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reform Reformed Orthodoxy (16th–18th century), a systematized, institutionalized and codified Reformed theology Neo-orthodoxy, a theological position also known as dialectical theology Paleo-orthodoxy, (20th–21st century), a movement in the United States focusing on the consensus among the ecumenical councils and church fathers Communion of Western Orthodox Churches a communion of Christian churches of Orthodox tradition adhering to customs of western Christianity Lutheran orthodoxy, an era in the history of Lutheranism which began in 1580 from the writing of the Book of Concord Orthodox Presbyterian Church, a confessional Presbyterian denomination located primarily in the northern United States Academic term Proto-orthodox Christianity, a term coined by New Testament scholar Bart D. Ehrman to describe the Early Christian movement which was the precursor of Christian orthodoxy Non-christian Orthodox Judaism, a branch of Judaism Modern Orthodox Judaism, is a movement within Orthodox Judaism Haredi Judaism, groups within Orthodox Judaism that reject modern secular culture Hasidic Judaism, a sub-group within Haredi Judaism noted for its religious conservatism and, typically, social seclusion Orthodox Islam, generally	that accepts three Ecumenical Councils Modern denominations True Orthodox Churches, also called Old Calendarists, a movement that separated from the mainstream Eastern Orthodox Church in the 1920s over issues of ecumenism and calendar reform Reformed Orthodoxy (16th–18th century), a systematized, institutionalized and codified Reformed theology Neo-orthodoxy, a theological position also known as dialectical theology Paleo-orthodoxy, (20th–21st century), a movement in the United States focusing on the consensus among the ecumenical councils and church fathers Communion of Western Orthodox Churches a communion of Christian churches of Orthodox tradition adhering to customs of western Christianity Lutheran orthodoxy, an era in the history of Lutheranism which began in 1580 from the writing of the Book of Concord
and then mimics a regular 28-day monthly cycle. Women who are experiencing menstrual dysfunction due to female athlete triad are sometimes prescribed oral contraceptives as pills that can create menstrual bleeding cycles. However, the condition's underlying cause is energy deficiency and should be treated by correcting the imbalance between calories eaten and calories burned by exercise. Oral contraceptives should not be used as an initial treatment for female athlete triad. Contraindications While combined oral contraceptives are generally considered to be a relatively safe medication, they are contraindicated for people with certain medical conditions. The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publish guidance, called medical eligibility criteria, on the safety of birth control in the context of medical conditions. Estrogen in high doses can increase a person's risk for blood clots. All COCP users have a small increase in the risk of venous thromboembolism compared with non-users; this risk is greatest within the first year of COCP use. Individuals with any pre-existing medical condition that also increases their risk for blood clots have a more significant increase in risk of thrombotic events with COCP use. These conditions include but are not limited to high blood pressure, pre-existing cardiovascular disease (such as valvular heart disease or ischemic heart disease), history of thromboembolism or pulmonary embolism, cerebrovascular accident, and a familial tendency to form blood clots (such as familial factor V Leiden). There are conditions that, when associated with COCP use, increase risk of adverse effects other than thrombosis. For example, people with a history of migraine with aura have an increased risk of stroke when using COCPs, and people who smoke over age 35 and use COCPs are at higher risk of myocardial infarction. COCPs are also contraindicated for people with advanced diabetes, liver tumors, hepatic adenoma or severe cirrhosis of the liver. COCPs are metabolized in the liver and thus liver disease can lead to reduced elimination of the medication. People with known or suspected breast cancer, endometrial cancer, or unexplained uterine bleeding should also not take COCPs to avoid health risks. Women who are known to be pregnant should not take COCPs. Postpartum women who are breastfeeding are also advised not to start COCPs until 4 weeks after birth due to increased risk of blood clots. While studies have demonstrated conflicting results about the effects of COCPs on lactation duration and milk volume, there exist concerns about the transient risk of COCPs on breast milk production when breastfeeding is being established early postpartum. Due to the stated risks and additional concerns on lactation, women who are breastfeeding are not advised to start COCPs until at least six weeks postpartum, while women who are not breastfeeding and have no other risks factors for blood clots may start COCPs after 21 days postpartum. Severe hypercholesterolemia and hypertriglyceridemia are also currently contraindications, but the evidence showing that COCP's lead to worse outcomes in this population is weak. Obesity is not considered to be a contraindication to taking COCPs. Side effects It is generally accepted that the health risks of oral contraceptives are lower than those from pregnancy and birth, and "the health benefits of any method of contraception are far greater than any risks from the method". Some organizations have argued that comparing a contraceptive method to no method (pregnancy) is not relevant—instead, the comparison of safety should be among available methods of contraception. Common Different sources note different incidences of side effects. The most common side effect is breakthrough bleeding. A 1992 French review article said that as many as 50% of new first-time users discontinue the birth control pill before the end of the first year because of the annoyance of side effects such as breakthrough bleeding and amenorrhea. A 2001 study by the Kinsey Institute exploring predictors of discontinuation of oral contraceptives found that 47% of 79 women discontinued the pill. One 1994 study found that women using birth control pills blinked 32% more often than those not using the contraception. On the other hand, the pills can sometimes improve conditions such as dysmenorrhea, premenstrual syndrome, and acne, reduce symptoms of endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome, and decrease the risk of anemia. Use of oral contraceptives also reduces lifetime risk of ovarian and endometrial cancer. Nausea, vomiting, headache, bloating, breast tenderness, swelling of the ankles/feet (fluid retention), or weight change may occur. Vaginal bleeding between periods (spotting) or missed/irregular periods may occur, especially during the first few months of use. Heart and blood vessels Combined oral contraceptives increase the risk of venous thromboembolism (including deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE)). While lower doses of estrogen in COC pills may have a lower risk of stroke and myocardial infarction compared to higher estrogen dose pills (50 μg/day), users of low estrogen dose COC pills still have an increased risk compared to non-users. These risks are greatest in women with additional risk factors, such as smoking (which increases risk substantially) and long-continued use of the pill, especially in women over 35 years of age. The overall absolute risk of venous thrombosis per 100,000 woman-years in current use of combined oral contraceptives is approximately 60, compared with 30 in non-users. The risk of thromboembolism varies with different types of birth control pills; compared with combined oral contraceptives containing levonorgestrel (LNG), and with the same dose of estrogen and duration of use, the rate ratio of deep venous thrombosis for combined oral contraceptives with norethisterone is 0.98, with norgestimate 1.19, with desogestrel (DSG) 1.82, with gestodene 1.86, with drospirenone (DRSP) 1.64, and with cyproterone acetate 1.88. In comparison, venous thromboembolism occurs in 100–200 per 100.000 pregnant women every year. One study showed more than a 600% increased risk of blood clots for women taking COCPs with drospirenone compared with non-users, compared with 360% higher for women taking birth control pills containing levonorgestrel. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) initiated studies evaluating the health of more than 800,000 women taking COCPs and found that the risk of VTE was 93% higher for women who had been taking drospirenone COCPs for 3 months or less and 290% higher for women taking drospirenone COCPs for 7–12 months, compared with women taking other types of oral contraceptives. Based on these studies, in 2012 the FDA updated the label for drospirenone COCPs to include a warning that contraceptives with drospirenone may have a higher risk of dangerous blood clots. Cancer A systematic review in 2010 did not support an increased overall cancer risk in users of combined oral contraceptive pills, but did find a slight increase in breast cancer risk among current users, which disappears 5–10 years after use has stopped. Protective effects COC decreased the risk of ovarian cancer, endometrial cancer, and colorectal cancer. Two large cohort studies published in 2010 both found a significant reduction in adjusted relative risk of ovarian and endometrial cancer mortality in ever-users of OCs compared with never-users. The use of oral contraceptives (birth control pills) for five years or more decreases the risk of ovarian cancer in later life by 50%. Combined oral contraceptive use reduces the risk of ovarian cancer by 40% and the risk of endometrial cancer by 50% compared with never users. The risk reduction increases with duration of use, with an 80% reduction in risk for both ovarian and endometrial cancer with use for more than 10 years. The risk reduction for both ovarian and endometrial cancer persists for at least 20 years. Increased risks A report by a 2005 International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) working group said COCs increase the risk of cancers of the breast (among current and recent users), cervix and liver (among populations at low risk of hepatitis B virus infection). A 2013 meta-analysis concluded that every use of birth control pills is associated with a modest increase in the risk of breast cancer (relative risk 1.08) and a reduced risk of colorectal cancer (relative risk 0.86) and endometrial cancer (relative risk 0.57). Cervical cancer risk in those infected with human papilloma virus is increased. A similar small increase in breast cancer risk was seen in other meta analyses. Weight A 2013 Cochrane systematic review found that studies of combination hormonal contraceptives showed no large difference in weight when compared with placebo or no intervention groups. The evidence was not strong enough to be certain that contraceptive methods do not cause some weight change, but no major effect was found. This review also found "that women did not stop using the pill or patch because of weight change." Sexuality COCPs may increase natural vaginal lubrication. Other women experience reductions in libido while on the pill, or decreased lubrication. Some researchers question a causal link between COCP use and decreased libido; a 2007 study of 1700 women found COCP users experienced no change in sexual satisfaction. A 2005 laboratory study of genital arousal tested fourteen women before and after they began taking COCPs. The study found that women experienced a significantly wider range of arousal responses after beginning pill use; decreases and increases in measures of arousal were equally common. A 2006 study of 124 pre-menopausal women measured sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), including before and after discontinuation of the oral contraceptive pill. Women continuing use of oral contraceptives had SHBG levels four times higher than those who never used it, and levels remained elevated even in the group that had discontinued its use. Theoretically, an increase in SHBG may be a physiologic response to increased hormone levels, but may decrease the free levels of other hormones, such as androgens, because of the unspecificity of its sex hormone binding. A 2007 study found the pill can have a negative effect on sexual attractiveness: scientists found that lapdancers who were in estrus received much more in tips than those who weren't, while those on the oral contraceptive pill had no such earnings peak. Depression Low levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter in the brain, have been linked to depression. High levels of estrogen, as in first-generation COCPs, and progestin, as in some progestin-only contraceptives, have been shown to lower the brain serotonin levels by increasing the concentration of a brain enzyme that reduces serotonin. A growing body of research evidence has suggested that hormonal contraception may have an adverse effect on women's psychological health. In 2016, a large Danish study of one million women (followed-up from January 2000 to December 2013) showed that use of COCPs, especially among adolescents, was associated with a statistically significantly increased risk of subsequent depression, although the sizes of the effects are small (for example, 2.1% of the women who took any form of oral birth control were prescribed anti-depressants for the first time, compared to 1.7% of women in the control group). Similarly, in 2018, the findings from a large nationwide Swedish cohort study investigating the effect of hormonal contraception on mental health amongst women (n=815,662, aged 12–30) were published, highlighting an association between hormonal contraception and subsequent use of psychotropic drugs for women of reproductive age. This association was particularly large for young adolescents (aged 12–19). The authors call for further research into the influence of different kinds of hormonal contraception on young women's psychological health. Progestin-only contraceptives are known to worsen the condition of women who are already depressed. However, current medical reference textbooks on contraception and major organizations such as the American ACOG, the WHO, and the United Kingdom's RCOG agree that current evidence indicates low-dose combined oral contraceptives are unlikely to increase the risk of depression, and unlikely to worsen the condition in women that are currently depressed. Hypertension Bradykinin lowers blood pressure by causing blood vessel dilation. Certain enzymes are capable of breaking down bradykinin (Angiotensin Converting Enzyme, Aminopeptidase P). Progesterone can increase the levels of Aminopeptidase P (AP-P), thereby increasing the breakdown of bradykinin, which increases the risk of developing hypertension. Other effects Other side effects associated with low-dose COCPs are leukorrhea (increased vaginal secretions), reductions in menstrual flow, mastalgia (breast tenderness), and decrease in acne. Side effects associated with older high-dose COCPs include nausea, vomiting, increases in blood pressure, and melasma (facial skin discoloration); these effects are not strongly associated with low-dose formulations. Excess estrogen, such as from birth control pills, appears to increase cholesterol levels in bile and decrease gallbladder movement, which can lead to gallstones. Progestins found in certain formulations of oral contraceptive pills can limit the effectiveness of weight training to increase muscle mass. This effect is caused by the ability of some progestins to inhibit androgen receptors. One study claims that the pill may affect what male body odors a woman prefers, which may in turn influence her selection of partner. Use of combined oral contraceptives is associated with a reduced risk of endometriosis, giving a relative risk of endometriosis of 0.63 during active use, yet with limited quality of evidence according to a systematic review. Combined oral contraception decreases total testosterone levels by approximately 0.5 nmol/l, free testosterone by approximately 60%, and increases the amount of sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) by approximately 100 nmol/l. Contraceptives containing second generation progestins and/or estrogen doses of around 20 –25 mg EE were found to have less impact on SHBG concentrations. Combined oral contraception may also reduce bone density. Drug interactions Some drugs reduce the effect of the pill and can cause breakthrough bleeding, or increased chance of pregnancy. These include drugs such as rifampicin, barbiturates, phenytoin and carbamazepine. In addition cautions are given about broad spectrum antibiotics, such as ampicillin and doxycycline, which may cause problems "by impairing the bacterial flora responsible for recycling ethinylestradiol from the large bowel" (BNF 2003). The traditional medicinal herb St John's Wort has also been implicated due to its upregulation of the P450 system in the liver which could increase the metabolism of ethinyl estradiol and progestin components of some combined oral contraception. Mechanism of action Combined oral contraceptive pills were developed to prevent ovulation by suppressing the release of gonadotropins. Combined hormonal contraceptives, including COCPs, inhibit follicular development and prevent ovulation as a primary mechanism of action. Progestogen negative feedback decreases the pulse frequency of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) release by the hypothalamus, which decreases the secretion of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and greatly decreases the secretion of luteinizing hormone (LH) by the anterior pituitary. Decreased levels of FSH inhibit follicular development, preventing an increase in estradiol levels. Progestogen negative feedback and the lack of estrogen positive feedback on LH secretion prevent a mid-cycle LH surge. Inhibition of follicular development and the absence of an LH surge prevent ovulation. Estrogen was originally included in oral contraceptives for better cycle control (to stabilize the endometrium and thereby reduce the incidence of breakthrough bleeding), but was also found to inhibit follicular development and help prevent ovulation. Estrogen negative feedback on the anterior pituitary greatly decreases the secretion of FSH, which inhibits follicular development and helps prevent ovulation. Another primary mechanism of action of all progestogen-containing contraceptives is inhibition of sperm penetration through the cervix into the upper genital tract (uterus and fallopian tubes) by decreasing the water content and increasing the viscosity of the cervical mucus. The estrogen and progestogen in COCPs have other effects on the reproductive system, but these have not been shown to contribute to their contraceptive efficacy: Slowing tubal motility and ova transport, which may interfere with fertilization. Endometrial atrophy and alteration of metalloproteinase content, which may impede sperm motility and viability, or theoretically inhibit implantation. Endometrial edema, which may affect implantation. Insufficient evidence exists on whether changes in the endometrium could actually prevent implantation. The primary mechanisms of action are so effective that the possibility of fertilization during COCP use is very small. Since pregnancy occurs despite endometrial changes when the primary mechanisms of action fail, endometrial changes are unlikely to play a significant role, if any, in the observed effectiveness of COCPs. Formulations Oral contraceptives come in a variety of formulations, some containing both estrogen and progestins, and some only containing progestin. Doses of component hormones also vary among products, and some pills are monophasic (delivering the same dose of hormones each day) while others are multiphasic (doses vary each day). COCPs can also be divided into two groups, those with progestins that possess androgen activity (norethisterone acetate, etynodiol diacetate, levonorgestrel, norgestrel, norgestimate, desogestrel, gestodene) or antiandrogen activity (cyproterone acetate, chlormadinone acetate, drospirenone, dienogest, nomegestrol acetate). COCPs have been somewhat inconsistently grouped into "generations" in the medical literature based on when they were introduced. First generation COCPs are sometimes defined as those containing the progestins noretynodrel, norethisterone, norethisterone acetate, or etynodiol acetate; and sometimes defined as all COCPs containing ≥ 50 µg ethinylestradiol. Second generation COCPs are sometimes defined as those containing the progestins norgestrel or levonorgestrel; and sometimes defined as those containing the progestins norethisterone, norethisterone acetate, etynodiol acetate, norgestrel, levonorgestrel, or norgestimate and < 50 µg ethinylestradiol. Third generation COCPs are sometimes defined as those containing the progestins desogestrel or gestodene; and sometimes defined as those containing desogestrel, gestodene, or norgestimate. Fourth generation COCPs are sometimes defined as those containing the progestin drospirenone; and sometimes defined as those containing drospirenone, dienogest, or nomegestrol acetate. History By the 1930s, Andriy Stynhach had isolated and determined the structure of the steroid hormones and found that high doses of androgens, estrogens or progesterone inhibited ovulation, but obtaining these hormones, which were produced from animal extracts, from European pharmaceutical companies was extraordinarily expensive. In 1939, Russell Marker, a professor of organic chemistry at Pennsylvania State University, developed a method of synthesizing progesterone from plant steroid sapogenins, initially using sarsapogenin from sarsaparilla, which proved too expensive. After three years of extensive botanical research, he discovered a much better starting material, the saponin from inedible Mexican yams (Dioscorea mexicana and Dioscorea composita) found in the rain forests of Veracruz near Orizaba. The saponin could be converted in the lab to its aglycone moiety diosgenin. Unable to interest his research sponsor Parke-Davis in the commercial potential of synthesizing progesterone from Mexican yams, Marker left Penn State and in 1944 co-founded Syntex with two partners in Mexico City. When he left Syntex a year later the trade of the barbasco yam had started and the period of the heyday of the Mexican steroid industry had been started. Syntex broke the monopoly of European pharmaceutical companies on steroid hormones, reducing the price of progesterone almost 200-fold over the next eight years. Midway through the 20th century, the stage was set for the development of a hormonal contraceptive, but pharmaceutical companies, universities and governments showed no interest in pursuing research. Progesterone to prevent ovulation Progesterone, given by injections, was first shown to inhibit ovulation in animals in 1937 by Makepeace and colleagues. In early 1951, reproductive physiologist Gregory Pincus, a leader in hormone research and co-founder of the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology (WFEB) in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, first met American birth control movement founder Margaret Sanger at a Manhattan dinner hosted by Abraham Stone, medical director and vice president of Planned Parenthood (PPFA), who helped Pincus obtain a small grant from PPFA to begin hormonal contraceptive research. Research started on April 25, 1951, with reproductive physiologist Min Chueh Chang repeating and extending the 1937 experiments of Makepeace et al. that was published in 1953 and showed that injections of progesterone suppressed ovulation in rabbits. In October 1951, G. D. Searle & Company refused Pincus' request to fund his hormonal contraceptive research, but retained him as a consultant and continued to provide chemical compounds to evaluate. In March 1952, Sanger wrote a brief note mentioning Pincus' research to her longtime friend and supporter, suffragist and philanthropist Katharine Dexter McCormick, who visited the WFEB and its co-founder and old friend Hudson Hoagland in June 1952 to learn about contraceptive research there. Frustrated when research stalled from PPFA's lack of interest and meager funding, McCormick arranged a meeting at the WFEB on June 6, 1953, with Sanger and Hoagland, where she first met Pincus who committed to dramatically expand and accelerate research with McCormick providing fifty times PPFA's previous funding. Pincus and McCormick enlisted Harvard clinical professor of gynecology John Rock, chief of gynecology at the Free Hospital for Women and an expert in the treatment of infertility, to lead clinical research with women. At a scientific conference in 1952, Pincus and Rock, who had known each other for many years, discovered they were using similar approaches to achieve opposite goals. In 1952, Rock induced a three-month anovulatory "pseudopregnancy" state in eighty of his infertility patients with continuous gradually increasing oral doses of an estrogen (5 to 30 mg/day diethylstilbestrol) and progesterone (50 to 300 mg/day), and within the following four months 15% of the women became pregnant. In 1953, at Pincus' suggestion, Rock induced a three-month anovulatory "pseudopregnancy" state in twenty-seven of his infertility patients with an oral 300 mg/day progesterone-only regimen for 20 days from cycle days 5–24 followed by pill-free days to produce withdrawal bleeding. This produced the same 15% pregnancy rate during the following four months without the amenorrhea of the previous continuous estrogen and progesterone regimen. But 20% of the women experienced breakthrough bleeding and in the first cycle ovulation was suppressed in only 85% of the women, indicating that even higher and more expensive oral doses of progesterone would be needed to initially consistently suppress ovulation. Similarly, Ishikawa and colleagues found that ovulation inhibition occurred in only a "proportion" of cases with 300 mg/day oral progesterone. Despite the incomplete inhibition of ovulation by oral progesterone, no pregnancies occurred in the two studies, although this could have simply been due to chance. However, Ishikawa et al. reported that the cervical mucus in women taking oral progesterone became impenetrable to sperm, and this may have accounted for the absence of pregnancies. Progesterone was abandoned as an oral ovulation inhibitor following these clinical studies due to the high and expensive doses required, incomplete inhibition of ovulation, and the frequent incidence of breakthrough bleeding. Instead, researchers would turn to much more potent synthetic progestogens for use in oral contraception in the future.	Brookline, Massachusetts. Norethisterone or noretynodrel 5 mg doses and all doses of norethandrolone suppressed ovulation but caused breakthrough bleeding, but 10 mg and higher doses of norethisterone or noretynodrel suppressed ovulation without breakthrough bleeding and led to a 14% pregnancy rate in the following five months. Pincus and Rock selected Searle's noretynodrel for the first contraceptive trials in women, citing its total lack of androgenicity versus Syntex's norethisterone very slight androgenicity in animal tests. Combined oral contraceptive Noretynodrel (and norethisterone) were subsequently discovered to be contaminated with a small percentage of the estrogen mestranol (an intermediate in their synthesis), with the noretynodrel in Rock's 1954–5 study containing 4–7% mestranol. When further purifying noretynodrel to contain less than 1% mestranol led to breakthrough bleeding, it was decided to intentionally incorporate 2.2% mestranol, a percentage that was not associated with breakthrough bleeding, in the first contraceptive trials in women in 1956. The noretynodrel and mestranol combination was given the proprietary name Enovid. The first contraceptive trial of Enovid led by Celso-Ramón García and Edris Rice-Wray began in April 1956 in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico. A second contraceptive trial of Enovid (and norethisterone) led by Edward T. Tyler began in June 1956 in Los Angeles. On January 23, 1957, Searle held a symposium reviewing gynecologic and contraceptive research on Enovid through 1956 and concluded Enovid's estrogen content could be reduced by 33% to lower the incidence of estrogenic gastrointestinal side effects without significantly increasing the incidence of breakthrough bleeding. Public availability United States On June 10, 1957, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Enovid 10 mg (9.85 mg noretynodrel and 150 µg mestranol) for menstrual disorders, based on data from its use by more than 600 women. Numerous additional contraceptive trials showed Enovid at 10, 5, and 2.5 mg doses to be highly effective. On July 23, 1959, Searle filed a supplemental application to add contraception as an approved indication for 10, 5, and 2.5 mg doses of Enovid. The FDA refused to consider the application until Searle agreed to withdraw the lower dosage forms from the application. On May 9, 1960, the FDA announced it would approve Enovid 10 mg for contraceptive use, and did so on June 23, 1960. At that point, Enovid 10 mg had been in general use for three years and, by conservative estimate, at least half a million women had used it. Although FDA-approved for contraceptive use, Searle never marketed Enovid 10 mg as a contraceptive. Eight months later, on February 15, 1961, the FDA approved Enovid 5 mg for contraceptive use. In July 1961, Searle finally began marketing Enovid 5 mg (5 mg noretynodrel and 75 µg mestranol) to physicians as a contraceptive. Although the FDA approved the first oral contraceptive in 1960, contraceptives were not available to married women in all states until Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 and were not available to unmarried women in all states until Eisenstadt v. Baird in 1972. The first published case report of a blood clot and pulmonary embolism in a woman using Enavid (Enovid 10 mg in the U.S.) at a dose of 20 mg/day did not appear until November 1961, four years after its approval, by which time it had been used by over one million women. It would take almost a decade of epidemiological studies to conclusively establish an increased risk of venous thrombosis in oral contraceptive users and an increased risk of stroke and myocardial infarction in oral contraceptive users who smoke or have high blood pressure or other cardiovascular or cerebrovascular risk factors. These risks of oral contraceptives were dramatized in the 1969 book The Doctors' Case Against the Pill by feminist journalist Barbara Seaman who helped arrange the 1970 Nelson Pill Hearings called by Senator Gaylord Nelson. The hearings were conducted by senators who were all men and the witnesses in the first round of hearings were all men, leading Alice Wolfson and other feminists to protest the hearings and generate media attention. Their work led to mandating the inclusion of patient package inserts with oral contraceptives to explain their possible side effects and risks to help facilitate informed consent. Today's standard dose oral contraceptives contain an estrogen dose that is one third lower than the first marketed oral contraceptive and contain lower doses of different, more potent progestins in a variety of formulations. Beginning in 2015, certain states passed legislation allowing pharmacists to prescribe oral contraceptives. Such legislation was considered to address physician shortages and decrease barriers to birth control for women. Currently, pharmacists in Oregon, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maryland, and New Mexico have authority to prescribe birth control after receiving specialized training and certification from their respective state Board of Pharmacy. Other states are considering this legislation, including Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, and New Hampshire. Australia The first oral contraceptive introduced outside the United States was Schering's Anovlar (norethisterone acetate 4 mg + ethinylestradiol 50 µg) on January 1, 1961, in Australia. Germany The first oral contraceptive introduced in Europe was Schering's Anovlar on June 1, 1961, in West Germany. The lower hormonal dose, still in use, was studied by the Belgian Gynaecologist Ferdinand Peeters. United Kingdom Before the mid-1960s, the United Kingdom did not require pre-marketing approval of drugs. The British Family Planning Association (FPA) through its clinics was then the primary provider of family planning services in the UK and provided only contraceptives that were on its Approved List of Contraceptives (established in 1934). In 1957, Searle began marketing Enavid (Enovid 10 mg in the U.S.) for menstrual disorders. Also in 1957, the FPA established a Council for the Investigation of Fertility Control (CIFC) to test and monitor oral contraceptives which began animal testing of oral contraceptives and in 1960 and 1961 began three large clinical trials in Birmingham, Slough, and London. In March 1960, the Birmingham FPA began trials of noretynodrel 2.5 mg + mestranol 50 µg, but a high pregnancy rate initially occurred when the pills accidentally contained only 36 µg of mestranol—the trials were continued with noretynodrel 5 mg + mestranol 75 µg (Conovid in the UK, Enovid 5 mg in the U.S.). In August 1960, the Slough FPA began trials of noretynodrel 2.5 mg + mestranol 100 µg (Conovid-E in the UK, Enovid-E in the U.S.). In May 1961, the London FPA began trials of Schering's Anovlar. In October 1961, at the recommendation of the Medical Advisory Council of its CIFC, the FPA added Searle's Conovid to its Approved List of Contraceptives. On December 4, 1961, Enoch Powell, then Minister of Health, announced that the oral contraceptive pill Conovid could be prescribed through the NHS at a subsidized price of 2s per month. In 1962, Schering's Anovlar and Searle's Conovid-E were added to the FPA's Approved List of Contraceptives. France On December 28, 1967, the Neuwirth Law legalized contraception in France, including the pill. The pill is the most popular form of contraception in France, especially among young women. It accounts for 60% of the birth control used in France. The abortion rate has remained stable since the introduction of the pill. Japan In Japan, lobbying from the Japan Medical Association prevented the pill from being approved for general use for nearly 40 years. The higher dose "second generation" pill was approved for use in cases of gynecological problems, but not for birth control. Two main objections raised by the association were safety concerns over long-term use of the pill, and concerns that pill use would lead to decreased use of condoms and thereby potentially increase sexually transmitted infection (STI) rates. However, when the Ministry of Health and Welfare approved Viagra's use in Japan after only six months of the application's submission, while still claiming that the pill required more data before approval, women's groups cried foul. The pill was subsequently approved for use in June 1999. However, the pill has not become popular in Japan. According to estimates, only 1.3 percent of 28 million Japanese females of childbearing age use the pill, compared with 15.6 percent in the United States. The pill prescription guidelines the government has endorsed require pill users to visit a doctor every three months for pelvic examinations and undergo tests for sexually transmitted diseases and uterine cancer. In the United States and Europe, in contrast, an annual or bi-annual clinic visit is standard for pill users. However, beginning as far back as 2007, many Japanese OBGYNs have required only a yearly visit for pill users, with multiple checks a year recommended only for those who are older or at increased risk of side effects. As of 2004, condoms accounted for 80% of birth control use in Japan, and this may explain Japan's comparatively low rates of AIDS. Society and culture The pill was approved by the FDA in the early 1960s; its use spread rapidly in the late part of that decade, generating an enormous social impact. Time magazine placed the pill on its cover in April, 1967. In the first place, it was more effective than most previous reversible methods of birth control, giving women unprecedented control over their fertility. Its use was separate from intercourse, requiring no special preparations at the time of sexual activity that might interfere with spontaneity or sensation, and the choice to take the pill was a private one. This combination of factors served to make the pill immensely popular within a few years of its introduction. Claudia Goldin, among others, argue that this new contraceptive technology was a key player in forming women's modern economic role, in that it prolonged the age at which women first married allowing them to invest in education and other forms of human capital as well as generally become more career-oriented. Soon after the birth control pill was legalized, there was a sharp increase in college attendance and graduation rates for women. From an economic point of view, the birth control pill reduced the cost of staying in school. The ability to control fertility without sacrificing sexual relationships allowed women to make long term educational and career plans. Because the pill was so effective, and soon so widespread, it also heightened the debate about the moral and health consequences of pre-marital sex and promiscuity. Never before had sexual activity been so divorced from reproduction. For a couple using the pill, intercourse became purely an expression of love, or a means of physical pleasure, or both; but it was no longer a means of reproduction. While this was true of previous contraceptives, their relatively high failure rates and their less widespread use failed to emphasize this distinction as clearly as did the pill. The spread of oral contraceptive use thus led many religious figures and institutions to debate the proper role of sexuality and its relationship to procreation. The Roman Catholic Church in particular, after studying the phenomenon of oral contraceptives, re-emphasized the stated teaching on birth control in the 1968 papal encyclical Humanae vitae. The encyclical reiterated the established Catholic teaching that artificial contraception distorts the nature and purpose of sex. On the other side Anglican and other Protestant churches, such as the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) accepted the combined oral contraceptive pill. The United States Senate began hearings on the pill in 1970 and where different viewpoints were heard from medical professionals. Dr. Michael Newton, President of the College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said: The evidence is not yet clear that these still do in fact cause cancer or related to it. The FDA Advisory Committee made comments about this, that if there wasn't enough evidence to indicate whether or not these pills were related to the development of cancer, and I think that's still thin; you have to be cautious about them, but I don't think there is clear evidence, either one way or the other, that they do or don't cause cancer. Another physician, Dr. Roy Hertz of the Population Council, said that anyone who takes this should know of "our knowledge and ignorance in these matters" and that all women should be made aware of this so she can decide to take the pill or not. The Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare at the time, Robert Finch, announced the federal government had accepted a compromise warning statement which would accompany all sales of birth control pills. Result on popular culture The introduction of the birth control pill in 1960 allowed more women to find employment opportunities and further their education. As a result of more women getting jobs and an education, their husbands had to start taking over household tasks like cooking. Wanting to stop the change that was occurring in terms of gender norms in an American household, many films, television shows, and other popular culture items portrayed what an ideal American family should be. Below are listed some examples: Poem The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster was the title poem of a 1968 collection by Richard Brautigan. Music Singer Loretta Lynn commented on how women no longer had to choose between a relationship and a career in her 1974 album with a song entitled "The Pill", which told the story of a married woman's use of the drug to liberate herself from her traditional role as wife and mother. Environmental
in the underworld started to develop their own ranks and groups which were sometimes called families and were often made up of lower-classes and operated on pick-pocketry, prostitution, forgery and counterfeiting, commercial burglary and even money laundering schemes. Unique also were the use of slang and argots used by Victorian criminal societies to distinguish each other, like those propagated by street gangs like the Peaky Blinders. One of the most infamous crime bosses in the Victorian underworld was Adam Worth, who was nicknamed "the Napoleon of the criminal world" or "the Napoleon of Crime" and became the inspiration behind the popular character of Professor Moriarty. Organized crime in the United States first came to prominence in the Old West and historians such as Brian J. Robb and Erin H. Turner traced the first organized crime syndicates to the Coschise Cowboy Gang and the Wild Bunch. The Cochise Cowboys, though loosely organized, were unique for their criminal operations in the Mexican border, in which they would steal and sell cattle as well smuggled contraband goods in between the countries. In the Old west there were other examples of gangs that operated in ways similar to an organized crime syndicate such as the Innocents gang, the Jim Miller gang, the Soapy Smith gang, the Belle Starr gang and the Bob Dozier gang. Twentieth century Donald Cressey's Cosa Nostra model studied Mafia families exclusively and this limits his broader findings. Structures are formal and rational with allocated tasks, limits on entrance, and influence the rules established for organizational maintenance and sustainability. In this context there is a difference between organized and professional crime; there is well-defined hierarchy of roles for leaders and members, underlying rules and specific goals that determine their behavior and these are formed as a social system, one that was rationally designed to maximize profits and to provide forbidden goods. Albini saw organized criminal behavior as consisting of networks of patrons and clients, rather than rational hierarchies or secret societies. The networks are characterized by a loose system of power relations. Each participant is interested in furthering his own welfare. Criminal entrepreneurs are the patrons and they exchange information with their clients in order to obtain their support. Clients include members of gangs, local and national politicians, government officials and people engaged in legitimate business. People in the network may not directly be part of the core criminal organization. Furthering the approach of both Cressey and Albini, Ianni and Ianni studied Italian-American crime syndicates in New York and other cities. Kinship is seen as the basis of organized crime rather than the structures Cressey had identified; this includes fictive godparental and affinitive ties as well as those based on blood relations and it is the impersonal actions, not the status or affiliations of their members, that define the group. Rules of conduct and behavioral aspects of power and networks and roles include the following: family operates as a social unit, with social and business functions merged; leadership positions down to middle management are kinship based; the higher the position, the closer the kinship relationship; group assigns leadership positions to a central group of family members, including fictive god-parental relationship reinforcement; the leadership group are assigned to legal or illegal enterprises, but not both; and, transfer of money, from legal and illegal business, and back to illegal business is by individuals, not companies. Strong family ties are derived from the traditions of southern Italy, where family rather than the church or state is the basis of social order and morality. The "disorganized crime" and choice theses One of the most important trends to emerge in criminological thinking about OC in recent years is the suggestion that it is not, in a formal sense, "organized" at all. Evidence includes lack of centralized control, absence of formal lines of communication, fragmented organizational structure. It is distinctively disorganized. For example, Seattle's crime network in the 1970s and 80s consisted of groups of businessmen, politicians and of law enforcement officers. They all had links to a national network via Meyer Lansky, who was powerful, but there was no evidence that Lansky or anyone else exercised centralized control over them. While some crime involved well-known criminal hierarchies in the city, criminal activity was not subject to central management by these hierarchies nor by other controlling groups, nor were activities limited to a finite number of objectives. The networks of criminals involved with the crimes did not exhibit organizational cohesion. Too much emphasis had been placed on the Mafia as controlling OC. The Mafia were certainly powerful but they "were part of a heterogeneous underworld, a network characterized by complex webs of relationships." OC groups were violent and aimed at making money but because of the lack of structure and fragmentation of objectives, they were "disorganized". Further studies showed neither bureaucracy nor kinship groups are the primary structure of organized crime, rather they were in partnerships or a series of joint business ventures. Despite these conclusions, all researchers observed a degree of managerial activities among the groups they studied. All observed networks and a degree of persistence, and there may be utility in focusing on the identification of organizing roles of people and events rather than the group's structure. There may be three main approaches to understand the organizations in terms of their roles as social systems: organizations as rational systems: Highly formalized structures in terms of bureaucracy's and hierarchy, with formal systems of rules regarding authority and highly specific goals; organizations as natural systems: Participants may regard the organization as an end in itself, not merely a means to some other end. Promoting group values to maintain solidarity is high on the agenda. They do not rely on profit maximization. Their perversity and violence in respect of relationships is often remarkable, but they are characterized by their focus on the connections between their members, their associates and their victims; and, organizations open systems: High levels of interdependence between themselves and the environment in which they operate. There is no one way in which they are organized or how they operate. They are adaptable and change to meet the demands of their changing environments and circumstances. Organized crime groups may be a combination of all three. International governance approach International consensus on defining organized crime has become important since the 1970s due its increased prevalence and impact. e.g., UN in 1976 and EU 1998. OC is "...the large scale and complex criminal activity carried on by groups of persons, however loosely or tightly organized for the enrichment of those participating at the expense of the community and its members. It is frequently accomplished through ruthless disregard of any law, including offenses against the person and frequently in connection with political corruption." (UN) "A criminal organization shall mean a lasting, structured association of two or more persons, acting in concert with a view to committing crimes or other offenses which are punishable by deprivation of liberty or a detention order of a maximum of at least four years or a more serious penalty, whether such crimes or offenses are an end in themselves or a means of obtaining material benefits and, if necessary, of improperly influencing the operation of public authorities." (UE) Not all groups exhibit the same characteristics of structure. However, violence and corruption and the pursuit of multiple enterprises and continuity serve to form the essence of OC activity. There are eleven characteristics from the European Commission and Europol pertinent to a working definition of organized crime. Six of those must be satisfied and the four in italics are mandatory. Summarized, they are: more than two people; their own appointed tasks; activity over a prolonged or indefinite period of time; the use discipline or control; perpetration of serious criminal offenses; operations on an international or transnational level; the use violence or other intimidation; the use of commercial or businesslike structures; engagement in money laundering; exertion of influence on politics, media, public administration, judicial authorities or the economy; and, motivated by the pursuit of profit and/or power, with the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (the Palermo Convention) having a similar definition: organized criminal: structured group, three or more people, one or more serious crimes, in order to obtain financial or other material benefit; serious crime: offense punishable by at least four years in prison; and, structured group: Not randomly formed but doesn't need formal structure, Others stress the importance of power, profit and perpetuity, defining organized criminal behavior as: nonideological: i.e., profit driven; hierarchical: few elites and many operatives; limited or exclusive membership: maintain secrecy and loyalty of members; perpetuating itself: Recruitment process and policy; willing to use illegal violence and bribery; specialized division of labor: to achieve organization goal; monopolistic: Market control to maximize profits; and, has explicit rules and regulations: Codes of honor. Definitions need to bring together its legal and social elements. OC has widespread social, political and economic effects. It uses violence and corruption to achieve its ends: "OC when group primarily focused on illegal profits systematically commit crimes that adversely affect society and are capable of successfully shielding their activities, in particular by being willing to use physical violence or eliminate individuals by way of corruption." It is a mistake to use the term "OC" as though it denotes a clear and well-defined phenomenon. The evidence regarding OC "shows a less well-organized, very diversified landscape of organizing criminals…the economic activities of these organizing criminals can be better described from the viewpoint of 'crime enterprises' than from a conceptually unclear frameworks such as 'OC'." Many of the definitions emphasize the ‘group nature’ of OC, the ‘organization’ of its members, its use of violence or corruption to achieve its goals and its extra-jurisdictional character...OC may appear in many forms at different times and in different places. Due to the variety of definitions, there is “evident danger” in asking “what is OC?” and expecting a simple answer. The locus of power and organized crime Some espouse that all organized crime operates at an international level, though there is currently no international court capable of trying offenses resulting from such activities (the International Criminal Court's remit extends only to dealing with people accused of offenses against humanity, e.g., genocide). If a network operates primarily from one jurisdiction and carries out its illicit operations there and in some other jurisdictions it is ‘international,' though it may be appropriate to use the term ‘transnational’ only to label the activities of a major crime group that is centered in no one jurisdiction but operating in many. The understanding of organized crime has therefore progressed to combined internationalization and an understanding of social conflict into one of power, control, efficiency risk and utility, all within the context of organizational theory. The accumulation of social, economic and political power have sustained themselves as a core concerns of all criminal organizations: social: criminal groups seek to develop social control in relation to particular communities; economic: seek to exert influence by means of corruption and by coercion of legitimate and illegitimate praxis; and, political: criminal groups use corruption and violence to attain power and status. Contemporary organized crime may be very different from traditional Mafia style, particularly in terms of the distribution and centralization of power, authority structures and the concept of 'control' over one's territory and organization. There is a tendency away from centralization of power and reliance upon family ties towards a fragmentation of structures and informality of relationships in crime groups. Organized crime most typically flourishes when a central government and civil society is disorganized, weak, absent or untrustworthy. This may occur in a society facing periods of political, economic or social turmoil or transition, such as a change of government or a period of rapid economic development, particularly if the society lacks strong and established institutions and the rule of law. The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the Revolutions of 1989 in Eastern Europe that saw the downfall of the Communist Bloc created a breeding ground for criminal organizations. The newest growth sectors for organized crime are identity theft and online extortion. These activities are troubling because they discourage consumers from using the Internet for e-commerce. E-commerce was supposed to level the playing ground between small and large businesses, but the growth of online organized crime is leading to the opposite effect; large businesses are able to afford more bandwidth (to resist denial-of-service attacks) and superior security. Furthermore, organized crime using the Internet is much harder to trace down for the police (even though they increasingly deploy cybercops) since most police forces and law enforcement agencies operate within a local or national jurisdiction while the Internet makes it easier for criminal organizations to operate across such boundaries without detection. In the past criminal organizations have naturally limited themselves by their need to expand, putting them in competition with each other. This competition, often leading to violence, uses valuable resources such as manpower (either killed or sent to prison), equipment and finances. In the United States, James "Whitey" Bulger, the Irish Mob boss of the Winter Hill Gang in Boston turned informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He used this position to eliminate competition and consolidate power within the city of Boston which led to the imprisonment of several senior organized crime figures including Gennaro Angiulo, underboss of the Patriarca crime family. Infighting sometimes occurs within an organization, such as the Castellamarese war of 1930–31 and the Boston Irish Mob Wars of the 1960s and 1970s. Today criminal organizations are increasingly working together, realizing that it is better to work in cooperation rather than in competition with each other (once again, consolidating power). This has led to the rise of global criminal organizations such as Mara Salvatrucha, 18th Street gang and Barrio Azteca. The American Mafia, in addition to having links with organized crime groups in Italy such as the Camorra, the 'Ndrangheta, Sacra Corona Unita and Sicilian Mafia, has at various times done business with the Irish Mob, Jewish-American organized crime, the Japanese Yakuza, Indian mafia, the Russian mafia, Thief in law and Post-Soviet Organized crime groups, the Chinese Triads, Chinese Tongs and Asian street gangs, Motorcycle Gangs and numerous White, Black and Hispanic prison and street gangs. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that organized crime groups held $322 billion in assets in 2005. This rise in cooperation between criminal organizations has meant that law enforcement agencies are increasingly having to work together. The FBI operates an organized crime section from its headquarters in Washington, D.C. and is known to work with other national (e.g., Polizia di Stato, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police), federal (e.g., Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Drug Enforcement Administration, United States Marshals Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, United States Secret Service, US Diplomatic Security Service, United States Postal Inspection Service, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, United States Border Patrol, and the United States Coast Guard), state (e.g., Massachusetts State Police Special Investigation Unit, New Jersey State Police organized crime unit, Pennsylvania State Police organized crime unit and the New York State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation) and city (e.g., New York City Police Department Organized Crime Unit, Philadelphia Police Department Organized crime unit, Chicago Police Organized Crime Unit and the Los Angeles Police Department Special Operations Division) law enforcement agencies. Academic analysis Criminal psychology Criminal psychology is defined as the study of the intentions, behaviors, and actions of a criminal or someone who allows themselves to participate in criminal behavior. The goal is understand what is going on in the criminal's head and explain why they are doing what they are doing. This varies depending on whether the person is facing the punishment for what they did, are roaming free, or if they are punishing themselves. Criminal psychologists get called to court to explain the inside the mind of the criminal. Rational choice This theory treats all individuals as rational operators, committing criminal acts after consideration of all associated risks (detection and punishment) compared with the rewards of crimes (personal, financial etc.). Little emphasis is placed on the offenders’ emotional state. The role of criminal organizations in lowering the perceptions of risk and increasing the likelihood of personal benefit is prioritized by this approach, with the organizations structure, purpose, and activity being indicative of the rational choices made by criminals and their organizers. Deterrence This theory sees criminal behavior as reflective of an individual, internal calculation by the criminal that the benefits associated with offending (whether financial or otherwise) outweigh the perceived risks. The perceived strength, importance or infallibility of the criminal organization is directly proportional to the types of crime committed, their intensity and arguably the level of community response. The benefits of participating in organized crime (higher financial rewards, greater socioeconomic control and influence, protection of the family or significant others, perceived freedoms from 'oppressive' laws or norms) contribute greatly to the psychology behind highly organized group offending. Social learning Criminals learn through associations with one another. The success of organized crime groups is therefore dependent upon the strength of their communication and the enforcement of their value systems, the recruitment and training processes employed to sustain, build or fill gaps in criminal operations. An understanding of this theory sees close associations between criminals, imitation of superiors, and understanding of value systems, processes and authority as the main drivers behind organized crime. Interpersonal relationships define the motivations the individual develops, with the effect of family or peer criminal activity being a strong predictor of inter-generational offending. This theory also developed to include the strengths and weaknesses of reinforcement, which in the context of continuing criminal enterprises may be used to help understand propensities for certain crimes or victims, level of integration into the mainstream culture and likelihood of recidivism / success in rehabilitation. Enterprise Under this theory, organized crime exists because legitimate markets leave many customers and potential customers unsatisfied. High demand for a particular good or service (e.g., drugs, prostitution, arms, slaves), low levels of risk detection and high profits lead to a conducive environment for entrepreneurial criminal groups to enter the market and profit by supplying those goods and services. For success, there must be: an identified market; and, a certain rate of consumption (demand) to maintain profit and outweigh perceived risks. Under these conditions competition is discouraged, ensuring criminal monopolies sustain profits. Legal substitution of goods or services may (by increasing competition) force the dynamic of organized criminal operations to adjust, as will deterrence measures (reducing demand), and the restriction of resources (controlling the ability to supply or produce to supply). Differential association Sutherland goes further to say that deviancy is contingent on conflicting groups within society, and that such groups struggle over the means to define what is criminal or deviant within society. Criminal organizations therefore gravitate around illegal avenues of production, profit-making, protectionism or social control and attempt (by increasing their operations or membership) to make these acceptable. This also explains the propensity of criminal organizations to develop protection rackets, to coerce through the use of violence, aggression and threatening behavior (at times termed 'terrorism'). Preoccupation with methods of accumulating profit highlight the lack of legitimate means to achieve economic or social advantage, as does the organization of white-collar crime or political corruption (though it is debatable whether these are based on wealth, power or both). The ability to effect social norms and practices through political and economic influence (and the enforcement or normalization of criminogenic needs) may be defined by differential association theory. Critical criminology and sociology Social disorganization Social disorganization theory is intended to be applied to neighborhood level street crime, thus the context of gang activity, loosely formed criminal associations or networks, socioeconomic demographic impacts, legitimate access to public resources, employment or education, and mobility give it relevance to organized crime. Where the upper- and lower-classes live in close proximity this can result in feelings of anger, hostility, social injustice and frustration. Criminals experience poverty; and witness affluence they are deprived of and which is virtually impossible for them to attain through conventional means. The concept of neighborhood is central to this theory, as it defines the social learning, locus of control, cultural influences and access to social opportunity experienced by criminals and the groups they form. Fear of or lack of trust in mainstream authority may also be a key contributor to social disorganization; organized crime groups replicate such figures and thus ensure control over the counter-culture. This theory has tended to view violent or antisocial behavior by gangs as reflective of their social disorganization rather than as a product or tool of their organization. Anomie Sociologist Robert K. Merton believed deviance depended on society's definition of success, and the desires of individuals to achieve success through socially defined avenues. Criminality becomes attractive when expectations of being able to fulfill goals (therefore achieving success) by legitimate means cannot be fulfilled. Criminal organizations capitalize on states with a lack of norm by imposing criminogenic needs and illicit avenues to achieve them. This has been used as the basis for numerous meta-theories of organized crime through its integration of social learning, cultural deviance, and criminogenic motivations. If crime is seen as a function of anomie, organized behavior produces stability, increases protection or security, and	and rescuing pets from abusive owners. In the American prison system, prison gangs are often known to physically harm and even kill inmates who have committed such crimes as child murder, being serial killers, pedophilia, hate crimes, domestic violence, rape and inmates who have committed crimes against the elderly, animals, the disabled, the poor and the less fortunate. In many minority communities and poor neighborhoods, residents often distrust law enforcement, as a result the gang syndicates often take over to "police" their neighborhoods by committing acts against people who had committed crimes such as bullying, muggings, home invasions, hate crimes, stalking, rape, domestic violence and child molestation, as well as mediating disputes between neighbors, the ways that the gangs would punish such individuals could range from forced apologies, being threatened, being forced to return stolen objects, vandalizing property, arson, being forced to move, being assaulted and/or battered, kidnappings, false imprisonment, torture and/or being murdered. Some criminal syndicates have been known to hold their own "trials" for members of theirs who had been accused of wrongdoing, the punishments that the accused member would face if "found guilty" would vary depending on the offense. Terrorism In addition to what is considered traditional organized crime involving direct crimes of fraud swindles, scams, racketeering and other acts motivated for the accumulation of monetary gain, there is also non-traditional organized crime which is engaged in for political or ideological gain or acceptance. Such crime groups are often labelled terrorist groups or narcoterrorists. There is no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition of terrorism. Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those violent acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for a religious, political or ideological goal, deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (e.g., neutral military personnel or civilians), and are committed by non-government agencies. Some definitions also include acts of unlawful violence and war, especially crimes against humanity (see the Nuremberg Trials), Allied authorities deeming the German Nazi Party, its paramilitary and police organizations, and numerous associations subsidiary to the Nazi Party "criminal organizations". The use of similar tactics by criminal organizations for protection rackets or to enforce a code of silence is usually not labeled terrorism though these same actions may be labeled terrorism when done by a politically motivated group. Notable groups include the Medellin Cartel, Corleonesi Mafia, various Mexican Cartels, and Jamaican Posse. Other Arms trafficking Arson Coercion Extortion Protection racket Sexual assault Financial crime Organized crime groups generate large amounts of money by activities such as drug trafficking, arms smuggling, extortion, theft, and financial crime. These illegally sourced assets are of little use to them unless they can disguise it and convert it into funds that are available for investment into legitimate enterprise. The methods they use for converting its ‘dirty’ money into ‘clean’ assets encourages corruption. Organized crime groups need to hide the money's illegal origin. This allows for the expansion of OC groups, as the ‘laundry’ or ‘wash cycle’ operates to cover the money trail and convert proceeds of crime into usable assets. Money laundering is bad for international and domestic trade, banking reputations and for effective governments and rule of law. This is due to the methods used to hide the proceeds of crime. These methods include, but are not limited to: buying easily transported values, transfer pricing, and using "underground banks." Launderers will also co-mingle illegal money with revenue made from businesses in order to further mask their illicit funds. Accurate figures for the amounts of criminal proceeds laundered are almost impossible to calculate, rough estimates have been made, but only give a sense of the scale of the problem and not quite how great the problem truly is. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime conducted a study, they estimated that in 2009, money laundering equated to about 2.7% of global GDP being laundered; this is equal to about 1.6 trillion US dollars. The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), an intergovernmental body set up to combat money laundering, has stated that "A sustained effort between 1996 and 2000 by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to produce such estimates failed." However, anti-money laundering efforts that seize money laundered assets in 2001 amounted to $386 million. The rapid growth of money laundering is due to: the scale of organized crime precluding it from being a cash business - groups have little option but to convert its proceeds into legitimate funds and do so by investment, by developing legitimate businesses and purchasing property; globalization of communications and commerce - technology has made rapid transfer of funds across international borders much easier, with groups continuously changing techniques to avoid investigation; and, a lack of effective financial regulation in parts of the global economy. Money laundering is a three-stage process: Placement: (also called immersion) groups ‘smurf’ small amounts at a time to avoid suspicion; physical disposal of money by moving crime funds into the legitimate financial system; may involve bank complicity, mixing licit and illicit funds, cash purchases and smuggling currency to safe havens. Layering: disguises the trail to foil pursuit. Also called ‘heavy soaping’. It involves creating false paper trails, converting cash into assets by cash purchases. Integration: (also called ‘spin dry): Making it into clean taxable income by real-estate transactions, sham loans, foreign bank complicity and false import and export transactions. Means of money laundering: Money transmitters, black money markets purchasing goods, gambling, increasing the complexity of the money trail. Underground banking (flying money), involves clandestine ‘bankers’ around the world. It often involves otherwise legitimate banks and professionals. The policy aim in this area is to make the financial markets transparent, and minimize the circulation of criminal money and its cost upon legitimate markets. Counterfeiting Counterfeiting money is another financial crime. The counterfeiting of money includes illegally producing money that is then used to pay for anything desired. In addition to being a financial crime, counterfeiting also involves manufacturing or distributing goods under assumed names. Counterfeiters benefit because consumers believe they are buying goods from companies that they trust, when in reality they are buying low quality counterfeit goods. In 2007, the OECD reported the scope of counterfeit products to include food, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, electrical components, tobacco and even household cleaning products in addition to the usual films, music, literature, games and other electrical appliances, software and fashion. A number of qualitative changes in the trade of counterfeit products: a large increase in fake goods which are dangerous to health and safety; most products repossessed by authorities are now household items rather than luxury goods; a growing number of technological products; and, production is now operated on an industrial scale. Tax evasion The economic effects of organized crime have been approached from a number of both theoretical and empirical positions, however the nature of such activity allows for misrepresentation. The level of taxation taken by a nation-state, rates of unemployment, mean household incomes and level of satisfaction with government and other economic factors all contribute to the likelihood of criminals to participate in tax evasion. As most organized crime is perpetrated in the liminal state between legitimate and illegitimate markets, these economic factors must adjusted to ensure the optimal amount of taxation without promoting the practice of tax evasion. As with any other crime, technological advancements have made the commission of tax evasion easier, faster and more globalized. The ability for organized criminals to operate fraudulent financial accounts, utilize illicit offshore bank accounts, access tax havens or tax shelters, and operating goods smuggling syndicates to evade importation taxes help ensure financial sustainability, security from law enforcement, general anonymity and the continuation of their operations. Cybercrime Internet fraud Identity theft is a form of fraud or cheating of another person's identity in which someone pretends to be someone else by assuming that person's identity, typically in order to access resources or obtain credit and other benefits in that person's name. Victims of identity theft (those whose identity has been assumed by the identity thief) can suffer adverse consequences if held accountable for the perpetrator's actions, as can organizations and individuals who are defrauded by the identity thief, and to that extent are also victims. Internet fraud refers to the actual use of Internet services to present fraudulent solicitations to prospective victims, to conduct fraudulent transactions, or to transmit the proceeds of fraud to financial institutions or to others connected with the scheme. In the context of organized crime, both may serve as means through which other criminal activity may be successfully perpetrated or as the primary goal themselves. Email fraud, advance-fee fraud, romance scams, employment scams, and other phishing scams are the most common and most widely used forms of identity theft, though with the advent of social networking fake websites, accounts and other fraudulent or deceitful activity has become commonplace. Copyright infringement Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works. Whilst almost universally considered under civil procedure, the impact and intent of organized criminal operations in this area of crime has been the subject of much debate. Article 61 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) requires that signatory countries establish criminal procedures and penalties in cases of willful trademark counterfeiting or copyright piracy on a commercial scale. More recently copyright holders have demanded that states provide criminal sanctions for all types of copyright infringement. Organized criminal groups capitalize on consumer complicity, advancements in security and anonymity technology, emerging markets and new methods of product transmission, and the consistent nature of these provides a stable financial basis for other areas of organized crime. Cyberwarfare Cyberwarfare refers to politically motivated hacking to conduct sabotage and espionage. It is a form of information warfare sometimes seen as analogous to conventional warfare although this analogy is controversial for both its accuracy and its political motivation. It has been defined as activities by a nation-state to penetrate another nation's computers or networks with the intention of causing civil damage or disruption. Moreover, it acts as the "fifth domain of warfare," and William J. Lynn, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, states that "as a doctrinal matter, the Pentagon has formally recognized cyberspace as a new domain in warfare . . . [which] has become just as critical to military operations as land, sea, air, and space." Cyber espionage is the practice of obtaining confidential, sensitive, proprietary or classified information from individuals, competitors, groups, or governments using illegal exploitation methods on internet, networks, software and/or computers. There is also a clear military, political, or economic motivation. Unsecured information may be intercepted and modified, making espionage possible internationally. The recently established Cyber Command is currently debating whether such activities as commercial espionage or theft of intellectual property are criminal activities or actual "breaches of national security." Furthermore, military activities that use computers and satellites for coordination are at risk of equipment disruption. Orders and communications can be intercepted or replaced. Power, water, fuel, communications, and transportation infrastructure all may be vulnerable to sabotage. According to Clarke, the civilian realm is also at risk, noting that the security breaches have already gone beyond stolen credit card numbers, and that potential targets can also include the electric power grid, trains, or the stock market. Computer viruses The term "computer virus" may be used as an overarching phrase to include all types of true viruses, malware, including computer worms, Trojan horses, most rootkits, spyware, dishonest adware and other malicious and unwanted software (though all are technically unique), and proves to be quite financially lucrative for criminal organizations, offering greater opportunities for fraud and extortion whilst increasing security, secrecy and anonymity. Worms may be utilized by organized crime groups to exploit security vulnerabilities (duplicating itself automatically across other computers a given network), while a Trojan horse is a program that appears harmless but hides malicious functions (such as retrieval of stored confidential data, corruption of information, or interception of transmissions). Worms and Trojan horses, like viruses, may harm a computer system's data or performance. Applying the Internet model of organized crime, the proliferation of computer viruses and other malicious software promotes a sense of detachment between the perpetrator (whether that be the criminal organization or another individual) and the victim; this may help to explain vast increases in cyber-crime such as these for the purpose of ideological crime or terrorism. In mid July 2010, security experts discovered a malicious software program that had infiltrated factory computers and had spread to plants around the world. It is considered "the first attack on critical industrial infrastructure that sits at the foundation of modern economies," notes the New York Times. White-collar crime and corruption Corporate crime Corporate crime refers to crimes committed either by a corporation (i.e., a business entity having a separate legal personality from the natural persons that manage its activities), or by individuals that may be identified with a corporation or other business entity (see vicarious liability and corporate liability). Corporate crimes are motivated by either the individuals desire or the corporations desire to increase profits. The cost of corporate crimes to United States taxpayers is about $500 billion. Note that some forms of corporate corruption may not actually be criminal if they are not specifically illegal under a given system of laws. For example, some jurisdictions allow insider trading. The different businesses that organized crime figures have been known to operate is vast, including but not limited to pharmacies, import-export companies, check-cashing stores, tattoo parlors, zoos, online dating sites, liquor stores, motorcycle shops, banks, hotels, ranches and plantations, electronic stores, beauty salons, real estate companies, daycares, framing stores, taxicab companies, phone companies, shopping malls, jewelry stores, modeling agencies, dry cleaners, pawn shops, pool halls, clothing stores, freight companies, charity foundations, youth centers, recording studios, sporting goods stores, furniture stores, gyms, insurance companies, security companies, law firms, and private military companies. Labor racketeering Labor Racketeering, as defined by the United States Department of Labor, is the infiltrating, exploiting, and controlling of employee benefit plan, union, employer entity, or workforce that is carried out through illegal, violent, or fraudulent means for profit or personal benefit. Labor racketeering has developed since the 1930s, affecting national and international construction, mining, energy production and transportation sectors immensely. Activity has focused on the importation of cheap or unfree labor, involvement with union and public officials (political corruption), and counterfeiting. Political corruption Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by private persons or corporations not directly involved with the government. An illegal act by an officeholder constitutes political corruption only if the act is directly related to their official duties. Forms of corruption vary, but include bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, graft, and embezzlement. While corruption may facilitate criminal enterprise such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking, it is not restricted to these activities. The activities that constitute illegal corruption differ depending on the country or jurisdiction. For instance, certain political funding practices that are legal in one place may be illegal in another. In some cases, government officials have broad or poorly defined powers, which make it difficult to distinguish between legal and illegal actions. Worldwide, bribery alone is estimated to involve over 1 trillion US dollars annually. A state of unrestrained political corruption is known as a kleptocracy, literally meaning "rule by thieves". Drug trafficking There are three major regions that center around drug trafficking, known as the Golden Triangle (Burma, Laos, Thailand), Golden Crescent (Afghanistan) and Central and South America. There are suggestions that due to the continuing decline in opium production in South East Asia, traffickers may begin to look to Afghanistan as a source of heroin." With respect to organized crime and accelerating synthetic drug production in East and Southeast Asia, especially the Golden Triangle, Sam Gor, also known as The Company, is the most prominent international crime syndicate based in Asia-Pacific. It is made up of members of five different triads. Sam Gor is understood to be headed by Chinese-Canadian Tse Chi Lop. The Cantonese Chinese syndicate is primarily involved in drug trafficking, earning at least $8 billion per year. Sam Gor is alleged to control 40% of the Asia-Pacific methamphetamine market, while also trafficking heroin and ketamine. The organization is active in a variety of countries, including Myanmar, Thailand, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, China and Taiwan. Sam Gor previously produced meth in Southern China and is now believed to manufacture mainly in the Golden Triangle, specifically Shan State, Myanmar, responsible for much of the massive surge of crystal meth in recent years. The group is understood to be headed by Tse Chi Lop, a Chinese-Canadian gangster born in Guangzhou, China. Tse is a former member of the Hong Kong-based crime group, the Big Circle Gang. In 1988, Tse immigrated to Canada. In 1998, Tse was convicted of transporting heroin into the United States and served nine years behind bars. Tse has been compared in prominence to Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán and Pablo Escobar. The U.S. supply of heroin comes mainly from foreign sources which include Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle, Southwest Asia, and Latin America. Heroin comes in two forms. The first is its chemical base form which presents itself as brown and the second is a salt form that is white. The former is mainly produced in Afghanistan and some south-west countries while the latter had a history of being produced in only south-east Asia, but has since moved to also being produced in Afghanistan. There is some suspicion white Heroin is also being produced in Iran and Pakistan, but it is not confirmed. This area of Heroin production is referred to as the Golden Crescent. Heroin is not the only drug being used in these areas. The European market has shown signs of growing use in opioids on top of the long-term heroin use. Human trafficking Sex trafficking Human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation is a major cause of contemporary sexual slavery and is primarily for prostituting women and children into sex industries. Sexual slavery encompasses most, if not all, forms of forced prostitution. The terms "forced prostitution" or "enforced prostitution" appear in international and humanitarian conventions but have been insufficiently understood and inconsistently applied. "Forced prostitution" generally refers to conditions of control over a person who is coerced by another to engage in sexual activity. Official numbers of individuals in sexual slavery worldwide vary. In 2001 International Organization for Migration estimated 400,000, the Federal Bureau of Investigation estimated 700,000 and UNICEF estimated 1.75 million. The most common destinations for victims of human trafficking are Thailand, Japan, Israel, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Turkey and the United States, according to a report by UNODC. Illegal immigration and people smuggling See Snakehead (gang), Coyotaje People smuggling is defined as "the facilitation, transportation, attempted transportation or illegal entry of a person or persons across an international border, in violation of one or more countries laws, either clandestinely or through deception, such as the use of fraudulent documents". The term is understood as and often used interchangeably with migrant smuggling, which is defined by the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime as "...the procurement, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit, of the illegal entry of a person into a state party of which the person is not a national". This practice has increased over the past few decades and today now accounts for a significant portion of illegal immigration in countries around the world. People smuggling generally takes place with the consent of the person or persons being smuggled, and common reasons for individuals seeking to be smuggled include employment and economic opportunity, personal and/or familial betterment, and escape from persecution or conflict. Contemporary slavery and forced labor The number of slaves today remains as high as 12 million to 27 million. This is probably the smallest proportion of slaves to the rest of the world's population in history. Most are debt slaves, largely in South Asia, who are under debt bondage incurred by lenders, sometimes even for generations. It is the fastest growing criminal industry and is predicted to eventually outgrow drug trafficking. Historical origins Pre-nineteenth century Today, crime is sometimes thought of as an urban phenomenon, but for most of human history it was the rural interfaces that encountered the majority of crimes (bearing in mind the fact that for most of human history, rural areas were the vast majority of inhabited places). For the most part, within a village, members kept crime at very low rates; however, outsiders such as pirates, highwaymen and bandits attacked trade routes and roads, at times severely disrupting commerce, raising costs, insurance rates and prices to the consumer. According to criminologist Paul Lunde, "Piracy and banditry were to the pre-industrial world what organized crime is to modern society." As Lunde states, "Barbarian conquerors, whether Vandals, Goths, the Norse, Turks or Mongols are not normally thought of as organized crime groups, yet they share many features associated with thriving criminal organizations. They were for the most part non-ideological, predominantly ethnically based, used violence and intimidation, and adhered to their own codes of law." In Ancient Rome, there was an infamous outlaw called Bulla Felix who organized and led a gang of up to six hundred bandits. Terrorism is linked to organized crime, but has political aims rather than solely financial ones, so there is overlap but separation between terrorism and organized crime. Fencing in Ming and Qing China A fence or receiver (銷贓者), was a merchant who bought and sold stolen goods. Fences were part of the extensive network of accomplices in the criminal underground of Ming and Qing China. Their occupation entailed criminal activity, but as fences often acted as liaisons between the more respectable community to the underground criminals, they were seen as living a "precarious existence on the fringes of respectable society". A fence worked alongside bandits, but in a different line of work. The network of criminal accomplices that was often acquired was essential to ensuring both the safety and the success of fences. The path into the occupation of a fence stemmed, in a large degree, from necessity. As most fences came from the ranks of poorer people, they often took whatever work they could – both legal and illegal. Like most bandits operated within their own community, fences also worked within their own town or village. For example, in some satellite areas of the capital, military troops lived within or close to the commoner population and they had the opportunity to hold illegal trades with commoners. In areas like Baoding and Hejian, local peasants and community members not only purchased military livestock such as horses and cattle, but also helped to hide the "stolen livestock from military allured by the profits". Local peasants and community members became fences and they hid criminal activities from officials in return for products or money from these soldiers. Types of fences Most fences were not individuals who only bought and sold stolen goods to make a living. The majority of fences had other occupations within the "polite" society and held a variety of official occupations. These occupations included laborers, coolies, and peddlers. Such individuals often encountered criminals in markets in their line of work, and, recognizing a potential avenue for an extra source of income, formed acquaintances and temporary associations for mutual aid and protection with criminals. In one example, an owner of a tea house overheard the conversation between Deng Yawen, a criminal and others planning a robbery and he offered to help to sell the loot for an exchange of spoils. At times, the robbers themselves filled the role of fences, selling to people they met on the road. This may actually have been preferable for robbers in certain circumstances, because they would not have to pay the fence a portion of the spoils. Butchers were also prime receivers for stolen animals because of the simple fact that owners could no longer recognize their livestock once butchers slaughtered them. Animals were very valuable commodities within Ming China and a robber could potentially sustain a living from stealing livestock and selling them to butcher-fences. Although the vast majority of the time, fences worked with physical stolen property, fences who also worked as itinerant barbers also sold information as a good. Itinerant barbers often amassed important sources of information and news as they traveled, and sold significant pieces of information, often to criminals in search of places to hide or individuals to rob. In this way, itinerant barbers also served the role as a keeper of information that could be sold to both members of the criminal underground, as well as powerful clients in performing the function of a spy. He or she not only sold items such as jewelry and clothing but was also involved in trafficking hostages that bandits had kidnapped. Women and children were the easiest and among the most common "objects" the fences sold. Most of the female hostages were sold to fences and then sold as prostitutes, wives or concubines. One example of human trafficking can be seen from Chen Akuei's gang who abducted a servant girl and sold her to Lin Baimao, who in turn sold her for thirty parts of silver as wives. In contrast to women, who required beauty to sell for a high price, children were sold regardless of their physical appearance or family background. Children were often sold as servants or entertainers, while young girls were often sold as prostitutes. Network of connections Like merchants of honest goods, one of the most significant tools of a fence was their network of connections. As they were the middlemen between robbers and clients, fences needed to form and maintain connections in both the "polite" society, as well as among criminals. However, there were a few exceptions in which members of the so-called "well-respected" society became receivers and harborers. They not only help bandits to sell the stolen goods but also acted as agents of bandits to collect protection money from local merchants and residents. These "part-time" fences with high social status used their connection with bandits to help themselves gain social capital as well as wealth. It was extremely important to their occupation that fences maintained a positive relationship with their customers, especially their richer gentry clients. When some members of the local elites joined the ranks of fences, they not only protect bandits to protect their business interests, they actively took down any potential threats to their illegal profiting, even government officials. In the Zhejiang Province, the local elites not only got the provincial commissioner, Zhu Wan, dismissed from his office but also eventually "[drove] him to suicide". This was possible because fences often had legal means of making a living, as well as illegal activities and could threaten to turn in bandits to the authorities. It was also essential for them to maintain a relationship with bandits. However, it was just as true that bandits needed fences to make a living. As a result, fences often held dominance in their relationship with bandits and fences could exploit their position, cheating the bandits by manipulating the prices they paid bandits for the stolen property. Safe houses Aside from simply buying and selling stolen goods, fences often played additional roles in the criminal underground of early China. Because of the high floating population in public places such as inns and tea houses, they often became ideal places for bandies and gangs to gather to exchange information and plan for their next crime. Harborers, people who provided safe houses for criminals, often played the role of receiving stolen goods from their harbored criminals to sell to other customers. Safe houses included inns, tea houses, brothels, opium dens, as well as gambling parlors and employees or owners of such institutions often functioned as harborers, as well as fences. These safe houses locate in places where there are high floating population and people from all kinds of social backgrounds. Brothels themselves helped these bandits to hide and sell stolen goods because of the special Ming Law that exempted brothels from being held responsible "for the criminal actions of their clients." Even though the government required owners of these places to report any suspicious activities, lack of enforcement from the government itself and some of the owners being fences for the bandits made an ideal safe house for bandits and gangs. Pawnshops were also often affiliated with fencing stolen goods. The owners or employees of such shops often paid cash for stolen goods at a price a great deal below market value to bandits, who were often desperate for money, and resold the goods to earn a profit. Punishments for fences Two different Ming Laws, the Da Ming Lü 大明律 and the Da Gao 大诰, drafted by the Hongwu Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, sentenced fences with different penalties based on the categories and prices of the products that were stolen. In coastal regions, illegal trading with foreigners, as well as smuggling, became a huge concern for the government during the middle to late Ming era. In order to prohibit this crime, the government passed a law in which illegal smugglers who traded with foreigners without the consent of the government would be punished with exile to the border for military service. In areas where military troops were stationed, stealing and selling military property would result in a more severe punishment. In the Jiaqing time, a case was recorded of stealing and selling military horses. The emperor himself gave direction that the thieves who stole the horses and the people who helped to sell the horses would be put on cangue and sent to labor in a border military camp. In the salt mines, the penalty for workers who stole salt and people who sold the stolen salt was the most severe. Anyone who was arrested and found guilty of stealing and selling government salt was put to death. Nineteenth century During the Victorian era, criminals and gangs started to form organizations which would collectively become London's criminal underworld. Criminal societies in the underworld started to develop their own ranks and groups which were sometimes called families and were often made up of lower-classes and operated on pick-pocketry, prostitution, forgery and counterfeiting, commercial burglary and even money laundering schemes. Unique also were the use of slang and argots used by Victorian criminal societies to distinguish each other, like those propagated by street gangs like the Peaky Blinders. One of the most infamous crime bosses in the Victorian underworld was Adam Worth, who was nicknamed "the Napoleon of the criminal world" or "the Napoleon of Crime" and became the inspiration behind the popular character of Professor Moriarty. Organized crime in the United States first came to prominence in the Old West and historians such as Brian J. Robb and Erin H. Turner traced the first organized crime syndicates to the Coschise Cowboy Gang and the Wild Bunch. The Cochise Cowboys, though loosely organized, were unique for their criminal operations in the Mexican border, in which they would steal and sell cattle as well smuggled contraband goods in between the countries. In the Old west there were other examples of gangs that operated in ways similar to an organized
to no avail. He believes everything is going wrong for him all the time and he has the right to be upset because it is always someone else's fault. Victor does not see himself as retired and is always trying to find another job, but most of his attempts end in failure. Victor is a tragic comedy character and sympathy is directed towards him as he becomes embroiled in complex misunderstandings, bureaucratic vanity and, at times, sheer bad luck. The audience sees a philosophical ebb to his character, however, along with a degree of optimism. Yet his polite façade collapses when events get the better of him and a full verbal onslaught is forthcoming. "Victor-isms" include "I do not believe it!", "I don't believe it!", "Un-be-lievable!", "What in the name of bloody hell?", "In the name of sanity!". Despite his grumpy demeanour Victor isn't totally devoid of compassionin "Hearts of Darkness" he liberates elderly nursing-home residents who were being mistreated by staff, and in "Descent into The Maelstrom" he calls the incident-room number and gives the location of an emotionally disturbed girl that abducted a baby and stole Margaret's pearl earrings, which resulted in the girl getting picked up by the police. However, because the girl was a friend of Margaret's and knowing she meant a lot to her, Victor never said anything. Victor has also shown a vast amount of loyalty to Margaret as, throughout their entire 42 years of lifelong marriage together, not once has the thought of infidelity ever occurred to him. In "Rearranging the Dust", Victor and Margaret recollect the days of their courtship at a party after which Victor says "You were always my first choice", which leaves Margaret stunned. In another episode, Margaret recounts the time Victor took her to the funfair and they ended up getting stuck in the hall of mirrors for over an hour. Victor had said he didn't mind as he was happy to stay there and look at all the reflections of her. Victor's very best act of compassion came in the episode "The Wisdom of the Witch" in which he ends up saving Patrick's life from his new secretary's psychopathic boyfriend by forcing Patrick's would-be murderer, with himself along with him as well, out of the window of the house in which they were trapped during a snowstorm. Margaret Meldrew (née Pellow) (Annette Crosbie) – Victor's long-suffering, tolerant and kind-hearted wife. Margaret tries to maintain a degree of calmness and to rise above her husband's antics. However, she is often engulfed in these follies, mishaps and confusion and often vents her anger at Victor. In early episodes, her character acts more as a comic foil to Victor's misfortunes. Examples include fearfully asking if a cat found frozen in their freezer is definitely dead and mentioning a friend who died of a terminal illness. When Victor reminds her that the woman actually fell from a cliff, Margaret retorts she only did so because "she went to the seaside to convalesce". In later episodes, Margaret develops into a more complex character. She is shown to be fiercely protective of her marriage to Victor by becoming easily suspicious and jealous. For example, of a Dutch marionette that Victor becomes occupied with repairing in the episode "Hole in the Sky", eventually leading her to destroy it. In "The Affair of the Hollow Lady", a greengrocer (played by Barbara Windsor) develops a soft spot for Victor and tries to convince Margaret that he has been unfaithful to her. In revenge, Margaret assaults her with a pair of boxing gloves. However, Margaret herself is shown to have contemplated infidelity with a man called Ben whom she met on holiday in the episode "Warm Champagne". She decides against cheating on Victor. In this episode, she sums up her relationship with Victor by telling Ben, "He's the most sensitive person I've ever met and that's why I love him and why I constantly want to ram his head through a television screen." She also began to develop a sense of cynicism, slowly beginning to see the world the way her husband Victor sees it. This is especially evident in "Things aren't simple anymore" where she voices that the world is "all speed and greed" and that "nobody does anything about anything". In "Rearranging the Dust", Margaret recounts the time she first chose Victor at a party and, during a power cut, "shared their bodies" in the garden. After this moment of passion, they went back inside and when the lights came back on Margaret realised that she had "grabbed hold of the wrong person". Margaret's demeanour seemed to stem from an incident she had at school when she was a child. When she was five, she had two budgies; one day when she opened the door of their cage, one flew straight out and hit the window killing itself, while the other stayed in the cage despite her best efforts to get it to come out. The next day at school her teacher asked the class to write a story about something that had happened to them so Margaret wrote her story about the budgies. Her teacher made Margaret read it out loud in front of the whole class which resulted in everyone laughing at her. She then realized that the teacher had done it deliberately just to be cruel to her and knew why the other budgie never wanted to leave its cage. Margaret could be said to have a catchphrase - typically a long, exasperated use of the word "God", usually when making a realisation about the reasons behind one of Victor's mishaps. These are occasionally inadvertently aided by herself in some way, such as leaving the phone off the hook or giving permission to someone to enter the Meldrews' house when she isn't there. Margaret works at a florist's until series five, in which she is made redundant after the store goes under. Jean Warboys (Doreen Mantle) – Mrs Warboys is a friend of Margaret (and a rather annoying one in Victor's eyes) who attached herself to the Meldrews, accompanying them on many of their exploits. Until the fourth series she was married to (unseen) Chris until he left her for a private detective she hired when she believed he was having an affair, and they divorced. She often bears the brunt of Victor's temper due to muddled misunderstandings and in part due to her aloof nature. One such occasion saw Victor asking her to pick up a suit of his from the dry-cleaners, only for her to return with a gorilla suit. Another occasion saw her persuading Victor to take on a dog whose owner had just died. Victor spent time building a kennel in the garden and when Mrs Warboys arrives with the dog, she forgets to mention that the dog is stuffed - much to Victor and Margaret's consternation. On another occasion she won a competition where the prize was either to earn £500 or to have a life-size waxwork model made of herself, which had to be delivered to the Meldrews' house; she chose the waxwork. As it turned out, she hated it as much as Victor and Margaret did and the waxwork ended up in the dustbin. Despite being friends, she has driven Margaret to distraction on several occasions. Most notably in "Only a Story", when she stayed with the Meldrews after her flat had been flooded and enraged Margaret with her complaining and laziness. Jean was also shown as a somewhat absent-minded character, as she has a pet cockatiel despite having a lifelong allergy to feathers. She would often bore the Meldrews by showing them her complete collection of holiday pictures at the most unwelcome times. A running joke is her beating Victor at board-games, including Trivial Pursuit and chess, while having a conversation with someone else. Doreen Mantle described her character as "wanting to do the right thing but always finding out that it was the wrong thing". Victor's annoyance with her is often demonstrated by shouting her name in an inpatient tone, being "MRS WARBOYS!!", sometimes repeatedly. Patrick Trench (Angus Deayton) – Patrick and his wife Pippa live next door to Victor and often catches Victor engrossed in seemingly preposterous situations, all of which in context are perfectly innocuous. The couple's relationship with their neighbours begins badly after Victor mistakes Patrick and Pippa for distant relations when they arrive outside with three suitcasesnot realising that they are his next-door neighbours, having been on a lengthy holiday from the day Victor and Margaret moved in. Victor subsequently invites the bemused pair to stay; this and later incidents cause Patrick to suspect that Victor is quite insane, possibly bordering on malicious. However, Patrick's rift with Victor eventually transforms him into a rather cynical character (much like Victor) and he often responds to him in similarly vindictive ways as a means of trying to settle the score. For example, writing complaints and grievances on post-it notes. This aspect of Patrick's character came to a head in the episode "The Executioner's Song" where his face temporarily morphs into that of Victor's as he looks into a mirror. It is mentioned several times that Patrick would like to have children. After Pippa miscarries and Patrick is, so he claims, rendered infertile by a freak accident (for which he unfairly blames Victor), he adopts a dachshund called Denzil, which Pippa describes as his "baby substitute". Denzil frequently appears with Patrick through series 3–5. Despite their animosity towards each other, Victor ends up saving Patrick's life in "The Wisdom of the Witch". Pippa Trench (née Croker) (Janine Duvitski) – Patrick's wife sought friendly relations with the Meldrews and, after a while, became good friends with Margaret. The two women usually attempt to get the men to make peace with each other at least once per series. Eventually Patrick proposes that the Trenches move house, but they soon realise that the Meldrew curse has followed them: Victor sent workmen to their home, thinking they were removal men who had initially come to the wrong house. They were in fact from a house clearance firm Margaret had employed to clear her late cousin Ursula's country mansion. The workmen consequently cleared Patrick and Pippa's house of their entire furniture and sold it for a mere four hundred and seventy five pounds. Pippa is slightly dim-witted (once described by Victor as a "gormless twerp" on an answering machine message, unaware she was listening)for example, believing Victor had murdered an elderly blind man simply because the victim had been found clutching a double-one domino in his hand and Victor had two pimples on his nose. New neighbours Derek and Betty McVitie replaced the Trenches for the 1997 special "Endgame". However, this turned out to be their only appearances in the series and they were said to have emigrated by the penultimate episode which caused Nick Swainey to leap straight in with the offer for their old house. Series six saw the Trenches return as prominent characters, albeit living in a house some distance from the Meldrews. Despite appearing in five out of six series and three Christmas specials, neither of the Trenches ever share a scene with Mrs Warboys and Pippa only ever shares one scene with Nick Swainey (in the episode "Who Will Buy?"). Nick Swainey (Owen Brenman) – The excessively cheerful and often oblivious Mr Swainey appeared in the first episode, encouraging Victor to join his OAPs' trip to Eastbourne and being greeted with Victor's trademark abuse. When the Meldrews move house, they discover he is their neighbour, living on the other side of the Meldrews from the Trenches. He remains continuously optimistic; even his being told to "piss off" by Victor is laughed off. Despite this run-in he later befriends Victor and they frequently chat in their gardens, where Victor is often surprised by Mr Swainey's activities, ranging from archery and preparing amateur dramatics props, to bizarre games he arranges for his bedridden senile mother, whom the audience never actually see. Despite his cheery demeanour, he does occasionally drop his guard, once displaying apparent depression at being nothing more than "an overgrown boy-scout". Following his mother's death, he moved house near the end of the series, but only went as far as the Trenches'/McVities' old house, claiming he'd always wanted to live in an "end house, without leaving the area". This took Victor by surprise; he did not learn where Mr Swainey was moving to until, while reminiscing in the garden about his departure, Mr Swainey suddenly appeared from the other side. Other characters Ronnie and Mildred (Gordon Peters and Barbara Ashcroft) – Ronnie and Mildred were a constantly cheerful, but incredibly boring, couple who provided yet another annoyance to the Meldrews, who dreaded any upcoming visits to them; Victor once said that he had hoped they were both dead. In "The Worst Horror of All", when the couple attempted a surprise visit, the Meldrews hid in their house to give the impression they were away on holiday	once displaying apparent depression at being nothing more than "an overgrown boy-scout". Following his mother's death, he moved house near the end of the series, but only went as far as the Trenches'/McVities' old house, claiming he'd always wanted to live in an "end house, without leaving the area". This took Victor by surprise; he did not learn where Mr Swainey was moving to until, while reminiscing in the garden about his departure, Mr Swainey suddenly appeared from the other side. Other characters Ronnie and Mildred (Gordon Peters and Barbara Ashcroft) – Ronnie and Mildred were a constantly cheerful, but incredibly boring, couple who provided yet another annoyance to the Meldrews, who dreaded any upcoming visits to them; Victor once said that he had hoped they were both dead. In "The Worst Horror of All", when the couple attempted a surprise visit, the Meldrews hid in their house to give the impression they were away on holiday and then took the phone off the hook for several days afterwards, though these efforts to avoid them were in vain. They are referenced a number of times in the series for giving the Meldrews bizarre and always unwanted presents that are seldom opened, usually involving a garish photograph of themselves. In the final series, however it was clear that their cheerfulness was a façade and, in a particularly dark scene, Mildred hanged herself "during a game of Happy Families". The shot of Mildred's feet dangling outside the window is usually cut from pre-watershed screenings. Alfred Meldrew (Richard Pearson) - Victor's absent-minded brother, who lives in New Zealand. During the episode "The Broken Reflection", he comes to visit after 25 years, to the disdain of Victor. Alfred is an eccentric character, often walking around with his hat on fire and bringing over his and Victor's great-grandfather's skull. He is a clumsy character too, mistaking the table-cloth for a napkin and dropping the entire contents of the table all over the floor when he stands up and breaking a mirror in the middle of the night after mistaking his own reflection for a burglar. Victor starts to warm to Alfred towards the end of his visit, but Alfred leaves early the next day after finding an unpleasant message about him that Victor had accidentally recorded on a dictaphone. He is not seen again, but keeps in touch with the Meldrews, as Victor is seen looking at some photographs Alfred had sent over in "The Trial". Cousin Wilfred (John Rutland) – Mrs. Warboys' cousin Wilfred, first appeared in an episode in the third series. In the final series the character returned, but the effects of a stroke had rendered him mute and forced him to "speak" with the aid of an electronic voice generator. His poor typing on the generator led to several misunderstandings, such as asking Victor for a "bra of soup" (as opposed to a "bar of soap") and describing a visit to his "brothel" (as opposed to "brother"). Great Aunt Joyce and Uncle Dick - Unseen characters, they are sometimes mentioned by Victor and Margaret, as an aging and grim couple whom Victor and Margaret dread having anything to do with. Great Aunt Joyce is mentioned as having a glass eye and has the habit of knitting bizarre items (such as six-fingered gloves) for Victor. Uncle Dick has a wooden arm; in the final Comic Relief (2001) episode, it transpires that a nurse had mistakenly placed a drip in the false arm for 18 hours after a trip to hospital after trying to remove a kidney stone with a wire coat hanger. Mimsy Berkovitz - Another unseen character, she is the local agony aunt, whom many of the characters turn to for advice. In the episode "The Secret of the Seven Sorcerers", Patrick is heard talking to her on the radio, seeking her advice on how to cope when Victor and Margaret invite him and Pippa around to dinner. Mrs Birkett (Gabrielle Blunt) An elderly neighbour. She accidentally gets trapped in the Meldrews' loft when Victor closes the trap door whilst she is up there looking for jumble that Margaret has prepared. She continues to be mentioned throughout the rest of the series, but is not seen again. Martin Trout (Peter Cook) - A paparazzo in the 90-minute 1993 Christmas special "One Foot in the Algarve". He manages to take a number of compromising photographs, involving a high-ranking politician. Trout compares the potential impact of the photos to the Profumo affair. On his way to sell the images, he loses the roll of film whilst arguing at a phone box with the Meldrews and subsequently pursues them across the Algarve to retrieve it. He suffers a number of disasters both related and unrelated to Victor and Margaret's own misfortunes, only to find that the film had actually fallen into the lining of his jacket and had been with him for much of his journey. He lost it in the door of the Meldrews' car. Retrieving the roll after a brief spell in hospital, Trout attempts to leave the Algarve in a taxi but is involved in a car crash. Production The production of the show was in a conventional sitcom format, with episodes taped live in front of a studio audience, interposed with pre-filmed location material. The series' opening credits were designed by Pete Wane and feature footage of a "Galapagos Giant Turtle", at the request of writer David Renwick, which "[serves] as a metaphor for grumpy old Victor Meldrew." Wane found the footage of the creature to be "not very upbeat visually for a comedy," but he found, "to [his] relief a shot of it stumbling on a rock which gave the sequence a bit of a lift." Most of the first five series of One Foot in the Grave were produced and directed by Susan Belbin, the exceptions being "Love and Death", which was partly directed by veteran sitcom director Sydney Lotterby and "Starbound", for which Gareth Gwenlan (who in fact had originally commissioned the series in 1989) stepped in to direct some sequences after Belbin was taken ill. Afterward, Belbin retired owing to ill-health, and the final series was produced by Jonathan P. Llewellyn and directed by Christine Gernon. Wilson and Renwick felt that Gernon's experience of working with Belbin on earlier series of One Foot as a production secretary and assistant, as well as other shows, meant that her style was similar to Belbin's, aiding the transition between directors. One Foot used Bournemouth to film some exterior sequences because of its favourable climate, easy access to London and economical benefits relative to filming in the capital. After the first series was filmed, the house—near Pokesdown, Bournemouth—which had been used for the Meldrews' house in location sequences, changed hands and the new owners demanded nearly triple the usage fees that the previous owners had asked for. Rather than agree to this, the production team decided to find a new house and the first episode of the second series was rewritten to have the Meldrews' house destroyed in a fire (this was filmed on waste ground in Northcote Road, Springbourne). This also gave the opportunity for a new interior set to be designed, as Belbin had been unhappy with the original set designed for the series, which she felt was too restrictive to shoot in. Beginning with series two, the exterior scenes of the Meldrew's home were filmed at Tresillian Way, Walkford, near New Milton in Hampshire. These later series make extensive use of specific street and garden locations in most episodes, particularly for scenes involving the Meldrew's neighbours. Most outside locations were filmed in and around Bournemouth and Christchurch. These include Richmond Hill, Undercliff Drive and Boscombe Pier, Bournemouth Town Hall, Lansdowne College, Christchurch Hospital and the former Royal Victoria Hospital (Boscombe). Later episodes, such as "Hearts of Darkness", were filmed entirely on location. Victor's death by a hit and run driver in the final episode was filmed at Shawford railway station, Hampshire. Fans left floral tributes at the site. Over the show's history, it featured a number of notable comic actors in one-off roles. These include Susie Blake, John Bird, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Peter Cook, Diana Coupland, Phil Daniels, Edward de Souza, Hannah Gordon, Georgina Hale, Roy Hudd, Jimmy Jewel, Rula Lenska, Stephen Lewis, Paul Merton, Brian Murphy, Christopher Ryan, Jim Sweeney, Barbara Windsor, Joan Sims and Ray Winstone. Two of Angus Deayton's former Radio Active and KYTV co-stars, Geoffrey Perkins and Michael Fenton Stevens were cast, in separate episodes, as respectively the brother and brother-in-law of Deayton's character. A few actors little-known at the time also appeared in one-off roles before going on to greater fame, including Lucy Davis, Joanna Scanlan, Eamonn Walker and Arabella Weir. Music The One Foot in the Grave theme song was written, composed and sung by Eric Idle. A longer version was produced for the special "One Foot in the Algarve", released as a single with five remixes and a karaoke version in November 1994. Idle included a live version of the song on his album Eric Idle Sings Monty Python. It is preluded by a similar adaptation of "Bread of Heaven" to that used in the episode "The Beast in the Cage" by disgruntled car mechanics. The title music on the TV series is accompanied at the beginning and end of each episode by footage of Galápagos tortoises. The series also made extensive use of incidental music, composed by Ed Welch, which often hinted at a particular genre to fit the mood of the scenes, frequently incorporating well-known pieces of music such as "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" or Intermezzo from Jean Sibelius' Karelia Suite. In the Christmas special "Endgame" during Margaret's alleged death scene, a compilation of clips from past episodes are accompanied by the song "River Runs Deep" performed by J. J. Cale. The final episode ended with a montage of some of the mishaps Victor encountered, which were mentioned in the episode – backed by "End of the Line" by the Traveling Wilburys. Awards The programme received a number of prestigious awards. In 1992, it won a BAFTA as Best Comedy (Programme or Series). During its ten-year run, the series was nominated a further six times. Richard Wilson also won Best Light Entertainment Performance in 1992 and 1994 and Annette Crosbie was nominated for the same award in 1994. The series also won the Best Television Sitcom in 1992 from the Royal Television Society and the British Comedy Award for Best Sitcom in 1992, 1995 and 2001. In 2004, One Foot in the Grave came tenth in a BBC poll to find "Britain's Best Sitcom" with 31,410 votes. The programme also came 80th in the British Film Institute's 100 Greatest British Television Programmes. Controversies A number of complaints were made during the series' run for its depiction of animal deaths. For example, in the episode "The Valley of Fear", a dead cat is found in the Meldrews' freezer; in another, a tortoise is roasted in a brazier. However, this was later cited as a positive feature of the programme's daring scripts in Britain's Best Sitcom by its advocate Rowland Rivron. The programme was censured, however, for a scene in the episode "Hearts of Darkness" in which an elderly resident is abused in an old people's home and following complaints, the scene was slightly cut when the episode was repeated. In the DVD commentary for the episode, David Renwick stated his continued opposition to the cuts. Another controversial scene in the episode "Tales of Terror" saw the Meldrews visit Ronnie and Mildred on the understanding that Mildred had gone upstairs during a game of Happy Families and not returned; Ronnie then shows her feet hanging outside of the window, revealing that she has committed suicide. The Broadcasting Standards Commission received complaints about this scene. When the final episode, "Things Aren't Simple Any More" originally aired on 20 November 2000 at 9pm, it coincided with the broadcast of the first jackpot winner in the UK version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, which had been filmed the Sunday before the broadcast. ITV was accused of engineering this in order to damage the final episode's expected high ratings, but was later cleared by the Independent Television Commission. Cultural impact Due to the series' popularity, people who constantly complain and are irritated by minor things are often compared to Victor Meldrew by the British media. Renwick disputes this usage however, claiming that Victor's reactions are entirely in proportion to the things that happen to him. Renwick integrated some of the plots and dialogue from the series into a novel, which was first published by BBC Books in 1992. A second novel, One Foot in the Grave and Counting, was published in 2021. Renwick also adapted four episodes for BBC Radio 2, which first aired between 21 January 1995 and 11 February 1995. The episodes are "Alive and Buried", "In Luton Airport, No One Can Hear You Scream", "Timeless Time" and "The Beast in the Cage". They are regularly repeated on the digital speech station BBC Radio 4 Extra and are available on audio CD. Wilson dislikes saying his character's catchphrase ("I don't believe it!") and only performs the line for charity events for a small fee. This became a joke in the actor's guest appearance as himself in the Father Ted episode "The Mainland", where Ted annoys him by constantly repeating his catchphrase. The situation was conceived when Father Ted writers Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews sat behind Wilson at a performance of Le Cirque du Soleil at the Royal Albert Hall. They considered how "tasteless and wrong" it would be to lean forward to him every time that an acrobat did a stunt and yell the catchphrase and then they realised that that's exactly what their fictional priests would do. This was also played upon when Wilson made a guest appearance on the comedy TV quiz show Shooting Stars, in which Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer purposefully misquoted his catchphrase by referring to him as "Richard 'I don't believe you' Wilson". VHS and DVD releases All six series and specials were initially available on BBC Worldwide VHS video tapes during the late 1990s and early 2000s. The Comic Relief Shorts from 1993 and 2001 have not been released on DVD. A One Foot in the Grave Very Best
and manga The Oscar (film), starring Stephen Boyd Oscar (1967 film), starring Louis de Funès Oscar (1991 film), starring Sylvester Stallone Lady Oscar or La Rose de Versailles, one of the best-known titles in shōjo manga and a media franchise created by Riyoko Ikeda Lady Oscar (film), a 1979 English-language Japanese-French romantic drama film based on La Rose de Versailles Other arts, entertainment, and media Oscar (opera), a 2013 opera about Oscar Wilde, by Theodore Morrison Oscar (video game), a 1993 platform game Oscar (TV serial), a 1985 British TV serial OSCAR Radio, a school FM radio station in Northamptonshire, England Military Oscar (paradummy), American nickname for decoys dropped during the 1944 invasion of Normandy Oscar, an Allies codename for Nakajima Ki-43, a World War II Japanese aircraft Oscar, the letter O in the ICAO spelling alphabet (NATO phonetic alphabet) Oscar-class submarine, a Soviet/Russian Navy submarine class Organizations and enterprises Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) Oscar Health, a U.S. health insurance company Science OSCAR (gene), short for Osteoclast-associated immunoglobulin-like receptor Ocean Surface Current Analysis – Real time, a website that provides data on ocean currents Technology and transport OSC OSCar, a synthesizer manufactured by the Oxford Synthesizer Company OScar, a project aiming to design an open source	Oscar (1991 film), starring Sylvester Stallone Lady Oscar or La Rose de Versailles, one of the best-known titles in shōjo manga and a media franchise created by Riyoko Ikeda Lady Oscar (film), a 1979 English-language Japanese-French romantic drama film based on La Rose de Versailles Other arts, entertainment, and media Oscar (opera), a 2013 opera about Oscar Wilde, by Theodore Morrison Oscar (video game), a 1993 platform game Oscar (TV serial), a 1985 British TV serial OSCAR Radio, a school FM radio station in Northamptonshire, England Military Oscar (paradummy), American nickname for decoys dropped during the 1944 invasion of Normandy Oscar, an Allies codename for Nakajima Ki-43, a World War II Japanese aircraft Oscar, the letter O in the ICAO spelling alphabet (NATO phonetic alphabet) Oscar-class submarine, a Soviet/Russian Navy submarine class Organizations and enterprises Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) Oscar Health, a U.S. health insurance company Science OSCAR (gene), short for Osteoclast-associated immunoglobulin-like receptor Ocean Surface Current Analysis – Real time, a website that provides data on ocean currents Technology and transport OSC OSCar, a synthesizer manufactured by the Oxford Synthesizer Company OScar, a project aiming to design an open source vehicle OScar (Danish automobile), a Danish sports car OSCAR
