Musk was born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa's administrative capital. He is of British and Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. His mother, Maye (née Haldeman), is a model and dietitian born in Saskatchewan, Canada, and raised in South Africa. Musk therefore holds both South African and Canadian citizenship from birth. His father, Errol Musk, is a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, emerald dealer, and property developer, who partly owned a rental lodge at Timbavati Private Nature Reserve. His maternal grandfather, Joshua N. Haldeman, who died in a plane crash when Elon was a toddler, was an American-born Canadian chiropractor, aviator and political activist in the technocracy movement who moved to South Africa in 1950. Elon has a younger brother, Kimbal, a younger sister, Tosca, and four paternal half-siblings. Musk was baptized as a child in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. Despite both Elon and Errol previously stating that Errol was a part owner of a Zambian emerald mine, in 2023, Errol recounted that the deal he made was to receive "a portion of the emeralds produced at three small mines". Errol was elected to the Pretoria City Council as a representative of the anti-apartheid Progressive Party and has said that his children shared their father's dislike of apartheid. After his parents divorced in 1979, Elon, aged around 9, chose to live with his father because Errol Musk had an Encyclopædia Britannica and a computer. Elon later regretted his decision and became estranged from his father. Elon has recounted trips to a wilderness school that he described as a "paramilitary Lord of the Flies" where "bullying was a virtue" and children were encouraged to fight over rations. In one incident, after an altercation with a fellow pupil, Elon was thrown down concrete steps and beaten severely, leading to him being hospitalized for his injuries. Elon described his father berating him after he was discharged from the hospital. Errol denied berating Elon and claimed, "The [other] boy had just lost his father to suicide, and Elon had called him stupid. Elon had a tendency to call people stupid. How could I possibly blame that child?" Elon was an enthusiastic reader of books, and had attributed his success in part to having read The Lord of the Rings, the Foundation series, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. At age ten, he developed an interest in computing and video games, teaching himself how to program from the VIC-20 user manual. At age twelve, Elon sold his BASIC-based game Blastar to PC and Office Technology magazine for approximately $500 (equivalent to $1,600 in 2025). Musk attended Waterkloof House Preparatory School, Bryanston High School, and then Pretoria Boys High School, where he graduated. Musk was a decent but unexceptional student, earning a 61/100 in Afrikaans and a B on his senior math certification. Musk applied for a Canadian passport through his Canadian-born mother to avoid South Africa's mandatory military service, which would have forced him to participate in the apartheid regime, as well as to ease his path to immigration to the United States. While waiting for his application to be processed, he attended the University of Pretoria for five months. Musk arrived in Canada in June 1989, connected with a second cousin in Saskatchewan, and worked odd jobs, including at a farm and a lumber mill. In 1990, he entered Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Two years later, he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied until 1995. Although Musk has said that he earned his degrees in 1995, the University of Pennsylvania did not award them until 1997 – a Bachelor of Arts in physics and a Bachelor of Science in economics from the university's Wharton School. He reportedly hosted large, ticketed house parties to help pay for tuition, and wrote a business plan for an electronic book-scanning service similar to Google Books. In 1994, Musk held two internships in Silicon Valley: one at energy storage startup Pinnacle Research Institute, which investigated electrolytic supercapacitors for energy storage, and another at Palo Alto–based startup Rocket Science Games. In 1995, he was accepted to a graduate program in materials science at Stanford University, but did not enroll. Musk decided to join the Internet boom of the 1990s, applying for a job at Netscape, to which he reportedly never received a response. The Washington Post reported that Musk lacked legal authorization to remain and work in the United States after failing to enroll at Stanford. In response, Musk said he was allowed to work at that time and that his student visa transitioned to an H1-B. According to numerous former business associates and shareholders, Musk said he was on a student visa at the time. Business career In 1995, Musk, his brother Kimbal, and Greg Kouri founded the web software company Zip2 with funding from a group of angel investors. They housed the venture at a small rented office in Palo Alto. Replying to Rolling Stone, Musk denounced the notion that they started their company with funds borrowed from Errol Musk, but in a tweet, he recognized that his father contributed 10% of a later funding round. The company developed and marketed an Internet city guide for the newspaper publishing industry, with maps, directions, and yellow pages. According to Musk, "The website was up during the day and I was coding it at night, seven days a week, all the time." To impress investors, Musk built a large plastic structure around a standard computer to create the impression that Zip2 was powered by a small supercomputer. The Musk brothers obtained contracts with The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, and persuaded the board of directors to abandon plans for a merger with CitySearch. Musk's attempts to