Ottomans the rulers of one of the most profitable empires, connected to the flourishing Islamic cultures of the time, and at the crossroads of trade into Europe. The Ottomans made major developments in calligraphy, writing, law, architecture, and military science, and became the standard of opulence. Calligraphy Because Islam is a monotheistic religion that focuses heavily on learning the central text of the Quran and Islamic culture has historically tended towards discouraging or prohibiting figurative art, calligraphy became one of the foremost of the arts. The early Yâkût period was supplanted in the late 15th century by a new style pioneered by Şeyh Hamdullah (1429–1520), which became the basis for Ottoman calligraphy, focusing on the Nesih version of the script, which became the standard for copying the Quran (see Islamic calligraphy). The next great change in Ottoman calligraphy came from the style of Hâfiz Osman (1642–1698), whose rigorous and simplified style found favour with an empire at its peak of territorial extent and governmental burdens. The late calligraphic style of the Ottomans was created by Mustafa Râkim (1757–1826) as an extension and reform of Osman's style, placing greater emphasis on technical perfection, which broadened the calligraphic art to encompass the sülüs script as well as the Nesih script. Poetry Ottoman poetry included epic-length verse but is better known for shorter forms such as the gazel. For example, the epic poet Ahmedi (-1412) is remembered for his Alexander the Great. His contemporary Sheykhi wrote verses on love and	Treaty of Sèvres and negotiated the significantly more favorable Treaty of Lausanne (1923), assuring recognition of modern Turkish national borders, termed Misak-ı Milli (National Pact). Not all Ottomans were Muslims and not all Ottoman Muslims were Turks, but starting from 1924, every citizen of the newly found Turkish Republic became considered as "Turk". Article 88 of 1924 Constitution, which was based on the 1921 Constitution, states that the name Turk, as a political term, shall be understood to include all citizens of the Turkish Republic, without distinction of, or reference to race or religion. Culture and arts The conquest of Constantinople began to make the Ottomans the rulers of one of the most profitable empires, connected to the flourishing Islamic cultures of the time, and at the crossroads of trade into Europe. The Ottomans made major developments in calligraphy, writing, law, architecture, and military science, and became the standard of opulence. Calligraphy Because Islam is a monotheistic religion that focuses heavily on learning the central text of the Quran and Islamic culture has historically tended towards discouraging or prohibiting figurative art, calligraphy became one of the foremost of the arts. The early Yâkût period was supplanted in the late 15th century by a new style pioneered by Şeyh Hamdullah (1429–1520), which became the basis for Ottoman calligraphy, focusing on the Nesih version of the script, which became the standard for copying the Quran (see Islamic calligraphy). The next great change in Ottoman calligraphy came from the style of Hâfiz Osman (1642–1698), whose rigorous and simplified style found favour with an empire at its peak of territorial extent and governmental burdens. The late calligraphic
Apple Computer, American Airlines, iGrafx, and Data General), OMG's initial focus was to create a heterogeneous distributed object standard. The founding executive team included Christopher Stone and John Slitz. Current leadership includes chairman and CEO Richard Soley, President and COO Bill Hoffman and Vice President and Technical Director Jason McC. Smith. Since 2000, the group's international headquarters has been located in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1997, the Unified Modeling Language (UML) was added to the list of OMG adopted technologies. UML is a standardized general-purpose modeling language in the field of object-oriented software engineering. In June 2005, the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org) and OMG announced the merger of their respective Business Process Management (BPM) activities to form the Business Modeling and Integration Domain Task Force (BMI DTF). In 2006 the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) was adopted as a standard by OMG. In 2007 the Business Motivation Model (BMM) was adopted as a standard by the OMG. The BMM is a metamodel that provides a vocabulary for corporate	true interoperability. OMG hosts four technical meetings per year for its members and interested nonmembers. The Technical Meetings provide a neutral forum to discuss, develop and adopt standards that enable software interoperability. History Founded in 1989 by eleven companies (including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Apple Computer, American Airlines, iGrafx, and Data General), OMG's initial focus was to create a heterogeneous distributed object standard. The founding executive team included Christopher Stone and John Slitz. Current leadership includes chairman and CEO Richard Soley, President and COO Bill Hoffman and Vice President and Technical Director Jason McC. Smith. Since 2000, the group's international headquarters has been located in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1997, the Unified Modeling Language (UML) was added to the list of OMG adopted technologies. UML is a standardized general-purpose modeling language in the field of object-oriented software engineering. In June 2005, the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org) and OMG announced the merger of their respective Business Process Management (BPM) activities to form the Business Modeling and Integration Domain Task Force (BMI DTF). In 2006 the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) was adopted as a standard by OMG. In 2007 the Business Motivation Model (BMM) was adopted as a standard by the OMG. The BMM is a metamodel that provides a vocabulary for corporate governance and strategic
extreme metal band Albums OMG (album), Rusko Songs "OMG (Oh My Gosh)", the 2009 song by Sabrina Washington "OMG" (Usher song), the 2010 song by Usher "OMG" (Camila Cabello song), the 2017 song by Camila Cabello "OMG" (Gryffin and Carly Rae Jepsen song), the 2019 song by Gryffin and Carly Rae Jepsen "OMG" (Koda Kumi song), the 2019 song by Koda Kumi "O.M.G", by Jenna Rose "OMG (Oh My God)", by TaeTiSeo from Twinkle "OMG", by Little Mix from Get Weird "OMG", by Arash "OMG!", single by German rapper Marteria "OMG", song by Sampa the Great People O'Shea Jackson Jr., known by his stage name OMG, is an American actor, rapper and son of Ice Cube Politics Orkney Manifesto Group, a political party based in Orkney, Scotland Science and technology OMG (gene), encodes the oligodendrocyte-myelin glycoprotein in humans OMG particle, an ultra-high-energy cosmic ray observed in 1991 Object Management Group,	Operational manoeuvre group of the Soviet military Outlaw motorcycle gangs Order of Mapungubwe (Gold (OMG), for exceptional achievements) Oh My Gigabytes!, a Telkomsel Internet package Books OMG! Magazine, a news, entertainment and lifestyle magazine Oh My Goddess!, a 1988 manga Film and television OMG, I'm a Robot!, a 2015 Israeli film OMG – Oh My God!, a 2012 film Oh My Ghost (TV series), a 2015 South Korean television series Oh My God (Louis C.K. special), 2013 OMG (Oh, My Girl!), a 2009 romantic comedy film directed by Dante Nico Garcia Games OMG (eSports), a Chinese League of Legends gaming team OMGcon, an anime/gaming convention in Kentucky, US Music Bands OMG (group) (Officially Miss Guided), a teenage American girl group Oh My Girl, a South Korean girl group Old
from a limited number of sources, whereas the OED editors preferred larger groups of quite short quotations from a wide selection of authors and publications. This influenced later volumes of this and other lexicographical works. Entries and relative size According to the publishers, it would take a single person 120 years to "key in" the 59 million words of the OED second edition, 60 years to proofread them, and 540 megabytes to store them electronically. As of 30 November 2005, the Oxford English Dictionary contained approximately 301,100 main entries. Supplementing the entry headwords, there are 157,000 bold-type combinations and derivatives; 169,000 italicized-bold phrases and combinations; 616,500 word-forms in total, including 137,000 pronunciations; 249,300 etymologies; 577,000 cross-references; and 2,412,400 usage quotations. The dictionary's latest, complete print edition (second edition, 1989) was printed in 20 volumes, comprising 291,500 entries in 21,730 pages. The longest entry in the OED2 was for the verb set, which required 60,000 words to describe some 430 senses. As entries began to be revised for the OED3 in sequence starting from M, the longest entry became make in 2000, then put in 2007, then run in 2011. Despite its considerable size, the OED is neither the world's largest nor the earliest exhaustive dictionary of a language. Another earlier large dictionary is the Grimm brothers' dictionary of the German language, begun in 1838 and completed in 1961. The first edition of the Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca is the first great dictionary devoted to a modern European language (Italian) and was published in 1612; the first edition of Dictionnaire de l'Académie française dates from 1694. The official dictionary of Spanish is the Diccionario de la lengua española (produced, edited, and published by the Real Academia Española), and its first edition was published in 1780. The Kangxi Dictionary of Chinese was published in 1716. The largest dictionary by number of pages is believed to be the Dutch Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal. History Origins The dictionary began as a Philological Society project of a small group of intellectuals in London (and unconnected to Oxford University): Richard Chenevix Trench, Herbert Coleridge, and Frederick Furnivall, who were dissatisfied with the existing English dictionaries. The society expressed interest in compiling a new dictionary as early as 1844, but it was not until June 1857 that they began by forming an "Unregistered Words Committee" to search for words that were unlisted or poorly defined in current dictionaries. In November, Trench's report was not a list of unregistered words; instead, it was the study On Some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries, which identified seven distinct shortcomings in contemporary dictionaries: Incomplete coverage of obsolete words Inconsistent coverage of families of related words Incorrect dates for earliest use of words History of obsolete senses of words often omitted Inadequate distinction among synonyms Insufficient use of good illustrative quotations Space wasted on inappropriate or redundant content. The society ultimately realized that the number of unlisted words would be far more than the number of words in the English dictionaries of the 19th century, and shifted their idea from covering only words that were not already in English dictionaries to a larger project. Trench suggested that a new, truly comprehensive dictionary was needed. On 7 January 1858, the society formally adopted the idea of a comprehensive new dictionary. Volunteer readers would be assigned particular books, copying passages illustrating word usage onto quotation slips. Later the same year, the society agreed to the project in principle, with the title A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (NED). Early editors Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–1886) played the key role in the project's first months, but his appointment as Dean of Westminster meant that he could not give the dictionary project the time that it required. He withdrew and Herbert Coleridge became the first editor. On 12 May 1860, Coleridge's dictionary plan was published and research was started. His house was the first editorial office. He arrayed 100,000 quotation slips in a 54 pigeon-hole grid. In April 1861, the group published the first sample pages; later that month, Coleridge died of tuberculosis, aged 30. Thereupon Furnivall became editor; he was enthusiastic and knowledgeable, but temperamentally ill-suited for the work. Many volunteer readers eventually lost interest in the project, as Furnivall failed to keep them motivated. Furthermore, many of the slips were misplaced. Furnivall believed that, since many printed texts from earlier centuries were not readily available, it would be impossible for volunteers to efficiently locate the quotations that the dictionary needed. As a result, he founded the Early English Text Society in 1864 and the Chaucer Society in 1868 to publish old manuscripts. Furnivall's preparatory efforts lasted 21 years and provided numerous texts for the use and enjoyment of the general public, as well as crucial sources for lexicographers, but they did not actually involve compiling a dictionary. Furnivall recruited more than 800 volunteers to read these texts and record quotations. While enthusiastic, the volunteers were not well trained and often made inconsistent and arbitrary selections. Ultimately, Furnivall handed over nearly two tons of quotation slips and other materials to his successor. In the 1870s, Furnivall unsuccessfully attempted to recruit both Henry Sweet and Henry Nicol to succeed him. He then approached James Murray, who accepted the post of editor. In the late 1870s, Furnivall and Murray met with several publishers about publishing the dictionary. In 1878, Oxford University Press agreed with Murray to proceed with the massive project; the agreement was formalized the following year. 20 years after its conception, the dictionary project finally had a publisher. It would take another 50 years to complete. Late in his editorship, Murray learned that one especially prolific reader named W. C. Minor was confined to a mental hospital for (in modern terminology) schizophrenia. Minor was a Yale University-trained surgeon and a military officer in the American Civil War who had been confined to Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane after killing a man in London. Minor invented his own quotation-tracking system, allowing him to submit slips on specific words in response to editors' requests. The story of how Murray and Minor worked together to advance the OED has recently been retold in a book, The Surgeon of Crowthorne (US title: The Professor and the Madman), later the basis for a 2019 film The Professor and the Madman, starring Mel Gibson and Sean Penn. Oxford editors During the 1870s, the Philological Society was concerned with the process of publishing a dictionary with such an immense scope. They had pages printed by publishers, but no publication agreement was reached; both the Cambridge University Press and the Oxford University Press were approached. The OUP finally agreed in 1879 (after two years of negotiating by Sweet, Furnivall, and Murray) to publish the dictionary and to pay Murray, who was both the editor and the Philological Society president. The dictionary was to be published as interval fascicles, with the final form in four volumes, totalling 6,400 pages. They hoped to finish the project in ten years. Murray started the project, working in a corrugated iron outbuilding called the "Scriptorium" which was lined with wooden planks, bookshelves, and 1,029 pigeon-holes for the quotation slips. He tracked and regathered Furnivall's collection of quotation slips, which were found to concentrate on rare, interesting words rather than common usages. For instance, there were ten times as many quotations for abusion as for abuse. He appealed, through newspapers distributed to bookshops and libraries, for readers who would report "as many quotations as you can for ordinary words" and for words that were "rare, obsolete, old-fashioned, new, peculiar or used in a peculiar way". Murray had American philologist and liberal arts college professor Francis March manage the collection in North America; 1,000 quotation slips arrived daily to the Scriptorium and, by 1880, there were 2,500,000. The first dictionary fascicle was published on 1 February 1884—twenty-three years after Coleridge's sample pages. The full title was A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society; the 352-page volume, words from A to Ant, cost 12s 6d (). The total sales were only 4,000 copies. The OUP saw that it would take too long to complete the work with unrevised editorial arrangements. Accordingly, new assistants were hired and two new demands were made on Murray. The first was that he move from Mill Hill to Oxford, which he did in 1885. Murray had his Scriptorium re-erected on his new property. Murray resisted the second demand: that if he could not meet schedule, he must hire a second, senior editor to work in parallel to him, outside his supervision, on words from elsewhere in the alphabet. Murray did not want to share the work, feeling that he would accelerate his work pace with experience. That turned out not to be so, and Philip Gell of the OUP forced the promotion of Murray's assistant Henry Bradley (hired by Murray in 1884), who worked independently in the British Museum in London beginning in 1888. In 1896, Bradley moved to Oxford University. Gell continued harassing Murray and Bradley with his business concerns—containing costs and speeding production—to the point where the project's collapse seemed likely. Newspapers reported the harassment, particularly the Saturday Review, and public opinion backed the editors. Gell was fired, and the university reversed his cost policies. If the editors felt that the dictionary would have to grow larger, it would; it was an important work, and worth the time and money to properly finish. Neither Murray nor Bradley lived to see it. Murray died in 1915, having been responsible for words starting with A–D, H–K, O–P, and T, nearly half the finished dictionary; Bradley died in 1923, having completed E–G, L–M, S–Sh, St, and W–We. By then, two additional editors had been promoted from assistant work to independent work, continuing without much trouble. William Craigie started in 1901 and was responsible for N, Q–R, Si–Sq, U–V, and Wo–Wy. The OUP had previously thought London too far from Oxford but, after 1925, Craigie worked on the dictionary in Chicago, where he was a professor. The fourth editor was Charles Talbut Onions, who compiled the remaining ranges starting in 1914: Su–Sz, Wh–Wo, and X–Z. In 1919–1920, J. R. R. Tolkien was employed by the OED, researching etymologies of the Waggle to Warlock range; later he parodied the principal editors as "The Four Wise Clerks of Oxenford" in the story Farmer Giles of Ham. By early 1894, a total of 11 fascicles had been published, or about one per year: four for A–B, five for C, and two for E. Of these, eight were 352 pages long, while the last one in each group was shorter to end at the letter break (which eventually became a volume break). At this point, it was decided to publish the work in smaller and more frequent instalments; once every three months beginning in 1895 there would be a fascicle of 64 pages, priced at 2s 6d. If enough material was ready, 128 or even 192 pages would be published together. This pace was maintained until World War I forced reductions in staff. Each time enough consecutive pages were available, the same material was also published in the original larger fascicles. Also in 1895, the title Oxford English Dictionary was first used. It then appeared only on the outer covers of the fascicles; the original title was still the official one and was used everywhere else. Completion of first edition and first supplement The 125th and last fascicle covered words from Wise to the end of W and was published on 19 April 1928, and the full dictionary in bound volumes followed immediately. William Shakespeare is the most-quoted writer in the completed dictionary, with Hamlet his most-quoted work. George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) is the most-quoted female writer. Collectively, the Bible is the most-quoted work (in many translations); the most-quoted single work is Cursor Mundi. Additional material for a given letter range continued to be gathered after the corresponding fascicle was printed, with a view towards inclusion in a supplement or revised edition. A one-volume supplement of such material was published in 1933, with entries weighted towards the start of the alphabet where the fascicles were decades old. The supplement included at least one word (bondmaid) accidentally omitted when its slips were misplaced; many words and senses newly coined (famously appendicitis, coined in 1886 and missing from the 1885 fascicle, which came to prominence when Edward VII's 1902 appendicitis postponed his coronation); and some previously excluded as too obscure (notoriously radium, omitted in 1903, months before its discoverers Pierre and Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in Physics.). Also in 1933 the original fascicles of the entire dictionary were re-issued, bound into 12 volumes, under the title "The Oxford English Dictionary". This edition of 13 volumes including the supplement was subsequently reprinted in 1961 and 1970. Second supplement In 1933, Oxford had finally put the dictionary to rest; all work ended, and the quotation slips went into storage. However, the English language continued to change and, by the time 20 years had passed, the dictionary was outdated. There were three possible ways to update it. The cheapest would have been to leave the existing work alone and simply compile a new supplement of perhaps one or two volumes; but then anyone looking for a word or sense and unsure of its age would have to look in three different places. The most convenient choice for the user would have been for the entire dictionary to be re-edited and retypeset, with each change included in its proper alphabetical place; but this would have been the most expensive option, with perhaps 15 volumes required to be produced. The OUP chose a middle approach: combining the new material with the existing supplement to form a larger replacement supplement. Robert Burchfield was hired in 1957 to edit the second supplement; Charles Talbut Onions turned 84 that year but was still able to make some contributions as well. The work on the supplement was expected to take about seven years. It actually took 29 years, by which time the new supplement (OEDS) had grown to four volumes, starting with A, H, O, and Sea. They were published in 1972, 1976, 1982, and 1986 respectively, bringing the complete dictionary to 16 volumes, or 17 counting the first supplement. Burchfield emphasized the inclusion of modern-day language and, through the supplement, the dictionary was expanded to include a wealth of new words from the burgeoning fields of science and technology, as well as popular culture and colloquial speech. Burchfield said that he broadened the scope to include developments of the language in English-speaking regions beyond the United Kingdom, including North America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, Pakistan, and the Caribbean. Burchfield also removed, for unknown reasons, many entries that had been added to the 1933 supplement. In 2012, an analysis by lexicographer Sarah Ogilvie revealed that many of these entries were in fact foreign loanwords, despite Burchfield's claim that he included more such words. The proportion was estimated from a sample calculation to amount to 17% of the foreign loan words and words from regional forms of English. Some of these had only a single recorded usage, but many had multiple recorded citations, and it ran against what was thought to be the established OED editorial practice and a perception that he had opened up the dictionary to "World English". Revised American edition This was published in 1968 at $300. There were changes in the arrangement of the volumes – for example volume 7 covered only N–Poy, the remaining "P" entries being transferred to volume 8. Second edition By the time the new supplement was completed, it was clear that the full text of the dictionary would need to be computerized. Achieving this would require retyping it once, but thereafter it would always be accessible for computer searching—as well as for whatever new editions of the dictionary might be desired, starting with an integration of the supplementary volumes and the main text. Preparation for this process began in 1983, and editorial work started the following year under the administrative direction of Timothy J. Benbow, with John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner as co-editors. In 2016, Simpson published his memoir chronicling his years at the OED: The Word Detective: Searching for the Meaning of It All at the Oxford English Dictionary – A Memoir (New York: Basic Books). Thus began the New Oxford English Dictionary (NOED) project. In the United States, more than 120 typists of the International Computaprint Corporation (now Reed Tech) started keying in over 350,000,000 characters, their work checked by 55 proof-readers in England. Retyping the text alone was not sufficient; all the information represented by the complex typography of the original dictionary had to be retained, which was done by marking up the content in SGML. A specialized search engine and display software were also needed to access it. Under a 1985 agreement, some of this software work was done at the University of Waterloo, Canada, at the Centre for the New Oxford English Dictionary, led by Frank Tompa and Gaston Gonnet; this search technology went on to become the basis for the Open Text Corporation. Computer hardware, database and other software, development managers, and programmers for the project were donated by the British subsidiary of IBM; the colour syntax-directed editor for the project, LEXX, was written by Mike Cowlishaw of IBM. The University of Waterloo, in Canada, volunteered to design the database. A. Walton Litz, an English professor at Princeton University who served on the Oxford University Press advisory council, was quoted in Time as saying "I've never been associated with a project, I've never even heard of a project, that was so incredibly complicated and that met every deadline." By 1989, the NOED project had achieved its primary goals, and the editors, working online, had successfully combined the original text, Burchfield's supplement, and a small amount of newer material, into a single unified dictionary. The word "new" was again dropped from the name, and the second edition of the OED, or the OED2, was published. The first edition retronymically became the OED1. The Oxford English Dictionary 2 was printed in 20 volumes. Up to a very late stage, all the volumes of the first edition were started on letter boundaries. For the second edition, there was no attempt to start them on letter boundaries, and they were made roughly equal in size. The 20 volumes started with A, B.B.C., Cham, Creel, Dvandva, Follow, Hat, Interval, Look, Moul, Ow, Poise, Quemadero, Rob, Ser, Soot, Su, Thru, Unemancipated, and Wave. The content of the OED2 is mostly just a reorganization of the earlier corpus, but the retypesetting provided an opportunity for two long-needed format changes. The headword of each entry was no longer capitalized, allowing the user to readily see those words that actually require a capital letter. Murray had devised his own notation for pronunciation, there being no standard available at the time, whereas the OED2 adopted the modern International Phonetic Alphabet. Unlike the earlier edition, all foreign alphabets except Greek were transliterated. The British quiz show Countdown has awarded the leather-bound complete version to the champions of each series since its inception in 1982. When the print version of the second edition was published in 1989, the response was enthusiastic. Author Anthony Burgess declared it "the greatest publishing event of the century", as quoted by the Los Angeles Times. Time dubbed the book "a scholarly Everest", and Richard Boston, writing for The Guardian, called it "one of the wonders of the world". Additions series The supplements and their integration into the second edition were a great improvement to the OED as a whole, but it was recognized that most of the entries were still fundamentally unaltered from the first edition. Much	ultimately realized that the number of unlisted words would be far more than the number of words in the English dictionaries of the 19th century, and shifted their idea from covering only words that were not already in English dictionaries to a larger project. Trench suggested that a new, truly comprehensive dictionary was needed. On 7 January 1858, the society formally adopted the idea of a comprehensive new dictionary. Volunteer readers would be assigned particular books, copying passages illustrating word usage onto quotation slips. Later the same year, the society agreed to the project in principle, with the title A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (NED). Early editors Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–1886) played the key role in the project's first months, but his appointment as Dean of Westminster meant that he could not give the dictionary project the time that it required. He withdrew and Herbert Coleridge became the first editor. On 12 May 1860, Coleridge's dictionary plan was published and research was started. His house was the first editorial office. He arrayed 100,000 quotation slips in a 54 pigeon-hole grid. In April 1861, the group published the first sample pages; later that month, Coleridge died of tuberculosis, aged 30. Thereupon Furnivall became editor; he was enthusiastic and knowledgeable, but temperamentally ill-suited for the work. Many volunteer readers eventually lost interest in the project, as Furnivall failed to keep them motivated. Furthermore, many of the slips were misplaced. Furnivall believed that, since many printed texts from earlier centuries were not readily available, it would be impossible for volunteers to efficiently locate the quotations that the dictionary needed. As a result, he founded the Early English Text Society in 1864 and the Chaucer Society in 1868 to publish old manuscripts. Furnivall's preparatory efforts lasted 21 years and provided numerous texts for the use and enjoyment of the general public, as well as crucial sources for lexicographers, but they did not actually involve compiling a dictionary. Furnivall recruited more than 800 volunteers to read these texts and record quotations. While enthusiastic, the volunteers were not well trained and often made inconsistent and arbitrary selections. Ultimately, Furnivall handed over nearly two tons of quotation slips and other materials to his successor. In the 1870s, Furnivall unsuccessfully attempted to recruit both Henry Sweet and Henry Nicol to succeed him. He then approached James Murray, who accepted the post of editor. In the late 1870s, Furnivall and Murray met with several publishers about publishing the dictionary. In 1878, Oxford University Press agreed with Murray to proceed with the massive project; the agreement was formalized the following year. 20 years after its conception, the dictionary project finally had a publisher. It would take another 50 years to complete. Late in his editorship, Murray learned that one especially prolific reader named W. C. Minor was confined to a mental hospital for (in modern terminology) schizophrenia. Minor was a Yale University-trained surgeon and a military officer in the American Civil War who had been confined to Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane after killing a man in London. Minor invented his own quotation-tracking system, allowing him to submit slips on specific words in response to editors' requests. The story of how Murray and Minor worked together to advance the OED has recently been retold in a book, The Surgeon of Crowthorne (US title: The Professor and the Madman), later the basis for a 2019 film The Professor and the Madman, starring Mel Gibson and Sean Penn. Oxford editors During the 1870s, the Philological Society was concerned with the process of publishing a dictionary with such an immense scope. They had pages printed by publishers, but no publication agreement was reached; both the Cambridge University Press and the Oxford University Press were approached. The OUP finally agreed in 1879 (after two years of negotiating by Sweet, Furnivall, and Murray) to publish the dictionary and to pay Murray, who was both the editor and the Philological Society president. The dictionary was to be published as interval fascicles, with the final form in four volumes, totalling 6,400 pages. They hoped to finish the project in ten years. Murray started the project, working in a corrugated iron outbuilding called the "Scriptorium" which was lined with wooden planks, bookshelves, and 1,029 pigeon-holes for the quotation slips. He tracked and regathered Furnivall's collection of quotation slips, which were found to concentrate on rare, interesting words rather than common usages. For instance, there were ten times as many quotations for abusion as for abuse. He appealed, through newspapers distributed to bookshops and libraries, for readers who would report "as many quotations as you can for ordinary words" and for words that were "rare, obsolete, old-fashioned, new, peculiar or used in a peculiar way". Murray had American philologist and liberal arts college professor Francis March manage the collection in North America; 1,000 quotation slips arrived daily to the Scriptorium and, by 1880, there were 2,500,000. The first dictionary fascicle was published on 1 February 1884—twenty-three years after Coleridge's sample pages. The full title was A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society; the 352-page volume, words from A to Ant, cost 12s 6d (). The total sales were only 4,000 copies. The OUP saw that it would take too long to complete the work with unrevised editorial arrangements. Accordingly, new assistants were hired and two new demands were made on Murray. The first was that he move from Mill Hill to Oxford, which he did in 1885. Murray had his Scriptorium re-erected on his new property. Murray resisted the second demand: that if he could not meet schedule, he must hire a second, senior editor to work in parallel to him, outside his supervision, on words from elsewhere in the alphabet. Murray did not want to share the work, feeling that he would accelerate his work pace with experience. That turned out not to be so, and Philip Gell of the OUP forced the promotion of Murray's assistant Henry Bradley (hired by Murray in 1884), who worked independently in the British Museum in London beginning in 1888. In 1896, Bradley moved to Oxford University. Gell continued harassing Murray and Bradley with his business concerns—containing costs and speeding production—to the point where the project's collapse seemed likely. Newspapers reported the harassment, particularly the Saturday Review, and public opinion backed the editors. Gell was fired, and the university reversed his cost policies. If the editors felt that the dictionary would have to grow larger, it would; it was an important work, and worth the time and money to properly finish. Neither Murray nor Bradley lived to see it. Murray died in 1915, having been responsible for words starting with A–D, H–K, O–P, and T, nearly half the finished dictionary; Bradley died in 1923, having completed E–G, L–M, S–Sh, St, and W–We. By then, two additional editors had been promoted from assistant work to independent work, continuing without much trouble. William Craigie started in 1901 and was responsible for N, Q–R, Si–Sq, U–V, and Wo–Wy. The OUP had previously thought London too far from Oxford but, after 1925, Craigie worked on the dictionary in Chicago, where he was a professor. The fourth editor was Charles Talbut Onions, who compiled the remaining ranges starting in 1914: Su–Sz, Wh–Wo, and X–Z. In 1919–1920, J. R. R. Tolkien was employed by the OED, researching etymologies of the Waggle to Warlock range; later he parodied the principal editors as "The Four Wise Clerks of Oxenford" in the story Farmer Giles of Ham. By early 1894, a total of 11 fascicles had been published, or about one per year: four for A–B, five for C, and two for E. Of these, eight were 352 pages long, while the last one in each group was shorter to end at the letter break (which eventually became a volume break). At this point, it was decided to publish the work in smaller and more frequent instalments; once every three months beginning in 1895 there would be a fascicle of 64 pages, priced at 2s 6d. If enough material was ready, 128 or even 192 pages would be published together. This pace was maintained until World War I forced reductions in staff. Each time enough consecutive pages were available, the same material was also published in the original larger fascicles. Also in 1895, the title Oxford English Dictionary was first used. It then appeared only on the outer covers of the fascicles; the original title was still the official one and was used everywhere else. Completion of first edition and first supplement The 125th and last fascicle covered words from Wise to the end of W and was published on 19 April 1928, and the full dictionary in bound volumes followed immediately. William Shakespeare is the most-quoted writer in the completed dictionary, with Hamlet his most-quoted work. George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) is the most-quoted female writer. Collectively, the Bible is the most-quoted work (in many translations); the most-quoted single work is Cursor Mundi. Additional material for a given letter range continued to be gathered after the corresponding fascicle was printed, with a view towards inclusion in a supplement or revised edition. A one-volume supplement of such material was published in 1933, with entries weighted towards the start of the alphabet where the fascicles were decades old. The supplement included at least one word (bondmaid) accidentally omitted when its slips were misplaced; many words and senses newly coined (famously appendicitis, coined in 1886 and missing from the 1885 fascicle, which came to prominence when Edward VII's 1902 appendicitis postponed his coronation); and some previously excluded as too obscure (notoriously radium, omitted in 1903, months before its discoverers Pierre and Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in Physics.). Also in 1933 the original fascicles of the entire dictionary were re-issued, bound into 12 volumes, under the title "The Oxford English Dictionary". This edition of 13 volumes including the supplement was subsequently reprinted in 1961 and 1970. Second supplement In 1933, Oxford had finally put the dictionary to rest; all work ended, and the quotation slips went into storage. However, the English language continued to change and, by the time 20 years had passed, the dictionary was outdated. There were three possible ways to update it. The cheapest would have been
Otto's death in 912, his son Henry the Fowler succeeded him as Duke of Saxony. Henry had married Matilda of Ringelheim, a descendant of the legendary Saxon ruler Widukind and heiress to extended estates in Westphalia. Ottonian kings and emperors The Ottonian rulers of East Francia, the German kingdom and the Holy Roman Empire were: Henry the Fowler (Henry I), Duke of Saxony from 912, King of East Francia from 919 until 936 Otto I, the Great, Duke of Saxony and King of East Francia from 936, King of Italy from 951, Holy Roman Emperor from 962 until 973 Otto II, co-ruler from 961, Holy Roman Emperor from 967, sole ruler from 973 until 983 Otto III, King of the Romans from 983, Holy Roman Emperor from 996 until 1002 Henry II, the Saint, Duke of Bavaria from 995 (as Henry IV), King of the Romans from 1002, King of Italy from 1004, Holy Roman Emperor from 1002 until 1024 Henry I Although never Emperor, Henry the Fowler was arguably the founder of the imperial dynasty. While East Francia under the rule of the last Carolingian kings was ravaged by Hungarian invasions, he was chosen to be primus inter pares among the German dukes. Elected Rex Francorum in May 919, Henry abandoned the claim to dominate the whole disintegrating Carolingian Empire and, unlike his predecessor Conrad I, succeeded in gaining the support of the Franconian, Bavarian, Swabian and Lotharingian dukes. In 933 he led a German army to victory over the Hungarian forces at the Battle of Riade and campaigned both the land of the Polabian Slavs and the Duchy of Bohemia. Because he had assimilated so much power through his conquest, he was able to transfer power to his second son Otto I. Otto I Otto I, Duke of Saxony upon the death of his father in 936, was elected king within a few weeks. He continued the work of unifying all of the German tribes into a single kingdom, greatly expanding the powers of the king at the expense of the aristocracy. Through strategic marriages and personal appointments, he installed members of his own family to the kingdom's most important duchies. This, however, did not prevent his relatives from entering into civil war: both Otto's brother Duke Henry of Bavaria and his son Duke Liudolf of Swabia revolted against his rule. Otto was able to suppress their uprisings, in consequence, the various dukes, who had previously been co-equals with the king, were reduced into royal subjects under the king's authority. His decisive victory over the Magyars at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955 ended the Hungarian invasions of Europe and secured his hold over	known member Count Liudolf (d. 866) and one of its primary leading-names. The Ottonian rulers were successors of the Germanic king Conrad I who was the only Germanic king to rule in East Francia after the Carolingian dynasty and before this dynasty. Origins In the 9th century, the Saxon count Liudolf held large estates on the Leine river west of the Harz mountain range and in the adjacent Eichsfeld territory of Thuringia. His ancestors probably acted as ministeriales in the Saxon stem duchy, which had been incorporated into the Carolingian Empire after the Saxon Wars of Charlemagne. Liudolf married Oda, a member of the Frankish House of Billung. About 852 the couple together with Bishop Altfrid of Hildesheim founded Brunshausen Abbey, which, relocated to Gandersheim, rose to a family monastery and burial ground. Liudolf already held the high social position of a Saxon dux, documented by the marriage of his daughter Liutgard with Louis the Younger, son of the Carolingian king Louis the German in 869. Liudolf's sons Bruno and Otto the Illustrious ruled over large parts of Saxon Eastphalia, moreover, Otto acted as lay abbot of the Imperial abbey of Hersfeld with large estates in Thuringia. He married Hedwiga, a daughter of the Babenberg duke Henry of Franconia. Otto possibly accompanied King Arnulf on his 894 campaign to Italy; the marriage of his daughter Oda with Zwentibold, Arnulf's illegitimate son, documents the efforts of the Carolingian ruler to win the mighty Saxon dynasty over as an ally. According to the Saxon chronicler Widukind of Corvey, Otto upon the death of the last Carolingian king Louis the Child in 911 was already a candidate for the East Frankish crown, which however passed to the Franconian duke Conrad I. Upon Otto's death in 912, his son Henry the Fowler succeeded him as Duke of Saxony. Henry had married Matilda of Ringelheim, a descendant of the legendary Saxon ruler Widukind and heiress to extended estates in Westphalia. Ottonian kings and emperors The Ottonian rulers of East Francia, the German kingdom and the Holy Roman Empire were: Henry the Fowler (Henry I), Duke of Saxony from 912, King of East Francia from 919 until 936 Otto I, the Great, Duke of Saxony and King of East Francia from 936, King of Italy from 951, Holy Roman Emperor from 962 until 973 Otto II, co-ruler from 961, Holy Roman Emperor from 967, sole ruler from 973 until 983 Otto III, King of the Romans from 983, Holy Roman Emperor from 996 until 1002 Henry II, the Saint, Duke of Bavaria from 995 (as Henry IV), King of the Romans from 1002, King of Italy from 1004, Holy Roman Emperor from 1002 until 1024 Henry I Although never Emperor, Henry the Fowler was arguably the founder of the imperial dynasty. While East Francia under the rule of the last Carolingian kings was ravaged by Hungarian invasions, he was chosen to be primus inter pares among the German dukes. Elected Rex Francorum in May 919, Henry abandoned the claim to dominate the whole disintegrating Carolingian Empire and, unlike his predecessor Conrad I, succeeded in gaining the support of the Franconian, Bavarian, Swabian and Lotharingian dukes. In 933 he led a German army to victory over the Hungarian forces at the Battle of Riade and campaigned both the land of the Polabian Slavs and the Duchy of Bohemia. Because he had assimilated so much power through his conquest, he was able to transfer power to his second son Otto I. Otto I Otto I, Duke of Saxony upon the death of his father in 936, was elected king within a few weeks. He continued the work of unifying all of the German tribes into a single kingdom, greatly expanding the powers of the king at the expense of the aristocracy. Through strategic marriages and personal appointments, he installed members of his own family to the kingdom's most important duchies. This, however, did not prevent his relatives from entering into civil war: both Otto's brother Duke Henry of Bavaria and his son Duke Liudolf of Swabia revolted against his rule. Otto was able to suppress their uprisings, in consequence, the various dukes, who had previously been co-equals with the king, were reduced into royal subjects under the king's authority. His decisive victory over the Magyars at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955 ended the Hungarian invasions of Europe and secured his hold over his kingdom. The defeat of the pagan Magyars earned King Otto the reputation as the savior of Christendom and the epithet "the Great". He transformed the Church in Germany into a kind of proprietary church and major royal power base to which he donated charity and for the creation of which
land is taken up by farms, agriculture being by far the most important sector of the economy and providing employment for a quarter of the workforce according to a 2008 report. More than 90% of agricultural land is used for grazing for sheep and cattle, with cereal production utilising about 4% () and woodland occupying only . Fishing has declined in importance, but still employed 345 individuals in 2001, about 3.5% of the islands' economically active population, the modern industry concentrating on herring, white fish, lobsters, crabs and other shellfish, and salmon fish farming. A 2009 report indicated the traditional sectors of the economy export beef, cheese, whisky, beer, fish and other seafood. In recent years there has been growth in other areas including tourism, food and beverage manufacture, jewellery, knitwear, and other crafts production, construction and oil transportation through the Flotta oil terminal. Retailing accounts for 17.5% of total employment, and public services also play a significant role, employing a third of the islands' workforce. There are two Scotch whisky distilleries in Orkney (Scapa distillery and the Highland Park distillery). In 2007, of the 1,420 VAT registered enterprises 55% were in agriculture, forestry and fishing, 12% in manufacturing and construction, 12% in wholesale, retail and repairs, and 5% in hotels and restaurants. A further 5% were public service related. 55% of these businesses employ between 5 and 49 people. A new report, published in September 2020, provided updates about several significant aspects of the economy: there are around 1,500 businesses on the island. More than 90% have fewer than 10 employees. [Estimates indicate] 11,000 jobs, of which around 5,000 are part-time ... There's not much manufacturing, beyond food and drink processing (think cheese and whisky), and apart from the Flotta oil terminal, it lacks big private employers ... Fisheries off Orkney are only half as important to employment as in Shetland, and farming is roughly twice as important. The report expressed concern about the loss of business caused by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic: "blighting business activity, travel and tourism". On 1 February 2021, a new plan (subsequent to previous funding schemes) from the Scottish government was announced. The Island Equivalent Payment Fund was designed to "provide the equivalent of Level 4 support to eligible businesses in Orkney and other island areas". Tourism A report published in February 2020 stated that spending by visitors increased from £49.5 million in 2017 to £67.1 million in 2019, making this a significant sector of the economy. The primary attractions that encourage tourism include the "Heart of Neolithic Orkney" on the main island, defined as "a group of 5,000-year-old sites that include the preserved village of Skara Brae and the Ring of Brodgar stone circle". The Hoy area's landscape is also attractive to visitors, "with its scattered woodland, steep valleys, high cliffs and the famous Old Man, a withered red sandstone sea stack". During most years, the islands are the home of several international festivals, including the Orkney International Science Festival in September, a folk festival in May, and the St Magnus International Arts Festival in June. The volume of visitors arriving on ferries declined substantially in 2020, by 71%, due to the COVID-19 pandemic A news report added that cruise ships also did not arrive and there were "no day trippers and no holiday lets" as of 25 April 2020. Several major events were cancelled: St Magnus Festival, Orkney Folk Festival, Stromness Shopping Week and the Agricultural Shows. Power Orkney has significant wind and marine energy resources, and renewable energy has recently come into prominence. Although Orkney is connected to the mainland, it generates over 100% of its net power from renewables according to a 2015 report. This comes mainly from wind turbines situated across Orkney. The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) is a research facility operating a grid-connected wave test site at Billia Croo, off the west coast of the Orkney Mainland, and a tidal power test site in the Fall of Warness, off the northern island of Eday. At the official opening of the Eday project the site was described as "the first of its kind in the world set up to provide developers of wave and tidal energy devices with a purpose-built performance testing facility." During 2007 Scottish and Southern Energy plc in conjunction with the University of Strathclyde began the implementation of a Regional Power Zone in the Orkney archipelago, involving "active network management" that will make better use of existing infrastructure and allow a further 15 MW of new "non-firm generation" output from renewables onto the network. 1.5 MW of polymer electrolyte membrane electrolysis form a partial hydrogen economy for hydrogen vehicles and district heating, and grid batteries and electric vehicles also use local energy. Orkney has one of the highest uptakes of electric vehicles in the UK with more than 2% of the vehicles on the road being electric, as of 2019. Hydrogen manufacturing A March 2019 report by the BBC stated that "Orkney creates more clean electricity than its inhabitants need. Even after exporting to the UK national grid, the islands' winds, waves and tides generate about 130% of the electricity its population needs – all of it from clean sources". A report about sustainable energy in the islands listed two options. A new cable could be laid for exporting of energy to the mainland but another proposal has progressed rapidly since that time: making "excess renewable power into another fuel – such as hydrogen – and then [storing] it". In May 2020, CNN published more specifics about the hydrogen plan:"Orkney's success in creating hydrogen using clean energy demonstrates that it can be done at scale. The islands are already using hydrogen to power vehicles, and it will soon be used to heat a local primary school. Now, Orkney is hoping to use hydrogen fuel cells to power a seagoing vessel able to transport both goods and passengers". Additional specifics about the status of the hydrogen scheme were published in late November 2020 by Orkney Islands Council. A few weeks earlier, another report indicated that the world’s first hydrogen-fueled ferry was to be tested on the Orkney Islands, using "a hydrogen/diesel dual fuel conversion system", developed by a consortium known as the HyDIME project. Initially hydrogen was to power only the auxiliary engine but the plan calls for later using this fuel for the primary engine. The report suggested that, "if all goes well, hydrogen ferries could be sailing between Orkney’s islands within six months". Kirkwall Airport in Orkney was scheduled "to have its heat and power decarbonised through green hydrogen as part of a new project" starting in 2021. A hydrogen combustion engine system was to be connected to the airport’s heating system. The scheme planned to reduce the significant emissions that were created with older technology that heated buildings and water. This was part of the plan formulated by the Scottish government for the Highlands and Islands "to become the world’s first net zero aviation region by 2040". Hydrogen manufacturing is also planned for Shetland and will spread to other areas of Scotland that have access to clean electricity. To achieve that goal, the government announced an investment of £100 million in the hydrogen sector "for the £180 million Emerging Energy Technologies Fund". Transport Air Highland and Islands Airports operates the main airport in Orkney, Kirkwall Airport. Loganair provides services to the Scottish mainland (Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness), as well as to Sumburgh Airport in Shetland. Within Orkney, the council operates airports on most of the larger islands including Stronsay, Eday, North Ronaldsay, Westray, Papa Westray, Sanday, and Flotta. The shortest scheduled air service in the world, between the islands of Westray and Papa Westray, is scheduled at two minutes' duration but can take less than one minute if the wind is in the right direction. Ferry Ferries serve both to link Orkney to the rest of Scotland, and also to link together the various islands of the Orkney archipelago. Ferry services operate between Orkney and the Scottish mainland and Shetland on the following routes: Gills Bay to St Margaret's Hope (operated by Pentland Ferries) John o' Groats to Burwick on South Ronaldsay (seasonal passenger only service, operated by John o' Groats Ferries) Lerwick to Kirkwall (operated by NorthLink Ferries) Aberdeen to Kirkwall (operated by NorthLink Ferries) Scrabster Harbour, Thurso to Stromness (operated by NorthLink Ferries) Inter-island ferry services connect all the inhabited islands to Orkney Mainland, and are operated by Orkney Ferries, a company owned by Orkney Islands Council. The isles of Westray, Papa Westray (or Papay), North Ronaldsay, Sanday, Eday, Stronsay, and Shapinsay are served from Kirkwall harbour, while the northern end of Hoy and Graemsay are served from Stromness harbour, the Lyness end of Hoy, as well as Longhope on South Walls, and Flotta are served from Houton on the south of the mainland, and Rousay, Egilsay and Wyre are served from Tingwall, in the Rendall area of the Orkney mainland. As well as this, the MV Golden Mariana connects the village of Pierowall on Westray with Papa Westray - this provides a vital local service for schoolchildren on Papay as well as supplementing existing through sailings from Kirkwall. Bus Local buses around the Orkney Mainland, as well as across the Churchill Barriers to Burray and South Ronaldsay, are operated by Stagecoach in Orkney. The main route is the X1, connecting Stromness, Stenness for Maeshowe, Finstown, Kirkwall, St Mary's, Burray, and St Margaret's Hope. There are also buses from Kirkwall via Orphir (2), and from Stromness (5) to the ferry terminal at Houton (from which inter-island ferries operate to Hoy and Flotta, from Kirkwall to Kirkwall Airport (3 & 4), Tankerness and Deerness (3), from Kirkwall and Finstown to Tingwall (from which there are ferries to Rousay, Egilsay and Wyre), Evie and Birsay, from Stromness to Kirkwall via Skara Brae, Dounby, Harray and Finstown (7), the 8 (which does a circular route to and from Kirkwall and Finstown via Stromness and the West Mainland villages, such as Marwick, Quoyloo, Dounby and Stenness), and the X10, which connects the late-night call of the NorthLink ferry to and from Aberdeen and Lerwick, at Hatston Ferry Terminal, to Kirkwall, Finstown and Stromness. In 2021, the island’s three-vehicle minibus service for disabled people was a target for hackers seeking a £1,000 ransom in cryptocurrency. Media Orkney is served by a weekly local newspaper, The Orcadian, published on Thursdays. A local BBC radio station, BBC Radio Orkney, the local opt-out of BBC Radio Scotland, broadcasts twice daily, with local news and entertainment. Orkney also had a commercial radio station, The Superstation Orkney, which broadcast to Kirkwall and parts of the mainland and also to most of Caithness until its closure in November 2014. Moray Firth Radio broadcasts throughout Orkney on AM and from an FM transmitter just outside Thurso. The community radio station Caithness FM also broadcasts to Orkney. Orkney is home to the Orkney Library and Archive, located in Kirkwall, Scotland, on the mainland. The Library service provides access to over 145,000 items. They have a wide range of fiction and non-fiction titles available for loan as well as audiobooks, maps, eBooks, music CDs, and DVDs. Orkney Library and Archive operates a Mobile Library Service that serves the rural parishes and islands of Orkney. The Mobile Library carries a wide range of books and audiobooks suitable for all ages and is completely free to use. Language, literature, and folklore At the beginning of recorded history, the islands were inhabited by the Picts, whose language was Brythonic. The Ogham script on the Buckquoy spindle-whorl is cited as evidence for the pre-Norse existence of Old Irish in Orkney. After the Norse occupation, the toponymy of Orkney became almost wholly West Norse. The Norse language changed into the local Norn, which lingered until the end of the 18th century, when it eventually died out. Norn was replaced by the Orcadian dialect of Insular Scots. This dialect is at a low ebb due to the pervasive influences of television, education, and the large number of incomers. However, attempts are being made by some writers and radio presenters to revitalise its use and the distinctive sing-song accent and many dialect words of Norse origin remain in use. The Orcadian word most frequently encountered by visitors is , meaning 'small', which may be derived from the French . Orkney has a rich folklore, and many of the former tales concern trows, an Orcadian form of troll that draws on the islands' Scandinavian connections. Local customs in the past included marriage ceremonies at the Odin Stone that formed part of the Stones of Stenness. King Lot in certain versions of the Arthurian legend (e.g., Malory) is ruler of Orkney. His sons Gawaine, Agravaine, Gareth, and Gaheris are major characters in the Matter of Britain. In earlier versions of Arthuriana such as Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain the King of Orkney is named Gunfasius. The best known literary figures from modern Orkney are the poet Edwin Muir, the poet and novelist George Mackay Brown, and the novelist Eric Linklater. Orcadians An Orcadian is a native of Orkney, a term that reflects a strongly held identity with a tradition of understatement. Although the annexation of the earldom by Scotland took place over five centuries ago in 1472, some Orcadians regard themselves as Orcadians first and Scots second. However in response to the national identity question in the 2011 Scotland Census, self-reported levels of Scottish identity in Orkney were in line with the national average. The Scottish mainland is often referred to as "Scotland" in Orkney, with "the mainland" referring to Mainland, Orkney. The archipelago also has a distinct culture, with traditions of the Scottish Highlands such as tartan, clans, bagpipes not indigenous to the culture of the islands. However, at least two tartans with Orkney connections have been registered and a tartan has been designed for Sanday by one of the island's residents, and there are pipe bands in Orkney. Native Orcadians refer to the non-native residents of the islands as "ferry loupers", ("loup" meaning "jump" in the Scots language) a term that has been in use for nearly two centuries at least. Natural history Orkney has an abundance of wildlife, especially of grey and common seals and seabirds such as puffins, kittiwakes, black guillemots (tysties), ravens, and great skuas (bonxies). Whales, dolphins, and otters are also seen around the coasts. Inland the Orkney vole, a distinct subspecies of the common vole introduced by Neolithic humans, is an endemic. There are five distinct varieties, found on the islands of Sanday, Westray, Rousay, South Ronaldsay, and the Mainland, all the more remarkable as the species is absent on mainland Britain. The coastline is well known for its colourful flowers including sea aster, sea squill, sea thrift, common sea-lavender, bell and common heather. The Scottish primrose is found only on the coasts of Orkney and nearby Caithness and Sutherland. Although stands of trees are generally rare, a small forest named Happy Valley with 700 trees and lush gardens was created from a boggy hillside near Stenness during the second half of the 20th century. The North Ronaldsay sheep is an unusual breed of domesticated animal, subsisting largely on a diet of seaweed, since they are confined to the foreshore for most of the year to conserve the limited grazing inland. The island was also a habitat for the Atlantic walrus until the mid-16th century. The Orkney char (Salvelinus inframundus) used to live in Heldale Water on Hoy. It has been considered locally extinct since 1908. Stoat problem and solution The introduction of alien stoats since 2010, a natural predator of the common vole and thus of the