become CEO were thwarted by the board. Compaq acquired Zip2 for $307 million in cash in February 1999 (equivalent to $590,000,000 in 2025), and Musk received $22 million (equivalent to $43,000,000 in 2025) for his 7-percent share. In 1999, Musk co-founded X.com, an online financial services and e-mail payment company. The startup was one of the first federally insured online banks, and, in its initial months of operation, over 200,000 customers joined the service. The company's investors regarded Musk as inexperienced and replaced him with Intuit CEO Bill Harris by the end of the year. The following year, X.com merged with online bank Confinity to avoid competition. Founded by Max Levchin and Peter Thiel, Confinity had its own money-transfer service, PayPal, which was more popular than X.com's service. Within the merged company, Musk returned as CEO. Musk's preference for Microsoft software over Unix created a rift in the company and caused Thiel to resign. Due to resulting technological issues and lack of a cohesive business model, the board ousted Musk and replaced him with Thiel in 2000.[b] Under Thiel, the company focused on the PayPal service and was renamed PayPal in 2001. In 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion (equivalent to $2,700,000,000 in 2025) in stock, of which Musk—the largest shareholder with 11.72% of shares—received $175.8 million (equivalent to $320,000,000 in 2025). In 2017, Musk purchased the domain X.com from PayPal for an undisclosed amount, stating that it had sentimental value. In 2001, Musk became involved with the nonprofit Mars Society and discussed funding plans to place a growth-chamber for plants on Mars. Seeking a way to launch the greenhouse payloads into space, Musk made two unsuccessful trips to Moscow to purchase intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) from Russian companies NPO Lavochkin and Kosmotras. Musk instead decided to start a company to build affordable rockets. With $100 million of his early fortune, (equivalent to $180,000,000 in 2025) Musk founded SpaceX in May 2002 and became the company's CEO and Chief Engineer. SpaceX attempted its first launch of the Falcon 1 rocket in 2006. Although the rocket failed to reach Earth orbit, it was awarded a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program contract from NASA, then led by Mike Griffin. After two more failed attempts that nearly caused Musk to go bankrupt, SpaceX succeeded in launching the Falcon 1 into orbit in 2008. Later that year, SpaceX received a $1.6 billion NASA contract (equivalent to $2,400,000,000 in 2025) for Falcon 9-launched Dragon spacecraft flights to the International Space Station (ISS), replacing the Space Shuttle after its 2011 retirement. In 2012, the Dragon vehicle docked with the ISS, a first for a commercial spacecraft. Working towards its goal of reusable rockets, in 2015 SpaceX successfully landed the first stage of a Falcon 9 on a land platform. Later landings were achieved on autonomous spaceport drone ships, an ocean-based recovery platform. In 2018, SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy; the inaugural mission carried Musk's personal Tesla Roadster as a dummy payload. Since 2019, SpaceX has been developing Starship, a reusable, super heavy-lift launch vehicle intended to replace the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. In 2020, SpaceX launched its first crewed flight, the Demo-2, becoming the first private company to place astronauts into orbit and dock a crewed spacecraft with the ISS. In 2024, NASA awarded SpaceX an $843 million (equivalent to $865,000,000 in 2025) contract to build a spacecraft that NASA will use to deorbit the ISS at the end of its lifespan. In 2015, SpaceX began development of the Starlink constellation of low Earth orbit satellites to provide satellite Internet access. After the launch of prototype satellites in 2018, the first large constellation was deployed in May 2019. As of May 2025[update], over 7,600 Starlink satellites are operational, comprising 65% of all operational Earth satellites. The total cost of the decade-long project to design, build, and deploy the constellation was estimated by SpaceX in 2020 to be $10 billion (equivalent to $12,000,000,000 in 2025).[c] During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Musk provided free Starlink service to Ukraine, permitting Internet access and communication at a yearly cost to SpaceX of $400 million (equivalent to $440,000,000 in 2025). However, Musk refused to block Russian state media on Starlink. In 2023, Musk denied Ukraine's request to activate Starlink over Crimea to aid an attack against the Russian navy, citing fears of a nuclear response. Tesla, Inc., originally Tesla Motors, was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Both men played active roles in the company's early development prior to Musk's involvement. Musk led the Series A round of investment in February 2004; he invested $6.35 million (equivalent to $11,000,000 in 2025), became the majority shareholder, and joined Tesla's board of directors as chairman. Musk took an active role within the company and oversaw Roadster product design, but was not deeply involved in day-to-day business operations. Following a series of escalating conflicts in 2007 and the 2008 financial crisis, Eberhard was ousted from the firm.[page needed] Musk assumed leadership of the company as CEO and product architect in 2008. A 2009 lawsuit settlement with Eberhard designated Musk as a Tesla co-founder, along with Tarpenning and two others. Tesla began delivery of the Roadster, an electric sports car, in 2008. With sales of about 2,500 vehicles, it was the first mass production all-electric car to use lithium-ion battery cells. Under Musk, Tesla has since launched several well-selling electric vehicles, including the four-door sedan Model S (2012), the crossover Model X (2015), the mass-market sedan Model 3 (2017), the crossover Model Y (2020), and the pickup truck Cybertruck (2023). In May 2020, Musk resigned as chairman of the board as part of the settlement of a lawsuit from the SEC over him tweeting that funding had been "secured" for potentially taking Tesla private. The company has also constructed multiple lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle factories, called Gigafactories. Since its initial public offering in 2010, Tesla stock has risen significantly; it became the most valuable carmaker in summer 2020, and it entered the S&P 500 later that year. In October 2021, it reached a market capitalization of $1 trillion (equivalent to $1,200,000,000,000 in 2025), the sixth company in U.S. history to do so. Musk provided the initial concept and financial capital for SolarCity, which his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive founded in 2006. By 2013, SolarCity was the second largest provider of solar power systems in the United States. In 2014, Musk promoted the idea of SolarCity building an advanced production facility in Buffalo, New York, triple the size of the largest solar plant in the United States. Construction of the factory started in 2014 and was completed in 2017. It operated as a joint venture with Panasonic until early 2020. Tesla acquired SolarCity for $2 billion in 2016 (equivalent to $2,700,000,000 in 2025) and merged it with its battery unit to create Tesla Energy. The deal's announcement resulted in a more than 10% drop in Tesla's stock price; at the time, SolarCity was facing liquidity issues. Multiple shareholder groups filed a lawsuit against Musk and Tesla's directors, stating that the purchase of SolarCity was done solely to benefit Musk and came at the expense of Tesla and its shareholders. Tesla directors settled the lawsuit in January 2020, leaving Musk the sole remaining defendant. Two years later, the court ruled in Musk's favor. In 2016, Musk co-founded Neuralink, a neurotechnology startup, with an investment of $100 million. Neuralink aims to integrate the human brain with artificial intelligence (AI) by creating devices that are embedded in the brain. Such technology could enhance memory or allow the devices to communicate with software. The company also hopes to develop devices to treat neurological conditions like spinal cord injuries. In 2022, Neuralink announced that clinical trials would begin by the end of the year. In September 2023, the Food and Drug Administration approved Neuralink to initiate six-year human trials. Neuralink has conducted animal testing on macaques at the University of California, Davis. In 2021, the company released a video in which a macaque played the video game Pong via a Neuralink implant. The company's animal trials—which have caused the deaths of some monkeys—have led to claims of animal cruelty. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has alleged that Neuralink violated the Animal Welfare Act. Employees have complained that pressure from Musk to accelerate development has led to botched experiments and unnecessary animal deaths. In 2022, a federal probe was launched into possible animal welfare violations by Neuralink.[needs update] In 2017, Musk founded the Boring Company to construct tunnels; he also revealed plans for specialized, underground, high-occupancy vehicles that could travel up to 150 miles per hour (240 km/h) and thus circumvent above-ground traffic in major cities. Early in 2017, the company began discussions with regulatory bodies and initiated construction of a 30-foot (9.1 m) wide, 50-foot (15 m) long, and 15-foot (4.6 m) deep "test trench" on the premises of SpaceX's offices, as that required no permits. The Los Angeles tunnel, less than two miles (3.2 km) in length, debuted to journalists in 2018. It used Tesla Model Xs and was reported to be a rough ride while traveling at suboptimal speeds. Two tunnel projects announced in 2018, in Chicago and West Los Angeles, have been canceled. A tunnel beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center was completed in early 2021. Local officials have approved further expansions of the tunnel system. April 14, 2022 In early 2017, Musk expressed interest in buying Twitter and had questioned the platform's commitment to freedom of speech. By 2022, Musk had reached 9.2% stake in the company, making him the largest shareholder.[d] Musk later agreed to a deal that would appoint him to Twitter's board of directors and prohibit him from acquiring more than 14.9% of the company. Days later, Musk made a $43 billion offer to buy Twitter. By the end of April Musk had successfully concluded his bid for approximately $44 billion. This included approximately $12.5 billion in loans and $21 billion in equity financing. Having backtracked on his initial decision, Musk bought the company on October 27, 2022. Immediately after the acquisition, Musk fired several top Twitter executives including CEO Parag Agrawal; Musk became the CEO instead. Under Elon Musk, Twitter instituted monthly subscriptions for a "blue check", and laid off a significant portion of the company's staff. Musk lessened content moderation and hate speech also increased on the platform after his takeover. In late 2022, Musk released internal documents relating to Twitter's moderation of Hunter Biden's laptop controversy in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election. Musk also promised to step down as CEO after a Twitter poll, and five months later, Musk stepped down as CEO and transitioned his role to executive chairman and chief technology officer (CTO). Despite Musk stepping down as CEO, X continues to struggle with challenges such as viral misinformation, hate speech, and antisemitism controversies. Musk has been accused of trying to silence some of his critics such as Twitch streamer Asmongold, who criticized