Orkney vole, was also harming native bird populations. NatureScot, Scotland's Nature Agency, provided these additional specifics:The introduction of a ground predator like the stoat to islands such as Orkney, where there are no native ground predators, is very bad news for Orkney’s native species. Stoats are accomplished predators and pose a very serious threat to Orkney’s wildlife, including: the native Orkney vole, hen harrier, short-eared owl and many ground nesting birds. In 2018, a stoat eradication project was presented by NatureScot to be applied "across Orkney Mainland, South Ronaldsay, Burray, Glimps Holm, Lamb Holm and Hunda, and the biosecurity activities delivered on the non-linked islands of the archipelago". The Orkney Native Wildlife Project planned to use "humane DOC150 and DOC200 traps". The Partners in the five-year project include "RSPB Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), and Orkney Islands Council". A report issued in October 2020 stated that over 5,000 traps had been deployed. Specifics were provided as to the locations. Not all was going well as of 15 January 2021, according to The Times which stated that the project "has been hit by alleged sabotage after the destruction and theft of traps that have also killed and injured household pets and other animals" but added that the £6 million programme was supported by most islanders. Another news item stated that some of the traps had "caught and killed family pets as well as hundreds of other animals". A subsequent report confirmed that "Police Scotland is investigating a number of incidents involving damage to and the theft of stoat traps in	heating, and grid batteries and electric vehicles also use local energy. Orkney has one of the highest uptakes of electric vehicles in the UK with more than 2% of the vehicles on the road being electric, as of 2019. Hydrogen manufacturing A March 2019 report by the BBC stated that "Orkney creates more clean electricity than its inhabitants need. Even after exporting to the UK national grid, the islands' winds, waves and tides generate about 130% of the electricity its population needs – all of it from clean sources". A report about sustainable energy in the islands listed two options. A new cable could be laid for exporting of energy to the mainland but another proposal has progressed rapidly since that time: making "excess renewable power into another fuel – such as hydrogen – and then [storing] it". In May 2020, CNN published more specifics about the hydrogen plan:"Orkney's success in creating hydrogen using clean energy demonstrates that it can be done at scale. The islands are already using hydrogen to power vehicles, and it will soon be used to heat a local primary school. Now, Orkney is hoping to use hydrogen fuel cells to power a seagoing vessel able to transport both goods and passengers". Additional specifics about the status of the hydrogen scheme were published in late November 2020 by Orkney Islands Council. A few weeks earlier, another report indicated that the world’s first hydrogen-fueled ferry was to be tested on the Orkney Islands, using "a hydrogen/diesel dual fuel conversion system", developed by a consortium known as the HyDIME project. Initially hydrogen was to power only the auxiliary engine but the plan calls for later using this fuel for the primary engine. The report suggested that, "if all goes well, hydrogen ferries could be sailing between Orkney’s islands within six months". Kirkwall Airport in Orkney was scheduled "to have its heat and power decarbonised through green hydrogen as part of a new project" starting in 2021. A hydrogen combustion engine system was to be connected to the airport’s heating system. The scheme planned to reduce the significant emissions that were created with older technology that heated buildings and water. This was part of the plan formulated by the Scottish government for the Highlands and Islands "to become the world’s first net zero aviation region by 2040". Hydrogen manufacturing is also planned for Shetland and will spread to other areas of Scotland that have access to clean electricity. To achieve that goal, the government announced an investment of £100 million in the hydrogen sector "for the £180 million Emerging Energy Technologies Fund". Transport Air Highland and Islands Airports operates the main airport in Orkney, Kirkwall Airport. Loganair provides services to the Scottish mainland (Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness), as well as to Sumburgh Airport in Shetland. Within Orkney, the council operates airports on most of the larger islands including Stronsay, Eday, North Ronaldsay, Westray, Papa Westray, Sanday, and Flotta. The shortest scheduled air service in the world, between the islands of Westray and Papa Westray, is scheduled at two minutes' duration but can take less than one minute if the wind is in the right direction. Ferry Ferries serve both to link Orkney to the rest of Scotland, and also to link together the various islands of the Orkney archipelago. Ferry services operate between Orkney and the Scottish mainland and Shetland on the following routes: Gills Bay to St Margaret's Hope (operated by Pentland Ferries) John o' Groats to Burwick on South Ronaldsay (seasonal passenger only service, operated by John o' Groats Ferries) Lerwick to Kirkwall (operated by NorthLink Ferries) Aberdeen to Kirkwall (operated by NorthLink Ferries) Scrabster Harbour, Thurso to Stromness (operated by NorthLink Ferries) Inter-island ferry services connect all the inhabited islands to Orkney Mainland, and are operated by Orkney Ferries, a company owned by Orkney Islands Council. The isles of Westray, Papa Westray (or Papay), North Ronaldsay, Sanday, Eday, Stronsay, and Shapinsay are served from Kirkwall harbour, while the northern end of Hoy and Graemsay are served from Stromness harbour, the Lyness end of Hoy, as well as Longhope on South Walls, and Flotta are served from Houton on the south of the mainland, and Rousay, Egilsay and Wyre are served from Tingwall, in the Rendall area of the Orkney mainland. As well as this, the MV Golden Mariana connects the village of Pierowall on Westray with Papa Westray - this provides a vital local service for schoolchildren on Papay as well as supplementing existing through sailings from Kirkwall. Bus Local buses around the Orkney Mainland, as well as across the Churchill Barriers to Burray and South Ronaldsay, are operated by Stagecoach in Orkney. The main route is the X1, connecting Stromness, Stenness for Maeshowe, Finstown, Kirkwall, St Mary's, Burray, and St Margaret's Hope. There are also buses from Kirkwall via Orphir (2), and from Stromness (5) to the ferry terminal at Houton (from which inter-island ferries operate to Hoy and Flotta, from Kirkwall to Kirkwall Airport (3 & 4), Tankerness and Deerness (3), from Kirkwall and Finstown to Tingwall (from which there are ferries to Rousay, Egilsay and Wyre), Evie and Birsay, from Stromness to Kirkwall via Skara Brae, Dounby, Harray and Finstown (7), the 8 (which does a circular route to and from Kirkwall and Finstown via Stromness and the West Mainland villages, such as Marwick, Quoyloo, Dounby and Stenness), and the X10, which connects the late-night call of the NorthLink ferry to and from Aberdeen and Lerwick, at Hatston Ferry Terminal, to Kirkwall, Finstown and Stromness. In 2021, the island’s three-vehicle minibus service for disabled people was a target for hackers seeking a £1,000 ransom in cryptocurrency. Media Orkney is served by a weekly local newspaper, The Orcadian, published on Thursdays. A local BBC radio station, BBC Radio Orkney, the local opt-out of BBC Radio Scotland, broadcasts twice daily, with local news and entertainment. Orkney also had a commercial radio station, The Superstation Orkney, which broadcast to Kirkwall and parts of the mainland and also to most of Caithness until its closure in November 2014. Moray Firth Radio broadcasts throughout Orkney on AM and from an FM transmitter just outside Thurso. The community radio station Caithness FM also broadcasts to Orkney. Orkney is home to the Orkney Library and Archive, located in Kirkwall, Scotland, on the mainland. The Library service provides access to over 145,000 items. They have a wide range of fiction and non-fiction titles available for loan as well as audiobooks, maps, eBooks, music CDs, and DVDs. Orkney Library and Archive operates a Mobile Library Service that serves the rural parishes and islands of Orkney. The Mobile Library carries a wide range of books and audiobooks suitable for all ages and is completely free to use. Language, literature, and folklore At the beginning of recorded history, the islands were inhabited by the Picts, whose language was Brythonic. The Ogham script on the Buckquoy spindle-whorl is cited as evidence for the pre-Norse existence of Old Irish in Orkney. After the Norse occupation, the toponymy of Orkney became almost wholly West Norse. The Norse language changed into the local Norn, which lingered until the end of the 18th century, when it eventually died out. Norn was replaced by the Orcadian dialect of Insular Scots. This dialect is at a low ebb due to the pervasive influences of television, education, and the large number of incomers. However, attempts are being made by some writers and radio presenters to revitalise its use and the distinctive sing-song accent and many dialect words of Norse origin remain in use. The Orcadian word most frequently encountered by visitors is , meaning 'small', which may be derived from the French . Orkney has a rich folklore, and many of the former tales concern trows, an Orcadian form of troll that draws on the islands' Scandinavian connections. Local customs in the past included marriage ceremonies at the Odin Stone that formed part of the Stones of Stenness. King Lot in certain versions of the Arthurian legend (e.g., Malory) is ruler of Orkney. His sons Gawaine, Agravaine, Gareth, and Gaheris are major characters in the Matter of Britain. In earlier versions of Arthuriana such as Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain the King of Orkney is named Gunfasius. The best known literary figures from modern Orkney are the poet Edwin Muir, the poet and novelist George Mackay Brown, and the novelist Eric Linklater. Orcadians An Orcadian is a native of Orkney, a term that reflects a strongly held identity with a tradition of understatement. Although the annexation of the earldom by Scotland took place over five centuries ago in 1472, some Orcadians regard themselves as Orcadians first and Scots second. However in response to the national identity question in the 2011 Scotland Census, self-reported levels of Scottish identity in Orkney were in line with the national average. The Scottish mainland is often referred to as "Scotland" in Orkney, with "the mainland" referring to Mainland, Orkney. The archipelago also has a distinct culture, with traditions of the Scottish Highlands such as tartan, clans, bagpipes not indigenous to the culture of the islands. However, at least two tartans with Orkney connections have been registered and a tartan has been designed for Sanday by one of the island's residents, and there are pipe bands in Orkney. Native Orcadians refer to the non-native residents of the islands as "ferry loupers", ("loup" meaning "jump" in the Scots language) a term that has been in use for nearly two centuries at least. Natural history Orkney has an abundance of wildlife, especially of grey and common seals and seabirds such as puffins, kittiwakes, black guillemots (tysties), ravens, and great skuas (bonxies). Whales, dolphins, and otters are also seen around the coasts. Inland the Orkney vole, a distinct subspecies of the common vole introduced by Neolithic humans, is an endemic. There are five distinct varieties, found on the islands of Sanday, Westray, Rousay, South Ronaldsay, and the Mainland, all the more remarkable as the species is absent on mainland Britain. The coastline is well known for its colourful flowers including sea aster, sea squill, sea thrift, common sea-lavender, bell and common heather. The Scottish primrose is found only on the coasts of Orkney and nearby Caithness and Sutherland. Although stands of trees are generally rare, a small forest named Happy Valley with 700 trees and lush gardens was created from a boggy hillside near Stenness during the second half of the 20th century. The North Ronaldsay sheep is an unusual breed of domesticated animal, subsisting largely on a diet of seaweed, since they are confined to the foreshore for most of the year to conserve the limited grazing inland. The island was also a habitat for the Atlantic walrus until the mid-16th century. The Orkney char (Salvelinus inframundus) used to live in Heldale Water on Hoy. It has been considered locally extinct since 1908. Stoat problem and solution The introduction of alien stoats since 2010, a natural predator of the common vole and thus of the Orkney vole, was also harming native bird populations. NatureScot, Scotland's Nature Agency, provided these additional specifics:The introduction of a ground predator like the stoat to islands such as Orkney, where there are no native ground predators, is very bad news for Orkney’s native species. Stoats are accomplished predators and pose a very serious threat to Orkney’s wildlife, including: the native Orkney vole, hen harrier, short-eared owl and many ground nesting birds. In 2018, a stoat eradication project was presented by NatureScot to be applied "across Orkney Mainland, South Ronaldsay, Burray, Glimps Holm, Lamb Holm and Hunda, and the biosecurity activities delivered on the non-linked islands of the archipelago". The Orkney Native Wildlife Project planned to use "humane DOC150 and DOC200 traps". The Partners in the five-year project include "RSPB Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), and Orkney Islands Council". A report issued in October 2020 stated that over 5,000 traps had been deployed. Specifics were provided as to the locations. Not all was going well as of 15 January 2021, according to The Times which stated that the project "has been hit by alleged sabotage after the destruction and theft of traps that have also killed and injured household pets and other animals" but added that the £6 million programme was supported by most islanders. Another news item stated that some of the traps had "caught and killed family pets as well as hundreds of other animals". A subsequent report confirmed that "Police Scotland is investigating a number of incidents involving damage to and the theft of stoat traps in Orkney". Protected areas There are 13 Special Protection Areas and 6 Special Areas of Conservation in Orkney. One of Scotland's 40 national scenic areas, the Hoy and West Mainland National Scenic Area, is also located in the islands. The seas to the northwest of Orkney are important for sand eels that provides a food source for many species of fish, seabirds, seals, whales and dolphins, and are now protected as Nature Conservation Marine Protected Area (NCMPA) that covers . Freedom of the Island The following people and military units have received the Freedom of the Island of Orkney. Military units The Northern Diving Group Royal Navy: 9 July 2021. See also Timeline of prehistoric Scotland Prehistoric Scotland Battle of Florvåg Bishop of Orkney Coat of arms of Orkney List of places in Orkney Orkney Club Orkney College Rögnvald Kali Kolsson Udal Law Parishes of Orkney Constitutional status of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles Solar eclipse of 1 May 1185 References Footnotes Citations General references Armit, Ian (2006) Scotland's Hidden History. Stroud. Tempus. Beuermann, Ian "Jarla Sǫgur Orkneyja. Status and power of the earls of Orkney according to their sagas" in Steinsland, Gro; Sigurðsson, Jón Viðar; Rekda, Jan Erik and Beuermann, Ian (eds) (2011) Ideology and power in the Viking and Middle Ages: Scandinavia, Iceland, Ireland, Orkney and the Faeroes . The Northern World: North Europe and the Baltic c. 400–1700 A.D. Peoples, Economics and Cultures. 52. Leiden. Brill. Baynes, John (1970) The Jacobite Rising of 1715. London. Cassell. Benvie, Neil (2004) Scotland's Wildlife. London. Aurum Press. Ballin Smith, B. and Banks, I. (eds) (2002) In the Shadow of the Brochs, the Iron Age in Scotland. Stroud. Tempus. Ballin Smith, Beverley; Taylor, Simon; and Williams, Gareth (eds) (2007) West Over Sea: Studies in Scandinavian Sea-borne Expansion and Settlement Before 1300. Brill. Clarkson, Tim (2008) The Picts: A History. Stroud. The History Press. Duffy, Christopher (2003) The 45: Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Untold Story of the Jacobite Rising. London. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Fraser, James E. (2009) From Caledonia to Pictland: Scotland to 795. Edinburgh University Press. Moffat, Alistair (2005) Before Scotland: The Story of Scotland Before History. London. Thames & Hudson. Omand, Donald (ed.) (2003) The Orkney Book. Edinburgh. Birlinn. Thomson, William P.L. (2008) The New History
as an emergency landing strip only. The first flight to a nearby island of Flotta on 1 March 1977 was recorded to have landed at Hoy. Ferry Orkney Ferries traverse the west of Scapa Flow on two routes: Lyness on Hoy and Longhope on associated Walls via small Flotta to/from the village of Houton on Mainland, Orkney. Moaness in Hoy via small Graemsay to/from the town of Stromness on Orkney Mainland. Longhope lifeboat station A lifeboat has been on Hoy since 1874, at first housed in a prominent stone building close to the west end of the causeway that links the two islands of Hoy and South Walls together. It was stationed there as it meant that the lifeboat could be dragged over wooden skids and into the sea in either North Bay, giving access to Scapa Flow, or in Aith Hope, an offshoot of the notorious Pentland Firth to the south. The shed continued to serve as the base of the Longhope lifeboat until 1906, when it was replaced. The lifeboat station that stands slightly to the south of the original station cost £2,700 to build in 1906 and was in use until 1999. The original station is the home of the Longhope Lifeboat Museum, which has on display lifeboat Thomas McCunn, stationed here from 1933 to 1962. Whilst based at this station, 17 March 1969 the lifeboat 'T.G.B.' ON 962 capsized while on service to the Liberian vessel Irene and her entire crew of eight lost their lives. In August of that year an Arun-class lifeboat, Sir Max Aitken II became the Longhope lifeboat. This class was designed to stay permanently afloat, and the decision was taken to move her to purpose-built moorings at Longhope pier. The lifeboats that have served here since have also been stationed at Longhope, including the current vessel the Helen Comrie (a Tamar class lifeboat) and her predecessor The Queen Mother, which was based here between 2004 and 2006. A station has been built where the lifeboat is moored at Longhope which is also the main harbour for boats to and from the island. Mythology In Norse mythology, Hoy hosted Hjaðningavíg, the never-ending battle between Heðin and Högni. Wildlife Hoy is an Important Bird Area. The northern part of the island is an RSPB reserve due to its importance for birdlife, particularly great skuas and red-throated divers. It was sold to the RSPB by the	is the most northerly woodland in the UK. Patches of the woodland are scattered across the island and most significantly there is the remote possibility of locally extant Orkney charr (Salvelinus inframundus) documented in 1908 at Heldale Water. Transport Airport There have been two airfields on South Walls, perhaps due to its connections with the navy. One on the southern coast (Snelsetter) which opened in August 1934 and was closed at the end of World War Two; it was used by military and civil aircraft, and now is open land. Another, just east of the causeway that links the two islands of Hoy and South Walls, opened in November 1972 and closed in 1993. It was used by civilian aircraft solely and was operated by the airline Loganair; it is also now open land, used as an emergency landing strip only. The first flight to a nearby island of Flotta on 1 March 1977 was recorded to have landed at Hoy. Ferry Orkney Ferries traverse the west of Scapa Flow on two routes: Lyness on Hoy and Longhope on associated Walls via small Flotta to/from the village of Houton on Mainland, Orkney. Moaness in Hoy via small Graemsay to/from the town of Stromness on Orkney Mainland. Longhope lifeboat station A lifeboat has been on Hoy since 1874, at first housed in a prominent stone building close to the west end of the causeway that links the two islands of Hoy and South Walls together. It was stationed there as it meant that the lifeboat could be dragged over wooden skids and into the sea in either North Bay, giving access to Scapa Flow, or in Aith Hope, an offshoot of the notorious Pentland Firth to the south. The shed continued to serve as the base of the Longhope lifeboat until 1906, when it was replaced. The lifeboat station that stands slightly to the south of the original station cost £2,700 to build in 1906 and was in use until 1999. The original station is the home of the Longhope Lifeboat Museum, which has on display lifeboat Thomas McCunn, stationed here from 1933 to 1962. Whilst based at this station, 17 March 1969 the lifeboat 'T.G.B.' ON 962 capsized while on service to the Liberian vessel Irene and her entire crew of eight lost their lives. In August of that year an Arun-class lifeboat, Sir Max Aitken II became the Longhope lifeboat. This class was designed to stay permanently afloat, and the decision was taken to move her
identified. Only a small fraction have been excavated and characterized. The most spectacular of the sites is the complex of Midhowe Broch and Midhowe Chambered Cairn. Blackhammer Chambered Cairn, Taversoe Tuick and Yarso are important tombs. Rousay placenames reflect its Norse heritage. 'Hrólfs-øy' or 'Hrolfsey' was based on the male name 'Hrolf' (Rolf). Hugh Marwick's work showed the name developing from 'Rollesay' in the 14th century, through 'Rolsay' in the 15th, and 'Rowsay' in the early 16th, with the spelling 'Rousay' first recorded in 1549. Most Rousay people earned their living from farming and/or fishing. In the 19th century, records reflect tradespeople supplying the needs of a rural community: blacksmiths and joiners, shoemakers and shopkeepers, with women making dresses and plaiting straw. Throughout the century, Rousay's landlords demanded high rents from crofters, many of whom became homeless in a series of clearances along the western coast, ordered by landowner George William Traill in the 1820s and 1830s. Traill's nephew General Sir Frederick Traill-Burroughs inherited much of the island and bought more. Traill-Burroughs built a large house at Trumland, designed by David Bryce of Edinburgh. From 1870 to 1883, improvements transformed the island: Trumland pier, island schools, a public market, the first steamship service, a post office, and the first resident doctor. He was known locally as "the little general" as he was a man of short stature. Poet Edwin Muir recalled in a memoir of his childhood seeing the little general walking around his estates. Rousay's population in the mid-19th century was over 900, but emigration following land clearances reduced that to 627 by 1900, and half a century later it had fallen to 342. Depopulation accelerated, and in the next twenty years the number fell to 181, its lowest ever. From the 1970s onward new families settled on Rousay:	was over 900, but emigration following land clearances reduced that to 627 by 1900, and half a century later it had fallen to 342. Depopulation accelerated, and in the next twenty years the number fell to 181, its lowest ever. From the 1970s onward new families settled on Rousay: most came from the south, especially from England. The population is now over 200. The Yetnasteen stone is said to have once been a giant who revives every New Year at midnight visits the Loch of Scockness to drink. Education A primary school enrolls 24 boys and girls aged 3 to 12. Once a child completes his/her primary education, they attend Kirkwall Grammar School or Stromness Academy. Notables Poet Pauline Stainer spent two years on the island, and in 1999 published a collection of her poems about Rousay, Parable Island. Robert C. Marwick (1922-2013) was a school teacher, headmaster and author born on Innister farm, in the Wasbister district. His publications about Rousay include From My Rousay Schoolbag (1995), Rousay Roots (1995) and In Dreams We Moor (2000). Actor Graham Fellows owns a disused church there, which he intended to turn into an "artists refuge". Late artist Margaret Gardiner spent a large part of her life there and in 1979 founded the Pier Art Gallery in Stromness. Rousay Sound Rousay is separated from the neighbouring island of Egilsay by Rousay Sound. The sound experiences strong tides, which creates the perfect conditions for maerl beds to form. The maerl beds in turn provide a sheltered habitat for species such as peacock worms and various sponges, as well as small fish, shrimps, gobies and crabs. Since 2014 the sound, along with the neighbouring Wyre Sound (which separates Rousay from Wyre), has been designated as a Nature Conservation Marine Protected Area (NCMPA). Fishing activities are controlled within the MPA, and no dredging, beam trawling, demersal trawling or Seine fishing is permitted. See also List of islands of Scotland Notes References External links AroundRousay.co.uk: Information on the island of Rousay DiscoverRousay.co.uk: Tourism website for the island of Rousay Rousay Roots - Rousay history Visit Orkney: Orkney Tourist Board: Rousay Visit Rousay:
is part of a deliberate observation process. Biases The human senses do not function like a video camcorder, impartially recording all observations. Human perception occurs by a complex, unconscious process of abstraction, in which certain details of the incoming sense data are noticed and remembered, and the rest is forgotten. What is kept and what is thrown away depends on an internal model or representation of the world, called by psychologists a schema, that is built up over our entire lives. The data is fitted into this schema. Later when events are remembered, memory gaps may even be filled by "plausible" data the mind makes up to fit the model; this is called reconstructive memory. How much attention the various perceived data are given depends on an internal value system, which judges how important it is to the individual. Thus two people can view the same event and come away with entirely different perceptions of it, even disagreeing about simple facts. This is why eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. Several of the more important ways observations can be affected by human psychology are given below. Confirmation bias Human observations are biased toward confirming the observer's conscious and unconscious expectations and view of the world; we "see what we expect to see". In psychology, this is called confirmation bias. Since the object of scientific research is the discovery of new phenomena, this bias can and has caused new discoveries to be overlooked; one example is the discovery of x-rays. It can also result in erroneous scientific support for widely held cultural myths, on the other hand, as in the scientific racism that supported ideas of racial superiority in the early 20th century. Correct scientific technique emphasizes careful recording of observations, separating experimental observations from the conclusions drawn from them, and techniques such as blind or double blind experiments, to minimize observational bias. Processing bias Modern scientific instruments can extensively process "observations" before they are presented to the human senses, and particularly with computerized instruments, there is sometimes a question as to where in the data processing chain "observing" ends and "drawing conclusions" begins. This has recently become an issue with digitally enhanced images published as experimental data in papers in scientific journals. The images are enhanced to bring out features that the researcher wants to emphasize, but this also has the effect of supporting the researcher's conclusions. This is a form of bias that is difficult to quantify. Some scientific journals have begun to set detailed standards for what types of image processing are allowed in research results. Computerized instruments often keep a copy of the "raw data" from sensors before processing, which is the ultimate defense against processing bias, and similarly, scientific standards require preservation of the original unenhanced "raw" versions of images used as research data. Philosophy Observation in philosophical terms is the process of	same number are equal within the resolution of the process. Human senses are limited and subject to errors in perception, such as optical illusions. Scientific instruments were developed to aid human abilities of observation, such as weighing scales, clocks, telescopes, microscopes, thermometers, cameras, and tape recorders, and also translate into perceptible form events that are unobservable by the senses, such as indicator dyes, voltmeters, spectrometers, infrared cameras, oscilloscopes, interferometers, geiger counters, and radio receivers. One problem encountered throughout scientific fields is that the observation may affect the process being observed, resulting in a different outcome than if the process was unobserved. This is called the observer effect. For example, it is not normally possible to check the air pressure in an automobile tire without letting out some of the air, thereby changing the pressure. However, in most fields of science, it is possible to reduce the effects of observation to insignificance by using better instruments. Considered as a physical process itself, all forms of observation (human or instrumental) involve amplification and are thus thermodynamically irreversible processes, increasing entropy. Paradoxes In some specific fields of science, the results of observation differ depending on factors that are not important in everyday observation. These are usually illustrated with "paradoxes" in which an event appears different when observed from two different points of view, seeming to violate "common sense". Relativity: In relativistic physics which deals with velocities close to the speed of light, it is found that different observers may observe different values for the length, time rates, mass, and many other properties of an object, depending on the observer's velocity relative to the object. For example, in the twin paradox one twin goes on a trip near the speed of light and comes home younger than the twin who stayed at home. This is not a paradox: time passes at a slower rate when measured from a frame moving concerning the object. In relativistic physics, an observation must always be qualified by specifying the state of motion of the observer, its reference frame. Quantum mechanics: In quantum mechanics, which deals with the behavior of very small objects, it is not possible to observe a system without changing the system, and the "observer" must be considered part of the
Oftel was accused by critics such as Freeserve of having been "captured" by BT, and of giving the dominant operator too much freedom to leverage its monopoly status in fixed line telephony into other markets such as ADSL. On 29 December 2003, the duties of Oftel were inherited by Ofcom, which was the result of the consolidation of five separate British telecommunications, radio spectrum and broadcasting regulators. Director-General of Oftel Bryan Carsberg 1 August 1984–12 June 1992 Bill Wigglesworth (acting) 13 June 1992 – 31 March 1998 Donald	The Office of Telecommunications (Oftel) (the telecommunications regulator) was a department in the United Kingdom government, under civil service control, charged with promoting competition and maintaining the interests of consumers in the UK telecommunications market. It was set up under the Telecommunications Act 1984 after privatisation of the nationalised operator BT. Oftel was accused by critics such as Freeserve of having been "captured" by BT, and of giving the dominant operator too much freedom to leverage its monopoly status in fixed line telephony into other markets
geotechnical engineering Offices of civil rights Office for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education State Office of Civil Rights, United States Department of State GSA Office of Civil Rights, General Services Administration HHS Office for Civil Rights, United States Department of Health and Human Services DOJ Office for Civil Rights, Office of Justice Programs Economics Official cash rate, the interest rate paid by banks in the overnight money market Optimum currency region, a theoretical optimal area where one currency	rights Office for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education State Office of Civil Rights, United States Department of State GSA Office of Civil Rights, General Services Administration HHS Office for Civil Rights, United States Department of Health and Human Services DOJ Office for Civil Rights, Office of Justice Programs Economics Official cash rate, the interest rate paid by banks in the overnight money market Optimum currency region, a theoretical optimal area where one currency would make most benefit Other uses Original cast recording,
significantly improved over all previous ballistic-missile subs. Ohio was virtually undetectable in her sea trials in 1982, giving the U.S. Navy extremely advanced flexibility. The class's design allows the boat to operate for about 15 years between major overhauls. These submarines are reported to be as quiet at their cruising speed of or more as the previous s at , although exact information remains classified. Fire control for their Mark 48 torpedoes is carried out by Mark 118 Mod 2 system, while the Missile Fire Control system is a Mark 98. The Ohio-class submarines were constructed from sections of hull, with each four-deck section being in diameter. The sections were produced at the General Dynamics Electric Boat facility, Quonset Point, Rhode Island, and then assembled at its shipyard at Groton, Connecticut. The US Navy has a total of 18 Ohio-class submarines which consist of 14 ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), and four cruise missile submarines (SSGNs). The SSBN submarines provide the sea-based leg of the U.S. nuclear triad. Each SSBN submarine is armed with up to 24 Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM). Each SSGN is capable of carrying 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, plus a complement of Harpoon missiles to be fired through their torpedo tubes. As part of the New START treaty, four tubes on each SSBN will be deactivated, leaving each ship with only 20 available for war loads. History The Ohio class was designed in the 1970s to carry the concurrently designed Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile. The first eight Ohio-class submarines were armed at first with 24 Trident I C4 SLBMs. Beginning with the ninth Trident submarine, , the remaining boats were equipped with the larger, three-stage Trident II D5 missile. The Trident I missile carries eight multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, while the Trident II missile carries 12, in total delivering more destructive power than the Trident I missile and with greater accuracy. Starting with in 2000, the Navy began converting its remaining ballistic missile submarines armed with C4 missiles to carry D5 missiles. This task was completed in mid-2008. The first eight submarines had their home ports at Bangor, Washington, to replace the submarines carrying Polaris A3 missiles that were then being decommissioned. The remaining 10 submarines originally had their home ports at Kings Bay, Georgia, replacing the Poseidon and Trident Backfit submarines of the Atlantic Fleet. SSBN/SSGN conversions In 1994, the Nuclear Posture Review study determined that, of the 18 Ohio SSBNs the U.S. Navy would be operating in total, 14 would be sufficient for the strategic needs of the U.S. The decision was made to convert four Ohio-class boats into SSGNs capable of conducting conventional land attack and special operations. As a result, the four oldest boats of the class—Ohio, Michigan, Florida, and Georgia—progressively entered the conversion process in late 2002 and were returned to active service by 2008. The boats could thereafter carry 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles and 66 special operations personnel, among other capabilities and upgrades. The cost to refit the four boats was around US$1 billion (2008 dollars) per vessel. During the conversion of the first four submarines to SSGNs (see below), five of the submarines, , , , , and , were transferred from Kings Bay to Bangor. Further transfers occur as the strategic weapons goals of the United States change. In 2011, Ohio-class submarines carried out 28 deterrent patrols. Each patrol lasts around 70 days. Four boats are on station ("hard alert") in designated patrol areas at any given time. From January to June 2014, Pennsylvania carried out a 140-day-long patrol, the longest to date. The conversion modified 22 of the 24 diameter Trident missile tubes to contain large vertical launch systems, one configuration of which may be a cluster of	lasts around 70 days. Four boats are on station ("hard alert") in designated patrol areas at any given time. From January to June 2014, Pennsylvania carried out a 140-day-long patrol, the longest to date. The conversion modified 22 of the 24 diameter Trident missile tubes to contain large vertical launch systems, one configuration of which may be a cluster of seven Tomahawk cruise missiles. In this configuration, the number of cruise missiles carried could be a maximum of 154, the equivalent of what is typically deployed in a surface battle group. Other payload possibilities include new generations of supersonic and hypersonic cruise missiles, and Submarine Launched Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, the ADM-160 MALD, sensors for antisubmarine warfare or intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions, counter mine warfare payloads such as the AN/BLQ-11 Long Term Mine Reconnaissance System, and the broaching universal buoyant launcher and stealthy affordable capsule system specialized payload canisters. The missile tubes also have room for stowage canisters that can extend the forward deployment time for special forces. The other two Trident tubes are converted to swimmer lockout chambers. For special operations, the Advanced SEAL Delivery System and the dry deck shelter can be mounted on the lockout chamber and the boat will be able to host up to 66 special-operations sailors or Marines, such as Navy SEALs, or USMC MARSOC teams. Improved communications equipment installed during the upgrade allows the SSGNs to serve as a forward-deployed, clandestine Small Combatant Joint Command Center. On 26 September 2002, the Navy awarded General Dynamics Electric Boat a US$442.9 million contract to begin the first phase of the SSGN submarine conversion program. Those funds covered only the initial phase of conversion for the first two boats on the schedule. Advanced procurement was funded at $355 million in fiscal year 2002, $825 million in the FY 2003 budget and, through the five-year defense budget plan, at $936 million in FY 2004, $505 million in FY 2005, and $170 million in FY 2006. Thus, the total cost to refit the four boats is just under $700 million per vessel. In November 2002, Ohio entered a dry-dock, beginning her 36-month refueling and missile-conversion overhaul. Electric Boat announced on 9 January 2006 that the conversion had been completed. The converted Ohio rejoined the fleet in February 2006, followed by Florida in April 2006. The converted Michigan was delivered in November 2006. The converted Ohio went to sea for the first time in October 2007. Georgia returned to the fleet in March 2008 at Kings Bay. These four SSGNs are expected to remain in service until about 2023–2026. At that point, their capabilities will be replaced with Virginia Payload Module-equipped . Detailed cross-section List of boats Note: Boats based at Naval Base Kitsap, Washington are operated by the U.S. Pacific Fleet, while boats based at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia are operated by U.S. Fleet Forces Command, (formerly the U.S. Atlantic Fleet). Replacement The U.S. Department of Defense anticipates a continued need for a sea-based strategic nuclear force. The first of the current Ohio SSBNs is expected to be retired by 2029, so the replacement submarine must be seaworthy by that time. A replacement may cost
depict the Ossian poems early on, with the first major work a cycle of paintings decorating the ceiling the "Grand Hall" of Penicuik House in Midlothian, built by Sir James Clerk, who commissioned the paintings in 1772. These were by the Scottish painter Alexander Runciman and lost when the house burnt down in 1899, though drawings and etchings survive, and two pamphlets describing them were published in the 18th century. A subject from Ossian by Angelica Kauffman was shown in the Royal Academy exhibition of 1773, and Ossian was depicted in Elysium, part of the Irish painter James Barry's magnum opus decorating the Royal Society of Arts, at the Adelphi Buildings in London (still in situ). Works on paper by Thomas Girtin and John Sell Cotman have survived, though the Ossianic landscapes by George Augustus Wallis, which the Ossian fan August Wilhelm Schlegel praised in a letter to Goethe, seem to have been lost, as has a picture by J.M.W. Turner exhibited in 1802. Henry Singleton exhibited paintings, some of which were engraved and used in editions of the poems. A fragment by Novalis, written in 1789, refers to Ossian as an inspired, holy and poetical singer. The Danish painter Nicolai Abildgaard, Director of the Copenhagen Academy from 1789, painted several scenes from Ossian, as did his pupils including Asmus Jacob Carstens. His friend Joseph Anton Koch painted a number of subjects, and two large series of illustrations for the poems, which never got properly into print; like many Ossianic works by Wallis, Carstens, Krafft and others, some of these were painted in Rome, perhaps not the best place to evoke the dim northern light of the poems. In Germany the request in 1804 to produce some drawings as illustrations so excited Philipp Otto Runge that he planned a series of 100, far more than asked for, in a style heavily influenced by the linear illustrations of John Flaxman; these remain as drawings only. Many other German works are recorded, some as late as the 1840s; word of the British scepticism over the Ossian poems was slow to penetrate the continent, or considered irrelevant. France In France the enthusiasm of Napoleon for the poems accounts for most artistic depictions, and those by the most famous artists, but a painting exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1800 by Paul Duqueylar (now Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence) excited Les Barbus ("the Bearded Ones") a group of primitivist artists including Pierre-Maurice Quays (or Quaï) who promoted living in the style of "early civilizations as described in Homer, Ossian, and the Bible". Quays is reported as saying: "Homère? Ossian? ... le soleil? la lune? Voilà la question. En vérité, je crois que je préfère la lune. C'est plus simple, plus grand, plus primitif". ("Homer? Ossian? ... the sun? the moon? That's the question. Truthfully I think I prefer the moon. It's more simple, more grand, more primitive"). The same year Napoleon was planning the renovation of the Château de Malmaison as a summer palace, and though he does not seem to have suggested Ossianic subjects for his painters, two large and significant works were among those painted for the reception hall, for which six artists had been commissioned. These were Girodet's painting of 1801–02 Ossian receiving the Ghosts of the French Heroes, and Ossian Evoking ghosts on the Edge of the Lora (1801), by François Pascal Simon Gérard. Gérard's original was lost in a shipwreck after being bought by the King of Sweden after the fall of Napoleon, but survives in three replicas by the artist (a further one in Berlin was lost in 1945). One is now at Malmaison (184.5 × 194.5 cm / 72.6 × 76.6 in), and the Kunsthalle Hamburg has another (180,5 × 198,5 cm). A watercolour copy by Jean-Baptiste Isabey was placed as frontispiece to Napoleon's copy of the poems. Duqueylar, Girodet and Gérard, like Johann Peter Krafft (above) and most of the Barbus, were all pupils of David, and the clearly unclassical subjects of the Ossian poems were useful for emergent French Romantic painting, marking a revolt against David's Neoclassical choice of historical subject-matter. David's recorded reactions to the paintings were guarded or hostile; he said of Girodet's work: "Either Girodet is mad or I no longer know anything of the art of painting". Girodet's painting (still at Malmaison; 192.5 x 184 cm) was a success de scandale when exhibited in 1802, and remains a key work in the emergence of French Romantic painting, but the specific allusions to the political situation that he intended it to carry were largely lost on the public, and overtaken by the Peace of Amiens with Great Britain, signed in 1802 between the completion and exhibition of the work. He also produced Malvina dying in the arms of Fingal (c. 1802), and other works. Another pupil of David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, was to depict Ossianic scenes over most of his long career. He made a drawing in 1809, when studying in Rome, and in 1810 or 1811 was commissioned to make two paintings, The Dream of Ossian and a classical scene, to decorate the bedroom Napoleon was to occupy in the Palazzo Quirinale on a visit to Rome. In fact the visit never came off and in 1835 Ingres repurchased the work, now in poor condition. The American painter based in Paris Wilbur Winfield Woodward exhibited an Ossian at the 1880 Salon. Editions National Library of Scotland has 327 books and associated materials in its Ossian Collection. The collection was originally assembled by J. Norman Methven of Perth and includes different editions and translations of James Macpherson's epic poem 'Ossian', some with a map of the 'Kingdom of Connor'. It also contains secondary material relating to Ossianic poetry and the Ossian controversy. More than 200 items from the collection have been digitised. Below are some other online editions of interest and recent works: 1760: Fragments of Ancient Poetry collected in the Highlands of Scotland, Edinburgh second edition. 1803: The Poems of Ossian in two volumes, an illustrated edition - Vol.I, Vol.II (London: Lackington, Allen and co.) 1887: Poems of Ossian: Literally translated from the Gaelic, in the original measure of verse by Peter McNaughton (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons). 1888: Poems of Ossian translated by James Macpherson, a pocket reprint of the 1773 edition omitting the four last poems (London: Walter Scott) 1996: The Poems of Ossian and Related Works, ed. Howard Gaskill, with an Introduction by Fiona Stafford (Edinburgh University Press). 2004: Ossian and Ossianism, Dafydd Moore, a 4-volume edition of Ossianic works and a collection of varied responses (London: Routledge). This includes facsimiles of the Ossian works, contemporary and later responses, contextual letters and reviews, and later adaptations. 2011: Blind Ossian's Fingal : fragments and controversy, a reprint of the first edition and abridgement of the follow-up with new material by Allan and Linda Burnett (Edinburgh: Luath Press Ltd). See also Ossian's Hall of Mirrors Folk process Romanticism Ossianic Society (Ireland) Vestiarium Scoticum Manuscripts of Dvůr Králové and of Zelená Hora Lord Dunsany Notes References Gaskill, Howard. (ed.) The reception of Ossian in Europe London: Continuum, 2004 Honour, Hugh, Neo-classicism, 1968, Pelican Kristmannsson, Gauti, Ossian, the European National Epic (1760-1810), EGO - European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2015, retrieved: March 8, 2021 (pdf). Moore, Dafydd. Enlightenment and Romance in James Macpherson's the Poems of Ossian: Myth, Genre and Cultural Change (Studies in Early Modern English Literature) (2003) Okun, Henry, "Ossian in Painting", Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 30, (1967), pp. 327–356, JSTOR Rubin, James Henry, Gérard's Painting of "Ossian" as an Allegory of Inspired Art, Studies in Romanticism, Vol. 15, No. 3, Romantic Classicism (Summer, 1976), pp. 383–394, Boston University, JSTOR Hanselaar, Saskia, "La Mort de Malvina du musée Auguste Grasset à Varzy : une œuvre de jeunesse réattribuée à Ary Scheffer", La Revue des musées de France – Revue du Louvre, LXIe année, octobre 2011, n°4, p. 87–96. Schmidt, Wolf Gerhard. "Ossian, zeitgenössische Diskurse und die Frühphase der deutschen Rezeption (bd. 1)", 2003, De Gruyter. Further reading in French: Collectif, La Légende d'Ossian illustrée par Girodet, catalogue de l'exposition du même nom organisée par les musées de Montargis, Montargis, Musée Girodet, 1988. Gluck, Denise, Ossian et l'ossianisme, dans Hier pour demain, Arts, Tradition et Patrimoine, catalogue de l'exposition du Grand Palais, Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1980. Hanselaar, Saskia, Ossian ou l'Esthétique des Ombres : une génération d'artistes français à la veille du Romantisme (1793–1833), PhD, dir. S. Le Men, Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre la Défense, 2008. Soubigou, Gilles, Ossian et les Barbus: primitivisme et retirement du monde sous le Directoire, in Renoncer à l'art. Figures du romantisme et des années 1970 (Julie Ramos, ed.), Paris, Roven, 2014, pp. 85–105. Van Thieghem, Paul, Ossian en France, Paris, Rieder, 1917. External links Digitised version of Fragments of ancient poetry, collected in the Highlands of Scotland, and translated from the Galic or Erse language, published 1760 at National Library of Scotland The Poetical Works of Ossian Full text at Ex-Classics Selected Bibliography: James Macpherson and Ossian Excellent online bibliography; compiled by designated experts in the field; covering the most important scholarly monographs and articles on Ossian and Macpherson up to March 2004. Literary Encyclopedia: Ossian Popular Tales of the West Highlands by J. F. Campbell Volume IV (1890) A Vision of Britain Through Time James Boswell, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, discussion in entries for 22 and 23 September 1773. Calum Colvin: "Ossian: Fragments of Ancient Poetry" Reproduction of the cycle of paintings "Ossian: Fragments of Ancient Poetry" (2002) by one of Scotland's most renowned contemporary artists "Le mythe d'Ossian"	general Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte named his only son Oscar after the character from Ossian, at the suggestion of Napoleon, the child's godfather and an admirer of Ossian. Bernadotte later was made King of Sweden and Norway. In 1844, his son became King Oscar I of Sweden and Norway, who was, in turn, succeeded by his sons Charles XV and Oscar II (d. 1907). "Oscar" being a royal name led to its becoming also a common male first name, especially in Scandinavia but also in other European countries. Melchiore Cesarotti was an Italian clergyman whose translation into Italian is said by many to improve on the original, and was a tireless promoter of the poems, in Vienna and Warsaw as well as Italy. It was his translation that Napoleon especially admired, and among others it influenced Ugo Foscolo who was Cesarotti's pupil in the University of Padua. By 1800 Ossian was translated into Spanish and Russian, with Dutch following in 1805, and Polish, Czech and Hungarian in 1827–33. The poems were as much admired in Hungary as in France and Germany; Hungarian János Arany wrote "Homer and Ossian" in response, and several other Hungarian writers – Baróti Szabó, Csokonai, Sándor Kisfaludy, Kazinczy, Kölcsey, Ferenc Toldy, and Ágost Greguss, were also influenced by it. The first partial Polish translation of Ossian was made by Ignacy Krasicki in 1793. The complete translation appeared in 1838 by Seweryn Goszczyński. British composer Harriet Wainwright premiered her opera Comala, based on text by Ossian, in London in 1792. The opera Ossian, ou Les bardes by Jean-François Le Sueur (with the famous, multimedial scene of "Ossian's Dream“) was a sell-out at the Paris Opera in 1804, and transformed the composer's career. The poems also exerted an influence on the burgeoning of Romantic music, and Franz Schubert in particular composed Lieder setting many of Ossian's poems. In 1829 Felix Mendelssohn was inspired to visit the Hebrides and composed the Hebrides Overture, also known as Fingal's Cave. His friend Niels Gade devoted his first published work, the concert overture Efterklange af Ossian ("Echoes of Ossian") written in 1840, to the same subject. Ossian and Gaelic print Macpherson's Ossian made a strong impression on Dugald Buchanan (1716–68), a Perthshire poet whose celebrated Spiritual Hymns are written in a Scots Gaelic of a high quality that to some extent reflects the language of the classical Gaelic common to the bards of both Ireland and Scotland. Buchanan, taking the poems of Ossian to be authentic, was moved to revalue the genuine traditions and rich cultural heritage of the Gaels. At around the same time, he wrote to Sir James Clerk of Penicuik, the leading antiquary of the movement, proposing that someone should travel to the Isles and Western Coast of Scotland and collect the work of the ancient and modern bards, in which alone he could find the language in its purity. Much later, in the 19th and 20th centuries, this task was taken up by collectors such as Alexander Carmichael and Lady Evelyn Stewart Murray, and to be recorded and continued by the work of the School of Scottish Studies and the Scottish Gaelic Texts Society. In art Subjects from the Ossian poems were popular in the art of northern Europe, but at rather different periods depending on the country; by the time French artists began to depict Ossian, British artists had largely dropped him. Ossian was especially popular in Danish art, but also found in Germany and the rest of Scandinavia. Britain, Germany and Scandinavia British artists began to depict the Ossian poems early on, with the first major work a cycle of paintings decorating the ceiling the "Grand Hall" of Penicuik House in Midlothian, built by Sir James Clerk, who commissioned the paintings in 1772. These were by the Scottish painter Alexander Runciman and lost when the house burnt down in 1899, though drawings and etchings survive, and two pamphlets describing them were published in the 18th century. A subject from Ossian by Angelica Kauffman was shown in the Royal Academy exhibition of 1773, and Ossian was depicted in Elysium, part of the Irish painter James Barry's magnum opus decorating the Royal Society of Arts, at the Adelphi Buildings in London (still in situ). Works on paper by Thomas Girtin and John Sell Cotman have survived, though the Ossianic landscapes by George Augustus Wallis, which the Ossian fan August Wilhelm Schlegel praised in a letter to Goethe, seem to have been lost, as has a picture by J.M.W. Turner exhibited in 1802. Henry Singleton exhibited paintings, some of which were engraved and used in editions of the poems. A fragment by Novalis, written in 1789, refers to Ossian as an inspired, holy and poetical singer. The Danish painter Nicolai Abildgaard, Director of the Copenhagen Academy from 1789, painted several scenes from Ossian, as did his pupils including Asmus Jacob Carstens. His friend Joseph Anton Koch painted a number of subjects, and two large series of illustrations for the poems, which never got properly into print; like many Ossianic works by Wallis, Carstens, Krafft and others, some of these were painted in Rome, perhaps not the best place to evoke the dim northern light of the poems. In Germany the request in 1804 to produce some drawings as illustrations so excited Philipp Otto Runge that he planned a series of 100, far more than asked for, in a style heavily influenced by the linear illustrations of John Flaxman; these remain as drawings only. Many other German works are recorded, some as late as the 1840s; word of the British scepticism over the Ossian poems was slow to penetrate the continent, or considered irrelevant. France In France the enthusiasm of Napoleon for the poems accounts for most artistic depictions, and those by the most famous artists, but a painting exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1800 by Paul Duqueylar (now Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence) excited Les Barbus ("the Bearded Ones") a group of primitivist artists including Pierre-Maurice Quays (or Quaï) who promoted living in the style of "early civilizations as described in Homer, Ossian, and the Bible". Quays is reported as saying: "Homère? Ossian? ... le soleil? la lune? Voilà la question. En vérité, je crois que je préfère la lune. C'est plus simple, plus grand, plus primitif". ("Homer? Ossian? ... the sun? the moon? That's the question. Truthfully I think I prefer the moon. It's more simple, more grand, more primitive"). The same year Napoleon was planning the renovation of the Château de Malmaison as a summer palace, and though he does not seem to have suggested Ossianic subjects for his painters, two large and significant works were among those painted for the reception hall, for which six artists had been commissioned. These were Girodet's painting of 1801–02 Ossian receiving the Ghosts of the French Heroes, and Ossian Evoking ghosts on the Edge of the Lora (1801), by François Pascal Simon Gérard. Gérard's original was lost in a shipwreck after being bought by the King of Sweden after the fall of Napoleon, but survives in three replicas by the artist (a further one in Berlin was lost in 1945). One is now at Malmaison (184.5 × 194.5 cm / 72.6 × 76.6 in), and the Kunsthalle Hamburg has another (180,5 × 198,5 cm). A watercolour copy by Jean-Baptiste Isabey was placed as frontispiece to Napoleon's copy of the poems. Duqueylar, Girodet and Gérard, like Johann Peter Krafft (above) and most of the Barbus, were all pupils of David, and the clearly unclassical subjects of the Ossian poems were useful for emergent French Romantic painting, marking a revolt against David's Neoclassical choice of historical subject-matter. David's recorded reactions to the paintings were guarded or hostile; he said of Girodet's work: "Either Girodet is mad or I no longer know anything of the art of painting". Girodet's painting (still at Malmaison; 192.5 x 184 cm) was a success de scandale when exhibited in 1802, and remains a key work in the emergence of French Romantic painting, but the specific allusions to the political situation that he intended it to carry were largely lost on the public, and overtaken by the Peace of Amiens with Great Britain, signed in 1802 between the completion and exhibition of the work. He also produced Malvina dying in the arms of Fingal (c. 1802), and other works. Another pupil of David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, was to depict Ossianic scenes over most of his long career. He made a drawing in 1809, when studying in Rome, and in 1810 or 1811 was commissioned to make two paintings, The Dream of Ossian and a classical scene, to decorate the bedroom Napoleon was to occupy in the Palazzo Quirinale on a visit to Rome. In fact the visit never came off and in 1835 Ingres repurchased the work, now in poor condition. The American painter based in Paris Wilbur Winfield Woodward exhibited an Ossian at the 1880 Salon. Editions National Library of Scotland has 327 books and associated materials in its Ossian Collection. The collection was originally assembled by J. Norman Methven of Perth and includes different editions and translations of James Macpherson's epic poem 'Ossian', some with a map of the 'Kingdom of Connor'. It also contains secondary material relating to Ossianic poetry and the Ossian controversy. More than 200 items from the collection have been digitised. Below are some other online editions of interest and recent works: 1760: Fragments of Ancient Poetry collected in the Highlands of Scotland, Edinburgh second edition. 1803: The Poems of Ossian in two volumes, an illustrated edition - Vol.I, Vol.II (London: Lackington, Allen and co.) 1887: Poems of Ossian: Literally translated from the Gaelic, in
like this: The next order of operation according to the rules is division. However, there is no division operator sign (÷) in the expression, 16 − 6. So we move on to the next order of operation, i.e., addition and subtraction, which have the same precedence and are done left to right. . So the correct value for our original expression, 4 × 22 − (2 + 22), is 10. It is important to carry out the order of operation in accordance with rules set by convention. If the reader evaluates an expression but does not follow the correct order of operation, the reader will come forth with a different value. The different value will be the incorrect value because the order of operation was not followed. The reader will arrive at the correct value for the expression if and only if each operation is carried out in the proper order. Arity The number of operands of an operator is called its arity. Based on arity, operators are classified as nullary (no operands), unary (1 operand), binary (2 operands), ternary (3 operands), etc. Computer science In computer programming languages, the definitions of operator and operand are almost the same as in mathematics. In computing, an operand is the part of a computer instruction which specifies what data is to be manipulated or operated on, while at the same time representing the data itself. A computer instruction describes an operation such as add or multiply X, while the operand (or operands, as there can be more than one) specify on which X to operate as well as the value of X. Additionally, in assembly language, an operand is a value (an argument) on which the instruction, named by mnemonic, operates. The operand may be a processor register, a memory address, a literal constant, or a label. A simple example (in the x86 architecture) is MOV DS, AX where the value in register operand AX is to be moved (MOV) into register DS. Depending on the instruction, there may be zero, one, two, or more operands. See also Instruction set Opcode References Algebra Mathematical	carried out in accordance with the order specified above (i.e., start with parentheses and end with the addition/subtraction group). For example, in the expression , the first operation to be acted upon is any and all expressions found inside a parenthesis. So beginning at the left and moving to the right, find the first (and in this case, the only) parenthesis, that is, (2 + 22). Within the parenthesis itself is found the expression 22. The reader is required to find the value of 22 before going any further. The value of 22 is 4. Having found this value, the remaining expression looks like this: The next step is to calculate the value of expression inside the parenthesis itself, that is, (2 + 4) = 6. Our expression now looks like this: Having calculated the parenthetical part of the expression, we start over again beginning with the left most value and move right. The next order of operation (according to the rules) is exponents. Start at the left most value, that is, 4, and scan your eyes to the right and search for the first exponent you come across. The first (and only) expression we come across that is expressed with an exponent is 22. We find the value of 22, which is 4. What we have left is the expression . The next order of operation is multiplication. 4 × 4 is 16. Now our expression looks like this: The next order of operation according to the rules is division. However, there is no division operator sign (÷) in the expression, 16 − 6. So we move on to the next order of operation, i.e., addition and subtraction, which have the same precedence and are done left to right. . So the correct value for our original expression, 4 × 22 − (2 + 22), is 10. It is important to carry out the order of operation in accordance with rules set by convention. If the reader evaluates an expression but does not follow the correct order of operation, the reader will come forth with a different value. The different value will be the incorrect value because the order of operation was not followed. The reader will arrive at the correct value for the expression if and only if