him during one of his streams. Musk has been accused of removing their accounts' blue checkmarks, which hinders visibility and is considered a form of shadow banning, or suspending their accounts without justification. Other activities In August 2013, Musk announced plans for a version of a vactrain, and assigned engineers from SpaceX and Tesla to design a transport system between Greater Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, at an estimated cost of $6 billion. Later that year, Musk unveiled the concept, dubbed the Hyperloop, intended to make travel cheaper than any other mode of transport for such long distances. In December 2015, Musk co-founded OpenAI, a not-for-profit artificial intelligence (AI) research company aiming to develop artificial general intelligence, intended to be safe and beneficial to humanity. Musk pledged $1 billion of funding to the company, and initially gave $50 million. In 2018, Musk left the OpenAI board. Since 2018, OpenAI has made significant advances in machine learning. In July 2023, Musk launched the artificial intelligence company xAI, which aims to develop a generative AI program that competes with existing offerings like OpenAI's ChatGPT. Musk obtained funding from investors in SpaceX and Tesla, and xAI hired engineers from Google and OpenAI. December 16, 2022 Musk uses a private jet owned by Falcon Landing LLC, a SpaceX-linked company, and acquired a second jet in August 2020. His heavy use of the jets and the consequent fossil fuel usage have received criticism. Musk's flight usage is tracked on social media through ElonJet. In December 2022, Musk banned the ElonJet account on Twitter, and made temporary bans on the accounts of journalists that posted stories regarding the incident, including Donie O'Sullivan, Keith Olbermann, and journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and The Intercept. In October 2025, Musk's company xAI launched Grokipedia, an AI-generated online encyclopedia that he promoted as an alternative to Wikipedia. Articles on Grokipedia are generated and reviewed by xAI's Grok chatbot. Media coverage and academic analysis described Grokipedia as frequently reusing Wikipedia content but framing contested political and social topics in line with Musk's own views and right-wing narratives. A study by Cornell University researchers and NBC News stated that Grokipedia cites sources that are blacklisted or considered "generally unreliable" on Wikipedia, for example, the conspiracy site Infowars and the neo-Nazi forum Stormfront. Wired, The Guardian and Time criticized Grokipedia for factual errors and for presenting Musk himself in unusually positive terms while downplaying controversies. Politics Musk is an outlier among business leaders who typically avoid partisan political advocacy. Musk was a registered independent voter when he lived in California. Historically, he has donated to both Democrats and Republicans, many of whom serve in states in which he has a vested interest. Since 2022, his political contributions have mostly supported Republicans, with his first vote for a Republican going to Mayra Flores in the 2022 Texas's 34th congressional district special election. In 2024, he started supporting international far-right political parties, activists, and causes, and has shared misinformation and numerous conspiracy theories. Since 2024, his views have been generally described as right-wing. Musk supported Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020, and Donald Trump in 2024. In the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Musk endorsed candidate Andrew Yang and expressed support for Yang's proposed universal basic income, and endorsed Kanye West's 2020 presidential campaign. In 2021, Musk publicly expressed opposition to the Build Back Better Act, a $3.5 trillion legislative package endorsed by Joe Biden that ultimately failed to pass due to unanimous opposition from congressional Republicans and several Democrats. In 2022, gave over $50 million to Citizens for Sanity, a conservative political action committee. In 2023, he supported Republican Ron DeSantis for the 2024 U.S. presidential election, giving $10 million to his campaign, and hosted DeSantis's campaign announcement on a Twitter Spaces event. From June 2023 to January 2024, Musk hosted a bipartisan set of X Spaces with Republican and Democratic candidates, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Vivek Ramaswamy, and Dean Phillips. In October 2025, former vice-president Kamala Harris commented that it was a mistake from the Democratic side to not invite Musk to a White House electric vehicle event organized in August 2021 and featuring executives from General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, despite Tesla being "the major American manufacturer of extraordinary innovation in this space." Fortune remarked that this was a nod to United Auto Workers and organized labor. Harris said presidents should put aside political loyalties when it came to recognizing innovation, and guessed that the non-invitation impacted Musk's perspective. Fortune noted that, at the time, Musk said, "Yeah, seems odd that Tesla wasn't invited." A month later, he criticized Biden as "not the friendliest administration." Jacob Silverman, author of the book Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley, said that the tech industry represented by Musk, Thiel, Andreessen and other capitalists, actually flourished under Biden, but the tech leaders chose Trump for their common ground on cultural issues. By early 2024, Musk had become a vocal and financial supporter of Donald Trump. In July 2024, minutes after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, Musk endorsed him for president saying; "I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery." During the presidential campaign, Musk joined Trump on stage at a campaign rally, and during the campaign promoted conspiracy theories and falsehoods about Democrats, election fraud and immigration, in support of Trump. Musk was the largest individual donor of the 2024 election. In 2025, Musk contributed $19 million to the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, hoping to influence the state's future redistricting efforts and its regulations governing car manufacturers and dealers. In 2023, Musk said he shunned the World Economic Forum because it was boring. The organization commented that they had not invited him since 2015. He has participated in Dialog, dubbed "Tech Bilderberg" and organized by Peter Thiel and Auren Hoffman, though. Musk's international political actions and comments have come under increasing scrutiny and criticism, especially from the governments and leaders of France, Germany, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom, particularly due to his position in the U.S. government as well as ownership of X. An NBC News analysis found he had boosted far-right political movements to cut immigration and curtail regulation of business in at least 18 countries on six continents since 2023. During his speech after the second inauguration of Donald Trump, Musk twice made a gesture interpreted by many as a Nazi or a fascist Roman salute.[e] He thumped his right hand over his heart, fingers spread wide, and then extended his right arm out, emphatically, at an upward angle, palm down and fingers together. He then repeated the gesture to the crowd behind him. As he finished the gestures, he said to the crowd, "My heart goes out to you. It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured." It was widely condemned as an intentional Nazi salute in Germany, where making such gestures is illegal. The Anti-Defamation League said it was not a Nazi salute, but other Jewish organizations disagreed and condemned the salute. American public opinion was divided on partisan lines as to whether it was a fascist salute. Musk dismissed the accusations of Nazi sympathies, deriding them as "dirty tricks" and a "tired" attack. Neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups celebrated it as a Nazi salute. Multiple European political parties demanded that Musk be banned from entering their countries. The concept of DOGE emerged in a discussion between Musk and Donald Trump, and in August 2024, Trump committed to giving Musk an advisory role, with Musk accepting the offer. In November and December 2024, Musk suggested that the organization could help to cut the U.S. federal budget, consolidate the number of federal agencies, and eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and that its final stage would be "deleting itself". In January 2025, the organization was created by executive order, and Musk was designated a "special government employee". Musk led the organization and was a senior advisor to the president, although his official role is not clear. In sworn statement during a lawsuit, the director of the White House Office of Administration stated that Musk "is not an employee of the U.S. DOGE Service or U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization", "is not the U.S. DOGE Service administrator", and has "no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself". Trump said two days later that he had put Musk in charge of DOGE. A federal judge has ruled that Musk acted as the de facto leader of DOGE. Musk's role in the second Trump administration, particularly in response to DOGE, has attracted public backlash. He was criticized for his treatment of federal government employees, including his influence over the mass layoffs of the federal workforce. He has prioritized secrecy within the organization and has accused others of violating privacy laws. A Senate report alleged that Musk could avoid up to $2 billion in legal liability as a result of DOGE's actions. In May 2025, Bill Gates accused Musk of "killing the world's poorest children" through his cuts to USAID, which modeling by Boston University estimated had resulted in 300,000 deaths by this time, most of them of children. By November 2025, the estimated death toll had increased to 400,000 children and 200,000 adults. Musk announced on May 28, 2025, that he would depart from the Trump administration as planned when the special government employee's 130 day deadline expired, with a White House official confirming that Musk's offboarding from the Trump administration was already underway. His departure was officially confirmed during a joint Oval Office press conference with Trump on May 30, 2025. @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. June 5, 2025 After leaving office, Musk criticized the Trump administration's Big Beautiful Bill, calling it a "disgusting abomination" due to its provisions increasing the deficit. A feud began between Musk and Trump, with its most notable event being Musk alleging Trump had ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on X (formerly Twitter) on June 5, 2025. Trump responded on Truth Social stating that Musk went "CRAZY" after the "EV Mandate" was purportedly taken away and threatened to cut Musk's government contracts. Musk then called for a third Trump impeachment. The next day, Trump stated that he did not wish to reconcile with Musk, and added that Musk would face "very serious consequences" if he funds Democratic candidates. On June 11, Musk publicly apologized for the tweets against Trump, saying they "went too far". Views November 6, 2022 Rejecting the conservative label, Musk has described himself as a political moderate, even as his views have become more right-wing over time. His views have been characterized as libertarian and far-right, and after his involvement in European politics, they have received criticism from world leaders such as Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz. Within