is very easily determined without a calculator to 6. An order of magnitude is an approximate position on a logarithmic scale. Order-of-magnitude estimate An order-of-magnitude estimate of a variable, whose precise value is unknown, is an estimate rounded to the nearest power of ten. For example, an order-of-magnitude estimate for a variable between about 3 billion and 30 billion (such as the human population of the Earth) is 10 billion. To round a number to its nearest order of magnitude, one rounds its logarithm to the nearest integer. Thus , which has a logarithm (in base 10) of 6.602, has 7 as its nearest order of magnitude, because "nearest" implies rounding rather than truncation. For a number written in scientific notation, this logarithmic rounding scale requires rounding up to the next power of ten when the multiplier is greater than the square root of ten (about 3.162). For example, the nearest order of magnitude for is 8, whereas the nearest order of magnitude for is 9. An order-of-magnitude estimate is sometimes also called a zeroth order approximation. Order of magnitude difference An order-of-magnitude difference between two values is a factor of 10. For example, the mass of the planet Saturn is 95 times that of Earth, so Saturn is two orders of magnitude more massive than Earth. Order-of-magnitude differences are called decades when measured on a logarithmic scale. Non-decimal orders of magnitude Other orders of magnitude may be calculated using bases other than 10. The ancient Greeks ranked the nighttime brightness of celestial bodies by 6 levels in which each level was the fifth root of one hundred (about 2.512) as bright as the nearest weaker level of brightness, and thus the brightest level being 5 orders of magnitude brighter than the weakest indicates that it is (1001/5)5 or a factor of 100 times brighter. The different decimal numeral systems of the world use a larger base to better envision the size of the number, and have created names for the powers of this larger base. The table shows what number the order of magnitude aim at for base 10 and for base . It can be seen that the order of magnitude is included in the number name in this example, because bi- means 2 and tri- means 3 (these make sense in the long scale only), and the suffix -illion tells that the base is . But the number names billion, trillion themselves (here with other meaning than in the first chapter) are not names of the orders of magnitudes, they are names of "magnitudes", that is the numbers etc. SI units in the table at right are used together with SI prefixes, which were devised with mainly base 1000 magnitudes in mind. The IEC standard prefixes with base 1024 were invented for use in electronic technology. The ancient apparent magnitudes for the brightness of stars uses the base and is reversed. The modernized version has however turned into a logarithmic scale with non-integer values. Extremely large numbers For extremely large numbers, a generalized order of magnitude can be based on their double logarithm or super-logarithm. Rounding these downward to an integer gives categories between very "round numbers", rounding them to the nearest integer and applying the inverse function gives the "nearest" round number. The double logarithm yields the categories: ..., 1.0023–1.023, 1.023–1.26, 1.26–10, 10–1010, 1010–10100, 10100–10, ... (the first two mentioned, and the extension to the left, may not be very useful, they merely demonstrate how the sequence mathematically continues to	and approaches for increasing . This definition has the effect of lowering the values of slightly: Yet others restrict to values where , making the order of magnitude of a number exactly equal to its exponent part in scientific notation. Uses Orders of magnitude are used to make approximate comparisons. If numbers differ by one order of magnitude, x is about ten times different in quantity than y. If values differ by two orders of magnitude, they differ by a factor of about 100. Two numbers of the same order of magnitude have roughly the same scale: the larger value is less than ten times the smaller value. Calculating the order of magnitude The order of magnitude of a number is, intuitively speaking, the number of powers of 10 contained in the number. More precisely, the order of magnitude of a number can be defined in terms of the common logarithm, usually as the integer part of the logarithm, obtained by truncation. For example, the number has a logarithm (in base 10) of 6.602; its order of magnitude is 6. When truncating, a number of this order of magnitude is between 106 and 107. In a similar example, with the phrase "He had a seven-figure income", the order of magnitude is the number of figures minus one, so it is very easily determined without a calculator to 6. An order of magnitude is an approximate position on a logarithmic scale. Order-of-magnitude estimate An order-of-magnitude estimate of a variable, whose precise value is unknown, is an estimate rounded to the nearest power of ten. For example, an order-of-magnitude estimate for a variable between about 3 billion and 30 billion (such as the human population of the Earth) is 10 billion. To round a number to its nearest order of magnitude, one rounds its logarithm to the nearest integer. Thus , which has a logarithm (in base 10) of 6.602, has 7 as its nearest order of magnitude, because "nearest" implies rounding rather than truncation. For a number written in scientific notation, this logarithmic rounding scale requires rounding up to the next power of ten when the multiplier is greater than the square root of ten (about 3.162). For example, the nearest order of magnitude for is 8, whereas the nearest order of magnitude for is 9. An order-of-magnitude estimate is sometimes also called a zeroth order approximation. Order of magnitude difference An order-of-magnitude difference between two values is a factor of 10. For example, the mass of the planet Saturn is 95 times that of Earth, so Saturn is two orders of magnitude more massive than Earth. Order-of-magnitude differences are called decades when measured on a logarithmic scale. Non-decimal orders of magnitude Other orders of magnitude may be calculated using bases other than 10. The ancient Greeks ranked the nighttime brightness of celestial bodies by 6 levels in which each level was the fifth root of one hundred (about 2.512) as bright as the nearest weaker level of brightness, and thus the brightest level being 5 orders of magnitude brighter than the weakest indicates that it is (1001/5)5 or a factor of 100 times brighter. The different decimal numeral systems of the world use a larger base to better envision the size of the number, and have created names for the powers of this larger base. The table shows what number the order of magnitude aim at for base 10 and for base . It can be seen that the order of magnitude is included in the number name in this example, because bi- means 2 and tri- means 3 (these make sense in the long scale only), and the suffix -illion tells that the base is . But the number names billion, trillion themselves (here with other meaning than in the first chapter) are not names of the orders of magnitudes, they are names of "magnitudes", that is the numbers etc. SI units in the
of inshore minesweepers occam (programming language), also named after William of Ockham OCCAM as acronym: Observatory for Cultural and Audiovisual Communication in the Mediterranean, established in 1996 by UNESCO in Milan Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine, an office of the National Cancer Institute Oxford Centre for Collaborative Applied Mathematics, a research centre at the University of Oxford See also Ockham algebra, bounded distributive lattice with a dual endomorphism Ockham Awards, annual awards by The Skeptic magazine Occam learning, model of algorithmic learning Ockham	Ockham (M2714), one of 93 ships of the Ham-class of inshore minesweepers occam (programming language), also named after William of Ockham OCCAM as acronym: Observatory for Cultural and Audiovisual Communication in the Mediterranean, established in 1996 by UNESCO in Milan Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine, an office of the National Cancer Institute Oxford Centre for Collaborative Applied Mathematics, a research centre at the University of Oxford See also Ockham algebra, bounded distributive
other independent processes from running.) Examples (c is a variable): keyboard ? c screen ! c SEQ introduces a list of expressions that are evaluated sequentially. This is not implicit as it is in most other programming languages. Example: SEQ x := x + 1 y := x * x PAR begins a list of expressions that may be evaluated concurrently. Example: PAR p() q() ALT specifies a list of guarded commands. The guards are a combination of a boolean condition and an input expression, both optional. Each guard for which the condition is true and the input channel is ready is successful. One of the successful alternatives is selected for execution. Example: ALT count1 < 100 & c1 ? data SEQ count1 := count1 + 1 merged ! data count2 < 100 & c2 ? data SEQ count2 := count2 + 1 merged ! data status ? request SEQ out ! count1 out ! count2 This will read data from channels c1 or c2 (whichever is ready) and pass it into a merged channel. If countN reaches 100, reads from the corresponding channel will be disabled. A request on the status channel is answered by outputting the counts to out. Language revisions occam 1 occam 1 (released 1983) was a preliminary version of the language which borrowed from David May's work on EPL and Tony Hoare's CSP. This supported only the VAR data type, which was an integral type corresponding to the native word length of the target architecture, and arrays of only one dimension. occam 2 occam 2 is an extension produced by Inmos Ltd in 1987 that adds floating-point support, functions, multi-dimensional arrays and more data types such as varying sizes of integers (INT16, INT32) and bytes. With this revision, occam became a language able to express useful programs, whereas occam 1 was more suited to examining algorithms and exploring the new language (however, the occam 1 compiler was written in occam 1, so there is an existence proof that reasonably sized, useful programs could be written in occam 1, despite its limits). occam 2.1 occam 2.1 was the last of the series of occam language developments contributed by Inmos. Defined in 1994, it was influenced by an earlier proposal for an occam 3 language (also referred to as "occam91" during its early development) created by Geoff Barrett at Inmos in the early 1990s. A revised Reference Manual describing occam 3 was distributed for community comment, but the language was never fully implemented in a compiler. occam 2.1 introduced several new features to occam 2, including: Named data types (DATA TYPE x IS y) Named records Packed records Relaxation of some of the type	an input expression, both optional. Each guard for which the condition is true and the input channel is ready is successful. One of the successful alternatives is selected for execution. Example: ALT count1 < 100 & c1 ? data SEQ count1 := count1 + 1 merged ! data count2 < 100 & c2 ? data SEQ count2 := count2 + 1 merged ! data status ? request SEQ out ! count1 out ! count2 This will read data from channels c1 or c2 (whichever is ready) and pass it into a merged channel. If countN reaches 100, reads from the corresponding channel will be disabled. A request on the status channel is answered by outputting the counts to out. Language revisions occam 1 occam 1 (released 1983) was a preliminary version of the language which borrowed from David May's work on EPL and Tony Hoare's CSP. This supported only the VAR data type, which was an integral type corresponding to the native word length of the target architecture, and arrays of only one dimension. occam 2 occam 2 is an extension produced by Inmos Ltd in 1987 that adds floating-point support, functions, multi-dimensional arrays and more data types such as varying sizes of integers (INT16, INT32) and bytes. With this revision, occam became a language able to express useful programs, whereas occam 1 was more suited to examining algorithms and exploring the new language (however, the occam 1 compiler was written in occam 1, so there is an existence proof that reasonably sized, useful programs could be written in occam 1, despite its limits). occam 2.1 occam 2.1 was the last of the series of occam language developments contributed by Inmos. Defined in 1994, it was influenced by an earlier proposal for an occam 3 language (also referred to as "occam91" during its early development) created by Geoff Barrett at Inmos in the early 1990s. A revised Reference Manual describing occam 3 was distributed for community comment, but the language was never fully implemented in a compiler. occam 2.1
revolt and that the ten warships that arrived at the city with ten thousand Baltic Fleet mariners were the force that took the power in Petrograd and put down the Provisional Government. The same mariners then dispersed by force the elected parliament of Russia, and used machine-gun fire against demonstrators in Petrograd, killing about 100 demonstrators and wounding several hundred. Dybenko in his memoirs mentioned this event as "several shots in the air". These are disputed by various sources, such as Louise Bryant, who claims that news outlets in the West at the time reported that the unfortunate loss of life occurred in Moscow, not Petrograd, and the number was much less than suggested above. As for the "several shots in the air", there is little evidence suggesting otherwise. Later Soviet portrayal While the seizure of the Winter Palace happened almost without resistance, Soviet historians and officials later tended to depict the event in dramatic and heroic terms. The historical reenactment titled The Storming of the Winter Palace was staged in 1920. This reenactment, watched by 100,000 spectators, provided the model for official films made later, which showed fierce fighting during the storming of the Winter Palace, although, in reality, the Bolshevik insurgents had faced little opposition. Later accounts of the heroic "storming of the Winter Palace" and "defense of the Winter Palace" were propaganda by Bolshevik publicists. Grandiose paintings depicting the "Women's Battalion" and photo stills taken from Sergei Eisenstein's staged film depicting the "politically correct" version of the October events in Petrograd came to be taken as truth. Outcome New government established The Second Congress of Soviets consisted of 670 elected delegates: 300 were Bolshevik and nearly 100 were Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, who also supported the overthrow of the Alexander Kerensky government. When the fall of the Winter Palace was announced, the Congress adopted a decree transferring power to the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, thus ratifying the Revolution. The transfer of power was not without disagreement. The center and right wings of the Socialist Revolutionaries, as well as the Mensheviks, believed that Lenin and the Bolsheviks had illegally seized power and they walked out before the resolution was passed. As they exited, they were taunted by Trotsky who told them "You are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on—into the dustbin of history!" The following day, 26 October, the Congress elected a new cabinet of Bolsheviks, pending the convocation of a Constituent Assembly. This new Soviet government was known as the council (Soviet) of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), with Lenin as a leader. Lenin allegedly approved of the name, reporting that it "smells of revolution". The cabinet quickly passed the Decree on Peace and the Decree on Land. This new government was also officially called "provisional" until the Assembly was dissolved. Anti-Bolshevik sentiment That same day, posters were pinned on walls and fences by the right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries, describing the takeover as a "crime against the motherland" and "revolution"; this signaled the next wave of anti-Bolshevik sentiment. The next day, the Mensheviks seized power in Georgia and declared it an independent republic; the Don Cossacks also claimed control of their government. The Bolshevik strongholds were in the cities, particularly Petrograd, with support much more mixed in rural areas. The peasant-dominated Left SR party was in coalition with the Bolsheviks. There were reports that the Provisional Government had not conceded defeat and were meeting with the army at the Front. Anti-Bolshevik sentiment continued to grow as posters and newspapers started criticizing the actions of the Bolsheviks and refuted their authority. The executive committee of Peasants Soviets "[refuted] with indignation all participation of the organized peasantry in this criminal violation of the will of the working class". This eventually developed into major counter-revolutionary action, as on 30 October (O.S., 12 November, N.S.) when Cossacks, welcomed by church bells, entered Tsarskoye Selo on the outskirts of Petrograd with Kerensky riding on a white horse. Kerensky gave an ultimatum to the rifle garrison to lay down weapons, which was promptly refused. They were then fired upon by Kerensky's cossacks, which resulted in 8 deaths. This turned soldiers in Petrograd against Kerensky as being the Tsarist regime. Kerensky's failure to assume authority over troops was described by John Reed as a "fatal blunder" that signaled the final end of his government. Over the following days, the battle against the anti-Bolsheviks continued. The Red Guard fought against cossacks at Tsarskoye Selo, with the cossacks breaking rank and fleeing, leaving their artillery behind. On 31 October 1917 (13 November, N.S), the Bolsheviks gained control of Moscow after a week of bitter street-fighting. Artillery had been freely used, with an estimated 700 casualties. However, there was continued support for Kerensky in some of the provinces. After the fall of Moscow, there was only minor public anti-Bolshevik sentiment, such as the newspaper Novaya Zhizn, which criticized the Bolsheviks' lack of manpower and organization in running their party, let alone a government. Lenin confidently claimed that there is "not a shadow of hesitation in the masses of Petrograd, Moscow and the rest of Russia" in accepting Bolshevik rule. Governmental reforms On 10 November 1917 (23 November, N.S.), the government applied the term "citizens of the Russian Republic" to Russians, whom they sought to make equal in all possible respects, by the nullification of all "legal designations of civil inequality, such as estates, titles, and ranks." The long-awaited Constituent Assembly elections were held on 12 November (O.S., 25 November, N.S.) 1917. In contrast to their majority in the Soviets, the Bolsheviks only won 175 seats in the 715-seat legislative body, coming in second behind the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which won 370 seats, although the SR Party no longer existed as a whole party by that time, as the Left SRs had gone into coalition with the Bolsheviks from October 1917 to March 1918 (a cause of dispute of the legitimacy of the returned seating of the Constituent Assembly, as the old lists, were drawn up by the old SR Party leadership, and thus represented mostly Right SRs, whereas the peasant soviet deputies had returned majorities for the pro-Bolshevik Left SRs). The Constituent Assembly was to first meet on 28 November (O.S.) 1917, but its convocation was delayed until 5 January (O.S.; 18 January, N.S.) 1918 by the Bolsheviks. On its first and only day in session, the Constituent Assembly came into conflict with the Soviets, and it rejected Soviet decrees on peace and land, resulting in the Constituent Assembly being dissolved the next day by order of the Congress of Soviets. On 16 December 1917 (29 December, N.S.), the government ventured to eliminate hierarchy in the army, removing all titles, ranks, and uniform decorations. The tradition of saluting was also eliminated. On 20 December 1917 (2 January 1918, N.S.), the Cheka was created by Lenin's decree. These were the beginnings of the Bolsheviks' consolidation of power over their political opponents. The Red Terror began in September 1918, following a failed assassination attempt on Lenin. The French Jacobin Terror was an example for the Soviet Bolsheviks. Trotsky had compared Lenin to Maximilien Robespierre as early as 1904. The Decree on Land ratified the actions of the peasants who throughout Russia had taken private land and redistributed it among themselves. The Bolsheviks viewed themselves as representing an alliance of workers and peasants signified by the Hammer and Sickle on the flag and the coat of arms of the Soviet Union. Other decrees: All private property was nationalized by the government. All Russian banks were nationalized. Private bank accounts were expropriated. The properties of the Russian Orthodox Church (including bank accounts) were expropriated. All foreign debts were repudiated. Control of the factories was given to the soviets. Wages were fixed at higher rates than during the war, and a shorter, eight-hour working day was introduced. Timeline of the spread of Soviet power (Gregorian calendar dates) 5 November 1917: Tallinn. 7 November 1917: Petrograd, Minsk, Novgorod, Ivanovo-Voznesensk and Tartu 8 November 1917: Ufa, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, and Narva; (failed in Kiev) 9 November 1917: Vitebsk, Yaroslavl, Saratov, Samara, and Izhevsk 10 November 1917: Rostov, Tver, and Nizhny Novgorod 12 November 1917: Voronezh, Smolensk, and Gomel 13 November 1917: Tambov 14 November 1917: Orel and Perm 15 November 1917: Pskov, Moscow, and Baku 27 November 1917: Tsaritsyn 1 December 1917: Mogilev 8 December 1917: Vyatka 10 December 1917: Kishinev 11 December 1917: Kaluga 14 December 1917: Novorossisk 15 December 1917: Kostroma 20 December 1917: Tula 24 December 1917: Kharkov (invasion of Ukraine by the Muravyov Red Guard forces, the establishment of Soviet Ukraine and hostilities in the region) 29 December 1917: Sevastopol (invasion of Crimea by the Red Guard forces, the establishment of the Taurida Soviet Socialist Republic) 4 January 1918: Penza 11 January 1918: Yekaterinoslav 17 January 1918: Petrozavodsk 19 January 1918: Poltava 22 January 1918: Zhitomir 26 January 1918: Simferopol 27 January 1918: Nikolayev 29 January 1918: (failed again in Kiev) 31 January 1918: Odessa and Orenburg (establishment of the Odessa Soviet Republic) 7 February 1918: Astrakhan 8 February 1918: Kiev and Vologda (defeat of the Ukrainian government) 17 February 1918: Arkhangelsk 25 February 1918: Novocherkassk Russian Civil War Bolshevik-led attempts to gain power in other parts of the Russian Empire were largely successful in Russia proper—although the fighting in Moscow lasted for two weeks—but they were less successful in ethnically non-Russian parts of the Empire, which had been clamoring for independence since the February Revolution. For example, the Ukrainian Rada, which had declared autonomy on 23 June 1917, created the Ukrainian People's Republic on 20 November, which was supported by the Ukrainian Congress of Soviets. This led to an armed conflict with the Bolshevik government in Petrograd and, eventually, a Ukrainian declaration of independence from Russia on 25 January 1918. In Estonia, two rival governments emerged: the Estonian Provincial Assembly, established in April 1917, proclaimed itself the supreme legal authority of Estonia on 28 November 1917 and issued the Declaration of Independence on 24 February 1918; but Soviet Russia recognized the executive committee of the Soviets of Estonia as the legal authority in the province, although the Soviets in Estonia controlled only the capital and a few other major towns. After the success of the October Revolution transformed the Russian state into a soviet republic, a coalition of anti-Bolshevik groups attempted to unseat the new government in the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1922. In an attempt to intervene in the civil war after the Bolsheviks' separate peace with the Central Powers, the Allied Powers (the United Kingdom, France, Italy, the United States, and Japan) occupied parts of the Soviet Union for over two years before finally withdrawing. The United States did not recognize the new Russian government until 1933. The European powers recognized the Soviet Union in the early 1920s and began to engage in business with it after the New Economic Policy (NEP) was implemented. Historiography Historical research into few events has been as influenced by the researcher's political outlook as that of the October Revolution. The historiography of the Revolution generally divides into three camps: Soviet-Marxist, Western-Totalitarian, and Revisionist. Soviet historiography Soviet historiography of the October Revolution is intertwined with Soviet historical development. Many of the initial Soviet interpreters of the Revolution were themselves Bolshevik revolutionaries. After the initial wave of revolutionary narratives, Soviet historians worked within "narrow guidelines" defined by the Soviet government. The rigidity of interpretive possibilities reached its height under Stalin. Soviet historians of the Revolution interpreted the October Revolution as being about establishing the legitimacy of Marxist ideology and the Bolshevik government. To establish the accuracy of Marxist ideology, Soviet historians generally described the Revolution as the product of class struggle and that it was the supreme event in a world history governed by historical laws. The Bolshevik Party is placed at the center of the Revolution, as it exposes the errors of both the moderate Provisional Government and the spurious "socialist" Mensheviks in the Petrograd Soviet. Guided by Lenin's leadership and his firm grasp of scientific Marxist theory, the Party led the "logically predetermined" events of the October Revolution from beginning to end. The events were, according to these historians, logically predetermined because of the socio-economic development of Russia, where monopolistic industrial capitalism had alienated the masses. In this view, the Bolshevik party took the leading role in organizing these alienated industrial workers, and thereby established the construction of the first socialist state. Although Soviet historiography of the October Revolution stayed relatively constant until 1991, it did undergo some changes. Following Stalin's death, historians such as E. N. Burdzhalov and P. V. Volobuev published historical research that deviated significantly from the party line in refining the doctrine that the Bolshevik victory "was predetermined by the state of Russia's socio-economic development". These historians, who constituted the "New Directions Group", posited that the complex nature of the October Revolution "could only be explained by a multi-causal analysis, not by recourse to the mono-causality of monopoly capitalism". For them, the central actor is still the Bolshevik party, but this party triumphed "because it alone could solve the preponderance of 'general democratic' tasks the country faced" (such as the struggle for peace and the exploitation of landlords). During the late Soviet period, the opening of select Soviet archives during glasnost sparked innovative research that broke away from some aspects of Marxism–Leninism, though the key features of the orthodox Soviet view remained intact. Following the turn of the 21st century, some Soviet historians began to implement an "anthropological turn" in their historiographical analysis of the Russian Revolution. This method of analysis focuses on the average person's experience of day-to-day life during the revolution, and pulls the analytical focus away from larger events, notable revolutionaries, and overarching claims about party views. In 2006, S. V. Iarov employed this methodology when he focused on citizen adjustment to the new Soviet system. Iarov explored the dwindling labor protests, evolving forms of debate, and varying forms of politicization as a result of the new Soviet rule from 1917 to 1920. In 2010, O. S. Nagornaia took interest in the personal experiences of Russian prisoners-of-war taken by Germany, examining Russian soldiers and officers' ability to cooperate and implement varying degrees of autocracy despite being divided by class, political views, and race. Other analyses following this "anthropological turn" have explored texts from soldiers and how they used personal war-experiences to further their political goals, as well as how individual life-structure and psychology may have shaped major decisions in the civil war that followed the revolution. Western historiography During the Cold War, Western historiography of the October Revolution developed in direct response to the assertions of the Soviet view. As a result, Western historians exposed what they believed were flaws in the Soviet view, thereby undermining the Bolsheviks' original legitimacy, as well as the precepts of Marxism. These Western historians described the revolution as the result of a chain of contingent accidents. Examples of these accidental and contingent factors they say precipitated the Revolution included World War I's timing, chance, and the poor leadership of Tsar Nicholas II as well as that of liberal and moderate socialists. According to Western historians, it was not popular support, but rather a manipulation of the masses, ruthlessness, and the party discipline of the Bolsheviks that enabled their triumph. For these historians, the Bolsheviks' defeat in the Constituent Assembly elections of November–December 1917 demonstrated popular opposition to the Bolsheviks' revolution, as did the scale and breadth of the Civil War. Western historians saw the organization of the Bolshevik party as proto-totalitarian. Their interpretation of the October Revolution as a violent coup organized by a proto-totalitarian party reinforced for them the idea that totalitarianism was an inherent part of Soviet history. The democratic promise of the February Revolution came to an end with the forced dissolution of the Constituent Assembly. Thus, Stalinist totalitarianism developed as a natural progression from Leninism and	the Congress adopted a decree transferring power to the Soviets of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, thus ratifying the Revolution. The transfer of power was not without disagreement. The center and right wings of the Socialist Revolutionaries, as well as the Mensheviks, believed that Lenin and the Bolsheviks had illegally seized power and they walked out before the resolution was passed. As they exited, they were taunted by Trotsky who told them "You are pitiful isolated individuals; you are bankrupts; your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on—into the dustbin of history!" The following day, 26 October, the Congress elected a new cabinet of Bolsheviks, pending the convocation of a Constituent Assembly. This new Soviet government was known as the council (Soviet) of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), with Lenin as a leader. Lenin allegedly approved of the name, reporting that it "smells of revolution". The cabinet quickly passed the Decree on Peace and the Decree on Land. This new government was also officially called "provisional" until the Assembly was dissolved. Anti-Bolshevik sentiment That same day, posters were pinned on walls and fences by the right-wing Socialist Revolutionaries, describing the takeover as a "crime against the motherland" and "revolution"; this signaled the next wave of anti-Bolshevik sentiment. The next day, the Mensheviks seized power in Georgia and declared it an independent republic; the Don Cossacks also claimed control of their government. The Bolshevik strongholds were in the cities, particularly Petrograd, with support much more mixed in rural areas. The peasant-dominated Left SR party was in coalition with the Bolsheviks. There were reports that the Provisional Government had not conceded defeat and were meeting with the army at the Front. Anti-Bolshevik sentiment continued to grow as posters and newspapers started criticizing the actions of the Bolsheviks and refuted their authority. The executive committee of Peasants Soviets "[refuted] with indignation all participation of the organized peasantry in this criminal violation of the will of the working class". This eventually developed into major counter-revolutionary action, as on 30 October (O.S., 12 November, N.S.) when Cossacks, welcomed by church bells, entered Tsarskoye Selo on the outskirts of Petrograd with Kerensky riding on a white horse. Kerensky gave an ultimatum to the rifle garrison to lay down weapons, which was promptly refused. They were then fired upon by Kerensky's cossacks, which resulted in 8 deaths. This turned soldiers in Petrograd against Kerensky as being the Tsarist regime. Kerensky's failure to assume authority over troops was described by John Reed as a "fatal blunder" that signaled the final end of his government. Over the following days, the battle against the anti-Bolsheviks continued. The Red Guard fought against cossacks at Tsarskoye Selo, with the cossacks breaking rank and fleeing, leaving their artillery behind. On 31 October 1917 (13 November, N.S), the Bolsheviks gained control of Moscow after a week of bitter street-fighting. Artillery had been freely used, with an estimated 700 casualties. However, there was continued support for Kerensky in some of the provinces. After the fall of Moscow, there was only minor public anti-Bolshevik sentiment, such as the newspaper Novaya Zhizn, which criticized the Bolsheviks' lack of manpower and organization in running their party, let alone a government. Lenin confidently claimed that there is "not a shadow of hesitation in the masses of Petrograd, Moscow and the rest of Russia" in accepting Bolshevik rule. Governmental reforms On 10 November 1917 (23 November, N.S.), the government applied the term "citizens of the Russian Republic" to Russians, whom they sought to make equal in all possible respects, by the nullification of all "legal designations of civil inequality, such as estates, titles, and ranks." The long-awaited Constituent Assembly elections were held on 12 November (O.S., 25 November, N.S.) 1917. In contrast to their majority in the Soviets, the Bolsheviks only won 175 seats in the 715-seat legislative body, coming in second behind the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which won 370 seats, although the SR Party no longer existed as a whole party by that time, as the Left SRs had gone into coalition with the Bolsheviks from October 1917 to March 1918 (a cause of dispute of the legitimacy of the returned seating of the Constituent Assembly, as the old lists, were drawn up by the old SR Party leadership, and thus represented mostly Right SRs, whereas the peasant soviet deputies had returned majorities for the pro-Bolshevik Left SRs). The Constituent Assembly was to first meet on 28 November (O.S.) 1917, but its convocation was delayed until 5 January (O.S.; 18 January, N.S.) 1918 by the Bolsheviks. On its first and only day in session, the Constituent Assembly came into conflict with the Soviets, and it rejected Soviet decrees on peace and land, resulting in the Constituent Assembly being dissolved the next day by order of the Congress of Soviets. On 16 December 1917 (29 December, N.S.), the government ventured to eliminate hierarchy in the army, removing all titles, ranks, and uniform decorations. The tradition of saluting was also eliminated. On 20 December 1917 (2 January 1918, N.S.), the Cheka was created by Lenin's decree. These were the beginnings of the Bolsheviks' consolidation of power over their political opponents. The Red Terror began in September 1918, following a failed assassination attempt on Lenin. The French Jacobin Terror was an example for the Soviet Bolsheviks. Trotsky had compared Lenin to Maximilien Robespierre as early as 1904. The Decree on Land ratified the actions of the peasants who throughout Russia had taken private land and redistributed it among themselves. The Bolsheviks viewed themselves as representing an alliance of workers and peasants signified by the Hammer and Sickle on the flag and the coat of arms of the Soviet Union. Other decrees: All private property was nationalized by the government. All Russian banks were nationalized. Private bank accounts were expropriated. The properties of the Russian Orthodox Church (including bank accounts) were expropriated. All foreign debts were repudiated. Control of the factories was given to the soviets. Wages were fixed at higher rates than during the war, and a shorter, eight-hour working day was introduced. Timeline of the spread of Soviet power (Gregorian calendar dates) 5 November 1917: Tallinn. 7 November 1917: Petrograd, Minsk, Novgorod, Ivanovo-Voznesensk and Tartu 8 November 1917: Ufa, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, and Narva; (failed in Kiev) 9 November 1917: Vitebsk, Yaroslavl, Saratov, Samara, and Izhevsk 10 November 1917: Rostov, Tver, and Nizhny Novgorod 12 November 1917: Voronezh, Smolensk, and Gomel 13 November 1917: Tambov 14 November 1917: Orel and Perm 15 November 1917: Pskov, Moscow, and Baku 27 November 1917: Tsaritsyn 1 December 1917: Mogilev 8 December 1917: Vyatka 10 December 1917: Kishinev 11 December 1917: Kaluga 14 December 1917: Novorossisk 15 December 1917: Kostroma 20 December 1917: Tula 24 December 1917: Kharkov (invasion of Ukraine by the Muravyov Red Guard forces, the establishment of Soviet Ukraine and hostilities in the region) 29 December 1917: Sevastopol (invasion of Crimea by the Red Guard forces, the establishment of the Taurida Soviet Socialist Republic) 4 January 1918: Penza 11 January 1918: Yekaterinoslav 17 January 1918: Petrozavodsk 19 January 1918: Poltava 22 January 1918: Zhitomir 26 January 1918: Simferopol 27 January 1918: Nikolayev 29 January 1918: (failed again in Kiev) 31 January 1918: Odessa and Orenburg (establishment of the Odessa Soviet Republic) 7 February 1918: Astrakhan 8 February 1918: Kiev and Vologda (defeat of the Ukrainian government) 17 February 1918: Arkhangelsk 25 February 1918: Novocherkassk Russian Civil War Bolshevik-led attempts to gain power in other parts of the Russian Empire were largely successful in Russia proper—although the fighting in Moscow lasted for two weeks—but they were less successful in ethnically non-Russian parts of the Empire, which had been clamoring for independence since the February Revolution. For example, the Ukrainian Rada, which had declared autonomy on 23 June 1917, created the Ukrainian People's Republic on 20 November, which was supported by the Ukrainian Congress of Soviets. This led to an armed conflict with the Bolshevik government in Petrograd and, eventually, a Ukrainian declaration of independence from Russia on 25 January 1918. In Estonia, two rival governments emerged: the Estonian Provincial Assembly, established in April 1917, proclaimed itself the supreme legal authority of Estonia on 28 November 1917 and issued the Declaration of Independence on 24 February 1918; but Soviet Russia recognized the executive committee of the Soviets of Estonia as the legal authority in the province, although the Soviets in Estonia controlled only the capital and a few other major towns. After the success of the October Revolution transformed the Russian state into a soviet republic, a coalition of anti-Bolshevik groups attempted to unseat the new government in the Russian Civil War from 1918 to 1922. In an attempt to intervene in the civil war after the Bolsheviks' separate peace with the Central Powers, the Allied Powers (the United Kingdom, France, Italy, the United States, and Japan) occupied parts of the Soviet Union for over two years before finally withdrawing. The United States did not recognize the new Russian government until 1933. The European powers recognized the Soviet Union in the early 1920s and began to engage in business with it after the New Economic Policy (NEP) was implemented. Historiography Historical research into few events has been as influenced by the researcher's political outlook as that of the October Revolution. The historiography of the Revolution generally divides into three camps: Soviet-Marxist, Western-Totalitarian, and Revisionist. Soviet historiography Soviet historiography of the October Revolution is intertwined with Soviet historical development. Many of the initial Soviet interpreters of the Revolution were themselves Bolshevik revolutionaries. After the initial wave of revolutionary narratives, Soviet historians worked within "narrow guidelines" defined by the Soviet government. The rigidity of interpretive possibilities reached its height under Stalin. Soviet historians of the Revolution interpreted the October Revolution as being about establishing the legitimacy of Marxist ideology and the Bolshevik government. To establish the accuracy of Marxist ideology, Soviet historians generally described the Revolution as the product of class struggle and that it was the supreme event in a world history governed by historical laws. The Bolshevik Party is placed at the center of the Revolution, as it exposes the errors of both the moderate Provisional Government and the spurious "socialist" Mensheviks in the Petrograd Soviet. Guided by Lenin's leadership and his firm grasp of scientific Marxist theory, the Party led the "logically predetermined" events of the October Revolution from beginning to end. The events were, according to these historians, logically predetermined because of the socio-economic development of Russia, where monopolistic industrial capitalism had alienated the masses. In this view, the Bolshevik party took the leading role in organizing these alienated industrial workers, and thereby established the construction of the first socialist state. Although Soviet historiography of the October Revolution stayed relatively constant until 1991, it did undergo some changes. Following Stalin's death, historians such as E. N. Burdzhalov and P. V. Volobuev published historical research that deviated significantly from the party line in refining the doctrine that the Bolshevik victory "was predetermined by the state of Russia's socio-economic development". These historians, who constituted the "New Directions Group", posited that the complex nature of the October Revolution "could only be explained by a multi-causal analysis, not by recourse to the mono-causality of monopoly capitalism". For them, the central actor is still the Bolshevik party, but this party
cuts across the middle of the voivodeship. The northern part of the voivodeship, along the Mała Panew River, is densely forested, while the southern part consists of arable land. The region has the warmest climate in the country. Protected areas Protected areas in Opole Voivodeship include the following three areas designated as Landscape Parks: Opawskie Mountains Landscape Park Góra Świętej Anny Landscape Park Stobrawa Landscape Park Climate Administrative division Opole Voivodeship is divided into 12 counties (powiats): 1 city county and 11 land counties. These are further divided into 71 gminas. The counties are listed in the following table (ordering is by decreasing population). Cities and towns The voivodeship contains 36 cities and towns. These are listed below in descending order of population (as of 2019): Demographics The Opole Voivodeship is the smallest region in the administrative makeup of the country in terms of both area and population. About 15% of the one million inhabitants of this voivodeship are ethnic Germans, which constitutes 90% of all ethnic Germans in Poland. Towns with particularly high concentrations of German speakers include: Strzelce Opolskie; Dobrodzien; Prudnik; Głogówek; and Gogolin. As a result, many areas are officially bilingual and the German language and culture play a significant role in education in the region. Ethnic Germans first came to this region during the Late Middle Ages. The area was once part of the Prussian province of Silesia. Economy The Gross domestic product (GDP) of the province was 10.1 billion euros in 2018, accounting for 2.0% of Polish economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was 17,000 euros or 56% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 66% of the EU average. The Opole Voivodeship is an industrial as well as an agricultural region. With respect to mineral resources, of major importance are deposits of raw materials for building: limestone (Strzelce Opolskie), marl (near Opole), marble, and basalt. The favourable climate, fertile soils, and high farming culture contribute to the development of agriculture, which is among the most productive in the country. A total of nineteen industries are represented in the voivodeship. The most important are cement and lime, furniture, food, car manufacturing, and chemical industries. In 1997, the biggest production growth in the area was in companies producing wood and wood products, electrical equipment, machinery and appliances, as well as cellulose and paper products. In 1997, the top company in the region was Zakłady Azotowe S.A. in Kędzierzyn-Koźle, whose income was over PLN 860 million. The voivodship's economy consists of more than 53,000 businesses, mostly small and medium-sized, employing over 332,000 people. Manufacturing companies employ over 89,000 people; 95.7% of all the region's business operate in the private sector. Tourism The Opole Voivodeship is a green region with three large lakes: Turawskie, Nyskie, and Otmuchów (the latter two are connected). The Opawskie Mountains between Prudnik and Głuchołazy are extremely popular. The region also includes the castle in Brzeg, built during the reign of the Piast dynasty—pearl of the Silesian Renaissance, the Franciscan monastery on top of Saint Anne Mountain, as well as the medieval defence fortifications in Paczków (referred to as the Upper Silesian Carcassonne). International tourism According to the Central Statistical Office of Poland, Opole Voivodeship is most frequently visited by international tourists from countries located in Europe (94.6%). The rank was followed by tourists from Asia, compromising 2.4% of the total international tourist figure, followed by that of North America at 1.8%. The general composition of international tourists visiting the Opole Voivodeship remains unchanged, with 46.2% of tourists heading from Germany. International tourists visiting Opole Voivodeship with an overnight stay according to country of permanent residence: In 2015, a total of c. 90,800 overnight stays were hosted for international tourists, a figure making up 12.4% of the total amount of	Silesian and Silesian Voivodeships) and for foreign investors. Formed in 1997, the Praděd/Pradziad Euroregion with its headquarter in Prudnik has facilitated economic, cultural and tourist exchanges between the border areas of Poland and the Czech Republic. History Opole Voivodeship was created on January 1, 1999, out of the former Opole Voivodeship and parts of Częstochowa Voivodeship, pursuant to the Polish local government reforms adopted in 1998. Originally, the government, advised by prominent historians, had wanted to disestablish Opolskie and partition its territory between the more historically Polish regions of Lower Silesia and Silesian Voivodeship (eastern Upper Silesia and western Malopolska. The plan was that Brzeg and Namysłów, as the Western part of the region, were to be transferred to Lower Silesia, while the rest was to become, along with a part of the Częstochowa Voivodeship, an integral part of the new 'Silesian' region. However, the plans resulted in an outcry from the German minority population of Opole Voivodeship, who feared that should their region be abolished, they would lose all hope of regional representation (in the proposed Silesian Region, they would have formed a very small minority among a great number of ethnic Poles). To the surprise of many of the ethnic Germans in Opole however, the local Polish Silesian population and groups of ethnic Poles also rose up to oppose the planned reforms; this came about as a result of an overwhelming feeling of attachment to the voivodeships that were scheduled to be 'redrawn', as well as a fear of 'alienation' should one find themselves residing in a new, unfamiliar region. The solution came in late 1999, when Olesno was, after 24 years apart, finally reunited with the Opole Voivodeship to form the new legally defined region. A historic moment came in 2006 when the town of Radłów changed its local laws to make German, alongside Polish, the district's second official language; thus becoming the first town in the region to achieve such a feat. Geography The voivodeship lies in southwestern Poland, the major part on the Silesian Lowland (). To the east, the region touches upon the Silesian Upland (Silesian Uplands, ) with the famous Saint Anne Mountain; the Sudetes range, the Opawskie Mountains, lies to the southwest. The Oder River cuts across the middle of the voivodeship. The northern part of the voivodeship, along the Mała Panew River, is densely forested, while the southern part consists of arable land. The region has the warmest climate in the country. Protected areas Protected areas in Opole Voivodeship include the following three areas designated as Landscape Parks: Opawskie Mountains Landscape Park Góra Świętej Anny Landscape Park Stobrawa Landscape Park Climate Administrative division Opole Voivodeship is divided into 12 counties (powiats): 1 city county and 11 land counties. These are further divided into 71 gminas. The counties are listed in the following table (ordering is by decreasing population). Cities and towns The voivodeship contains 36 cities and towns. These are listed below in descending order of population (as of 2019): Demographics The Opole Voivodeship is the smallest region in the administrative makeup of the country in terms of both area and population. About 15% of the one million inhabitants of this voivodeship are ethnic Germans, which constitutes 90% of all ethnic Germans in Poland. Towns with particularly high concentrations of German speakers include: Strzelce Opolskie; Dobrodzien; Prudnik; Głogówek; and Gogolin. As a result, many areas are officially bilingual and the German language and culture play a significant role in education in the region. Ethnic Germans first came to this region during the Late Middle Ages. The area was once part of the Prussian province of Silesia. Economy The Gross domestic product (GDP) of the province was 10.1 billion euros in 2018, accounting for 2.0% of Polish economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was
Swedish and Norwegian, and 1300 in Old Icelandic. An unstressed vowel was used which varied by dialect. Old Norwegian exhibited all three: was used in West Norwegian south of Bergen, as in aftur, aftor (older aptr); North of Bergen, appeared in aftir, after; and East Norwegian used , after, aftær. Grammar Old Norse was a moderately inflected language with high levels of nominal and verbal inflection. Most of the fused morphemes are retained in modern Icelandic, especially in regard to noun case declensions, whereas modern Norwegian in comparison has moved towards more analytical word structures. Gender Old Norse had three grammatical genders – masculine, feminine and neuter. Adjectives or pronouns referring to a noun must mirror the gender of that noun, so that one says, "" but, "". As in other languages, the grammatical gender of an impersonal noun is generally unrelated to an expected natural gender of that noun. While indeed , "man" is masculine, , "woman", is feminine, and , house, is neuter, so also are and , for "raven" and "crow", masculine and feminine respectively, even in reference to a female raven or a male crow. All neuter words have identical nominative and accusative forms, and all feminine words have identical nominative and accusative plurals. The gender of some words' plurals does not agree with that of their singulars, such as and . Some words, such as , have multiple genders, evidenced by their determiners being declined in different genders within a given sentence. Morphology Nouns, adjectives and pronouns were declined in four grammatical casesnominative, accusative, genitive and dativein singular and plural numbers. Adjectives and pronouns were additionally declined in three grammatical genders. Some pronouns (first and second person) could have dual number in addition to singular and plural. The genitive was used partitively and in compounds and kennings (e.g., Urðarbrunnr, the well of Urðr; Lokasenna, the gibing of Loki). There were several classes of nouns within each gender. The following is an example of the "strong" inflectional paradigms: The numerous "weak" noun paradigms had a much higher degree of syncretism between the different cases; i.e. they had fewer forms than the "strong" nouns. A definite article was realised as a suffix that retained an independent declension; e.g., (a troll) – (the troll), (a hall) – (the hall), (an arm) – (the arm). This definite article, however, was a separate word and did not become attached to the noun before later stages of the Old Norse period. Texts The earliest inscriptions in Old Norse are runic, from the 8th century. Runes continued to be commonly used until the 15th century and have been recorded to be in use in some form as late as the 19th century in some parts of Sweden. With the conversion to Christianity in the 11th century came the Latin alphabet. The oldest preserved texts in Old Norse in the Latin alphabet date from the middle of the 12th century. Subsequently, Old Norse became the vehicle of a large and varied body of vernacular literature. Most of the surviving literature was written in Iceland. Best known are the Norse sagas, the Icelanders' sagas and the mythological literature, but there also survives a large body of religious literature, translations into Old Norse of courtly romances, classical mythology, and the Old Testament, as well as instructional material, grammatical treatises and a large body of letters and official documents. Dialects Most of the innovations that appeared in Old Norse spread evenly through the Old Norse area. As a result, the dialects were very similar and considered to be the same language, a language that they sometimes called the Danish tongue (Dǫnsk tunga), sometimes Norse language (Norrœnt mál), as evidenced in the following two quotes from Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson: However, some changes were geographically limited and so created a dialectal difference between Old West Norse and Old East Norse. As Proto-Norse evolved into Old Norse, in the 8th century, the effects of the umlauts seem to have been very much the same over the whole Old Norse area. But in later dialects of the language a split occurred mainly between west and east as the use of umlauts began to vary. The typical umlauts (for example fylla from fullijan) were better preserved in the West due to later generalizations in the east where many instances of umlaut were removed (many archaic Eastern texts as well as eastern runic inscriptions however portray the same extent of umlauts as in later Western Old Norse). All the while, the changes resulting in breaking (for example hiarta from hertō) were more influential in the East probably once again due to generalizations within the inflectional system. This difference was one of the greatest reasons behind the dialectalization that took place in the 9th and 10th centuries, shaping an Old West Norse dialect in Norway and the Atlantic settlements and an Old East Norse dialect in Denmark and Sweden. Old West Norse and Old Gutnish did not take part in the monophthongization which changed æi (ei) into ē, øy (ey) and au into ø̄, nor did certain peripheral dialects of Swedish, as seen in modern Ostrobothnian dialects. Another difference was that Old West Norse lost certain combinations of consonants. The combinations -mp-, -nt-, and -nk- were assimilated into -pp-, -tt- and -kk- in Old West Norse, but this phenomenon was limited in Old East Norse. Here is a comparison between the two dialects as well as Old Gutnish. It is a transcription from one of the Funbo Runestones in Sweden (U 990) from the eleventh century (translation: 'Veðr and Thane and Gunnar raised this stone after Haursi, their father. God help his spirit'): The OEN original text above is transliterated according to traditional scholarly methods, wherein u-umlaut is not regarded in runic Old East Norse. Modern studies have shown that the positions where it applies are the same as for runic Old West Norse. An alternative and probably more accurate transliteration would therefore render the text in OEN as such: Some past participles and other words underwent i-umlaut in Old West Norse but not in Old East Norse dialects. Examples of that are Icelandic slegið/sleginn and tekið/tekinn, which in Swedish are slagit/slagen and tagit/tagen. This can also be seen in the Icelandic and Norwegian words sterkur and sterk ("strong"), which in Swedish is stark as in Old Swedish. These differences can also be seen in comparison between Norwegian and Swedish. Old West Norse Old West Norse is by far the best attested variety of Old Norse. The term Old Norse is often used to refer to Old West Norse specifically, in which case the subject of this article receives another name, such as Old Scandinavian. Another designation is Old West Nordic. The combinations -mp-, -nt-, and -nk- mostly merged to -pp-, -tt- and -kk- in Old West Norse around the 7th century, marking the first distinction between the Eastern and Western dialects. The following table illustrates this: An early difference between Old West Norse and the other dialects was that Old West Norse had the forms bú, "dwelling", kú, "cow" (accusative) and trú, "faith", whereas Old East Norse had bó, kó and tró. Old West Norse was also characterized by the preservation of u-umlaut, which meant that, for example, Proto-Norse *tanþu, "tooth", was pronounced tǫnn and not tann as in post-runic Old East Norse; OWN gǫ́s and runic OEN gǫ́s, while post-runic OEN gás "goose". The earliest body of text appears in runic inscriptions and in poems composed c. 900 by Þjóðólfr of Hvinir (although the poems are not preserved in contemporary sources, but only in much later manuscripts). The earliest manuscripts are from the period 1150–1200 and concern legal, religious and historical matters. During the 12th and 13th centuries, Trøndelag and Western Norway were the most important areas of the Norwegian kingdom and they shaped Old West Norse as an archaic language with a rich set of declensions. In the body of text that has survived into the modern day from until c. 1300, Old West Norse had little dialect variation, and Old Icelandic does not diverge much more than the Old Norwegian dialects do from each other. Old Norwegian differentiated early from Old Icelandic by the loss of the consonant h in initial position before l, n and r; thus whereas Old Icelandic manuscripts might use the form hnefi, "fist", Old Norwegian manuscripts might use nefi. From the late 13th century, Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian started to diverge more. After c. 1350, the Black Death and following social upheavals seem to have accelerated language changes in Norway. From the late 14th century, the language used in Norway is generally referred to as Middle Norwegian. Old West Norse underwent a lengthening of initial vowels at some point, especially in Norwegian, so that OWN eta became éta, ONW akr > ákr, OIC ek > ék. Old Icelandic In Iceland, initial before was lost: compare Icelandic rangur with Danish vrang, OEN wrangʀ. The change is shared with Old Gutnish. A specifically Icelandic sound, the long, u-umlauted A, spelled Ǫ́ and pronounced , developed around the early 11th century. It was short-lived, being marked in the Grammatical Treatises and remaining until the end of the 12th century. It then merged back into ; as a result, long A is not affected by u-umlaut in Modern Icelandic. merged with during the 12th century, which caused to become an independent phoneme from and the written distinction of for from medial and final to become merely etymological. Around the 13th century, Œ/Ǿ (, which had probably already lowered to ) merged to Æ (). Thus, pre-13th-century (with 'œ') 'green' became spelled as in modern Icelandic (with 'æ'). The 12th-century Gray Goose Laws manuscripts distinguish the vowels, and so the Codex Regius copy does as well. However, the 13th-century Codex Regius copy of the Poetic Edda probably relied on newer and/or poorer quality sources. Demonstrating either difficulty with or total lack of natural distinction, the	much higher degree of syncretism between the different cases; i.e. they had fewer forms than the "strong" nouns. A definite article was realised as a suffix that retained an independent declension; e.g., (a troll) – (the troll), (a hall) – (the hall), (an arm) – (the arm). This definite article, however, was a separate word and did not become attached to the noun before later stages of the Old Norse period. Texts The earliest inscriptions in Old Norse are runic, from the 8th century. Runes continued to be commonly used until the 15th century and have been recorded to be in use in some form as late as the 19th century in some parts of Sweden. With the conversion to Christianity in the 11th century came the Latin alphabet. The oldest preserved texts in Old Norse in the Latin alphabet date from the middle of the 12th century. Subsequently, Old Norse became the vehicle of a large and varied body of vernacular literature. Most of the surviving literature was written in Iceland. Best known are the Norse sagas, the Icelanders' sagas and the mythological literature, but there also survives a large body of religious literature, translations into Old Norse of courtly romances, classical mythology, and the Old Testament, as well as instructional material, grammatical treatises and a large body of letters and official documents. Dialects Most of the innovations that appeared in Old Norse spread evenly through the Old Norse area. As a result, the dialects were very similar and considered to be the same language, a language that they sometimes called the Danish tongue (Dǫnsk tunga), sometimes Norse language (Norrœnt mál), as evidenced in the following two quotes from Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson: However, some changes were geographically limited and so created a dialectal difference between Old West Norse and Old East Norse. As Proto-Norse evolved into Old Norse, in the 8th century, the effects of the umlauts seem to have been very much the same over the whole Old Norse area. But in later dialects of the language a split occurred mainly between west and east as the use of umlauts began to vary. The typical umlauts (for example fylla from fullijan) were better preserved in the West due to later generalizations in the east where many instances of umlaut were removed (many archaic Eastern texts as well as eastern runic inscriptions however portray the same extent of umlauts as in later Western Old Norse). All the while, the changes resulting in breaking (for example hiarta from hertō) were more influential in the East probably once again due to generalizations within the inflectional system. This difference was one of the greatest reasons behind the dialectalization that took place in the 9th and 10th centuries, shaping an Old West Norse dialect in Norway and the Atlantic settlements and an Old East Norse dialect in Denmark and Sweden. Old West Norse and Old Gutnish did not take part in the monophthongization which changed æi (ei) into ē, øy (ey) and au into ø̄, nor did certain peripheral dialects of Swedish, as seen in modern Ostrobothnian dialects. Another difference was that Old West Norse lost certain combinations of consonants. The combinations -mp-, -nt-, and -nk- were assimilated into -pp-, -tt- and -kk- in Old West Norse, but this phenomenon was limited in Old East Norse. Here is a comparison between the two dialects as well as Old Gutnish. It is a transcription from one of the Funbo Runestones in Sweden (U 990) from the eleventh century (translation: 'Veðr and Thane and Gunnar raised this stone after Haursi, their father. God help his spirit'): The OEN original text above is transliterated according to traditional scholarly methods, wherein u-umlaut is not regarded in runic Old East Norse. Modern studies have shown that the positions where it applies are the same as for runic Old West Norse. An alternative and probably more accurate transliteration would therefore render the text in OEN as such: Some past participles and other words underwent i-umlaut in Old West Norse but not in Old East Norse dialects. Examples of that are Icelandic slegið/sleginn and tekið/tekinn, which in Swedish are slagit/slagen and tagit/tagen. This can also be seen in the Icelandic and Norwegian words sterkur and sterk ("strong"), which in Swedish is stark as in Old Swedish. These differences can also be seen in comparison between Norwegian and Swedish. Old West Norse Old West Norse is by far the best attested variety of Old Norse. The term Old Norse is often used to refer to Old West Norse specifically, in which case the subject of this article receives another name, such as Old Scandinavian. Another designation is Old West Nordic. The combinations -mp-, -nt-, and -nk- mostly merged to -pp-, -tt- and -kk- in Old West Norse around the 7th century, marking the first distinction between the Eastern and Western dialects. The following table illustrates this: An early difference between Old West Norse and the other dialects was that Old West Norse had the forms bú, "dwelling", kú, "cow" (accusative) and trú, "faith", whereas Old East Norse had bó, kó and tró. Old West Norse was also characterized by the preservation of u-umlaut, which meant that, for example, Proto-Norse tanþu, "tooth", was pronounced tǫnn and not tann as in post-runic Old East Norse; OWN gǫ́s and runic OEN gǫ́s, while post-runic OEN gás "goose". The earliest body of text appears in runic inscriptions and in poems composed c. 900 by Þjóðólfr of Hvinir (although the poems are not preserved in contemporary sources, but only in much later manuscripts). The earliest manuscripts are from the period 1150–1200 and concern legal, religious and historical matters. During the 12th and 13th centuries, Trøndelag and Western Norway were the most important areas of the Norwegian kingdom and they shaped Old West Norse as an archaic language with a rich set of declensions. In the body of text that has survived into the modern day from until c. 1300, Old West Norse had little dialect variation, and Old Icelandic does not diverge much more than the Old Norwegian dialects do from each other. Old Norwegian differentiated early from Old Icelandic by the loss of the consonant h in initial position before l, n and r; thus whereas Old Icelandic manuscripts might use the form hnefi, "fist", Old Norwegian manuscripts might use nefi. From the late 13th century, Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian started to diverge more. After c. 1350, the Black Death and following social upheavals seem to have accelerated language changes in Norway. From the late 14th century, the language used in Norway is generally referred to as Middle Norwegian. Old West Norse underwent a lengthening of initial vowels at some point, especially in Norwegian, so that OWN eta became éta, ONW akr > ákr, OIC ek > ék. Old Icelandic In Iceland, initial before was lost: compare Icelandic rangur with Danish vrang, OEN wrangʀ. The change is shared with Old Gutnish. A specifically Icelandic sound, the long, u-umlauted A, spelled Ǫ́ and pronounced , developed around the early 11th century. It was short-lived, being marked in the Grammatical Treatises and remaining until the end of the 12th century. It then merged back into ; as a result, long A is not affected by u-umlaut in Modern Icelandic. merged with during the 12th century, which caused to become an independent phoneme from and the written distinction of for from medial and final to become merely etymological. Around the 13th century, Œ/Ǿ (, which had probably already lowered to ) merged to Æ (). Thus, pre-13th-century (with 'œ') 'green' became spelled as in modern Icelandic (with 'æ'). The 12th-century Gray Goose Laws manuscripts distinguish the vowels, and so the Codex Regius copy does as well. However, the 13th-century Codex Regius copy of the Poetic Edda probably relied on newer and/or poorer quality sources. Demonstrating either difficulty with or total lack of natural distinction, the manuscripts show separation of the two phonemes in some places, but they frequently confuse the letters chosen to distinguish them in others. Towards the end of the 13th century, Ę () merged to E (). Old Norwegian Around the 11th century, Old Norwegian , , and became , and . It is debatable whether the sequences represented a consonant cluster () or devoicing (). Orthographic evidence suggests that in a confined dialect of Old Norwegian, may have been unrounded before and that u-umlaut was reversed unless the u had been eliminated: ǫll, ǫllum > ǫll, allum. Greenlandic Norse This dialect of Old West Norse was spoken by Icelandic colonies in Greenland. When the colonies died out around the 15th century, the dialect went with it. The phoneme and some instances of merged to and so Old Icelandic Þórðr became Tortr. Text example The following text is from Alexanders saga, an Alexander romance. The manuscript, AM 519 a 4to, is dated c. 1280. The facsimile demonstrates the sigla used by scribes to write Old Norse. Many of them were borrowed from Latin. Without familiarity with these abbreviations, the facsimile will be unreadable to many. In addition, reading the manuscript itself requires familiarity with the letterforms of the native script. The abbreviations are expanded in a version with normalized spelling like that of the standard normalization system. Compared to the spelling of the same text in Modern Icelandic, pronunciation has changed greatly, but spelling has changed little since Icelandic orthography was intentionally modelled after Old Norse in the 19th century. a printed in uncial. Uncials not encoded separately in Unicode as of this section's writing. Old East Norse Old East Norse or Old East Nordic between 800 and 1100 is called Runic Swedish in Sweden and Runic Danish in Denmark, but for geographical rather than linguistic reasons. Any differences between the two were minute at best during the more ancient stages of this dialect group. Changes had a tendency to occur earlier in the Danish region. Even today many Old Danish changes have still not taken place in modern Swedish. Swedish is therefore the more conservative of the two in both the ancient and the modern languages, sometimes by a profound margin but in general, differences are still minute. The language is called "runic" because the body of text appears in runes. Runic Old East Norse is characteristically conservative in form, especially Swedish (which is still true for modern Swedish compared to Danish). In essence it matches or surpasses the conservatism of post-runic Old West Norse, which in turn is generally more conservative than post-runic Old East Norse. While typically "Eastern" in structure, many later post-runic changes and trademarks of OEN had yet to happen. The phoneme ʀ, which evolved during the Proto-Norse period from z, was still clearly separated from r in most positions, even when being geminated, while in OWN it had already merged with r. The Proto-Germanic phoneme was preserved in initial sounds in Old East Norse (w-), unlike in West Norse where it developed into . It survived in rural Swedish dialects in the provinces of Skåne, Blekinge, Småland, Halland, Västergötland and south of Bohuslän into the 18th, 19th and 20th century. It is still preserved in the Dalecarlian dialects in the province of Dalarna, Sweden, and in Jutlandic dialects in Denmark. The -phoneme did also occur after consonants (kw-, tw- etc.) in Old East Norse and did so into modern times in said Swedish dialects, as well as in the Westro- and North Bothnian tongues and other dialects in the
Old English. Early Old English (c. 650 to 900), the period of the oldest manuscript traditions, with authors such as Cædmon, Bede, Cynewulf and Aldhelm. Late Old English (c. 900 to 1170), the final stage of the language leading up to the Norman conquest of England and the subsequent transition to Early Middle English. The Old English period is followed by Middle English (12th to 15th century), Early Modern English (c. 1480 to 1650) and finally Modern English (after 1650), and in Scotland Early Scots (before 1450), Middle Scots (c. 1450 to 1700) and Modern Scots (after 1700). Dialects Just as Modern English is not monolithic, Old English varied according to place. Despite the diversity of language of the Germanic-speaking migrants who established Old English in Britain, it is possible to reconstruct proto-Old English as a fairly unitary language. For the most part, the differences between the attested regional dialects of Old English developed within Britain, rather than on the Continent. Although from the tenth century Old English writing from all regions tended to conform to a written standard based on Late West Saxon, in speech Old English continued to exhibit much local and regional variation, which remained in Middle English and to some extent Modern English dialects. The four main dialectal forms of Old English were Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish, and West Saxon. Mercian and Northumbrian are together referred to as Anglian. In terms of geography the Northumbrian region lay north of the Humber River; the Mercian lay north of the Thames and south of the Humber River; West Saxon lay south and southwest of the Thames; and the smallest, Kentish region lay southeast of the Thames, a small corner of England. The Kentish region, settled by the Jutes from Jutland, has the scantest literary remains. The term West Saxon actually is represented by two different dialects: Early West Saxon and Late West Saxon. Hogg has suggested that these two dialects would be more appropriately named Alfredian Saxon and Æthelwoldian Saxon, respectively, so that the naive reader would not assume that they are chronologically related. Each of these four dialects was associated with an independent kingdom on the island. Of these, Northumbria south of the Tyne, and most of Mercia, were overrun by the Vikings during the 9th century. The portion of Mercia that was successfully defended, and all of Kent, were then integrated into Wessex under Alfred the Great. From that time on, the West Saxon dialect (then in the form now known as Early West Saxon) became standardised as the language of government, and as the basis for the many works of literature and religious materials produced or translated from Latin in that period. The later literary standard known as Late West Saxon (see History, above), although centred in the same region of the country, appears not to have been directly descended from Alfred's Early West Saxon. For example, the former diphthong tended to become monophthongised to in EWS, but to in LWS. Due to the centralisation of power and the Viking invasions, there is relatively little written record of the non-West Saxon dialects after Alfred's unification. Some Mercian texts continued to be written, however, and the influence of Mercian is apparent in some of the translations produced under Alfred's programme, many of which were produced by Mercian scholars. Other dialects certainly continued to be spoken, as is evidenced by the continued variation between their successors in Middle and Modern English. In fact, what would become the standard forms of Middle English and of Modern English are descended from Mercian rather than West Saxon, while Scots developed from the Northumbrian dialect. It was once claimed that, owing to its position at the heart of the Kingdom of Wessex, the relics of Anglo-Saxon accent, idiom and vocabulary were best preserved in the dialect of Somerset. For details of the sound differences between the dialects, see . Influence of other languages The language of the Anglo-Saxon settlers appears not to have been significantly affected by the native British Celtic languages which it largely displaced. The number of Celtic loanwords introduced into the language is very small, although dialect and toponymic terms are more often retained in western language contact zones (Cumbria, Devon, Welsh Marches and Borders and so on) than in the east. However, various suggestions have been made concerning possible influence that Celtic may have had on developments in English syntax in the post-Old English period, such as the regular progressive construction and analytic word order, as well as the eventual development of the periphrastic auxiliary verb "do". These ideas have generally not received widespread support from linguists, particularly as many of the theorized Brittonicisms do not become widespread until the late Middle English and Early Modern English periods, in addition to the fact that similar forms exist in other modern Germanic languages. Old English contained a certain number of loanwords from Latin, which was the scholarly and diplomatic lingua franca of Western Europe. It is sometimes possible to give approximate dates for the borrowing of individual Latin words based on which patterns of sound change they have undergone. Some Latin words had already been borrowed into the Germanic languages before the ancestral Angles and Saxons left continental Europe for Britain. More entered the language when the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity and Latin-speaking priests became influential. It was also through Irish Christian missionaries that the Latin alphabet was introduced and adapted for the writing of Old English, replacing the earlier runic system. Nonetheless, the largest transfer of Latin-based (mainly Old French) words into English occurred after the Norman Conquest of 1066, and thus in the Middle English rather than the Old English period. Another source of loanwords was Old Norse, which came into contact with Old English via the Scandinavian rulers and settlers in the Danelaw from the late 9th century, and during the rule of Cnut and other Danish kings in the early 11th century. Many place-names in eastern and northern England are of Scandinavian origin. Norse borrowings are relatively rare in Old English literature, being mostly terms relating to government and administration. The literary standard, however, was based on the West Saxon dialect, away from the main area of Scandinavian influence; the impact of Norse may have been greater in the eastern and northern dialects. Certainly in Middle English texts, which are more often based on eastern dialects, a strong Norse influence becomes apparent. Modern English contains many, often everyday, words that were borrowed from Old Norse, and the grammatical simplification that occurred after the Old English period is also often attributed to Norse influence. The influence of Old Norse certainly helped move English from a synthetic language along the continuum to a more analytic word order, and Old Norse most likely made a greater impact on the English language than any other language. The eagerness of Vikings in the Danelaw to communicate with their Anglo-Saxon neighbours produced a friction that led to the erosion of the complicated inflectional word-endings. Simeon Potter notes: "No less far-reaching was the influence of Scandinavian upon the inflexional endings of English in hastening that wearing away and leveling of grammatical forms which gradually spread from north to south. It was, after all, a salutary influence. The gain was greater than the loss. There was a gain in directness, in clarity, and in strength." The strength of the Viking influence on Old English appears from the fact that the indispensable elements of the language – pronouns, modals, comparatives, pronominal adverbs (like "hence" and "together"), conjunctions and prepositions – show the most marked Danish influence; the best evidence of Scandinavian influence appears in the extensive word borrowings for, as Jespersen indicates, no texts exist in either Scandinavia or in Northern England from this time to give certain evidence of an influence on syntax. The effect of Old Norse on Old English was substantive, pervasive, and of a democratic character. Old Norse and Old English resembled each other closely like cousins and with some words in common, they roughly understood each other; in time the inflections melted away and the analytic pattern emerged. It is most "important to recognize that in many words the English and Scandinavian language differed chiefly in their inflectional elements. The body of the word was so nearly the same in the two languages that only the endings would put obstacles in the way of mutual understanding. In the mixed population which existed in the Danelaw, these endings must have led to much confusion, tending gradually to become obscured and finally lost." This blending of peoples and languages resulted in "simplifying English grammar". Phonology The inventory of Early West Saxon surface phones is as follows. The sounds enclosed in parentheses in the chart above are not considered to be phonemes: is an allophone of occurring after and when geminated (doubled). is an allophone of occurring before [k] and [ɡ]. are voiced allophones of respectively, occurring between vowels or voiced consonants when the preceding sound was stressed. are allophones of occurring at the beginning of a word or after a front vowel, respectively. is an allophone of occurring after or when doubled. At some point before the Middle English period, also became the pronunciation word-initially. the voiceless sonorants occur after [h] in the sequences . The above system is largely similar to that of Modern English, except that (and for most speakers) have generally been lost, while the voiced affricate and fricatives (now also including ) have become independent phonemes, as has . The open back rounded vowel was an allophone of short /ɑ/ which occurred in stressed syllables before nasal consonants (/m/ and /n/). It was variously spelled either ⟨a⟩ or ⟨o⟩. The Anglian dialects also had the mid front rounded vowel , spelled ⟨œ⟩, which had emerged from i-umlaut of . In West Saxon and Kentish, it had already merged with before the first written prose. Other dialects had different systems of diphthongs. For example, the Northumbrian dialect retained , which had merged with in West Saxon. For more on dialectal differences, see Phonological history of Old English (dialects). Sound changes Some of the principal sound changes occurring in the pre-history and history of Old English were the following: Fronting of to except when nasalised or followed by a nasal consonant ("Anglo-Frisian brightening"), partly reversed in certain positions by later "a-restoration" or retraction. Monophthongisation of the diphthong , and modification of remaining diphthongs to the height-harmonic type. Diphthongisation of long and short front vowels in certain positions ("breaking"). Palatalisation of velars to in certain front-vowel environments. The process known as i-mutation (which for example led to modern mice as the plural of mouse). Loss of certain weak vowels in word-final and medial positions; reduction of remaining unstressed vowels. Diphthongisation of certain vowels before certain consonants when preceding a back vowel ("back mutation"). Loss of between vowels or between a voiced consonant and a vowel, with lengthening of the preceding vowel. Collapse of two consecutive vowels into a single vowel. "Palatal umlaut", which has given forms such as six (compare German sechs). For more details of these processes, see the main article, linked above. For sound changes before and after the Old English period, see Phonological history of English. Grammar Morphology Nouns decline for five cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental; three genders: masculine, feminine, neuter; and two numbers: singular, and plural; and are strong or weak. The instrumental is vestigial and only used with the masculine and neuter singular and often replaced by the dative. Only pronouns and strong adjectives retain separate instrumental forms. There is also sparse early Northumbrian evidence of a sixth case: the locative. The evidence comes from Northumbrian Runic texts (e.g., on rodi "on the Cross"). Adjectives agree with nouns in case, gender, and number, and can be either strong or weak. Pronouns and sometimes participles agree in case, gender, and number. First-person and second-person personal pronouns occasionally distinguish dual-number forms. The definite article and its inflections serve as a definite article ("the"), a demonstrative adjective ("that"), and demonstrative pronoun. Other demonstratives are ("this"), and ("that over there"). These words inflect for case, gender, and number. Adjectives have both strong and weak sets of endings, weak ones being used when a definite or possessive determiner is also present. Verbs conjugate for three persons: first, second, and third; two numbers: singular, plural; two tenses: present, and past; three moods: indicative, subjunctive, and imperative; and are strong (exhibiting ablaut) or weak (exhibiting a dental suffix). Verbs have two infinitive forms: bare and bound; and two participles: present and past. The subjunctive has past and present forms. Finite verbs agree with subjects in person and number. The future tense, passive voice, and other aspects are formed with compounds. Adpositions are mostly before but are often after their object. If the object of an adposition is marked in the dative case, an adposition may conceivably be located anywhere in the sentence. Remnants of the Old English case system in Modern English are in the forms of a few pronouns (such as I/me/mine, she/her, who/whom/whose) and in the possessive ending -'s, which derives from the masculine and neuter genitive ending -es. The modern English plural ending -(e)s derives from the Old English -as, but the latter applied only to "strong" masculine nouns in the nominative and accusative cases; different plural endings were used in other instances. Old English nouns had grammatical gender, while modern English has only natural gender. Pronoun usage could reflect either natural or grammatical gender when those conflicted, as in the case of , a neuter noun referring to a female person. In Old English's verbal compound constructions are the beginnings of the compound tenses of Modern English. Old English verbs include strong verbs, which form the past tense by altering the root vowel, and weak verbs, which use a suffix such as . As in Modern English, and peculiar to the Germanic languages, the verbs formed two great classes: weak (regular), and strong (irregular). Like today, Old English had fewer strong verbs, and many of these have over time decayed into weak forms. Then, as now, dental suffixes indicated the past tense of the weak verbs, as in work and worked. Syntax Old English syntax is similar to that of modern English. Some differences are consequences of the greater level of nominal and verbal inflection, allowing freer word order. Default word order is verb-second in main clauses, and verb-final in subordinate clauses No do-support in questions and negatives. Questions were usually formed by inverting subject and finite verb, and negatives by placing ne before the finite verb, regardless of which verb. Multiple negatives can stack up in a sentence intensifying each other (negative concord). Sentences with subordinate clauses of the type "when X, Y" (e.g. "When I got home, I ate dinner") don't use a wh-type conjunction, but rather a th-type correlative conjunction such as , otherwise meaning "then" (e.g. in place of "when X, Y"). The wh-words are used only as interrogatives and as indefinite pronouns. Similarly, wh- forms were not used as relative pronouns. Instead, the indeclinable word is used, often preceded by (or replaced by) the appropriate form of the article/demonstrative . Orthography Old English was first written in runes, using the futhorc—a rune set derived from the Germanic 24-character elder futhark, extended by five more runes used to represent Anglo-Saxon vowel sounds and sometimes by several more additional characters. From around the 8th century, the runic system came to be supplanted by a (minuscule) half-uncial script of the Latin alphabet introduced by Irish Christian missionaries. This was replaced by Insular script, a cursive and pointed version of the half-uncial script. This was used until the end of the 12th century when continental Carolingian minuscule (also known as Caroline) replaced the insular. The Latin alphabet of the time still lacked the letters and , and there was no as distinct from ; moreover native Old English spellings did not use , or . The remaining 20 Latin letters were supplemented by four more: (, modern ash) and (, now called eth or edh), which were modified Latin letters, and thorn and wynn , which are borrowings from the futhorc. A few letter pairs were used as digraphs, representing a single sound. Also used was the Tironian note (a character similar to the digit 7) for the conjunction and. A common scribal abbreviation was a thorn with a stroke , which was used for the pronoun . Macrons over vowels were originally used not to mark long vowels (as in modern editions), but to indicate stress, or as abbreviations for a following m or n. Modern editions of Old English manuscripts generally introduce some	"No less far-reaching was the influence of Scandinavian upon the inflexional endings of English in hastening that wearing away and leveling of grammatical forms which gradually spread from north to south. It was, after all, a salutary influence. The gain was greater than the loss. There was a gain in directness, in clarity, and in strength." The strength of the Viking influence on Old English appears from the fact that the indispensable elements of the language – pronouns, modals, comparatives, pronominal adverbs (like "hence" and "together"), conjunctions and prepositions – show the most marked Danish influence; the best evidence of Scandinavian influence appears in the extensive word borrowings for, as Jespersen indicates, no texts exist in either Scandinavia or in Northern England from this time to give certain evidence of an influence on syntax. The effect of Old Norse on Old English was substantive, pervasive, and of a democratic character. Old Norse and Old English resembled each other closely like cousins and with some words in common, they roughly understood each other; in time the inflections melted away and the analytic pattern emerged. It is most "important to recognize that in many words the English and Scandinavian language differed chiefly in their inflectional elements. The body of the word was so nearly the same in the two languages that only the endings would put obstacles in the way of mutual understanding. In the mixed population which existed in the Danelaw, these endings must have led to much confusion, tending gradually to become obscured and finally lost." This blending of peoples and languages resulted in "simplifying English grammar". Phonology The inventory of Early West Saxon surface phones is as follows. The sounds enclosed in parentheses in the chart above are not considered to be phonemes: is an allophone of occurring after and when geminated (doubled). is an allophone of occurring before [k] and [ɡ]. are voiced allophones of respectively, occurring between vowels or voiced consonants when the preceding sound was stressed. are allophones of occurring at the beginning of a word or after a front vowel, respectively. is an allophone of occurring after or when doubled. At some point before the Middle English period, also became the pronunciation word-initially. the voiceless sonorants occur after [h] in the sequences . The above system is largely similar to that of Modern English, except that (and for most speakers) have generally been lost, while the voiced affricate and fricatives (now also including ) have become independent phonemes, as has . The open back rounded vowel was an allophone of short /ɑ/ which occurred in stressed syllables before nasal consonants (/m/ and /n/). It was variously spelled either ⟨a⟩ or ⟨o⟩. The Anglian dialects also had the mid front rounded vowel , spelled ⟨œ⟩, which had emerged from i-umlaut of . In West Saxon and Kentish, it had already merged with before the first written prose. Other dialects had different systems of diphthongs. For example, the Northumbrian dialect retained , which had merged with in West Saxon. For more on dialectal differences, see Phonological history of Old English (dialects). Sound changes Some of the principal sound changes occurring in the pre-history and history of Old English were the following: Fronting of to except when nasalised or followed by a nasal consonant ("Anglo-Frisian brightening"), partly reversed in certain positions by later "a-restoration" or retraction. Monophthongisation of the diphthong , and modification of remaining diphthongs to the height-harmonic type. Diphthongisation of long and short front vowels in certain positions ("breaking"). Palatalisation of velars to in certain front-vowel environments. The process known as i-mutation (which for example led to modern mice as the plural of mouse). Loss of certain weak vowels in word-final and medial positions; reduction of remaining unstressed vowels. Diphthongisation of certain vowels before certain consonants when preceding a back vowel ("back mutation"). Loss of between vowels or between a voiced consonant and a vowel, with lengthening of the preceding vowel. Collapse of two consecutive vowels into a single vowel. "Palatal umlaut", which has given forms such as six (compare German sechs). For more details of these processes, see the main article, linked above. For sound changes before and after the Old English period, see Phonological history of English. Grammar Morphology Nouns decline for five cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental; three genders: masculine, feminine, neuter; and two numbers: singular, and plural; and are strong or weak. The instrumental is vestigial and only used with the masculine and neuter singular and often replaced by the dative. Only pronouns and strong adjectives retain separate instrumental forms. There is also sparse early Northumbrian evidence of a sixth case: the locative. The evidence comes from Northumbrian Runic texts (e.g., on rodi "on the Cross"). Adjectives agree with nouns in case, gender, and number, and can be either strong or weak. Pronouns and sometimes participles agree in case, gender, and number. First-person and second-person personal pronouns occasionally distinguish dual-number forms. The definite article and its inflections serve as a definite article ("the"), a demonstrative adjective ("that"), and demonstrative pronoun. Other demonstratives are ("this"), and ("that over there"). These words inflect for case, gender, and number. Adjectives have both strong and weak sets of endings, weak ones being used when a definite or possessive determiner is also present. Verbs conjugate for three persons: first, second, and third; two numbers: singular, plural; two tenses: present, and past; three moods: indicative, subjunctive, and imperative; and are strong (exhibiting ablaut) or weak (exhibiting a dental suffix). Verbs have two infinitive forms: bare and bound; and two participles: present and past. The subjunctive has past and present forms. Finite verbs agree with subjects in person and number. The future tense, passive voice, and other aspects are formed with compounds. Adpositions are mostly before but are often after their object. If the object of an adposition is marked in the dative case, an adposition may conceivably be located anywhere in the sentence. Remnants of the Old English case system in Modern English are in the forms of a few pronouns (such as I/me/mine, she/her, who/whom/whose) and in the possessive ending -'s, which derives from the masculine and neuter genitive ending -es. The modern English plural ending -(e)s derives from the Old English -as, but the latter applied only to "strong" masculine nouns in the nominative and accusative cases; different plural endings were used in other instances. Old English nouns had grammatical gender, while modern English has only natural gender. Pronoun usage could reflect either natural or grammatical gender when those conflicted, as in the case of , a neuter noun referring to a female person. In Old English's verbal compound constructions are the beginnings of the compound tenses of Modern English. Old English verbs include strong verbs, which form the past tense by altering the root vowel, and weak verbs, which use a suffix such as . As in Modern English, and peculiar to the Germanic languages, the verbs formed two great classes: weak (regular), and strong (irregular). Like today, Old English had fewer strong verbs, and many of these have over time decayed into weak forms. Then, as now, dental suffixes indicated the past tense of the weak verbs, as in work and worked. Syntax Old English syntax is similar to that of modern English. Some differences are consequences of the greater level of nominal and verbal inflection, allowing freer word order. Default word order is verb-second in main clauses, and verb-final in subordinate clauses No do-support in questions and negatives. Questions were usually formed by inverting subject and finite verb, and negatives by placing ne before the finite verb, regardless of which verb. Multiple negatives can stack up in a sentence intensifying each other (negative concord). Sentences with subordinate clauses of the type "when X, Y" (e.g. "When I got home, I ate dinner") don't use a wh-type conjunction, but rather a th-type correlative conjunction such as , otherwise meaning "then" (e.g. in place of "when X, Y"). The wh-words are used only as interrogatives and as indefinite pronouns. Similarly, wh- forms were not used as relative pronouns. Instead, the indeclinable word is used, often preceded by (or replaced by) the appropriate form of the article/demonstrative . Orthography Old English was first written in runes, using the futhorc—a rune set derived from the Germanic 24-character elder futhark, extended by five more runes used to represent Anglo-Saxon vowel sounds and sometimes by several more additional characters. From around the 8th century, the runic system came to be supplanted by a (minuscule) half-uncial script of the Latin alphabet introduced by Irish Christian missionaries. This was replaced by Insular script, a cursive and pointed version of the half-uncial script. This was used until the end of the 12th century when continental Carolingian minuscule (also known as Caroline) replaced the insular. The Latin alphabet of the time still lacked the letters and , and there was no as distinct from ; moreover native Old English spellings did not use , or . The remaining 20 Latin letters were supplemented by four more: (, modern ash) and (, now called eth or edh), which were modified Latin letters, and thorn and wynn , which are borrowings from the futhorc. A few letter pairs were used as digraphs, representing a single sound. Also used was the Tironian note (a character similar to the digit 7) for the conjunction and. A common scribal abbreviation was a thorn with a stroke , which was used for the pronoun . Macrons over vowels were originally used not to mark long vowels (as in modern editions), but to indicate stress, or as abbreviations for a following m or n. Modern editions of Old English manuscripts generally introduce some additional conventions. The modern forms of Latin letters are used, including in place of the insular G, for long S, and others which may differ considerably from the insular script, notably , and . Macrons are used to indicate long vowels, where usually no distinction was made between long and short vowels in the originals. (In some older editions an acute accent mark was used for consistency with Old Norse conventions.) Additionally, modern editions often distinguish between velar and palatal and by placing dots above the palatals: , . The letter wynn is usually replaced with , but , eth and thorn are normally retained (except when eth is replaced by thorn). In contrast with Modern English orthography, that of Old English was reasonably regular, with a mostly predictable correspondence between letters and phonemes. There were not usually any silent letters—in the word cniht, for example, both the and were pronounced, unlike the and in the modern knight. The following table lists the Old English letters and digraphs together with the phonemes they represent, using the same notation as in the Phonology section above. Doubled consonants are geminated; the geminate fricatives /, and cannot be voiced. Literature The corpus of Old English literature is small but still significant, with some 400 surviving manuscripts. The pagan and Christian streams mingle in Old English, one of the richest and most significant bodies of literature preserved among the early Germanic peoples. In his supplementary article to the 1935 posthumous edition of Bright's Anglo-Saxon Reader, Dr. James Hulbert writes: Some of the most important surviving works of Old English literature are Beowulf, an epic poem; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a record of early English history; the Franks Casket, an inscribed early whalebone artefact; and Cædmon's Hymn, a Christian religious poem. There are also a number of extant prose works, such as sermons and saints' lives, biblical translations, and translated Latin works of the early Church Fathers, legal documents, such as laws and wills, and practical works on grammar, medicine, and geography. Still, poetry is considered the heart of Old English literature. Nearly all Anglo-Saxon authors are anonymous, with a few exceptions, such as Bede and Cædmon. Cædmon, the earliest English poet known by name, served as a lay brother in the monastery at Whitby. Beowulf The first example is taken from the opening lines of the folk-epic Beowulf, a poem of some 3,000 lines and the single greatest work of Old English. This passage describes how Hrothgar's legendary ancestor Scyld was found as a baby, washed ashore, and adopted by a noble family. The translation is literal and represents the original poetic word order. As such, it is not typical of Old English prose. The modern cognates of original words have been used whenever practical to give a close approximation of the feel of the original poem. The words in brackets are implied in the Old English by noun case and the bold words in brackets are explanations of words that have slightly different meanings in a modern context. Notice how what is used by the poet where a word like lo or behold would be expected. This usage is similar to what-ho!, both an expression of surprise and a call to attention. English poetry is based on stress and alliteration. In alliteration, the first consonant in a word alliterates with the same consonant at the beginning of another word, as with and . Vowels alliterate with any other vowel, as with and . In the text below, the letters that alliterate are bolded. Here is a natural enough Modern English translation, although the phrasing of the Old English passage has often been stylistically preserved, even though it is not usual in Modern English: The Lord's Prayer This text of the Lord's Prayer is presented in the standardised Early West Saxon dialect. Charter of Cnut This is a proclamation from King Cnut the Great to his earl Thorkell the Tall and the English people written in AD 1020. Unlike the previous two examples, this text is prose rather than poetry. For ease of reading, the passage has been divided into sentences while the pilcrows represent the original division. The following is a natural Modern English translation, with the overall structure of the Old English passage preserved. Note that even though "earl" is used to translate its Old English cognate "eorl", "eorl" in Old English does not correspond exactly to "earl" of the later medieval period: Dictionaries Early history The earliest history of Old English lexicography lies in the Anglo-Saxon period itself, when English-speaking scholars created English glosses on Latin texts. At first these were often marginal or interlinear glosses, but soon came to be gathered into word-lists such as the Épinal-Erfurt, Leiden and Corpus Glossaries. Over time, these word-lists were consolidated and alphabeticised to create extensive Latin-Old English glossaries with some of the character of dictionaries, such as the Cleopatra Glossaries, the Harley Glossary and the Brussels Glossary. In some cases, the material in these glossaries continued to be circulated and updated in Middle English glossaries, such as the Durham Plant-Name Glossary and the Laud Herbal Glossary. Old English lexicography was revived in the early modern period, drawing heavily on Anglo-Saxons' own glossaries. The major publication at this time was William Somner's Dictionarium Saxonico-Latino-Anglicum. The next substantial Old English dictionary was Joseph Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary of 1838. Modern In modern scholarship, the following dictionaries remain current: Cameron, Angus, et al. (ed.) (1983-). Dictionary of Old English. Toronto: Published for the Dictionary of Old English Project, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto by the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies. Initially issued on microfiche and subsequently as a CD-ROM, the dictionary is now primarily published online at https://www.doe.utoronto.ca. This generally supersedes previous dictionaries where available. As of September 2018, the dictionary covered A-I. Bosworth, Joseph and T. Northcote Toller. (1898). An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. The main research dictionary for Old English, unless superseded by the Dictionary of Old English. Various digitisations are available open-access, including at http://bosworth.ff.cuni.cz/. Due to errors and omissions in the 1898 publication, this needs to be read in conjunction with: T. Northcote Toller. (1921). An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Supplement. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Alistair Campbell (1972). An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary: Enlarged addenda and corrigenda. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Clark Hall, J. R. (1969). A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. 4th rev. edn by Herbet D. Meritt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Occasionally more accurate than Bosworth-Toller, and widely used as a reading dictionary. Various digitisations are available, including here. Roberts, Jane and Christian Kay, with Lynne Grundy, A Thesaurus of Old English in Two Volumes, Costerus New Series, 131–32, 2nd rev. impression, 2 vols (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000), also available online. A thesaurus based on the definitions in Bosworth-Toller and the structure of Roget's Thesaurus. Though focused on later periods, the Oxford English Dictionary, Middle English Dictionary, Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue, and Historical Thesaurus of English all also include material relevant to Old English. Modern legacy Like other historical languages, Old English has been used by scholars and enthusiasts of later periods to create texts either imitating Old English literature or deliberately transferring it to a different cultural context. Examples include Alistair Campbell and J. R. R. Tolkien. Ransom Riggs uses several Old English words, such as syndrigast (singular, peculiar), ymbryne (period, cycle), etc., dubbed as "Old Peculiar" ones. A number of websites devoted to Modern Paganism and historical reenactment offer reference material and forums promoting the active use of Old English. There is also an Old English version of Wikipedia. However, one investigation found that many Neo-Old English texts published online bear little resemblance to the historical language and have many basic grammatical mistakes. See also Exeter Book Go (verb) History of the Scots language I-mutation Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law Anglo-Frisian nasal spirant law List of generic forms in place names in the United Kingdom and Ireland List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents in English Notes References Bibliography Sources General Baugh, Albert C; & Cable, Thomas. (1993). A History of the English Language (4th ed.). London: Routledge. Blake, Norman (1992). The Cambridge History of the English Language: Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Campbell, A. (1959). Old English Grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Reissue of one of 4 eds. 1877–1902) Euler, Wolfram (2013). Das Westgermanische : von der Herausbildung im 3. bis zur Aufgliederung im 7. Jahrhundert; Analyse und Rekonstruktion (West Germanic: from its Emergence in the 3rd up until its Dissolution in the 7th century CE: Analyses and Reconstruction). 244 p., in German with English
and a mass of 50 or more solar masses. The largest clusters can have over 104 solar masses, with the massive cluster Westerlund 1 being estimated at 5 × 104 solar masses and R136 at almost 5 x 105, typical of globular clusters. While open clusters and globular clusters form two fairly distinct groups, there may not be a great deal of intrinsic difference between a very sparse globular cluster such as Palomar 12 and a very rich open cluster. Some astronomers believe the two types of star clusters form via the same basic mechanism, with the difference being that the conditions that allowed the formation of the very rich globular clusters containing hundreds of thousands of stars no longer prevail in the Milky Way. It is common for two or more separate open clusters to form out of the same molecular cloud. In the Large Magellanic Cloud, both Hodge 301 and R136 have formed from the gases of the Tarantula Nebula, while in our own galaxy, tracing back the motion through space of the Hyades and Praesepe, two prominent nearby open clusters, suggests that they formed in the same cloud about 600 million years ago. Sometimes, two clusters born at the same time will form a binary cluster. The best known example in the Milky Way is the Double Cluster of NGC 869 and NGC 884 (sometimes mistakenly called h and χ Persei; h refers to a neighboring star and χ to both clusters), but at least 10 more double clusters are known to exist. Many more are known in the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds—they are easier to detect in external systems than in our own galaxy because projection effects can cause unrelated clusters within the Milky Way to appear close to each other. Morphology and classification Open clusters range from very sparse clusters with only a few members to large agglomerations containing thousands of stars. They usually consist of quite a distinct dense core, surrounded by a more diffuse 'corona' of cluster members. The core is typically about 3–4 light years across, with the corona extending to about 20 light years from the cluster centre. Typical star densities in the centre of a cluster are about 1.5 stars per cubic light year; the stellar density near the Sun is about 0.003 stars per cubic light year. Open clusters are often classified according to a scheme developed by Robert Trumpler in 1930. The Trumpler scheme gives a cluster a three part designation, with a Roman numeral from I-IV for little to very disparate, an Arabic numeral from 1 to 3 for the range in brightness of members (from small to large range), and p, m or r to indication whether the cluster is poor, medium or rich in stars. An 'n' is further appended if the cluster lies within nebulosity. Under the Trumpler scheme, the Pleiades are classified as I3rn, the nearby Hyades are classified as II3m. Numbers and distribution There are over 1,100 known open clusters in our galaxy, but the true total may be up to ten times higher than that. In spiral galaxies, open clusters are largely found in the spiral arms where gas densities are highest and so most star formation occurs, and clusters usually disperse before they have had time to travel beyond their spiral arm. Open clusters are strongly concentrated close to the galactic plane, with a scale height in our galaxy of about 180 light years, compared to a galactic radius of approximately 50,000 light years. In irregular galaxies, open clusters may be found throughout the galaxy, although their concentration is highest where the gas density is highest. Open clusters are not seen in elliptical galaxies: star formation ceased many millions of years ago in ellipticals, and so the open clusters which were originally present have long since dispersed. In our galaxy, the distribution of clusters depends on age, with older clusters being preferentially found at greater distances from the galactic centre, generally at substantial distances above or below the galactic plane. Tidal forces are stronger nearer the centre of the galaxy, increasing the rate of disruption of clusters, and also the giant molecular clouds which cause the disruption of clusters are concentrated towards the inner regions of the galaxy, so clusters in the inner regions of the galaxy tend to get dispersed at a younger age than their counterparts in the outer regions. Stellar composition Because open clusters tend to be dispersed before most of their stars reach the end of their lives, the light from them tends to be dominated by the young, hot blue stars. These stars are the most massive, and have the shortest lives of a few tens of millions of years. The older open clusters tend to contain more yellow stars. The frequency of stars within binary systems has been observed to be higher within open clusters compared to outside of open clusters. This is seen as evidence that single stars get ejected from open clusters due to dynamical interactions. Some open clusters contain hot blue stars which seem to be much younger than the rest of the cluster. These blue stragglers are also observed in globular clusters, and in the very dense cores of globulars they are believed to arise when stars collide, forming a much hotter, more massive star. However, the stellar density in open clusters is much lower than that in globular clusters, and stellar collisions cannot explain the numbers of blue stragglers observed. Instead, it is thought that most of them probably originate when dynamical interactions with other stars cause a binary system to coalesce into one star. Once they have exhausted their supply of hydrogen through nuclear fusion, medium- to low-mass stars shed their outer layers to form a planetary nebula and evolve into white dwarfs. While most clusters become dispersed before a large proportion of their members have reached the white dwarf stage, the number of white dwarfs in open clusters is still generally much lower than would be expected, given the age of the cluster and the expected initial mass distribution of the stars. One possible explanation for the lack of white dwarfs is that when a red giant expels its outer layers to become a planetary nebula, a slight asymmetry in the loss of material could give the star a 'kick' of a few kilometres per second, enough to eject it from the cluster. Because of their high density, close encounters between stars in an open cluster are common. For a typical cluster with 1,000 stars with a 0.5 parsec half-mass radius, on average a star will have an encounter with another member every 10 million years. The rate is even higher in denser clusters. These encounters can have a significant impact on the extended circumstellar disks of material that surround many young stars. Tidal perturbations of large disks may result in the formation of massive planets and brown dwarfs, producing companions at distances of 100 AU or more from the host star. Eventual fate Many open clusters are inherently unstable, with a small enough mass that the escape velocity of the system is lower than the average velocity of the constituent stars. These clusters will rapidly disperse within a few million years. In many cases, the stripping away of the gas from which the cluster formed by the radiation pressure of the hot young stars reduces the cluster mass enough to allow rapid dispersal. Clusters that have enough mass to be gravitationally bound once the surrounding nebula has evaporated can remain distinct for many tens of millions of years, but over time internal and external processes	the open clusters which were originally present have long since dispersed. In our galaxy, the distribution of clusters depends on age, with older clusters being preferentially found at greater distances from the galactic centre, generally at substantial distances above or below the galactic plane. Tidal forces are stronger nearer the centre of the galaxy, increasing the rate of disruption of clusters, and also the giant molecular clouds which cause the disruption of clusters are concentrated towards the inner regions of the galaxy, so clusters in the inner regions of the galaxy tend to get dispersed at a younger age than their counterparts in the outer regions. Stellar composition Because open clusters tend to be dispersed before most of their stars reach the end of their lives, the light from them tends to be dominated by the young, hot blue stars. These stars are the most massive, and have the shortest lives of a few tens of millions of years. The older open clusters tend to contain more yellow stars. The frequency of stars within binary systems has been observed to be higher within open clusters compared to outside of open clusters. This is seen as evidence that single stars get ejected from open clusters due to dynamical interactions. Some open clusters contain hot blue stars which seem to be much younger than the rest of the cluster. These blue stragglers are also observed in globular clusters, and in the very dense cores of globulars they are believed to arise when stars collide, forming a much hotter, more massive star. However, the stellar density in open clusters is much lower than that in globular clusters, and stellar collisions cannot explain the numbers of blue stragglers observed. Instead, it is thought that most of them probably originate when dynamical interactions with other stars cause a binary system to coalesce into one star. Once they have exhausted their supply of hydrogen through nuclear fusion, medium- to low-mass stars shed their outer layers to form a planetary nebula and evolve into white dwarfs. While most clusters become dispersed before a large proportion of their members have reached the white dwarf stage, the number of white dwarfs in open clusters is still generally much lower than would be expected, given the age of the cluster and the expected initial mass distribution of the stars. One possible explanation for the lack of white dwarfs is that when a red giant expels its outer layers to become a planetary nebula, a slight asymmetry in the loss of material could give the star a 'kick' of a few kilometres per second, enough to eject it from the cluster. Because of their high density, close encounters between stars in an open cluster are common. For a typical cluster with 1,000 stars with a 0.5 parsec half-mass radius, on average a star will have an encounter with another member every 10 million years. The rate is even higher in denser clusters. These encounters can have a significant impact on the extended circumstellar disks of material that surround many young stars. Tidal perturbations of large disks may result in the formation of massive planets and brown dwarfs, producing companions at distances of 100 AU or more from the host star. Eventual fate Many open clusters are inherently unstable, with a small enough mass that the escape velocity of the system is lower than the average velocity of the constituent stars. These clusters will rapidly disperse within a few million years. In many cases, the stripping away of the gas from which the cluster formed by the radiation pressure of the hot young stars reduces the cluster mass enough to allow rapid dispersal. Clusters that have enough mass to be gravitationally bound once the surrounding nebula has evaporated can remain distinct for many tens of millions of years, but over time internal and external processes tend also to disperse them. Internally, close encounters between stars can increase the velocity of a member beyond the escape velocity of the cluster. This results in the gradual 'evaporation' of cluster members. Externally, about every half-billion years or so an open cluster tends to be disturbed by external factors such as passing close to or through a molecular cloud. The gravitational tidal forces generated by such an encounter tend to disrupt the cluster. Eventually, the cluster becomes a stream of stars, not close enough to be a cluster but all related and moving in similar directions at similar speeds. The timescale over which a cluster disrupts depends on its initial stellar density, with more tightly packed clusters persisting for longer. Estimated cluster half lives, after which half the original cluster members will have been lost, range from 150–800 million years, depending on the original density. After a cluster has become gravitationally unbound, many of its constituent stars will still be moving through space on similar trajectories, in what is known as a stellar association, moving cluster, or moving group. Several of the brightest stars in the 'Plough' of Ursa Major are former members of an open cluster which now form such an association, in this case, the Ursa Major Moving Group. Eventually their slightly different relative velocities will see them scattered throughout the galaxy. A larger cluster is then known as a stream, if we discover the similar velocities and ages of otherwise well separated stars. Studying stellar evolution When a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram is plotted for an open cluster, most stars lie on the main sequence. The most massive stars have begun to evolve away from the main sequence and are becoming red giants; the position of the turn-off from the main sequence can be used to estimate the age of the cluster. Because the stars in an open cluster are all at roughly the same distance from Earth, and were born at roughly the same time from the same raw material, the differences in apparent brightness among cluster members are due only to their mass. This makes open clusters very useful in the study of stellar evolution, because when comparing one star to another, many of the variable parameters are fixed. The study of the abundances of lithium and beryllium in open cluster stars can give important clues about the evolution of stars and their interior structures. While hydrogen nuclei cannot fuse to form helium until the temperature reaches about 10 million K, lithium and beryllium are destroyed at temperatures of 2.5 million K and 3.5 million K respectively. This means that their abundances depend strongly on how much mixing occurs in stellar interiors. By studying their abundances in open cluster stars, variables such as age and chemical composition are fixed. Studies have shown that the abundances of these light elements are much lower than models of stellar evolution predict. While the reason for this underabundance is not yet fully understood, one possibility is that convection in stellar interiors can 'overshoot' into regions where radiation is normally the dominant mode of energy transport. Astronomical distance scale Determining the distances to astronomical objects is crucial to understanding them, but the vast majority of objects are too far away for their distances to be directly determined. Calibration of the astronomical distance scale relies on a sequence of indirect and sometimes uncertain measurements relating the closest objects, for which distances can be directly measured, to increasingly distant objects. Open clusters are a crucial step in this sequence. The closest open clusters can have their distance measured directly by one of two methods. First, the parallax (the small change in apparent position over the course of a year caused by the Earth moving from one side of its orbit around the Sun to the other) of stars in close open clusters can be measured, like other individual stars. Clusters such as the Pleiades, Hyades and a few others within about 500 light years are close enough for this method to