the context of American politics, Musk supported Democratic candidates up until 2022, at which point he voted for a Republican for the first time. He has stated support for universal basic income, gun rights, freedom of speech, a tax on carbon emissions, and H-1B visas. Musk has expressed concern about issues such as artificial intelligence (AI) and climate change, and has been a critic of wealth tax, short-selling, and government subsidies. An immigrant himself, Musk has been accused of being anti-immigration, and regularly blames immigration policies for illegal immigration. He is also a pronatalist who believes population decline is the biggest threat to civilization, and identifies as a cultural Christian. Musk has long been an advocate for space colonization, especially the colonization of Mars. He has repeatedly pushed for humanity colonizing Mars, in order to become an interplanetary species and lower the risks of human extinction. Musk has promoted conspiracy theories and made controversial statements that have led to accusations of racism, sexism, antisemitism, transphobia, disseminating disinformation, and support of white pride. While describing himself as a "pro-Semite", his comments regarding George Soros and Jewish communities have been condemned by the Anti-Defamation League and the Biden White House. Musk was criticized during the COVID-19 pandemic for making unfounded epidemiological claims, defying COVID-19 lockdowns restrictions, and supporting the Canada convoy protest against vaccine mandates. He has amplified false claims of white genocide in South Africa. Musk has been critical of Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip during the Gaza war, praised China's economic and climate goals, suggested that Taiwan and China should resolve cross-strait relations, and was described as having a close relationship with the Chinese government. In Europe, Musk expressed support for Ukraine in 2022 during the Russian invasion, recommended referendums and peace deals on the annexed Russia-occupied territories, and supported the far-right Alternative for Germany political party in 2024. Regarding British politics, Musk blamed the 2024 UK riots on mass migration and open borders, criticized Prime Minister Keir Starmer for what he described as a "two-tier" policing system, and was subsequently attacked as being responsible for spreading misinformation and amplifying the far-right. He has also voiced his support for far-right activist Tommy Robinson and pledged electoral support for Reform UK. In February 2026, Musk described Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez as a "tyrant" following Sánchez's proposal to prohibit minors under the age of 16 from accessing social media platforms. Legal affairs In 2018, Musk was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a tweet stating that funding had been secured for potentially taking Tesla private.[f] The securities fraud lawsuit characterized the tweet as false, misleading, and damaging to investors, and sought to bar Musk from serving as CEO of publicly traded companies. Two days later, Musk settled with the SEC, without admitting or denying the SEC's allegations. As a result, Musk and Tesla were fined $20 million each, and Musk was forced to step down for three years as Tesla chairman but was able to remain as CEO. Shareholders filed a lawsuit over the tweet, and in February 2023, a jury found Musk and Tesla not liable. Musk has stated in interviews that he does not regret posting the tweet that triggered the SEC investigation. In 2019, Musk stated in a tweet that Tesla would build half a million cars that year. The SEC reacted by asking a court to hold him in contempt for violating the terms of the 2018 settlement agreement. A joint agreement between Musk and the SEC eventually clarified the previous agreement details, including a list of topics about which Musk needed preclearance. In 2020, a judge blocked a lawsuit that claimed a tweet by Musk regarding Tesla stock price ("too high imo") violated the agreement. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)-released records showed that the SEC concluded Musk had subsequently violated the agreement twice by tweeting regarding "Tesla's solar roof production volumes and its stock price". In October 2023, the SEC sued Musk over his refusal to testify a third time in an investigation into whether he violated federal law by purchasing Twitter stock in 2022. In February 2024, Judge Laurel Beeler ruled that Musk must testify again. In January 2025, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Musk for securities violations related to his purchase of Twitter. In January 2024, Delaware judge Kathaleen McCormick ruled in a 2018 lawsuit that Musk's $55 billion pay package from Tesla be rescinded. McCormick called the compensation granted by the company's board "an unfathomable sum" that was unfair to shareholders. The Delaware Supreme Court overturned McCormick's decision in December 2025, restoring Musk's compensation package and awarding $1 in nominal damages. Personal life Musk became a U.S. citizen in 2002. From the early 2000s until late 2020, Musk resided in California, where both Tesla and SpaceX were founded. He then relocated to Cameron County, Texas, saying that California had become "complacent" about its economic success. While hosting Saturday Night Live in 2021, Musk stated that he has Asperger syndrome (an outdated term for autism spectrum disorder). When asked about his experience growing up with Asperger's syndrome in a TED2022 conference in Vancouver, Musk stated that "the social cues were not intuitive ... I would just tend to take things very literally ... but then that turned out to be wrong — [people were not] simply saying exactly what they mean, there's all sorts of other things that are meant, and [it] took me a while to figure that out." Musk suffers from back pain and has undergone several spine-related surgeries, including a disc replacement. In 2000, he contracted a severe case of malaria while on vacation in South Africa. Musk has stated he uses doctor-prescribed ketamine for occasional depression and that he doses "a small amount once every other week or something like that"; since January 2024, some media outlets have reported that he takes ketamine, marijuana, LSD, ecstasy, mushrooms, cocaine and other drugs. Musk at first refused to comment on his alleged drug use, before responding that he had not tested positive for drugs, and that if drugs somehow improved his productivity, "I would definitely take them!". The New York Times' investigations revealed Musk's overuse of ketamine and numerous other drugs, as well as strained family relationships and concerns from close associates who have become troubled by his public behavior as he became more involved in political activities and government work. According to The Washington Post, President Trump described Musk as "a big-time drug addict". Through his own label Emo G Records, Musk released a rap track, "RIP Harambe", on SoundCloud in March 2019. The following year, he released an EDM track, "Don't Doubt Ur Vibe", featuring his own lyrics and vocals. Musk plays video games, which he stated has a "'restoring effect' that helps his 'mental calibration'". Some games he plays include Quake, Diablo IV, Elden Ring, and Polytopia. Musk once claimed to be one of the world's top video game players but has since admitted to "account boosting", or cheating by hiring outside services to achieve top player rankings. Musk has justified the boosting by claiming that all top accounts do it so he has to as well to remain competitive. In 2024 and 2025, Musk criticized the video game Assassin's Creed Shadows and its creator Ubisoft for "woke" content. Musk posted to X that "DEI kills art" and specified the inclusion of the historical figure Yasuke in the Assassin's Creed game as offensive; he also called the game "terrible". Ubisoft responded by saying that Musk's comments were "just feeding hatred" and that they were focused on producing a game not pushing politics. Musk has fathered at least 14 children, one of whom died as an infant. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2025 that sources close to Musk suggest that the "true number of Musk's children is much higher than publicly known". He had six children with his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson, whom he met while attending Queen's University in Ontario, Canada; they married in 2000. In 2002, their first child Nevada Musk died of sudden infant death syndrome at the age of 10 weeks. After his death, the couple used in vitro fertilization (IVF) to continue their family; they had twins in 2004, followed by triplets in 2006. The couple divorced in 2008 and have shared custody of their children. The elder twin he had with Wilson came out as a trans woman and, in 2022, officially changed her name to Vivian Jenna Wilson, adopting her mother's surname because she no longer wished to be associated with Musk. Musk began dating English actress Talulah Riley in 2008. They married two years later at Dornoch Cathedral in Scotland. In 2012, the couple divorced, then remarried the following year. After briefly filing for divorce in 2014, Musk finalized a second divorce from Riley in 2016. Musk then dated the American actress Amber Heard for several months in 2017; he had reportedly been "pursuing" her since 2012. In 2018, Musk and Canadian musician Grimes confirmed they were dating. Grimes and Musk have three children, born in 2020, 2021, and 2022.[g] Musk and Grimes originally gave their eldest child the name "X Æ A-12", which would have violated California regulations as it contained characters that are not in the modern English alphabet; the names registered on the birth certificate are "X" as a first name, "Æ A-Xii" as a middle name, and "Musk" as a last name. They received criticism for choosing a name perceived to be impractical and difficult to pronounce; Musk has said the intended pronunciation is "X Ash A Twelve". Their second child was born via surrogacy. Despite the pregnancy, Musk confirmed reports that the couple were "semi-separated" in September 2021; in an interview with Time in December 2021, he said he was single. In October 2023, Grimes sued Musk over parental rights and custody of X Æ A-Xii. Elon Musk has taken X Æ A-Xii to multiple official events in Washington, D.C. during Trump's second term in office. Also in July 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk allegedly had an affair with Nicole Shanahan, the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, in 2021, leading to their divorce the following year. Musk denied the report. Musk also had a relationship with Australian actress Natasha Bassett, who has been described as "an occasional girlfriend". In October 2024, The New York Times reported Musk bought a Texas compound for his children and their mothers, though Musk denied having done so. Musk also has four children with Shivon Zilis, director of operations and special projects at Neuralink: twins born via IVF in 2021, a child born in 2024 via surrogacy and a child born in 2025.[h] On February 14, 2025, Ashley St. Clair, an influencer and author, posted on X claiming to have given birth to Musk's son Romulus five months earlier, which media outlets reported as Musk's supposed thirteenth child.[i] On February 22, 2025, it was reported that St Clair had filed for sole custody of her five-month-old son and for Musk to be recognised as the child's father. On March 31, 2025, Musk wrote that, while he was unsure if he was the father of St. Clair's child, he had paid St. Clair $2.5 million and would continue paying her $500,000 per year.