wider and demand was increasing. However, many of PDVSA's engineers were fired following the Venezuelan general strike of 2002–03. Orimulsion had been the pride of the PDVSA engineers, so Orimulsion fell out of favor with the key political leaders. As a result, the government is trying to "Wind Down" the Orimulsion program. The one exception is the sales of Orimulsion to China. The Venezuelan government has close ties to China, as it has with Cuba. The result is that China is still supplied with Orimulsion, while the rest of the world has either had their supplies terminated, or are still experiencing the "Wind Down" phase. Orimulsion still has excellent potential for domestic consumption. Another reason given by current PDVSA management is that with rising crude oil prices, it has been found that mixing or diluting Orinoco bitumen (extra-heavy oil) with a lighter crude oil can make this blend more profitable as a crude oil on the world market than by selling it as Orimulsion. An example of this is the popular Merey blend (Orinoco bitumen and Mesa crude oil). ConocoPhillips along with PDVSA operate the Merey Sweeny (bpd) delayed coker, vacuum tower and related facilities at ConocoPhillips' refinery in Sweeny, Texas, U.S.A. for processing and upgrading heavy sour Merey crude oil. Air pollutant control technology that is commonly available can limit emissions from Orimulsion to levels considered "Best Available Control Technology", as defined by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. References Further reading	for industrial use by Intevep, the Research and Development Affiliate of Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), following earlier collaboration on oil emulsions with BP. Source of the bitumen Like coal and oil, bitumen occurs naturally and is obtained from the world's largest deposit in the Orinoco Belt in Venezuela. The deposit is estimated to be more than 1,300 billion barrels (190 billion m3) of bitumen, an amount approximately equivalent to the world's estimated proven oil reserves. Preparation Raw bitumen has an extremely high viscosity and specific gravity between 8 and 10 API gravity, at ambient temperatures and is unsuitable for direct use in conventional power stations. Orimulsion is made by mixing the bitumen with about 30% fresh water and a small amount of surfactant. The result behaves similarly to fuel oil. An alcohol-based surfactant recently replaced the original phenol-based version; improving the transport properties of the fuel and eliminating the health concerns associated with the phenol group of surfactants. Advantages As a fuel for electricity generation, Orimulsion has a number of attractive characteristics: the known reserves of bitumen are very large; it is currently priced to be competitive with internationally traded coal; it is relatively easy and safe to produce, transport, handle and store; it is easy to ignite and has good combustion characteristics; it can be used in power stations designed to run on coal or heavy fuel oil, with suitable modification. Disadvantages If there is a spill while shipping over water the mixture de-emulsifies and the bitumen
the generally accepted chronology of Shakespeare's plays places the composition of approximately twelve of the plays after that date. Oxfordians respond that the annual publication of "new" or "corrected" Shakespeare plays stopped in 1604, and that the dedication to Shakespeare's Sonnets implies that the author was dead prior to their publication in 1609. Oxfordians believe the reason so many of the "late plays" show evidence of revision and collaboration is because they were completed by other playwrights after Oxford's death. History of the Oxfordian theory The theory that the works of Shakespeare were in fact written by someone other than William Shakespeare dates back to the mid-nineteenth century. In 1857, the first book on the topic, The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded, by Delia Bacon, was published. Bacon proposed the first "group theory" of Shakespearian authorship, attributing the works to a committee headed by Francis Bacon and including Walter Raleigh. De Vere is mentioned once in the book, in a list of "high-born wits and poets", who were associated with Raleigh. Some commentators have interpreted this to imply that he was part of the group of authors. Throughout the 19th century Bacon was the preferred hidden author. Oxford is not known to have been mentioned again in this context. By the beginning of the twentieth century other candidates, typically aristocrats, were put forward, most notably Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland, and William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby. Oxford's candidacy as sole author was first proposed by J. Thomas Looney in his 1920 book Shakespeare Identified in Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Following earlier anti-Stratfordians, Looney argued that the known facts of Shakespeare's life did not fit the personality he ascribed to the author of the plays. Like other anti-Stratfordians before him, Looney referred to the absence of records concerning Shakespeare's education, his limited experience of the world, his allegedly poor handwriting skills (evidenced in his signatures), and the "dirt and ignorance" of Stratford at the time. Shakespeare had a petty "acquisitive disposition", he said, while the plays made heroes of free-spending figures. They also portrayed middle and lower-class people negatively, while Shakespearian heroes were typically aristocratic. Looney referred to scholars who found in the plays evidence that their author was an expert in law, widely read in ancient Latin literature, and could speak French and Italian. Looney believed that even very early works such as Love's Labour's Lost implied that he was already a person of "matured powers", in his forties or fifties, with wide experience of the world. Looney considered that Oxford's personality fitted that he deduced from the plays, and also identified characters in the plays as detailed portraits of Oxford's family and personal contacts. Several characters, including Hamlet and Bertram (in All's Well that Ends Well), were, he believed, self-portraits. Adapting arguments earlier used for Rutland and Derby, Looney fitted events in the plays to episodes in Oxford's life, including his travels to France and Italy, the settings for many plays. Oxford's death in 1604 was linked to a drop-off in the publication of Shakespeare plays. Looney declared that the late play The Tempest was not written by Oxford, and that others performed or published after Oxford's death were most probably left incomplete and finished by other writers, thus explaining the apparent idiosyncrasies of style found in the late Shakespeare plays. Looney also introduced the argument that the reference to the "ever-living poet" in the 1609 dedication to Shakespeare's sonnets implied that the author was dead at the time of publication. Sigmund Freud, the novelist Marjorie Bowen, and several 20th-century celebrities found the thesis persuasive, and Oxford soon overtook Bacon as the favoured alternative candidate to Shakespeare, though academic Shakespearians mostly ignored the subject. Looney's theory attracted a number of activist followers who published books supplementing his own and added new arguments, most notably Percy Allen, Bernard M. Ward, Louis P. Bénézet and Charles Wisner Barrell. Mainstream scholar Steven W. May has noted that Oxfordians of this period made genuine contributions to knowledge of Elizabethan history, citing "Ward's quite competent biography of the Earl" and "Charles Wisner Barrell's identification of Edward Vere, Oxford's illegitimate son by Anne Vavasour" as examples. In 1921, Sir George Greenwood, Looney, and others founded The Shakespeare Fellowship, an organization originally dedicated to the discussion and promotion of ecumenical anti-Stratfordian views, but which later became devoted to promoting Oxford as the true Shakespeare. Decline and revival After a period of decline of the Oxfordian theory beginning with World War II, in 1952 Dorothy and Charlton Greenwood Ogburn published the 1,300-page This Star of England, which briefly revived Oxfordism. A series of critical academic books and articles, however, held in check any appreciable growth of anti-Stratfordism and Oxfordism, most notably The Shakespeare Ciphers Examined (1957), by William and Elizebeth Friedman, The Poacher from Stratford (1958), by Frank Wadsworth, Shakespeare and His Betters (1958), by Reginald Churchill, The Shakespeare Claimants (1962), by H. N. Gibson, and Shakespeare and his Rivals: A Casebook on the Authorship Controversy (1962), by George L. McMichael and Edgar M. Glenn. By 1968 the newsletter of The Shakespeare Oxford Society reported that "the missionary or evangelical spirit of most of our members seems to be at a low ebb, dormant, or non-existent". In 1974, membership in the society stood at 80. In 1979, the publication of an analysis of the Ashbourne portrait dealt a further blow to the movement. The painting, long claimed to be one of the portraits of Shakespeare, but considered by Barrell to be an overpaint of a portrait of the Earl of Oxford, turned out to represent neither, but rather depicted Hugh Hamersley. Charlton Ogburn, Jr., was elected president of The Shakespeare Oxford Society in 1976 and kick-started the modern revival of the Oxfordian movement by seeking publicity through moot court trials, media debates, television and later the Internet, including Wikipedia, methods which became standard for Oxfordian and anti-Stratfordian promoters because of their success in recruiting members of the lay public. He portrayed academic scholars as self-interested members of an "entrenched authority" that aimed to "outlaw and silence dissent in a supposedly free society", and proposed to counter their influence by portraying Oxford as a candidate on equal footing with Shakespeare. In 1985 Ogburn published his 900-page The Mysterious William Shakespeare: the Myth and the Reality, with a Foreword by Pulitzer prize-winning historian David McCullough who wrote: "[T]his brilliant, powerful book is a major event for everyone who cares about Shakespeare. The scholarship is surpassing—brave, original, full of surprise... The strange, difficult, contradictory man who emerges as the real Shakespeare, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, is not just plausible but fascinating and wholly believable." By framing the issue as one of fairness in the atmosphere of conspiracy that permeated America after Watergate, he used the media to circumnavigate academia and appeal directly to the public. Ogburn's efforts secured Oxford the place as the most popular alternative candidate. Although Shakespearian experts disparaged Ogburn's methodology and his conclusions, one reviewer, Richmond Crinkley, the Folger Shakespeare Library's former director of educational programs, acknowledged the appeal of Ogburn's approach, writing that the doubts over Shakespeare, "arising early and growing rapidly", have a "simple, direct plausibility", and the dismissive attitude of established scholars only worked to encourage such doubts. Though Crinkley rejected Ogburn's thesis, calling it "less satisfactory than the unsatisfactory orthodoxy it challenges", he believed that one merit of the book lay in how it forces orthodox scholars to reexamine their concept of Shakespeare as author. Spurred by Ogburn's book, "[i]n the last decade of the twentieth century members of the Oxfordian camp gathered strength and made a fresh assault on the Shakespearean citadel, hoping finally to unseat the man from Stratford and install de Vere in his place." The Oxfordian theory returned to public attention in anticipation of the late October 2011 release of Roland Emmerich's drama film Anonymous. Its distributor, Sony Pictures, advertised that the film "presents a compelling portrait of Edward de Vere as the true author of Shakespeare's plays", and commissioned high school and college-level lesson plans to promote the authorship question to history and literature teachers across the United States. According to Sony Pictures, "the objective for our Anonymous program, as stated in the classroom literature, is 'to encourage critical thinking by challenging students to examine the theories about the authorship of Shakespeare's works and to formulate their own opinions.' The study guide does not state that Edward de Vere is the writer of Shakespeare's work, but it does pose the authorship question which has been debated by scholars for decades". Variant Oxfordian theories Although most Oxfordians agree on the main arguments for Oxford, the theory has spawned schismatic variants that have not met with wide acceptance by all Oxfordians, although they have gained much attention. Prince Tudor theory In a letter written by Looney in 1933, he mentions that Allen and Ward were "advancing certain views respecting Oxford and Queen Eliz. which appear to me extravagant & improbable, in no way strengthen Oxford’s Shakespeare claims, and are likely to bring the whole cause into ridicule." Allen and Ward believed that they had discovered that Elizabeth and Oxford were lovers and had conceived a child. Allen developed the theory in his 1934 book Anne Cecil, Elizabeth & Oxford. He argued that the child was given the name William Hughes, who became an actor under the stage-name "William Shakespeare". He adopted the name because his father, Oxford, was already using it as a pen-name for his plays. Oxford had borrowed the name from a third Shakespeare, the man of that name from Stratford-upon-Avon, who was a law student at the time, but who was never an actor or a writer. Allen later changed his mind about Hughes and decided that the concealed child was the Earl of Southampton, the dedicatee of Shakespeare's narrative poems. This secret history, which has become known as the Prince Tudor theory, was covertly represented in Oxford's plays and poems and remained hidden until Allen and Ward's discoveries. The narrative poems and sonnets had been written by Oxford for his son. This Star of England (1952) by Charlton and Dorothy Ogburn included arguments in support of this version of the theory. Their son, Charlton Ogburn, Jr, agreed with Looney that the theory was an impediment to the Oxfordian movement and omitted all discussion about it in his own Oxfordian works. However, the theory was revived and expanded by Elisabeth Sears in Shakespeare and the Tudor Rose (2002), and Hank Whittemore in The Monument (2005), an analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnets which interprets the poems as a poetic history of Queen Elizabeth, Oxford, and Southampton. Paul Streitz's Oxford: Son of Queen Elizabeth I (2001) advances a variation on the theory: that Oxford himself was the illegitimate son of Queen Elizabeth by her stepfather, Thomas Seymour. Oxford was thus the half-brother of his own son by the queen. Streitz also believes that the queen had children by the Earl of Leicester. These were Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, Mary Sidney and Elizabeth Leighton. Attribution of other works to Oxford As with other candidates for authorship of Shakespeare's works, Oxford's advocates have attributed numerous non-Shakespearian works to him. Looney began the process in his 1921 edition of de Vere's poetry. He suggested that de Vere was also responsible for some of the literary works credited to Arthur Golding, Anthony Munday and John Lyly. Streitz credits Oxford with the Authorized King James Version of the Bible. Two professors of linguistics have claimed that de Vere wrote not only the works of Shakespeare, but most of what is memorable in English literature during his lifetime, with such names as Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, Philip Sidney, John Lyly, George Peele, George Gascoigne, Raphael Holinshed, Robert Greene, Thomas Phaer, and Arthur Golding being among dozens of further pseudonyms of de Vere. Ramon Jiménez has credited Oxford with such plays as The True Tragedy of Richard III and Edmund Ironside. Group theories Group theories in which Oxford played the principal role as writer, but collaborated with others to create the Shakespeare canon, were adopted by a number of early Oxfordians. Looney himself was willing to concede that Oxford may have been assisted by his son-in-law William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby, who perhaps wrote The Tempest. B.M. Ward also suggested that Oxford and Derby worked together. In his later writings Percy Allen argued that Oxford led a group of writers, among whom was William Shakespeare. Group theories with Oxford as the principal author or creative "master mind" were also proposed by Gilbert Standen in Shakespeare Authorship (1930), Gilbert Slater in Seven Shakespeares (1931) and Montagu William Douglas in Lord Oxford and the Shakespeare Group (1952). Case against Oxfordian theory Methodology of Oxfordian argument Specialists in Elizabethan literary history object to the methodology of Oxfordian arguments. In lieu of any evidence of the type commonly used for authorship attribution, Oxfordians discard the methods used by historians and employ other types of arguments to make their case, the most common being supposed parallels between Oxford's life and Shakespeare's works. Another is finding cryptic allusions to Oxford's supposed play writing in other literary works of the era that to them suggest that his authorship was obvious to those "in the know". David Kathman writes that their methods are subjective and devoid of any evidential value, because they use a "double standard". Their arguments are "not taken seriously by Shakespeare scholars because they consistently distort and misrepresent the historical record", "neglect to provide necessary context" and are in some cases "outright fabrication[s]". One major evidential objection to the Oxfordian theory is Edward de Vere's 1604 death, after which a number of Shakespeare's plays are generally believed to have been written. In The Shakespeare Claimants, a 1962 examination of the authorship question, H. N. Gibson concluded that "... on analysis the Oxfordian case appears to me a very weak one". Mainstream objections Mainstream academics have often argued that the Oxford theory is based on snobbery: that anti-Stratfordians reject the idea that the son of a mere tradesman could write the plays and poems of Shakespeare. The Shakespeare Oxford Society has responded that this claim is "a substitute for reasoned responses to Oxfordian evidence and logic" and is merely an ad hominem attack. Mainstream critics further say that, if William Shakespeare were a fraud instead of the true author, the number of people involved in suppressing this information would have made it highly unlikely to succeed. And citing the "testimony of contemporary writers, court records and much else" supporting Shakespeare's authorship, Columbia University professor James S. Shapiro says any theory claiming that "there must have been a conspiracy to suppress the truth of de Vere's authorship" based on the idea that "the very absence of surviving evidence proves the case" is a logically fatal tautology. Circumstantial evidence While no documentary evidence connects Oxford (or any alternative author) to the plays of Shakespeare, Oxfordian writers, including Mark Anderson and Charlton Ogburn, say that connection is made by considerable circumstantial evidence inferred from Oxford's connections to the Elizabethan theatre and poetry scene; the participation of his family in the printing and publication of the First Folio; his relationship with the Earl of Southampton (believed by most Shakespeare scholars to have been Shakespeare's patron); as well as a number of specific incidents and circumstances of Oxford's life that Oxfordians say are depicted in the plays themselves. Theatre connections Oxford was noted for his literary and theatrical patronage, garnering dedications from a wide range of authors. For much of his adult life, Oxford patronised both adult and boy acting companies, as well as performances by musicians, acrobats and performing animals, and in 1583, he was a leaseholder of the first Blackfriars Theatre in London. Family connections Oxford was related to several literary figures. His mother, Margory Golding, was the sister of the Ovid translator Arthur Golding, and his uncle, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, was the inventor of the English or Shakespearian sonnet form. The three dedicatees of Shakespeare's works (the earls of Southampton, Montgomery and Pembroke) were each proposed as husbands for the three daughters of Edward de Vere. Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece were dedicated to Southampton (whom many scholars have argued was the Fair Youth of the Sonnets), and the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays was dedicated to Montgomery (who married Susan de Vere) and Pembroke (who was once engaged to Bridget de Vere). Oxford's Bible In the late 1990s, Roger A. Stritmatter conducted a study of the marked passages found in Edward de Vere's Geneva Bible, which is now owned by the Folger Shakespeare Library. The Bible contains 1,028 instances of underlined words or passages and a few hand-written annotations, most of which consist of a single word or fragment. Stritmatter believes about a quarter of the marked passages appear in Shakespeare's works as either a theme, allusion, or quotation. Stritmatter grouped the marked passages into eight themes. Arguing that the themes fitted de Vere's known interests, he proceeded to link specific themes to passages in Shakespeare. Critics have doubted that any of the underlinings or annotations in the Bible can be reliably attributed to de Vere and not the book's other owners prior to its acquisition by the Folger Shakespeare Library in 1925, as well as challenging the looseness of Stritmatter's standards for a Biblical allusion in Shakespeare's works and arguing that there is no statistical significance to the overlap. Stratford connections Shakespeare's native Avon and Stratford are referred to in two prefatory poems in the 1623 First Folio, one of which refers to Shakespeare as "Swan of Avon" and another to the author's "Stratford monument". Oxfordians say the first of these phrases could refer to one of Edward de Vere's manors, Bilton Hall, near the Forest of Arden, in Rugby, on the River Avon. This view was first expressed by Charles Wisner Barrell, who argued that De Vere "kept the place as a literary hideaway where he could carry on his creative work without the interference of his father-in-law, Burghley, and other distractions of Court and city life." Oxfordians also consider it significant that the nearest town to the parish of Hackney, where de Vere later lived and was buried, was also named Stratford. Mainstream scholar Irvin Matus demonstrated that Oxford sold the Bilton house in 1580, having previously rented it out, making it unlikely that Ben Jonson's 1623 poem would identify Oxford by referring to a property he once owned, but never lived in, and sold 43 years earlier. Nor is there any evidence of a monument to Oxford in Stratford, London, or anywhere else; his widow provided for the creation of one at Hackney in her 1613 will, but there is no evidence that it was ever erected. Oxford's annuity Oxfordians also believe that Rev. Dr. John Ward's 1662 diary entry stating that Shakespeare wrote two plays a year "and for that had an allowance so large that he spent at the rate of £1,000 a year" as a critical piece of evidence, since Queen Elizabeth I gave Oxford an annuity of exactly £1,000 beginning in 1586 that was continued until his death. Ogburn wrote that the annuity was granted "under mysterious circumstances", and Anderson suggests it was granted because of Oxford's writing patriotic plays for government propaganda. However, the documentary evidence indicates that the allowance was meant to relieve Oxford's embarrassed financial situation caused by the ruination of his estate. Oxford's travels and the settings of Shakespeare's plays Almost half of Shakespeare's plays are set in Italy, many of them containing details of Italian laws, customs, and culture which Oxfordians believe could only have been obtained by personal experiences in Italy, and especially in Venice. The author of The Merchant of Venice, Looney believed, "knew Italy first hand and was touched with the life and spirit of the country". This argument had earlier been used by supporters of the Earl of Rutland and the Earl of Derby as authorship candidates, both of whom had also travelled on the continent of Europe. Oxfordian William Farina refers to Shakespeare's apparent knowledge of the Jewish ghetto, Venetian architecture and laws in The Merchant of Venice, especially the city's "notorious Alien Statute". Historical documents confirm that Oxford lived in Venice, and travelled for over a year through Italy. He disliked the country, writing in a letter to Lord Burghley dated 24 September 1575, "I am glad I have seen it, and I care not ever to see it any more". Still, he remained in Italy for another six months, leaving Venice in March 1576. According to Anderson, Oxford definitely visited Venice, Padua, Milan, Genoa, Palermo, Florence, Siena and Naples, and probably passed through Messina, Mantua and Verona, all cities used as settings by Shakespeare. In testimony before the Venetian Inquisition, Edward de Vere was said to be fluent in Italian. However, some Shakespeare scholars say that Shakespeare gets many details of Italian life wrong, including the laws and urban geography of Venice. Kenneth Gross writes that "the play itself knows nothing about the Venetian ghetto; we get no sense of a legally separate region of Venice where Shylock must dwell." Scott McCrea describes the setting as "a nonrealistic Venice" and the laws invoked by Portia as part of the "imaginary world of the play", inconsistent with actual legal practice. Charles Ross points out that Shakespeare's Alien Statute bears little resemblance to any Italian law. For later plays such as Othello, Shakespeare probably used Lewes Lewknor's 1599 English translation of Gasparo Contarini's The Commonwealth and Government of Venice for some details about Venice's laws and customs. Shakespeare derived much of this material from John Florio, an Italian scholar living in England who was later thanked by Ben Jonson for helping him get Italian details right for his play Volpone. Kier Elam has traced Shakespeare's Italian idioms in Shrew and some of the dialogue to Florio's Second Fruits, a bilingual introduction to Italian language and culture published in 1591. Jason Lawrence believes that Shakespeare’s Italian dialogue in the play derives "almost entirely" from Florio’s First Fruits (1578). He also believes that Shakespeare became more proficient in reading the language as set out in Florio’s manuals, as evidenced by his increasing use of Florio and other Italian sources for writing the plays. Oxford's education and knowledge of court life In 1567 Oxford was admitted to Gray's Inn, one of the Inns of Court which Justice Shallow reminisces about in Henry IV, Part 2. Sobran observes that the Sonnets "abound not only in legal terms – more than 200 – but also in elaborate legal conceits." These terms include: allege, auditor, defects, exchequer, forfeit, heirs, impeach, lease, moiety, recompense, render, sureties, and usage. Shakespeare also uses the legal term "quietus" (final settlement) in Sonnet 134, the last Fair Youth sonnet. Regarding Oxford's knowledge of court life, which Oxfordians believe is reflected throughout the plays, mainstream scholars say that any special knowledge of the aristocracy appearing in the plays can be more easily explained by Shakespeare's life-time of performances before nobility and royalty, and possibly, as Gibson theorises, "by visits to his patron's house, as Marlowe visited Walsingham." Oxford's literary reputation Oxford's lyric poetry Some of Oxford's lyric works have survived. Steven W. May, an authority on Oxford's poetry, attributes sixteen poems definitely, and four possibly, to Oxford noting that these are probably "only a good sampling" as "both Webbe (1586) and Puttenham (1589) rank him first among the courtier poets, an eminence he probably would not have been granted, despite his reputation as a patron, by virtue of a mere handful of lyrics". May describes Oxford as a "competent, fairly experimental poet working in the established modes of mid-century lyric verse" and his poetry as "examples of the standard varieties of mid-Elizabethan amorous lyric". In 2004, May wrote that Oxford's poetry was "one man's contribution to the rhetorical mainstream of an evolving Elizabethan poetic" and challenged readers to distinguish any of it from "the output of his mediocre mid-century contemporaries". C. S. Lewis wrote that de Vere's poetry shows "a faint talent", but is "for the most part undistinguished and verbose." Comparisons to Shakespeare's work In the opinion of J. Thomas Looney, as "far as forms of versification are concerned De Vere presents just that rich variety which is so noticeable in Shakespeare; and almost all the forms he employs we find reproduced in the Shakespeare work." Oxfordian Louis P. Bénézet created the "Bénézet test", a collage of lines from Shakespeare and lines he thought were representative of Oxford, challenging non-specialists to tell the difference between the two authors. May notes that Looney compared various motifs, rhetorical devices and phrases with certain Shakespeare works to find similarities he said were "the most crucial in the piecing together of the case", but that for some of those "crucial" examples Looney used six poems mistakenly attributed to Oxford that were actually written by Greene, Campion, and Greville. Bénézet also used two lines from Greene that he thought were Oxford's, while succeeding Oxfordians, including Charles Wisner Barrell, have also misattributed poems to Oxford. "This on-going confusion of Oxford's genuine verse with that of at least three other poets", writes May, "illustrates the wholesale failure of the basic Oxfordian methodology." According to a computerised textual comparison developed by the Claremont Shakespeare Clinic, the styles of Shakespeare and Oxford were found to be "light years apart", and the odds of Oxford having written Shakespeare were reported as "lower than the odds of getting hit by lightning". Furthermore, while the First Folio shows traces of a dialect identical to Shakespeare's, the Earl of Oxford, raised in Essex, spoke an East Anglian dialect. John Shahan and Richard Whalen condemned the Claremont study, calling it "apples to oranges", and noting that the study did not compare Oxford's songs to Shakespeare's songs, did not compare a clean unconfounded sample of Oxford's poems with Shakespeare's poems, and charged that the students under Elliott and Valenza's supervision incorrectly assumed that Oxford's youthful verse was representative of his mature poetry. Joseph Sobran's book, Alias Shakespeare, includes Oxford's known poetry in an appendix with what he considers extensive verbal parallels with the work of Shakespeare, and he argues that Oxford's poetry is comparable in quality to some of Shakespeare's early work, such as Titus Andronicus. Other Oxfordians say that de Vere's extant work is that of a young man and should be considered juvenilia, while May believes that all the evidence dates his surviving work to his early 20s and later. Contemporary reception Four contemporary critics praise Oxford as a poet and a playwright, three of them within his lifetime: William Webbe's Discourse of English Poetrie (1586) surveys and criticises the early Elizabethan poets and their works. He parenthetically mentions those of Elizabeth's court, and names Oxford as "the most excellent" among them. The Arte of English Poesie (1589), attributed to George Puttenham, includes Oxford on a list of courtier poets and prints some of his verses as exemplars of "his excellencie and wit." He also praises Oxford and Richard Edwardes as playwrights, saying that they "deserve the hyest price" for the works of "Comedy and Enterlude" that he has seen. Francis Meres' 1598 Palladis Tamia mentions both Oxford and Shakespeare as among several playwrights who are "the best for comedy amongst us". Henry Peacham's 1622 The Compleat Gentleman includes Oxford on a list of courtier and would-be courtier Elizabethan poets. Mainstream scholarship characterises the extravagant praise for de Vere's poetry more as a convention of flattery than honest appreciation of literary merit. Alan Nelson, de Vere's documentary biographer, writes that "[c]ontemporary observers such as Harvey, Webbe, Puttenham and Meres clearly exaggerated Oxford's talent in deference to his rank." Perceived allusions to Oxford as a concealed writer Before the advent of copyright, anonymous and pseudonymous publication was a common practice in the sixteenth century publishing world, and a passage in the Arte of English Poesie (1589), an anonymously published work itself, mentions in passing that literary figures in the court who wrote "commendably well" circulated their poetry only among their friends, "as if it were a discredit for a gentleman to seem learned" (Book 1, Chapter 8). In another passage 23 chapters later, the author (probably George Puttenham) speaks of aristocratic writers who, if their writings were made public, would appear to be excellent. It is in this passage that Oxford appears on a list of poets. According to Daniel Wright, these combined passages confirm that Oxford was one of the concealed writers in the Elizabethan court. Critics of this view argue that Oxford nor any other writer is not here identified as a concealed writer, but as the first in a list of known modern writers whose works have already been "made public", "of which number is first" Oxford, adding to the publicly acknowledged literary tradition dating back to Geoffrey Chaucer. Other critics interpret the passage to mean that the courtly writers and their works are known within courtly circles, but not to the general public. In either case, neither Oxford nor anyone else is identified as a hidden writer or one that used a pseudonym. Oxfordians argue that at the time of the passage's composition (pre-1589), the writers referenced were not in print, and interpret Puttenham's passage (that the noblemen preferred to 'suppress' their work to avoid the discredit of appearing learned) to mean that they were 'concealed'. They cite Sir Philip Sidney, none of whose poetry was published until after his premature death, as an example. Similarly, by 1589 nothing by Greville was in print, and only one of Walter Raleigh's works had been published. Critics point out that six of the nine poets listed had appeared in print under their own names long before 1589, including a number of Oxford's poems in printed miscellanies, and the first poem published under Oxford's name was printed in 1572, 17 years before Puttenham's book was published. Several other contemporary authors name Oxford as	Its distributor, Sony Pictures, advertised that the film "presents a compelling portrait of Edward de Vere as the true author of Shakespeare's plays", and commissioned high school and college-level lesson plans to promote the authorship question to history and literature teachers across the United States. According to Sony Pictures, "the objective for our Anonymous program, as stated in the classroom literature, is 'to encourage critical thinking by challenging students to examine the theories about the authorship of Shakespeare's works and to formulate their own opinions.' The study guide does not state that Edward de Vere is the writer of Shakespeare's work, but it does pose the authorship question which has been debated by scholars for decades". Variant Oxfordian theories Although most Oxfordians agree on the main arguments for Oxford, the theory has spawned schismatic variants that have not met with wide acceptance by all Oxfordians, although they have gained much attention. Prince Tudor theory In a letter written by Looney in 1933, he mentions that Allen and Ward were "advancing certain views respecting Oxford and Queen Eliz. which appear to me extravagant & improbable, in no way strengthen Oxford’s Shakespeare claims, and are likely to bring the whole cause into ridicule." Allen and Ward believed that they had discovered that Elizabeth and Oxford were lovers and had conceived a child. Allen developed the theory in his 1934 book Anne Cecil, Elizabeth & Oxford. He argued that the child was given the name William Hughes, who became an actor under the stage-name "William Shakespeare". He adopted the name because his father, Oxford, was already using it as a pen-name for his plays. Oxford had borrowed the name from a third Shakespeare, the man of that name from Stratford-upon-Avon, who was a law student at the time, but who was never an actor or a writer. Allen later changed his mind about Hughes and decided that the concealed child was the Earl of Southampton, the dedicatee of Shakespeare's narrative poems. This secret history, which has become known as the Prince Tudor theory, was covertly represented in Oxford's plays and poems and remained hidden until Allen and Ward's discoveries. The narrative poems and sonnets had been written by Oxford for his son. This Star of England (1952) by Charlton and Dorothy Ogburn included arguments in support of this version of the theory. Their son, Charlton Ogburn, Jr, agreed with Looney that the theory was an impediment to the Oxfordian movement and omitted all discussion about it in his own Oxfordian works. However, the theory was revived and expanded by Elisabeth Sears in Shakespeare and the Tudor Rose (2002), and Hank Whittemore in The Monument (2005), an analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnets which interprets the poems as a poetic history of Queen Elizabeth, Oxford, and Southampton. Paul Streitz's Oxford: Son of Queen Elizabeth I (2001) advances a variation on the theory: that Oxford himself was the illegitimate son of Queen Elizabeth by her stepfather, Thomas Seymour. Oxford was thus the half-brother of his own son by the queen. Streitz also believes that the queen had children by the Earl of Leicester. These were Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, Mary Sidney and Elizabeth Leighton. Attribution of other works to Oxford As with other candidates for authorship of Shakespeare's works, Oxford's advocates have attributed numerous non-Shakespearian works to him. Looney began the process in his 1921 edition of de Vere's poetry. He suggested that de Vere was also responsible for some of the literary works credited to Arthur Golding, Anthony Munday and John Lyly. Streitz credits Oxford with the Authorized King James Version of the Bible. Two professors of linguistics have claimed that de Vere wrote not only the works of Shakespeare, but most of what is memorable in English literature during his lifetime, with such names as Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, Philip Sidney, John Lyly, George Peele, George Gascoigne, Raphael Holinshed, Robert Greene, Thomas Phaer, and Arthur Golding being among dozens of further pseudonyms of de Vere. Ramon Jiménez has credited Oxford with such plays as The True Tragedy of Richard III and Edmund Ironside. Group theories Group theories in which Oxford played the principal role as writer, but collaborated with others to create the Shakespeare canon, were adopted by a number of early Oxfordians. Looney himself was willing to concede that Oxford may have been assisted by his son-in-law William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby, who perhaps wrote The Tempest. B.M. Ward also suggested that Oxford and Derby worked together. In his later writings Percy Allen argued that Oxford led a group of writers, among whom was William Shakespeare. Group theories with Oxford as the principal author or creative "master mind" were also proposed by Gilbert Standen in Shakespeare Authorship (1930), Gilbert Slater in Seven Shakespeares (1931) and Montagu William Douglas in Lord Oxford and the Shakespeare Group (1952). Case against Oxfordian theory Methodology of Oxfordian argument Specialists in Elizabethan literary history object to the methodology of Oxfordian arguments. In lieu of any evidence of the type commonly used for authorship attribution, Oxfordians discard the methods used by historians and employ other types of arguments to make their case, the most common being supposed parallels between Oxford's life and Shakespeare's works. Another is finding cryptic allusions to Oxford's supposed play writing in other literary works of the era that to them suggest that his authorship was obvious to those "in the know". David Kathman writes that their methods are subjective and devoid of any evidential value, because they use a "double standard". Their arguments are "not taken seriously by Shakespeare scholars because they consistently distort and misrepresent the historical record", "neglect to provide necessary context" and are in some cases "outright fabrication[s]". One major evidential objection to the Oxfordian theory is Edward de Vere's 1604 death, after which a number of Shakespeare's plays are generally believed to have been written. In The Shakespeare Claimants, a 1962 examination of the authorship question, H. N. Gibson concluded that "... on analysis the Oxfordian case appears to me a very weak one". Mainstream objections Mainstream academics have often argued that the Oxford theory is based on snobbery: that anti-Stratfordians reject the idea that the son of a mere tradesman could write the plays and poems of Shakespeare. The Shakespeare Oxford Society has responded that this claim is "a substitute for reasoned responses to Oxfordian evidence and logic" and is merely an ad hominem attack. Mainstream critics further say that, if William Shakespeare were a fraud instead of the true author, the number of people involved in suppressing this information would have made it highly unlikely to succeed. And citing the "testimony of contemporary writers, court records and much else" supporting Shakespeare's authorship, Columbia University professor James S. Shapiro says any theory claiming that "there must have been a conspiracy to suppress the truth of de Vere's authorship" based on the idea that "the very absence of surviving evidence proves the case" is a logically fatal tautology. Circumstantial evidence While no documentary evidence connects Oxford (or any alternative author) to the plays of Shakespeare, Oxfordian writers, including Mark Anderson and Charlton Ogburn, say that connection is made by considerable circumstantial evidence inferred from Oxford's connections to the Elizabethan theatre and poetry scene; the participation of his family in the printing and publication of the First Folio; his relationship with the Earl of Southampton (believed by most Shakespeare scholars to have been Shakespeare's patron); as well as a number of specific incidents and circumstances of Oxford's life that Oxfordians say are depicted in the plays themselves. Theatre connections Oxford was noted for his literary and theatrical patronage, garnering dedications from a wide range of authors. For much of his adult life, Oxford patronised both adult and boy acting companies, as well as performances by musicians, acrobats and performing animals, and in 1583, he was a leaseholder of the first Blackfriars Theatre in London. Family connections Oxford was related to several literary figures. His mother, Margory Golding, was the sister of the Ovid translator Arthur Golding, and his uncle, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, was the inventor of the English or Shakespearian sonnet form. The three dedicatees of Shakespeare's works (the earls of Southampton, Montgomery and Pembroke) were each proposed as husbands for the three daughters of Edward de Vere. Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece were dedicated to Southampton (whom many scholars have argued was the Fair Youth of the Sonnets), and the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays was dedicated to Montgomery (who married Susan de Vere) and Pembroke (who was once engaged to Bridget de Vere). Oxford's Bible In the late 1990s, Roger A. Stritmatter conducted a study of the marked passages found in Edward de Vere's Geneva Bible, which is now owned by the Folger Shakespeare Library. The Bible contains 1,028 instances of underlined words or passages and a few hand-written annotations, most of which consist of a single word or fragment. Stritmatter believes about a quarter of the marked passages appear in Shakespeare's works as either a theme, allusion, or quotation. Stritmatter grouped the marked passages into eight themes. Arguing that the themes fitted de Vere's known interests, he proceeded to link specific themes to passages in Shakespeare. Critics have doubted that any of the underlinings or annotations in the Bible can be reliably attributed to de Vere and not the book's other owners prior to its acquisition by the Folger Shakespeare Library in 1925, as well as challenging the looseness of Stritmatter's standards for a Biblical allusion in Shakespeare's works and arguing that there is no statistical significance to the overlap. Stratford connections Shakespeare's native Avon and Stratford are referred to in two prefatory poems in the 1623 First Folio, one of which refers to Shakespeare as "Swan of Avon" and another to the author's "Stratford monument". Oxfordians say the first of these phrases could refer to one of Edward de Vere's manors, Bilton Hall, near the Forest of Arden, in Rugby, on the River Avon. This view was first expressed by Charles Wisner Barrell, who argued that De Vere "kept the place as a literary hideaway where he could carry on his creative work without the interference of his father-in-law, Burghley, and other distractions of Court and city life." Oxfordians also consider it significant that the nearest town to the parish of Hackney, where de Vere later lived and was buried, was also named Stratford. Mainstream scholar Irvin Matus demonstrated that Oxford sold the Bilton house in 1580, having previously rented it out, making it unlikely that Ben Jonson's 1623 poem would identify Oxford by referring to a property he once owned, but never lived in, and sold 43 years earlier. Nor is there any evidence of a monument to Oxford in Stratford, London, or anywhere else; his widow provided for the creation of one at Hackney in her 1613 will, but there is no evidence that it was ever erected. Oxford's annuity Oxfordians also believe that Rev. Dr. John Ward's 1662 diary entry stating that Shakespeare wrote two plays a year "and for that had an allowance so large that he spent at the rate of £1,000 a year" as a critical piece of evidence, since Queen Elizabeth I gave Oxford an annuity of exactly £1,000 beginning in 1586 that was continued until his death. Ogburn wrote that the annuity was granted "under mysterious circumstances", and Anderson suggests it was granted because of Oxford's writing patriotic plays for government propaganda. However, the documentary evidence indicates that the allowance was meant to relieve Oxford's embarrassed financial situation caused by the ruination of his estate. Oxford's travels and the settings of Shakespeare's plays Almost half of Shakespeare's plays are set in Italy, many of them containing details of Italian laws, customs, and culture which Oxfordians believe could only have been obtained by personal experiences in Italy, and especially in Venice. The author of The Merchant of Venice, Looney believed, "knew Italy first hand and was touched with the life and spirit of the country". This argument had earlier been used by supporters of the Earl of Rutland and the Earl of Derby as authorship candidates, both of whom had also travelled on the continent of Europe. Oxfordian William Farina refers to Shakespeare's apparent knowledge of the Jewish ghetto, Venetian architecture and laws in The Merchant of Venice, especially the city's "notorious Alien Statute". Historical documents confirm that Oxford lived in Venice, and travelled for over a year through Italy. He disliked the country, writing in a letter to Lord Burghley dated 24 September 1575, "I am glad I have seen it, and I care not ever to see it any more". Still, he remained in Italy for another six months, leaving Venice in March 1576. According to Anderson, Oxford definitely visited Venice, Padua, Milan, Genoa, Palermo, Florence, Siena and Naples, and probably passed through Messina, Mantua and Verona, all cities used as settings by Shakespeare. In testimony before the Venetian Inquisition, Edward de Vere was said to be fluent in Italian. However, some Shakespeare scholars say that Shakespeare gets many details of Italian life wrong, including the laws and urban geography of Venice. Kenneth Gross writes that "the play itself knows nothing about the Venetian ghetto; we get no sense of a legally separate region of Venice where Shylock must dwell." Scott McCrea describes the setting as "a nonrealistic Venice" and the laws invoked by Portia as part of the "imaginary world of the play", inconsistent with actual legal practice. Charles Ross points out that Shakespeare's Alien Statute bears little resemblance to any Italian law. For later plays such as Othello, Shakespeare probably used Lewes Lewknor's 1599 English translation of Gasparo Contarini's The Commonwealth and Government of Venice for some details about Venice's laws and customs. Shakespeare derived much of this material from John Florio, an Italian scholar living in England who was later thanked by Ben Jonson for helping him get Italian details right for his play Volpone. Kier Elam has traced Shakespeare's Italian idioms in Shrew and some of the dialogue to Florio's Second Fruits, a bilingual introduction to Italian language and culture published in 1591. Jason Lawrence believes that Shakespeare’s Italian dialogue in the play derives "almost entirely" from Florio’s First Fruits (1578). He also believes that Shakespeare became more proficient in reading the language as set out in Florio’s manuals, as evidenced by his increasing use of Florio and other Italian sources for writing the plays. Oxford's education and knowledge of court life In 1567 Oxford was admitted to Gray's Inn, one of the Inns of Court which Justice Shallow reminisces about in Henry IV, Part 2. Sobran observes that the Sonnets "abound not only in legal terms – more than 200 – but also in elaborate legal conceits." These terms include: allege, auditor, defects, exchequer, forfeit, heirs, impeach, lease, moiety, recompense, render, sureties, and usage. Shakespeare also uses the legal term "quietus" (final settlement) in Sonnet 134, the last Fair Youth sonnet. Regarding Oxford's knowledge of court life, which Oxfordians believe is reflected throughout the plays, mainstream scholars say that any special knowledge of the aristocracy appearing in the plays can be more easily explained by Shakespeare's life-time of performances before nobility and royalty, and possibly, as Gibson theorises, "by visits to his patron's house, as Marlowe visited Walsingham." Oxford's literary reputation Oxford's lyric poetry Some of Oxford's lyric works have survived. Steven W. May, an authority on Oxford's poetry, attributes sixteen poems definitely, and four possibly, to Oxford noting that these are probably "only a good sampling" as "both Webbe (1586) and Puttenham (1589) rank him first among the courtier poets, an eminence he probably would not have been granted, despite his reputation as a patron, by virtue of a mere handful of lyrics". May describes Oxford as a "competent, fairly experimental poet working in the established modes of mid-century lyric verse" and his poetry as "examples of the standard varieties of mid-Elizabethan amorous lyric". In 2004, May wrote that Oxford's poetry was "one man's contribution to the rhetorical mainstream of an evolving Elizabethan poetic" and challenged readers to distinguish any of it from "the output of his mediocre mid-century contemporaries". C. S. Lewis wrote that de Vere's poetry shows "a faint talent", but is "for the most part undistinguished and verbose." Comparisons to Shakespeare's work In the opinion of J. Thomas Looney, as "far as forms of versification are concerned De Vere presents just that rich variety which is so noticeable in Shakespeare; and almost all the forms he employs we find reproduced in the Shakespeare work." Oxfordian Louis P. Bénézet created the "Bénézet test", a collage of lines from Shakespeare and lines he thought were representative of Oxford, challenging non-specialists to tell the difference between the two authors. May notes that Looney compared various motifs, rhetorical devices and phrases with certain Shakespeare works to find similarities he said were "the most crucial in the piecing together of the case", but that for some of those "crucial" examples Looney used six poems mistakenly attributed to Oxford that were actually written by Greene, Campion, and Greville. Bénézet also used two lines from Greene that he thought were Oxford's, while succeeding Oxfordians, including Charles Wisner Barrell, have also misattributed poems to Oxford. "This on-going confusion of Oxford's genuine verse with that of at least three other poets", writes May, "illustrates the wholesale failure of the basic Oxfordian methodology." According to a computerised textual comparison developed by the Claremont Shakespeare Clinic, the styles of Shakespeare and Oxford were found to be "light years apart", and the odds of Oxford having written Shakespeare were reported as "lower than the odds of getting hit by lightning". Furthermore, while the First Folio shows traces of a dialect identical to Shakespeare's, the Earl of Oxford, raised in Essex, spoke an East Anglian dialect. John Shahan and Richard Whalen condemned the Claremont study, calling it "apples to oranges", and noting that the study did not compare Oxford's songs to Shakespeare's songs, did not compare a clean unconfounded sample of Oxford's poems with Shakespeare's poems, and charged that the students under Elliott and Valenza's supervision incorrectly assumed that Oxford's youthful verse was representative of his mature poetry. Joseph Sobran's book, Alias Shakespeare, includes Oxford's known poetry in an appendix with what he considers extensive verbal parallels with the work of Shakespeare, and he argues that Oxford's poetry is comparable in quality to some of Shakespeare's early work, such as Titus Andronicus. Other Oxfordians say that de Vere's extant work is that of a young man and should be considered juvenilia, while May believes that all the evidence dates his surviving work to his early 20s and later. Contemporary reception Four contemporary critics praise Oxford as a poet and a playwright, three of them within his lifetime: William Webbe's Discourse of English Poetrie (1586) surveys and criticises the early Elizabethan poets and their works. He parenthetically mentions those of Elizabeth's court, and names Oxford as "the most excellent" among them. The Arte of English Poesie (1589), attributed to George Puttenham, includes Oxford on a list of courtier poets and prints some of his verses as exemplars of "his excellencie and wit." He also praises Oxford and Richard Edwardes as playwrights, saying that they "deserve the hyest price" for the works of "Comedy and Enterlude" that he has seen. Francis Meres' 1598 Palladis Tamia mentions both Oxford and Shakespeare as among several playwrights who are "the best for comedy amongst us". Henry Peacham's 1622 The Compleat Gentleman includes Oxford on a list of courtier and would-be courtier Elizabethan poets. Mainstream scholarship characterises the extravagant praise for de Vere's poetry more as a convention of flattery than honest appreciation of literary merit. Alan Nelson, de Vere's documentary biographer, writes that "[c]ontemporary observers such as Harvey, Webbe, Puttenham and Meres clearly exaggerated Oxford's talent in deference to his rank." Perceived allusions to Oxford as a concealed writer Before the advent of copyright, anonymous and pseudonymous publication was a common practice in the sixteenth century publishing world, and a passage in the Arte of English Poesie (1589), an anonymously published work itself, mentions in passing that literary figures in the court who wrote "commendably well" circulated their poetry only among their friends, "as if it were a discredit for a gentleman to seem learned" (Book 1, Chapter 8). In another passage 23 chapters later, the author (probably George Puttenham) speaks of aristocratic writers who, if their writings were made public, would appear to be excellent. It is in this passage that Oxford appears on a list of poets. According to Daniel Wright, these combined passages confirm that Oxford was one of the concealed writers in the Elizabethan court. Critics of this view argue that Oxford nor any other writer is not here identified as a concealed writer, but as the first in a list of known modern writers whose works have already been "made public", "of which number is first" Oxford, adding to the publicly acknowledged literary tradition dating back to Geoffrey Chaucer. Other critics interpret the passage to mean that the courtly writers and their works are known within courtly circles, but not to the general public. In either case, neither Oxford nor anyone else is identified as a hidden writer or one that used a pseudonym. Oxfordians argue that at the time of the passage's composition (pre-1589), the writers referenced were not in print, and interpret Puttenham's passage (that the noblemen preferred to 'suppress' their work to avoid the discredit of appearing learned) to mean that they were 'concealed'. They cite Sir Philip Sidney, none of whose poetry was published until after his premature death, as an example. Similarly, by 1589 nothing by Greville was in print, and only one of Walter Raleigh's works had been published. Critics point out that six of the nine poets listed had appeared in print under their own names long before 1589, including a number of Oxford's poems in printed miscellanies, and the first poem published under Oxford's name was printed in 1572, 17 years before Puttenham's book was published. Several other contemporary authors name Oxford as a poet, and Puttenham himself quotes one of Oxford's verses elsewhere in the book, referring to him by name as the author, so Oxfordians misread Puttenham. Oxfordians also believe other texts refer to the Edward de Vere as a concealed writer. They argue that satirist John Marston's Scourge of Villanie (1598) contains further cryptic allusions to Oxford, named as "Mutius". Marston expert Arnold Davenport believes that Mutius is the bishop-poet Joseph Hall and that Marston is criticising Hall's satires. There is a description of the figure of Oxford in The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois, a 1613 play by George Chapman, who has been suggested as the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Chapman describes Oxford as "Rare and most absolute" in form and says he was "of spirit passing great / Valiant and learn’d, and liberal as the sun". He adds that he "spoke and writ sweetly" of both learned subjects and matters of state ("public weal"). Chronology of the plays and Oxford's 1604 death For mainstream Shakespearian scholars, the most compelling evidence against Oxford (besides the historical evidence for William Shakespeare) is his death in 1604, since the generally accepted chronology of Shakespeare's plays places the composition of approximately twelve of the plays
in it, an 'Epicurean pessimist.'" (Quarterly Review vol. 170 (1890), p. 289) In this example, "Epicurean pessimist" would be recognized as an oxymoron in any case, as the core tenet of Epicureanism is equanimity (which would preclude any sort of pessimist outlook). However, the explicit advertisement of the use of oxymorons opened up a sliding scale of less than obvious construction, ending in the "opinion oxymorons" such as "business ethics". J. R. R. Tolkien interpreted his own surname as derived from the Low German equivalent of dull-keen (High German ) which would be a literal equivalent of Greek oxy-moron. "Comical oxymoron" "Comical oxymoron" is a term for the claim, for comical effect, that a certain phrase or expression is an oxymoron (called "opinion oxymorons" by Lederer (1990)). The humour derives from implying that an assumption (which might otherwise be expected to be controversial or at least non-evident) is so obvious as to be part of the lexicon. An example of such a "comical oxymoron" is "educational television": the humour derives entirely from the claim that it is an oxymoron by the implication that "television" is so trivial as to be inherently incompatible with "education". In a 2009 article called "Daredevil", Garry Wills accused William F. Buckley of popularising this trend, based on the success of the latter's claim that "an intelligent liberal is an oxymoron." Examples popularized by comedian George Carlin in 1975 include "military intelligence" (a play on the lexical meanings of the term "intelligence", implying that "military" inherently excludes the presence of "intelligence") and "business ethics" (similarly implying that the mutual exclusion of the two terms is evident or commonly understood rather than the partisan anti-corporate position). Similarly, the term "civil war" is sometimes jokingly referred to as an "oxymoron" (punning on the lexical meanings of the word "civil"). Other examples include "honest politician", "act naturally", "affordable caviar" (1993),, "happily married" and "Microsoft Works" (2000) Antonym pairs Listing of antonyms, such as "good and evil", "male and female", "great and small", etc., does not create oxymorons, as it is not implied that any given object has the two opposing properties simultaneously. In some languages, it is not necessary to place a conjunction like and between the two antonyms; such compounds (not necessarily of antonyms) are known as dvandvas (a term taken from Sanskrit grammar). For example, in Chinese, compounds like 男女 (man and woman, male and female, gender), 陰陽 (yin and yang), 善惡 (good and evil, morality) are used to indicate couples, ranges, or the trait that these are extremes of. The Italian pianoforte or fortepiano is an example from a Western language; the term is short for gravicembalo col piano e forte, as it were "harpiscord with a range of different volumes", implying that it is possible to play both soft and loud (as well as intermediate) notes, not that the sound produced is somehow simultaneously "soft and loud". See also Auto-antonym Colorless green ideas sleep furiously Meinong's jungle Paradox	in English, but loaned as a compound from a different language), as with pre-posterous (lit. "with the hinder part before", compare hysteron proteron, "upside-down", "head over heels", "ass-backwards" etc.) or sopho-more (an artificial Greek compound, lit. "wise-foolish"). The most common form of oxymoron involves an adjective–noun combination of two words, but they can also be devised in the meaning of sentences or phrases. One classic example of the use of oxymorons in English literature can be found in this example from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, where Romeo strings together thirteen in a row: Other examples from English-language literature include: "hateful good" (Chaucer, translating odibile bonum) "proud humility" (Spenser), "darkness visible" (Milton), "beggarly riches" (John Donne), "damn with faint praise" (Pope), "expressive silence" (Thomson, echoing Cicero's ), "melancholy merriment" (Byron), "faith unfaithful", "falsely true" (Tennyson), "conventionally unconventional", "tortuous spontaneity" (Henry James) "delighted sorrow", "loyal treachery", "scalding coolness" (Hemingway). In literary contexts, the author does not usually signal the use of an oxymoron, but in rhetorical usage, it has become common practice to advertise the use of an oxymoron explicitly to clarify the argument, as in: "Voltaire [...] we might call, by an oxymoron which has plenty of truth in it, an 'Epicurean pessimist.'" (Quarterly Review vol. 170 (1890), p. 289) In this example, "Epicurean pessimist" would be recognized as an oxymoron in any case, as the core tenet of Epicureanism is equanimity (which would preclude any sort of pessimist outlook). However, the explicit advertisement of the use of oxymorons opened up a sliding scale of less than obvious construction, ending in the "opinion oxymorons" such as "business ethics". J. R. R. Tolkien interpreted his own surname as derived from the Low German equivalent of dull-keen (High German ) which would be a literal equivalent of Greek oxy-moron.