[j] Later reporting from the Wall Street Journal indicated that $1 million of these payments to St. Clair were structured as a loan. In 2014, Musk and Ghislaine Maxwell appeared together in a photograph taken at an Academy Awards after-party, which Musk later described as a "photobomb". The January 2026 Epstein files contain emails between Musk and Epstein from 2012 to 2013, after Epstein's first conviction. Emails released on January 30, 2026, indicated that Epstein invited Musk to visit his private island on multiple occasions. The correspondence showed that while Epstein repeatedly encouraged Musk to attend, Musk did not visit the island. In one instance, Musk discussed the possibility of attending a party with his then-wife Talulah Riley and asked which day would be the "wildest party"; according to the emails, the visit did not take place after Epstein later cancelled the plans.[k] On Christmas day in 2012, Musk emailed Epstein asking "Do you have any parties planned? I’ve been working to the edge of sanity this year and so, once my kids head home after Christmas, I really want to hit the party scene in St Barts or elsewhere and let loose. The invitation is much appreciated, but a peaceful island experience is the opposite of what I’m looking for". Epstein replied that the "ratio on my island" might make Musk's wife uncomfortable to which Musk responded, "Ratio is not a problem for Talulah". On September 11, 2013, Epstein sent an email asking Musk if he had any plans for coming to New York for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly where many "interesting people" would be coming to his house to which Musk responded that "Flying to NY to see UN diplomats do nothing would be an unwise use of time". Epstein responded by stating "Do you think i am retarded. Just kidding, there is no one over 25 and all very cute." Musk has denied any close relationship with Epstein and described him as a "creep" who attempted to ingratiate himself with influential people. When Musk was asked in 2019 if he introduced Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg, Musk responded: "I don’t recall introducing Epstein to anyone, as I don’t know the guy well enough to do so." The released emails nonetheless showed cordial exchanges on a range of topics, including Musk's inquiry about parties on the island. The correspondence also indicated that Musk suggested hosting Epstein at SpaceX, while Epstein separately discussed plans to tour SpaceX and bring "the girls", though there is no evidence that such a visit occurred. Musk has described the release of the files a "distraction", later accusing the second Trump administration of suppressing them to protect powerful individuals, including Trump himself.[l] Wealth Elon Musk is the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$690 billion as of January 2026, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and $852 billion according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership stakes in SpaceX and Tesla. Having been first listed on the Forbes Billionaires List in 2012, around 75% of Musk's wealth was derived from Tesla stock in November 2020, although he describes himself as "cash poor". According to Forbes, he became the first person in the world to achieve a net worth of $300 billion in 2021; $400 billion in December 2024; $500 billion in October 2025; $600 billion in mid-December 2025; $700 billion later that month; and $800 billion in February 2026. In November 2025, a Tesla pay package worth potentially $1 trillion for Musk was approved, which he is to receive over 10 years if he meets specific goals. Public image Although his ventures have been highly influential within their separate industries starting in the 2000s, Musk only became a public figure in the early 2010s. He has been described as an eccentric who makes spontaneous and impactful decisions, while also often making controversial statements, contrary to other billionaires who prefer reclusiveness to protect their businesses. Musk's actions and his expressed views have made him a polarizing figure. Biographer Ashlee Vance described people's opinions of Musk as polarized due to his "part philosopher, part troll" persona on Twitter. He has drawn denouncement for using his platform to mock the self-selection of personal pronouns, while also receiving praise for bringing international attention to matters like British survivors of grooming gangs. Musk has been described as an American oligarch due to his extensive influence over public discourse, social media, industry, politics, and government policy. After Trump's re-election, Musk's influence and actions during the transition period and the second presidency of Donald Trump led some to call him "President Musk", the "actual president-elect", "shadow president" or "co-president". Awards for his contributions to the development of the Falcon rockets include the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics George Low Transportation Award in 2008, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Gold Space Medal in 2010, and the Royal Aeronautical Society Gold Medal in 2012. In 2015, he received an honorary doctorate in engineering and technology from Yale University and an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Honorary Membership. Musk was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018.[m] In 2022, Musk was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Time has listed Musk as one of the most influential people in the world in 2010, 2013, 2018, and 2021. Musk was selected as Time's "Person of the Year" for 2021. Then Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal wrote that, "Person of the Year is a marker of influence, and few individuals have had more influence than Musk on life on Earth, and potentially life off Earth too." Notes References Works cited Further reading External links |
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