and Society, Science Education from Montreal's McGill University Office of Strategic Services, World War II forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency Office of the Supervising Scientist, an Australian Government body under the Supervising Scientist Offshore Super Series, an offshore powerboat racing organization Open Spaces Society, a UK registered charity championing public paths and open spaces Operations Support Squadron, a United States Air Force support squadron Optimized Systems Software, a former software company Science and technology Ohio Sky Survey Optical SteadyShot, a lens-based image stabilization system by Sony Optimal Stereo Sound, another name for the Jecklin Disk recording technique Oriented spindle stop, a type of spindle motion used within	the Supervising Scientist, an Australian Government body under the Supervising Scientist Offshore Super Series, an offshore powerboat racing organization Open Spaces Society, a UK registered charity championing public paths and open spaces Operations Support Squadron, a United States Air Force support squadron Optimized Systems Software, a former software company Science and technology Ohio Sky Survey Optical SteadyShot, a lens-based image stabilization system by Sony Optimal Stereo Sound, another name for the Jecklin Disk recording technique Oriented spindle stop, a type of spindle motion used within some G-code cycles Ovary Sparing Spay (OSS) Overspeed Sensor System (OSS), part of the Train Protection & Warning System for railroad trains Computer software and hardware OpenSearchServer, search engine software Open Sound System, a standard interface for making and capturing sound
independent Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). On December 14, 2016, the organization was collectively honored with a Congressional Gold Medal. Origin Prior to the formation of the OSS, the various departments of the executive branch, including the State, Treasury, Navy, and War Departments conducted American intelligence activities on an ad hoc basis, with no overall direction, coordination, or control. The US Army and US Navy had separate code-breaking departments: Signal Intelligence Service and OP-20-G. (A previous code-breaking operation of the State Department, the MI-8, run by Herbert Yardley, had been shut down in 1929 by Secretary of State Henry Stimson, deeming it an inappropriate function for the diplomatic arm, because "gentlemen don't read each other's mail.") The FBI was responsible for domestic security and anti-espionage operations. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was concerned about American intelligence deficiencies. On the suggestion of William Stephenson, the senior British intelligence officer in the western hemisphere, Roosevelt requested that William J. Donovan draft a plan for an intelligence service based on the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and Special Operations Executive (SOE). After submitting his work, "Memorandum of Establishment of Service of Strategic Information", Colonel Donovan was appointed "coordinator of information" on July 11, 1941, heading the new organization known as the office of the Coordinator of Information (COI). Thereafter the organization was developed with British assistance; Donovan had responsibilities but no actual powers and the existing US agencies were skeptical if not hostile. Until some months after Pearl Harbor, the bulk of OSS intelligence came from the UK. British Security Co-ordination (BSC) trained the first OSS agents in Canada, until training stations were set up in the US with guidance from BSC instructors, who also provided information on how the SOE was arranged and managed. The British immediately made available their short-wave broadcasting capabilities to Europe, Africa, and the Far East and provided equipment for agents until American production was established. The Office of Strategic Services was established by a Presidential military order issued by President Roosevelt on June 13, 1942, to collect and analyze strategic information required by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to conduct special operations not assigned to other agencies. During the war, the OSS supplied policymakers with facts and estimates, but the OSS never had jurisdiction over all foreign intelligence activities. The FBI was left responsible for intelligence work in Latin America, and the Army and Navy continued to develop and rely on their own sources of intelligence. Activities OSS proved especially useful in providing a worldwide overview of the German war effort, its strengths and weaknesses. In direct operations it was successful in supporting Operation Torch in French North Africa in 1942, where it identified pro-Allied potential supporters and located landing sites. OSS operations in neutral countries, especially Stockholm, Sweden, provided in-depth information on German advanced technology. The Madrid station set up agent networks in France that supported the Allied invasion of southern France in 1944. Most famous were the operations in Switzerland run by Allen Dulles that provided extensive information on German strength, air defenses, submarine production, and the V-1 and V-2 weapons. It revealed some of the secret German efforts in chemical and biological warfare. Switzerland's station also supported resistance fighters in France, Austria and Italy, and helped with the surrender of German forces in Italy in 1945. For the duration of World War II, the Office of Strategic Services was conducting multiple activities and missions, including collecting intelligence by spying, performing acts of sabotage, waging propaganda war, organizing and coordinating anti-Nazi resistance groups in Europe, and providing military training for anti-Japanese guerrilla movements in Asia, among other things. At the height of its influence during World War II, the OSS employed almost 24,000 people. From 1943–1945, the OSS played a major role in training Kuomintang troops in China and Burma, and recruited Kachin and other indigenous irregular forces for sabotage as well as guides for Allied forces in Burma fighting the Japanese Army. Among other activities, the OSS helped arm, train, and supply resistance movements in areas occupied by the Axis powers during World War II, including Mao Zedong's Red Army in China (known as the Dixie Mission) and the Viet Minh in French Indochina. OSS officer Archimedes Patti played a central role in OSS operations in French Indochina and met frequently with Ho Chi Minh in 1945. One of the greatest accomplishments of the OSS during World War II was its penetration of Nazi Germany by OSS operatives. The OSS was responsible for training German and Austrian individuals for missions inside Germany. Some of these agents included exiled communists and Socialist party members, labor activists, anti-Nazi prisoners-of-war, and German and Jewish refugees. The OSS also recruited and ran one of the war's most important spies, the German diplomat Fritz Kolbe. From 1943 the OSS was in contact with the Austrian resistance group around Kaplan Heinrich Maier. As a result, plans and production facilities for V-2 rockets, Tiger tanks and aircraft (Messerschmitt Bf 109, Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet, etc.) were passed on to Allied general staffs in order to enable Allied bombers to get accurate air strikes. The Maier group informed very early about the mass murder of Jews through its contacts with the Semperit factory near Auschwitz. The group was gradually dismantled by the German authorities because of a double agent who worked for both the OSS and the Gestapo. This uncovered a transfer of money from the Americans to Vienna via Istanbul and Budapest, and most of the members were executed after a People's Court hearing. In 1943, the Office of Strategic Services set up operations in Istanbul. Turkey, as a neutral country during the Second World War, was a place where both the Axis and Allied powers had spy networks. The railroads connecting central Asia with Europe, as well as Turkey's close proximity to the Balkan states, placed it at a crossroads of intelligence gathering. The goal of the OSS Istanbul operation called Project Net-1 was to infiltrate and extenuate subversive action in the old Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires. The head of operations at OSS Istanbul was a banker from Chicago named Lanning "Packy" Macfarland, who maintained a cover story as a banker for the American lend-lease program. Macfarland hired Alfred Schwarz, a Czechoslovakian engineer and businessman who came to be known as "Dogwood" and ended up establishing the Dogwood information chain. Dogwood in turn hired a personal assistant named Walter Arndt and established himself as an employee of the Istanbul Western Electrik Kompani. Through Schwartz and Arndt the OSS was able to infiltrate anti-fascist groups in Austria, Hungary, and Germany. Schwartz was able to convince Romanian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, and Swiss diplomatic couriers to smuggle American intelligence information into these territories and establish contact with elements antagonistic to the Nazis and their collaborators. Couriers and agents memorized information and produced analytical reports; when they were not able to memorize effectively they recorded information on microfilm and hid it in their shoes or hollowed pencils. Through this process information about the Nazi regime made its way to Macfarland and the OSS in Istanbul and eventually to Washington. While the OSS "Dogwood-chain" produced a lot of information, its reliability was increasingly questioned by British intelligence. By May 1944, through collaboration between the OSS, British intelligence, Cairo, and Washington, the entire Dogwood-chain was found to be unreliable and dangerous. Planting phony information into the OSS was intended to misdirect the resources of the Allies. Schwartz's Dogwood-chain, which was the largest American intelligence gathering tool in occupied territory, was shortly thereafter shut down. The OSS purchased Soviet code and cipher material (or Finnish information on them) from émigré Finnish army officers in late 1944. Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, Jr., protested that this violated an agreement President Roosevelt made with the Soviet Union not to interfere with Soviet cipher traffic from the United States. General Donovan might have copied the papers before returning them the following January, but there is no record of Arlington Hall receiving them, and CIA and NSA archives have no surviving copies. This codebook was in fact used as part of the Venona decryption effort, which helped uncover large-scale Soviet espionage in North America. RYPE was the codename of the airborne unit who was dropped in the Norwegian mountains of Snåsa on March 24, 1945 to carry out sabotage actions behind enemy lines. From the base at the Gjefsjøen mountain farm, the group conducted successful railroad sabotages, with the intention of preventing the withdrawal of German forces from northern Norway. Operasjon Rype was the only U.S. operation on German-occupied Norwegian soil during WW2. The group consisted mainly of Norwegian Americans recruited from the 99th Infantry Battalion. Operasjon Rype was led by William Colby. The OSS sent four teams of two under Captain Stephen Vinciguerra (codename Algonquin, teams Alsace, Poissy, S&S and Student), with Operation Varsity in March 1945 to infiltrate and report from behind enemy lines, but none succeeded. Team S&S had two agents in Wehrmacht uniforms and a captured Kϋbelwagon; to report by radio. But the Kϋbelwagon was put out of action while in the glider; three tires and the long-range radio were shot up (German gunners were told to attack the gliders not the tow planes). Weapons and gadgets The OSS espionage and sabotage operations produced a steady demand for highly specialized equipment. General Donovan invited experts, organized workshops, and funded labs that later formed the core of the Research & Development Branch. Boston chemist Stanley P. Lovell became its first head, and Donovan humorously called him his "Professor Moriarty". Throughout the war years, the OSS Research & Development successfully adapted Allied weapons and espionage equipment, and produced its own line of novel spy tools and gadgets, including silenced pistols, lightweight sub-machine guns, "Beano" grenades that exploded upon impact, explosives disguised as lumps of coal ("Black Joe") or bags of Chinese flour ("Aunt Jemima"), acetone time delay fuses for limpet mines, compasses hidden in uniform buttons, playing cards that concealed maps, a 16mm Kodak camera in the shape of a matchbox, tasteless poison tablets ("K" and "L" pills), and cigarettes laced with tetrahydrocannabinol acetate (an extract of Indian hemp) to induce uncontrollable chattiness. The OSS also developed innovative communication equipment such as wiretap gadgets, electronic beacons for locating agents, and the "Joan-Eleanor" portable radio system that made it possible for operatives on the ground to establish secure contact with a plane that was preparing to land or drop cargo. The OSS Research & Development also printed fake German and Japanese-issued identification cards, and various passes, ration cards, and counterfeit money. On August 28, 1943, Stanley Lovell was asked to make a presentation in front of a hostile Joint Chiefs of Staff, who were skeptical of OSS plans beyond collecting military intelligence and were ready to split the OSS between the Army and the Navy. While explaining the purpose and mission of his department and introducing various gadgets and tools, he reportedly casually dropped into a waste basket a Hedy, a panic-inducing explosive device in the shape of a firecracker, which shortly produced a loud shrieking sound followed by a deafening boom. The presentation was interrupted and did not resume since everyone in the room fled. In reality, the Hedy, jokingly named after Hollywood movie star Hedy Lamarr for her ability to distract men, later saved the lives of some trapped OSS operatives. Not all projects worked. Some ideas were odd, such as a failed attempt to use insects to spread anthrax in Spain. Stanley Lovell was later quoted saying, "It was my policy to consider any method whatever that might aid the war, however unorthodox or untried". In 1939, a young physician named Christian J. Lambertsen developed an oxygen rebreather set (the Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit) and demonstrated it to the OSS—after already being rejected by the U.S. Navy—in a pool at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington D.C., in 1942. The OSS not only bought into the concept, they hired Lambertsen to lead the program and build up the dive element for the organization. His responsibilities included training and developing methods of combining self-contained diving and swimmer delivery including the Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit for the OSS "Operational Swimmer Group". Growing involvement of the OSS with coastal infiltration and water-based sabotage eventually led to creation of the OSS Maritime Unit. Facilities At Camp X, near Whitby, Ontario, an "assassination and elimination" training program was operated by the British Special Operations Executive, assigning exceptional masters in the art of knife-wielding combat, such as William E. Fairbairn and Eric A. Sykes, to instruct trainees. Many members of the Office of Strategic Services also were trained there. It was dubbed "the school of mayhem and murder" by George Hunter White who trained at the facility in the 1950s. From these incipient beginnings, the OSS began to take charge of its own destiny, and opened camps in the United States, and finally abroad. Prince William Forest Park (then known as Chopawamsic Recreational Demonstration Area) was the site of an OSS training camp that operated from 1942 to 1945. Area "C", consisting of approximately , was used extensively for communications training, whereas Area "A" was used for training some of the OGs (Operational Groups). Catoctin Mountain Park, now the location of Camp David, was the site of OSS training Area "B" where the first Special Operations, or SO, were trained. Special Operations was modeled after Great Britain's Special Operations Executive, which included parachute, sabotage, self-defense, weapons, and leadership training to support guerrilla or partisan resistance. Considered most mysterious of all was the "cloak and dagger" Secret Intelligence, or SI branch. Secret Intelligence employed "country estates as schools for introducing recruits into the murky world of espionage. Thus, it established Training Areas E and RTU-11 ("the Farm") in spacious manor houses with surrounding horse farms." Morale Operations training included psychological warfare and propaganda. The Congressional Country Club (Area F) in Bethesda, Maryland, was the primary OSS training facility. The Facilities of the Catalina Island Marine Institute at Toyon Bay on Santa Catalina Island, Calif., are composed (in part) of a former OSS survival training camp. The National Park Service commissioned a study of OSS National Park training facilities by Professor John Chambers of Rutgers University. The main OSS training camps abroad were located initially in Great Britain, French Algeria, and Egypt; later as the Allies advanced, a school was established in southern Italy. In the Far East, OSS training facilities were established in India, Ceylon, and then China. The London branch of the OSS, its first overseas facility, was at 70 Grosvenor Street, W1. In addition to training local agents, the overseas OSS schools also provided advanced training and field exercises for graduates of the training camps in the United States and for Americans who enlisted in the OSS in the war zones. The most famous of the latter was Virginia Hall in France. The OSS's Mediterranean training center in Cairo, Egypt, known to many as the Spy School, was a lavish palace belonging to King Farouk's brother-in-law, called Ras el Kanayas. It was modeled after the SOE's training facility STS 102 in Haifa, Palestine. Americans whose heritage stemmed from Kingdom of Italy, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and Kingdom of Greece were trained at the "Spy School" and also sent for parachute, weapons and commando training, and Morse code and encryption lessons at STS 102. After completion of their spy training, these agents were sent back on missions to the Balkans and Italy where their accents would not pose a problem for their assimilation. Personnel The names of all 13,000 OSS personnel and documents of their OSS service, previously a closely guarded secret, were released by the US National Archives on August 14, 2008. Among the 24,000 names were those of Sterling Hayden, Carl C. Cable, Julia Child, Ralph Bunche, Arthur Goldberg, Saul K. Padover, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Bruce Sundlun, William Colby, Rene Joyeuse MD and John Ford. The 750,000 pages in the 35,000 personnel files include applications of people who were not recruited or hired, as well as the service records of those who served. OSS soldiers were primarily inducted from the United States Armed Forces. Other members included foreign nationals including displaced individuals from the former czarist Russia, an example being Prince Serge Obolensky. Donovan sought independent thinkers, and in order to bring together those many intelligent, quick-witted individuals who could think out-of-the box, he chose them from all walks of life, backgrounds, without distinction to culture or religion. Donovan was quoted as saying, "I'd rather have a young lieutenant with enough guts to disobey a direct order than	jokingly named after Hollywood movie star Hedy Lamarr for her ability to distract men, later saved the lives of some trapped OSS operatives. Not all projects worked. Some ideas were odd, such as a failed attempt to use insects to spread anthrax in Spain. Stanley Lovell was later quoted saying, "It was my policy to consider any method whatever that might aid the war, however unorthodox or untried". In 1939, a young physician named Christian J. Lambertsen developed an oxygen rebreather set (the Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit) and demonstrated it to the OSS—after already being rejected by the U.S. Navy—in a pool at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington D.C., in 1942. The OSS not only bought into the concept, they hired Lambertsen to lead the program and build up the dive element for the organization. His responsibilities included training and developing methods of combining self-contained diving and swimmer delivery including the Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit for the OSS "Operational Swimmer Group". Growing involvement of the OSS with coastal infiltration and water-based sabotage eventually led to creation of the OSS Maritime Unit. Facilities At Camp X, near Whitby, Ontario, an "assassination and elimination" training program was operated by the British Special Operations Executive, assigning exceptional masters in the art of knife-wielding combat, such as William E. Fairbairn and Eric A. Sykes, to instruct trainees. Many members of the Office of Strategic Services also were trained there. It was dubbed "the school of mayhem and murder" by George Hunter White who trained at the facility in the 1950s. From these incipient beginnings, the OSS began to take charge of its own destiny, and opened camps in the United States, and finally abroad. Prince William Forest Park (then known as Chopawamsic Recreational Demonstration Area) was the site of an OSS training camp that operated from 1942 to 1945. Area "C", consisting of approximately , was used extensively for communications training, whereas Area "A" was used for training some of the OGs (Operational Groups). Catoctin Mountain Park, now the location of Camp David, was the site of OSS training Area "B" where the first Special Operations, or SO, were trained. Special Operations was modeled after Great Britain's Special Operations Executive, which included parachute, sabotage, self-defense, weapons, and leadership training to support guerrilla or partisan resistance. Considered most mysterious of all was the "cloak and dagger" Secret Intelligence, or SI branch. Secret Intelligence employed "country estates as schools for introducing recruits into the murky world of espionage. Thus, it established Training Areas E and RTU-11 ("the Farm") in spacious manor houses with surrounding horse farms." Morale Operations training included psychological warfare and propaganda. The Congressional Country Club (Area F) in Bethesda, Maryland, was the primary OSS training facility. The Facilities of the Catalina Island Marine Institute at Toyon Bay on Santa Catalina Island, Calif., are composed (in part) of a former OSS survival training camp. The National Park Service commissioned a study of OSS National Park training facilities by Professor John Chambers of Rutgers University. The main OSS training camps abroad were located initially in Great Britain, French Algeria, and Egypt; later as the Allies advanced, a school was established in southern Italy. In the Far East, OSS training facilities were established in India, Ceylon, and then China. The London branch of the OSS, its first overseas facility, was at 70 Grosvenor Street, W1. In addition to training local agents, the overseas OSS schools also provided advanced training and field exercises for graduates of the training camps in the United States and for Americans who enlisted in the OSS in the war zones. The most famous of the latter was Virginia Hall in France. The OSS's Mediterranean training center in Cairo, Egypt, known to many as the Spy School, was a lavish palace belonging to King Farouk's brother-in-law, called Ras el Kanayas. It was modeled after the SOE's training facility STS 102 in Haifa, Palestine. Americans whose heritage stemmed from Kingdom of Italy, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and Kingdom of Greece were trained at the "Spy School" and also sent for parachute, weapons and commando training, and Morse code and encryption lessons at STS 102. After completion of their spy training, these agents were sent back on missions to the Balkans and Italy where their accents would not pose a problem for their assimilation. Personnel The names of all 13,000 OSS personnel and documents of their OSS service, previously a closely guarded secret, were released by the US National Archives on August 14, 2008. Among the 24,000 names were those of Sterling Hayden, Carl C. Cable, Julia Child, Ralph Bunche, Arthur Goldberg, Saul K. Padover, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Bruce Sundlun, William Colby, Rene Joyeuse MD and John Ford. The 750,000 pages in the 35,000 personnel files include applications of people who were not recruited or hired, as well as the service records of those who served. OSS soldiers were primarily inducted from the United States Armed Forces. Other members included foreign nationals including displaced individuals from the former czarist Russia, an example being Prince Serge Obolensky. Donovan sought independent thinkers, and in order to bring together those many intelligent, quick-witted individuals who could think out-of-the box, he chose them from all walks of life, backgrounds, without distinction to culture or religion. Donovan was quoted as saying, "I'd rather have a young lieutenant with enough guts to disobey a direct order than a colonel too regimented to think for himself." In a matter of a few short months, he formed an organization which equalled and then rivalled Great Britain's Secret Intelligence Service and its Special Operations Executive. Donovan, inspired by Britain's SOE, assembled an outstanding group of clinical psychologists to carry out evaluations of potential OSS candidates at a variety of sites, primary among these was Station S in Northern Virginia near where Dulles International Airport now stands. Recent research from remaining records from the OSS Station S program describes how those characteristics (independent thought, effective intelligence, interpersonal skills) were found among OSS candidates One such agent was Ivy league polyglot and Jewish-American baseball catcher Moe Berg, who played 15 seasons in the major leagues. As a Secret Intelligence agent, he was dispatched to seek information on German physicist Werner Heisenberg and his knowledge on the atomic bomb. One of the most highly decorated and flamboyant OSS soldiers was US Marine Colonel Peter Ortiz. Enlisting early in the war, as a French Foreign Legionnaire, he went on to join the OSS and to be the most highly decorated US Marine in the OSS during World War II. Julia Child, who later authored cookbooks, worked directly under Donovan. Rene Joyeuse M.D., MS, FACS was a Swiss, French and American soldier, physician and researcher, who distinguished himself as an agent of Allied intelligence in German-occupied France during World War II. He received the US Army Distinguished Service Cross for his actions with the OSS, after the war he became a Physician, Researcher and was a co-founder of The American Trauma Society. "Jumping Joe" Savoldi (code name Sampson) was recruited by the OSS in 1942 because of his hand-to-hand combat and language skills as well as his deep knowledge of the Italian geography and Benito Mussolini's compound. He was assigned to the Special Operations branch and took part in missions in North Africa, Italy, and France during 1943–1945. One of the forefathers of today's commandos was Navy Lieutenant Jack Taylor. He was sequestered by the OSS early in the war and had a long career behind enemy lines. Taro and Mitsu Yashima, both Japanese political dissidents who were imprisoned in Japan for protesting its militarist regime, worked for the OSS in psychological warfare against the Japanese Empire. Nisei linguists In late 1943, a representative from OSS visited the 442nd Infantry Regiment looking to recruit volunteers willing to undertake "extremely hazardous assignment." All selected were Nisei. The recruits were assigned to OSS Detachments 101 and 202, in the China-Burma-India Theater. "Once deployed, they were to interrogate prisoners, translate documents, monitor radio communications, and conduct covert operations... Detachment 101 and 102's clandestine operations were extremely successful." Dissolution into other agencies On September 20, 1945, President Truman signed Executive Order 9621, terminating the OSS. The State Department took over the Research and Analysis Branch; it became the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, The War Department took over the Secret Intelligence (SI) and Counter-Espionage (X-2) Branches, which were then housed in the new Strategic Services Unit (SSU). Brigadier General John Magruder (formerly Donovan's Deputy Director for Intelligence in OSS) became the new SSU director. He oversaw the liquidation of the OSS and managed the institutional preservation of its clandestine intelligence capability. In January 1946, President Truman created the Central Intelligence Group (CIG), which was the direct precursor to the CIA. SSU assets, which now constituted a streamlined "nucleus" of clandestine intelligence, were transferred to the CIG in mid-1946 and reconstituted as the Office of Special Operations (OSO). The National Security Act of 1947 established the Central Intelligence Agency, which then took up some OSS functions. The direct descendant of the paramilitary component of the OSS is the CIA Special Activities Division. Today, the joint-branch United States Special Operations Command, founded in 1987, uses the same spearhead design on its insignia, as homage to its indirect lineage. The Defense Intelligence Agency currently manages the OSS’ mandate to coordinate human espionage activities across the United States Armed Forces. Branches Censorship and Documents Field Experimental Unit Foreign Nationalities Maritime Unit Morale Operations Branch Operational Group Command Research & Analysis Secret Intelligence Security Special Operations Special Projects X-2 (counterespionage) Detachments OSS Deer Team: Vietnam OSS Detachment 101: Burma OSS Detachment 202: China OSS Detachment 303: New Delhi, India OSS Detachment 404: attached to British South East Asia Command in Kandy, Ceylon OSS Detachment 505: Calcutta, India US Army units attached to the OSS 2671st Special Reconnaissance Battalion 2677th Office of Strategic Services Regiment In popular culture Comics The OSS was a featured organization in DC Comics, introduced in G.I. Combat #192 (July 1976). Led by the mysterious Control, they operated as an espionage unit, initially in Nazi-occupied France. The organization would later become Argent. The alter ego of the DC Comics superheroine Wonder Woman, Diana Prince, works for Major Steve Trevor at the OSS. In this position, she found herself privy to intelligence on Axis operations in the United States, and many times foiled agents of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy in their attempts to defeat the Allies and achieve world domination. Films The Paramount film O.S.S. (1946), starring Alan Ladd and Geraldine Fitzgerald, showed agents training and on a dangerous mission. Commander John Shaheen acted as technical advisor. The film 13 Rue Madeleine (1946) stars James Cagney as an OSS agent who must find a mole in French partisan operations. Peter Ortiz acted as technical advisor. The film Cloak and Dagger (1946) stars Gary Cooper as a scientist recruited to OSS to exfiltrate a German scientist defecting to the allies with the help of a woman guerrilla and her partisans. E. Michael Burke acted as technical advisor. In the film Charade (1963), Carson Dyle (Walter Matthau) explains the CIA and OSS to Reggie Lampert (Audrey Hepburn). In The Good Shepherd (2006), Matt Damon plays Edward Wilson, a Skull and Bones recruit who joins the OSS to help with a mission in London. He quickly gains rank as the head of the newly formed CIA's counterintelligence service. The biographical film Flash of Genius (2008) is about famed American inventor and OSS veteran Robert Kearns. In the film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 2008, it is indicated that Indiana Jones worked for the OSS and attained the rank of Colonel. In the film Inglourious Basterds (2009), directed by Quentin Tarantino, the titular "basterds" are members of an OSS commando squad in occupied-France, although no such OSS unit ever actually existed. The film Julie & Julia (2009) includes flashback scenes depicting Julia Child's wartime service with the OSS. The Real Inglorious Bastards (2012), a short film documentary, directed by Min Sook Lee, is about the OSS officers such as Frederick Mayer (spy), Hans Wijnberg, and Franz Weber, who volunteered to operate behind enemy lines, e.g., during "Operation Greenup", to defeat the German armed forces. Camp X: Secret Agent School (2014), a YAP Films documentary for History Channel (Canada), portrays the first spy school in North America, OSS agents, their training at Camp X, and their missions behind enemy lines. World War II Spy School (2014), a YAP Films documentary for the Smithsonian Channel, portrays Camp X and the other training sites overseas, as well as OSS agents and their missions. Games 'Tabletop roleplaying games' The OSS also is mentioned in Pelgrane Press The Fall of DELTA GREEN. Player Characters can be ex-OSS agents in other agencies such as the CIA, which can be beneficial due to the claim and carry authenticity, experience and authority due to their past career in the OSS. Video games In Call of Duty: World at War (2008), Dr. Peter McCain is an OSS spy. In Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine (1999), the main female character, Sophia Hapgood, is an OSS (later CIA) agent. Most games in the Medal of Honor video game franchise feature a fictional OSS agent as the main character. In the 2012 game Sniper Elite V2 and its prequels Sniper Elite III and Sniper Elite 4, the protagonist is an SOE turned OSS agent sniper. In the Wolfenstein series video game series, the main character is a member of a fictional organisation called the OSA (Office of Secret Actions), which is inspired by the OSS. In Tom Clancy's The Division 2, one of the games several hidden side missions, known as The Navy Hill Transmission, has the Agent searching the western part of Washington D.C. for the source of a mysterious encoded transmission which ends up leading him/her to an old underground OSS Bunker. It is featured in Hearts of Iron IV in the 2020 expansion, La Resistance, as the United States' Secret Agency. Literature Jean Bruce's French pulp fiction series, OSS 117, follows the adventure of Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, alias OSS 117, a French operative working for the OSS. The original series (four or five books a year) lasted from 1949 to 1963, until the death of Jean Bruce, and was continued by his wife and children until 1992. Numerous films were made from it in the 1960s, and in 2006 a nostalgic comedy was made, celebrating the spy movie genre, OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, with Jean Dujardin playing OSS 117. A sequel followed in 2009 called OSS 117: Lost in Rio (original title in French: OSS 117: Rio Ne Répond Plus). In Allen Ginsberg's 1975 poem 'Hadda Be Playing on the Jukebox', the OSS is referenced as having employed "Corsican goons" to break the 1948 Marseille dock strike and to have been involved in the smuggling of "Indochina heroin" in the 1960s. W.E.B. Griffin's Honor Bound and Men At War series revolve around fictional OSS operations. Some of his characters in The Corps Series also are recruited by the OSS, notably Ken McCoy, Edward Banning, and Fleming Pickering. Roger Wolcott Hall's book, You're Stepping on My Cloak
desired peaceful relations with the Azai clan because of their strategic position in between the Oda clan's land and the capital, Kyoto. In 1568, Ashikaga Yoshiaki and Akechi Mitsuhide, as Yoshiaki's bodyguard, went to Gifu to ask Nobunaga to start a campaign toward Kyoto. Yoshiaki was the brother of the murdered 13th shogun of the Ashikaga Shogunate, Yoshiteru, and wanted revenge against the killers who had already set up a puppet shogun, Ashikaga Yoshihide. Nobunaga agreed to install Yoshiaki as the new shogun, and grasping the opportunity to enter Kyoto, started his campaign. An obstacle in southern Ōmi Province was the Rokkaku clan, led by Rokkaku Yoshikata, who refused to recognize Yoshiaki as shogun and was ready to go to war to defend Yoshihide. In response, Nobunaga launched a rapid attack of Chōkō-ji Castle, driving the Rokkaku clan out of their castles. Other forces led by Niwa Nagahide defeated the Rokkaku on the battlefield and entered Kannonji Castle, before resuming Nobunaga's march to Kyoto. Later in 1570, the Rokkaku tried to retake the castle, but they were driven back by Oda forces led by Shibata Katsuie. The approaching Oda army influenced the Matsunaga clan to submit to the future shogun. The daimyo Matsunaga Hisahide kept his title by making this decision to ally his clan with the shogun. On November 9, 1568, Nobunaga entered Kyoto, drove out the Miyoshi clan, who supported the 14th shogun and fled to Settsu, and installed Yoshiaki as the 15th shogun of the Ashikaga Shogunate. However, Nobunaga refused the title of shogun's deputy (Kanrei), or any appointment from Yoshiaki. As their relationship grew difficult, Yoshiaki secretly started an anti-Nobunaga alliance, conspiring with other daimyos to get rid of Nobunaga, even though Nobunaga had great respect for the Emperor Ōgimachi. Unification of Japan (1568–1582) Conflict with Azai and Asakura After installing Yoshiaki as shogun, Nobunaga had evidently pressed Yoshiaki to request all the local daimyos to come to Kyoto and attend a certain banquet. Asakura Yoshikage, head of the Asakura clan and regent of Ashikaga Yoshiaki, refused, an act Nobunaga declared disloyal to both the shogun and the emperor. With this pretext well in hand, Nobunaga raised an army and marched on Echizen. In early 1570, Nobunaga launched a campaign into the Asakura clan's domain and besieged Kanagasaki Castle. Azai Nagamasa, to whom Nobunaga's sister Oichi was married, broke the alliance with the Oda clan to honor the Azai-Asakura alliance, which had lasted for generations. With the help of the Rokkaku clan and the Ikkō-ikki, the anti-Nobunaga alliance sprang into full force, taking a heavy toll on the Oda clan. Nobunaga found himself facing both the Asakura and Azai forces and when defeat looked certain, Nobunaga decided to retreat from Kanagasaki, which he did successfully. Battle of Anegawa In July 1570, the Oda-Tokugawa allies marched on Yokoyama Castle and Odani Castle, and the combined Azai-Asakura force marched out to confront Nobunaga. Nobunaga advanced to the southern bank of the Anegawa River. The following morning, on 30 July 1570, the battle between the Oda and the Azai-Asakura forces began. Tokugawa Ieyasu joined his forces with Nobunaga, with the Oda and Azai clashing on the right while Tokugawa and Asakura grappled on the left. The battle turned into a melee fought in the middle of the shallow Anegawa River. For a time, Nobunaga's forces fought the Azai upstream, while the Tokugawa warriors fought the Asakura downstream. After the Tokugawa forces finished off the Asakura, they turned and hit the Azai right flank. The troops of the Mino Triumvirate, who had been held in reserve, then came forward and hit the Azai left flank. Soon both the Oda and Tokugawa forces defeated the combined forces of the Asakura and Azai clans. In 1573, at the Siege of Odani Castle and the Siege of Ichijōdani Castle, Nobunaga successfully destroyed the Azai and Asakura clans by driving them both to the point that the clan leaders committed suicide. Ikkō-ikki campaigns Nobunaga faced a significant threat from the Ikkō-ikki, a resistance movement centered around the Jōdo Shinshū sect of Buddhism. The Ikkō-ikki began as a cult association for self-defence, but popular antipathy against the samurai from the constant violence of the Sengoku period caused their numbers to swell. By the time of Nobunaga's rise to power, the Ikkō-ikki was a major organized armed force opposed to samurai rule in Japan. In August 1570, Nobunaga launched the Ishiyama Hongan-ji War against the Ikkō-ikki, while simultaneously fighting against his samurai rivals. In May 1571, Nobunaga besieged Nagashima, a series of Ikkō-ikki fortifications in Owari Province, beginning the Sieges of Nagashima. Siege of Mount Hiei In the meantime, the Enryaku-ji temple on Mount Hiei was an issue for Nobunaga. The monastery's (warrior monks) of the Tendai school were aiding his opponents in the Azai-Asakura alliance and the temple was close to his base of power. In September 1571, Nobunaga preemptively attacked the Enryaku-ji temple, then besieged Mount Hiei and razed it. In the process of making their way to the Enryaku-ji temple, Nobunaga's forces destroyed and burnt all buildings, killing monks, laymen, women, children and eliminating anyone who had previously escaped their attack. It is said that "The whole mountainside was a great slaughterhouse and the sight was one of unbearable horror." This action gained him renown as the Demon Daimyo or Devil King. Siege of Nagashima Nobunaga's first siege of Nagashima ended in failure, as his trusted general Shibata Katsuie was severely wounded and many of his samurai were lost before retreating. Despite this defeat, Nobunaga was inspired to launch another siege, after the success of the Siege of Mount Hiei. In July 1573, Nobunaga besieged Nagashima for a second time, personally leading a sizable force with many arquebusiers. However, a rainstorm rendered his arquebuses inoperable while the Ikkō-ikki's own arquebusiers could fire from covered positions. Nobunaga himself was almost killed and forced to retreat, with the second siege being considered his greatest defeat. In 1574, Nobunaga launched a third siege of Nagashima as his general Kuki Yoshitaka began a naval blockade and bombardment of Nagashima, allowing him to capture the outer forts of Nakae and Yanagashima as well as part of the Nagashima complex. The sieges of Nagashima finally ended when Nobunaga's men completely surrounded the complex and set fire to it, killing the remaining tens of thousands of defenders and inflicting tremendous losses to the Ikkō-ikki. Siege of Ishiyama Hongan-ji Simultaneously, Nobunaga had been besieging the Ikkō-ikki's main stronghold at Ishiyama Hongan-ji in present-day Osaka. Nobunaga's Siege of Ishiyama Hongan-ji began to slowly make some progress, but the Mōri clan of the Chūgoku region broke his naval blockade and started sending supplies into the strongly fortified complex by sea. As a result, in 1577, Hashiba Hideyoshi was ordered by Nobunaga to confront the warrior monks at Negoro-ji, and Nobunaga eventually blocked the Mōri's supply lines. In 1580, ten years after the siege of Ishiyama Hongan-ji began, the son of Chief Abbot Kōsa surrendered the fortress to Nobunaga after their supplies were exhausted, and they received an official request from the Emperor to do so. Nobunaga spared the lives of Ishiyama Hongan-ji's defenders, but expelled them from Osaka and burnt the fortress to the ground. Although the Ikkō-ikki continued to make a last stand in Kaga Province, Nobunaga's capture of Ishiyama Hongan-ji crippled them as a major military force. Conflict with Takeda One of the strongest rulers in the anti-Nobunaga alliance was Takeda Shingen, who used to be an ally of the Oda clan. At the apex of the anti-Nobunaga coalition, in 1572, Takeda Shingen ordered Akiyama Nobutomo, one of the "Twenty-Four Generals" of Shingen, to attack Iwamura castle. Nobunaga's aunt, Lady Otsuya, conspired against the Oda clan, surrendered the castle to the Takeda and married Nobutomo. From there, the Takeda-Oda relationship declined and Nobunaga started a campaign against the Takeda clan. In the same year, Shingen decided to make a drive for Kyoto at the urgings of the shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki, starting with invading Tokugawa territory. Nobunaga, tied down on the western front, sent lackluster aid to Tokugawa Ieyasu who suffered defeat at the Battle of Mikatagahara in 1573. However, after the battle, Tokugawa's forces launched night raids and convinced Takeda of an imminent counter-attack, thus saving the vulnerable Tokugawa with the bluff. This would play a pivotal role in Tokugawa's philosophy of strategic patience in his campaigns with Nobunaga. Shortly thereafter, the Takeda forces were neutralized after Shingen died in April of 1573. End of the Ashikaga Shogunate After the death of Takeda Shingen, Nobunaga's entry into Kyoto presented him with a situation very different from that from which he had come. He focused on Ashikaga Yoshiaki, who had openly declared hostility more than once, despite the Imperial Court's intervention. Nobunaga was able to defeat Yoshiaki's forces, and the power of the Ashikaga was effectively destroyed on 27 August 1573, when Nobunaga drove Yoshiaki out of Kyoto and sent him into exile. Yoshiaki became a Buddhist monk, shaving his head and taking the name Sho-san, which he later changed to Rei-o In, bringing the Ashikaga Shogunate to an end. Imperial Court appointments After the Ashikaga Shogunate came to end, the authority of the Imperial Court of Emperor Ōgimachi also began to fall. This trend reversed after Oda Nobunaga entered Kyoto in a show of allegiance that indicated that the Emperor had the Oda clan's support. In early 1574, Nobunaga was promoted to the Lower Third Rank () of the Imperial Court and made a Court Advisor (). Court appointments would continue to be lavished on a nearly annual basis, possibly in hope of placating him. Nobunaga acquired many official titles, including Major Counselor (), General of the Right of the Imperial Army (), and Minister of the Right () in 1576. In February 1578 the court made him Grand Minister of State (), the highest post that could be given. Battle of Nagashino In 1575, Takeda Katsuyori, son of Takeda Shingen, attacked Nagashino Castle. Katsuyori, angered when Okudaira Sadamasa rejoined the Tokugawa, had originally conspired with Oga Yashiro to take the Tokugawa-controlled Okazaki Castle, the capital of Mikawa Province. This plot failed. Tokugawa Ieyasu appealed to Nobunaga for help and Nobunaga personally led an army of about 30,000 men to the relief of Nagashino Castle. The combined force of 38,000 men under Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated and devastated the Takeda clan with the strategic use of arquebuses at the decisive Battle of Nagashino. Nobunaga compensated for the arquebus' slow reloading time by organizing the arquebusiers in three rows, firing in rotation. Takeda Katsuyori also wrongly assumed that rain had ruined the gunpowder of Nobunaga's forces. From there, Nobunaga continued his expansion, sending Akechi Mitsuhide to pacify Tanba Province in 1577 and Hashiba Hideyoshi to Himeji Castle in 1578, before advancing upon the Mori clan in Nagato Province. The end of the Takeda clan came in 1582, when Oda-Tokugawa forces conquered Kai Province. Takeda Katsuyori was defeated at the Battle of Tenmokuzan and then committed seppuku. Conflict with Uesugi The Tedorigawa Campaign was precipitated by Uesugi intervention in the domain of the Hatakeyama clan in Noto Province, an Oda client state. This event provoked the Uesugi incursion, a coup d'état led by the pro-Oda general Chō Shigetsura, who killed Hatakeyama Yoshinori, the lord of Noto and replaced him with Hatakeyama Yoshitaka as a puppet ruler. As a result, Uesugi Kenshin, the head of the Uesugi clan, mobilized an army and led it into Noto against Shigetsura. Consequently, Nobunaga sent an army led by Shibata Katsuie and some of his most experienced generals to attack Kenshin. They clashed at the Battle of Tedorigawa in Kaga Province in November 1577. The result was a decisive Uesugi victory, and Nobunaga considered ceding the northern provinces to Kenshin, but Kenshin's sudden death in early 1578 caused a succession crisis that ended the Uesugi's movement to the south. By 1580, Nobunaga was the most powerful lord in Japan, controlling 20 provinces in central Japan: Owari, Mino, Omi, Iga, Ise, Yamato, Yamashiro, Kawachi, Izumi, Settsu, Echizen, Hida, Kaga, Shinano, Kai, Tango, Harima, Inaba, Tanba and Bizen. Tenshō Iga War The was two invasions of Iga province by the Oda clan during the Sengoku period. The province was conquered by Oda Nobunaga in 1581 after an unsuccessful attempt in 1579 by his son Oda Nobukatsu. The name of the war is derived from the Tenshō era name (1573–92) in which it occurred. Other names for the campaign include or . Oda Nobunaga himself toured the conquered province in early November 1581, and then withdrew his troops, placing control in Nobukatsu's hands. Death Honnō-ji incident By 1582, Nobunaga was at the height of his power and, as the most powerful warlord, the de facto leader of Japan. Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu finally defeated the Takeda at the Battle of Tenmokuzan, destroying the clan and resulting in Takeda Katsuyori fleeing from the battle before committing suicide with his wife while being pursued by Oda forces. By this point, Nobunaga was preparing to launch invasions into Echigo Province and Shikoku. Nobunaga's former sandal-bearer, Hashiba Hideyoshi, invaded Bitchū Province and laid siege to Takamatsu Castle. The castle was vital to the Mori clan, and losing it would have left the Mori's home domain vulnerable. Mori reinforcements led by Mōri Terumoto arrived to relieve the siege, prompting Hideyoshi to ask in turn for reinforcements from Nobunaga. Nobunaga immediately ordered his leading generals and also Akechi Mitsuhide to prepare their armies, with the overall expedition to be led by Nobunaga. Nobunaga left Azuchi Castle for Honnō-ji, a temple in Kyoto he frequented when visiting the city, where he was to hold a tea ceremony. Hence, Nobunaga only had 30 pages with him, while his son Oda Nobutada had brought 2,000 of his cavalrymen. Akechi Mitsuhide, stationed in the Chūgoku region, decided to assassinate Nobunaga for unknown reasons, and the cause of his betrayal is controversial. Mitsuhide, aware that Nobunaga was nearby and unprotected for his tea ceremony, saw an opportunity to act. Mitsuhide led his army toward Kyoto under the pretense of following the order of Nobunaga, but as they were crossing Katsura River, Mitsuhide announced to his troops that "The enemy awaits at Honnō-ji!" (敵は本能寺にあり, Teki wa Honnō-ji ni ari). On 21 June 1582, before dawn, the Akechi army surrounded the Honnō-ji temple with Nobunaga present, while another unit of Akechi troops were sent to Myōkaku-ji in a coup. Although Nobunaga and his servants resisted the unexpected intrusion, they were soon overwhelmed. As the Akechi troops closed in, Nobunaga decided to commit in one of the inner rooms. Reportedly his last words were, "Ran, don't let them come in..." referring to his young page, Mori Ranmaru, who set the temple on fire as Nobunaga requested so that no one would be able to get his decapitated head. Ranmaru then followed his lord, with his loyalty and devotion making him a revered figure in Japanese history. Nobunaga's remains were never found, a fact often speculated about by writers and historians. After capturing Honnō-ji, Mitsuhide attacked Nobutada, eldest son and heir of Nobunaga, who also committed suicide. Later, Nobunaga's retainer Toyotomi Hideyoshi, subsequently abandoned his campaign against the Mōri clan to pursue Mitsuhide to avenge his beloved lord. Hideyoshi intercepted one of Mitsuhide's messengers trying to deliver a letter to the Mōri requesting to form an alliance against the Oda after informing them of Nobunaga's death. Hideyoshi managed to pacify the Mōri by demanding the suicide of Shimizu Muneharu in exchange for ending his siege of Takamatsu Castle, which the Mōri accepted. Mitsuhide failed to establish his position after Nobunaga's death and Oda forces under Hideyoshi defeated his army at the Battle of Yamazaki in July 1582, while Mitsuhide was murdered by bandits while fleeing after the battle. Hideyoshi continued and completed Nobunaga's conquest of Japan within the following decade. Historical context The goal of national unification and a return to the comparative political stability of the earlier Muromachi period was widely shared by the multitude of autonomous daimyos during the Sengoku period. Oda Nobunaga was the first for whom this goal seemed attainable. Nobunaga had gained control over most of Honshu before his death during the 1582 Honnō-ji incident, a coup attempt executed by Nobunaga's vassal, Akechi Mitsuhide. Nobunaga was betrayed by his own retainers who set the Honno-Ji temple on fire; then, instead of burning in flames, Oda Nobunaga had committed to escape the flames. The motivation behind Mitsuhide's betrayal was never revealed to anyone who survived the incident, and has been a subject of debate and conjecture ever since the incident. Following the incident, Mitsuhide declared himself master over Nobunaga's domains, but was quickly defeated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who regained control of and greatly expanded the Oda holdings. Nobunaga's successful subjugation of much of Honshu enabled the later successes of his allies Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu toward the goal of national unification by subjugating local daimyos under a hereditary shogunate, which was ultimately accomplished in 1603 when Ieyasu was granted the title of Shogun by Emperor Go-Yōzei following the successful Sekigahara Campaign of 1600. The nature of the succession of power through the three daimyos is reflected in a well-known Japanese idiom: The changing character of power through Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Ieyasu is reflected in a well known idiom: All three were born within eight years of each other (1534 to 1542), started their careers as samurai and finished them as statesmen. Nobunaga inherited his father's domain at the age of 17, and quickly gained control of Owari Province through . Hideyoshi started his career in Nobunaga's army as an but quickly rose up through the ranks as a samurai. Ieyasu initially fought against Nobunaga as the heir of a rival daimyo, but later expanded his own inheritance through a profitable alliance with Nobunaga. Influence Military Militarily, Nobunaga changed the way war was fought in Japan. His gunners and spear-wielding foot soldiers displaced mounted soldiers armed with bow and sword. His foot soldiers were trained and disciplined for group and mass movements, which replaced hand-to-hand fighting tactics. They wore distinctive uniforms which fostered esprit de corps, with red troops and black troops. He was ruthless in battle, pursuing fugitives without compassion. Through his methods, he became the ruler of 20 provinces. He built iron-plated warships and imported saltpeter to produce gunpowder, while also promoting the manufacture of artillery and ammunition. Policies After consolidating military power in provinces he came to dominate, starting with Owari and Mino, Nobunaga implemented a plan for economic development. This included the declaration of free markets (rakuichi), the breaking of trade monopolies, and providing for open guilds (rakuza). Nobunaga instituted policies as a way to stimulate business and the overall economy through the use of a free market system. These policies abolished and prohibited monopolies and opened once closed and privileged unions, associations and guilds, which he saw as impediments to commerce. Even though these policies provided a major boost to the economy, they were still heavily dependent on other daimyos' support. Copies of his original proclamations can be found in Entoku-ji in the city of Gifu. Nobunaga initiated policies for civil administration, which included currency regulations, construction of roads and bridges. This included setting standards	Castle and Odani Castle, and the combined Azai-Asakura force marched out to confront Nobunaga. Nobunaga advanced to the southern bank of the Anegawa River. The following morning, on 30 July 1570, the battle between the Oda and the Azai-Asakura forces began. Tokugawa Ieyasu joined his forces with Nobunaga, with the Oda and Azai clashing on the right while Tokugawa and Asakura grappled on the left. The battle turned into a melee fought in the middle of the shallow Anegawa River. For a time, Nobunaga's forces fought the Azai upstream, while the Tokugawa warriors fought the Asakura downstream. After the Tokugawa forces finished off the Asakura, they turned and hit the Azai right flank. The troops of the Mino Triumvirate, who had been held in reserve, then came forward and hit the Azai left flank. Soon both the Oda and Tokugawa forces defeated the combined forces of the Asakura and Azai clans. In 1573, at the Siege of Odani Castle and the Siege of Ichijōdani Castle, Nobunaga successfully destroyed the Azai and Asakura clans by driving them both to the point that the clan leaders committed suicide. Ikkō-ikki campaigns Nobunaga faced a significant threat from the Ikkō-ikki, a resistance movement centered around the Jōdo Shinshū sect of Buddhism. The Ikkō-ikki began as a cult association for self-defence, but popular antipathy against the samurai from the constant violence of the Sengoku period caused their numbers to swell. By the time of Nobunaga's rise to power, the Ikkō-ikki was a major organized armed force opposed to samurai rule in Japan. In August 1570, Nobunaga launched the Ishiyama Hongan-ji War against the Ikkō-ikki, while simultaneously fighting against his samurai rivals. In May 1571, Nobunaga besieged Nagashima, a series of Ikkō-ikki fortifications in Owari Province, beginning the Sieges of Nagashima. Siege of Mount Hiei In the meantime, the Enryaku-ji temple on Mount Hiei was an issue for Nobunaga. The monastery's (warrior monks) of the Tendai school were aiding his opponents in the Azai-Asakura alliance and the temple was close to his base of power. In September 1571, Nobunaga preemptively attacked the Enryaku-ji temple, then besieged Mount Hiei and razed it. In the process of making their way to the Enryaku-ji temple, Nobunaga's forces destroyed and burnt all buildings, killing monks, laymen, women, children and eliminating anyone who had previously escaped their attack. It is said that "The whole mountainside was a great slaughterhouse and the sight was one of unbearable horror." This action gained him renown as the Demon Daimyo or Devil King. Siege of Nagashima Nobunaga's first siege of Nagashima ended in failure, as his trusted general Shibata Katsuie was severely wounded and many of his samurai were lost before retreating. Despite this defeat, Nobunaga was inspired to launch another siege, after the success of the Siege of Mount Hiei. In July 1573, Nobunaga besieged Nagashima for a second time, personally leading a sizable force with many arquebusiers. However, a rainstorm rendered his arquebuses inoperable while the Ikkō-ikki's own arquebusiers could fire from covered positions. Nobunaga himself was almost killed and forced to retreat, with the second siege being considered his greatest defeat. In 1574, Nobunaga launched a third siege of Nagashima as his general Kuki Yoshitaka began a naval blockade and bombardment of Nagashima, allowing him to capture the outer forts of Nakae and Yanagashima as well as part of the Nagashima complex. The sieges of Nagashima finally ended when Nobunaga's men completely surrounded the complex and set fire to it, killing the remaining tens of thousands of defenders and inflicting tremendous losses to the Ikkō-ikki. Siege of Ishiyama Hongan-ji Simultaneously, Nobunaga had been besieging the Ikkō-ikki's main stronghold at Ishiyama Hongan-ji in present-day Osaka. Nobunaga's Siege of Ishiyama Hongan-ji began to slowly make some progress, but the Mōri clan of the Chūgoku region broke his naval blockade and started sending supplies into the strongly fortified complex by sea. As a result, in 1577, Hashiba Hideyoshi was ordered by Nobunaga to confront the warrior monks at Negoro-ji, and Nobunaga eventually blocked the Mōri's supply lines. In 1580, ten years after the siege of Ishiyama Hongan-ji began, the son of Chief Abbot Kōsa surrendered the fortress to Nobunaga after their supplies were exhausted, and they received an official request from the Emperor to do so. Nobunaga spared the lives of Ishiyama Hongan-ji's defenders, but expelled them from Osaka and burnt the fortress to the ground. Although the Ikkō-ikki continued to make a last stand in Kaga Province, Nobunaga's capture of Ishiyama Hongan-ji crippled them as a major military force. Conflict with Takeda One of the strongest rulers in the anti-Nobunaga alliance was Takeda Shingen, who used to be an ally of the Oda clan. At the apex of the anti-Nobunaga coalition, in 1572, Takeda Shingen ordered Akiyama Nobutomo, one of the "Twenty-Four Generals" of Shingen, to attack Iwamura castle. Nobunaga's aunt, Lady Otsuya, conspired against the Oda clan, surrendered the castle to the Takeda and married Nobutomo. From there, the Takeda-Oda relationship declined and Nobunaga started a campaign against the Takeda clan. In the same year, Shingen decided to make a drive for Kyoto at the urgings of the shogun Ashikaga Yoshiaki, starting with invading Tokugawa territory. Nobunaga, tied down on the western front, sent lackluster aid to Tokugawa Ieyasu who suffered defeat at the Battle of Mikatagahara in 1573. However, after the battle, Tokugawa's forces launched night raids and convinced Takeda of an imminent counter-attack, thus saving the vulnerable Tokugawa with the bluff. This would play a pivotal role in Tokugawa's philosophy of strategic patience in his campaigns with Nobunaga. Shortly thereafter, the Takeda forces were neutralized after Shingen died in April of 1573. End of the Ashikaga Shogunate After the death of Takeda Shingen, Nobunaga's entry into Kyoto presented him with a situation very different from that from which he had come. He focused on Ashikaga Yoshiaki, who had openly declared hostility more than once, despite the Imperial Court's intervention. Nobunaga was able to defeat Yoshiaki's forces, and the power of the Ashikaga was effectively destroyed on 27 August 1573, when Nobunaga drove Yoshiaki out of Kyoto and sent him into exile. Yoshiaki became a Buddhist monk, shaving his head and taking the name Sho-san, which he later changed to Rei-o In, bringing the Ashikaga Shogunate to an end. Imperial Court appointments After the Ashikaga Shogunate came to end, the authority of the Imperial Court of Emperor Ōgimachi also began to fall. This trend reversed after Oda Nobunaga entered Kyoto in a show of allegiance that indicated that the Emperor had the Oda clan's support. In early 1574, Nobunaga was promoted to the Lower Third Rank () of the Imperial Court and made a Court Advisor (). Court appointments would continue to be lavished on a nearly annual basis, possibly in hope of placating him. Nobunaga acquired many official titles, including Major Counselor (), General of the Right of the Imperial Army (), and Minister of the Right () in 1576. In February 1578 the court made him Grand Minister of State (), the highest post that could be given. Battle of Nagashino In 1575, Takeda Katsuyori, son of Takeda Shingen, attacked Nagashino Castle. Katsuyori, angered when Okudaira Sadamasa rejoined the Tokugawa, had originally conspired with Oga Yashiro to take the Tokugawa-controlled Okazaki Castle, the capital of Mikawa Province. This plot failed. Tokugawa Ieyasu appealed to Nobunaga for help and Nobunaga personally led an army of about 30,000 men to the relief of Nagashino Castle. The combined force of 38,000 men under Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated and devastated the Takeda clan with the strategic use of arquebuses at the decisive Battle of Nagashino. Nobunaga compensated for the arquebus' slow reloading time by organizing the arquebusiers in three rows, firing in rotation. Takeda Katsuyori also wrongly assumed that rain had ruined the gunpowder of Nobunaga's forces. From there, Nobunaga continued his expansion, sending Akechi Mitsuhide to pacify Tanba Province in 1577 and Hashiba Hideyoshi to Himeji Castle in 1578, before advancing upon the Mori clan in Nagato Province. The end of the Takeda clan came in 1582, when Oda-Tokugawa forces conquered Kai Province. Takeda Katsuyori was defeated at the Battle of Tenmokuzan and then committed seppuku. Conflict with Uesugi The Tedorigawa Campaign was precipitated by Uesugi intervention in the domain of the Hatakeyama clan in Noto Province, an Oda client state. This event provoked the Uesugi incursion, a coup d'état led by the pro-Oda general Chō Shigetsura, who killed Hatakeyama Yoshinori, the lord of Noto and replaced him with Hatakeyama Yoshitaka as a puppet ruler. As a result, Uesugi Kenshin, the head of the Uesugi clan, mobilized an army and led it into Noto against Shigetsura. Consequently, Nobunaga sent an army led by Shibata Katsuie and some of his most experienced generals to attack Kenshin. They clashed at the Battle of Tedorigawa in Kaga Province in November 1577. The result was a decisive Uesugi victory, and Nobunaga considered ceding the northern provinces to Kenshin, but Kenshin's sudden death in early 1578 caused a succession crisis that ended the Uesugi's movement to the south. By 1580, Nobunaga was the most powerful lord in Japan, controlling 20 provinces in central Japan: Owari, Mino, Omi, Iga, Ise, Yamato, Yamashiro, Kawachi, Izumi, Settsu, Echizen, Hida, Kaga, Shinano, Kai, Tango, Harima, Inaba, Tanba and Bizen. Tenshō Iga War The was two invasions of Iga province by the Oda clan during the Sengoku period. The province was conquered by Oda Nobunaga in 1581 after an unsuccessful attempt in 1579 by his son Oda Nobukatsu. The name of the war is derived from the Tenshō era name (1573–92) in which it occurred. Other names for the campaign include or . Oda Nobunaga himself toured the conquered province in early November 1581, and then withdrew his troops, placing control in Nobukatsu's hands. Death Honnō-ji incident By 1582, Nobunaga was at the height of his power and, as the most powerful warlord, the de facto leader of Japan. Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu finally defeated the Takeda at the
times, studied the geological event of 1840 that was centered on Ararat (Akori village). In 1877 he retired to Vienna, where he later died. The mineral Abichite was named after him. Publications The following are listed in Chisholm (1911), p. 62: Vues illustratives de quelques phenomenes geologiques, prises sur le Vesuve et l'Etna, pendant les annees 1833 et 1834 (Berlin, 1836); Ueber die Natur und den Zusammenhang der vulcanischen Bildungen (Brunswick, 1841); Geologische Forschungen in den Kaukasischen Ländern (3 vols., Vienna, 1878, 1882, and 1887). References Further reading 1806 births 1886 deaths	Empire. Residing for some time at Tiflis, he investigated the geology of the Armenian Highland (this term was introduced by Abich) and Caucasus. In 1844 and 1845 he ascended Ararat volcano several times, studied the geological event of 1840 that was centered on Ararat (Akori village). In 1877 he retired to Vienna, where he later died. The mineral Abichite was named after him. Publications The following are listed in Chisholm (1911), p. 62: Vues illustratives de quelques phenomenes geologiques, prises sur le Vesuve et l'Etna, pendant les annees 1833 et 1834 (Berlin, 1836); Ueber die Natur und den Zusammenhang der vulcanischen
the power structure became reversed and, particularly after the death of Lenin in January 1924, supreme power became the domain of the General Secretary. Higher levels In the late Soviet Union the CPSU incorporated the communist parties of the 15 constituent republics (the communist branch of the Russian SFSR was established in 1990). Before 1990 the communist party organization in Russian oblasts, autonomous republics and some other major administrative units were subordinated directly to the CPSU Central Committee. Lower levels At lower levels, the organizational hierarchy was managed by Party Committees, or partkoms (партком). A partkom was headed by the elected "partkom bureau secretary" ("partkom secretary", секретарь парткома). At enterprises, institutions, kolkhozes, etc., they were called as such, i.e., "partkoms". At higher levels the Committees were abbreviated accordingly: obkoms (обком) at oblast (zone) levels (known earlier as gubkoms (губком) for guberniyas), raikoms (райком) at raion (district) levels (known earlier as ukoms (уком) for uyezds), gorkom (горком) at city levels, etc. The same terminology ("raikom", etc.) was used in the organizational structure of Komsomol. The bottom level of the Party was the primary party organization (первичная партийная организация) or party cell (партийная ячейка). It was created within any organizational entity of any kind where there were at least three communists. The management of a cell was called party bureau/partbureau (партийное бюро, партбюро). A partbureau was headed by the elected bureau secretary (секретарь партбюро). At smaller party cells, secretaries were regular employees of the corresponding plant/hospital/school/etc. Sufficiently large party organizations were usually headed by an exempt secretary, who drew his salary from the	became the domain of the General Secretary. Higher levels In the late Soviet Union the CPSU incorporated the communist parties of the 15 constituent republics (the communist branch of the Russian SFSR was established in 1990). Before 1990 the communist party organization in Russian oblasts, autonomous republics and some other major administrative units were subordinated directly to the CPSU Central Committee. Lower levels At lower levels, the organizational hierarchy was managed by Party Committees, or partkoms (партком). A partkom was headed by the elected "partkom bureau secretary" ("partkom secretary", секретарь парткома). At enterprises, institutions, kolkhozes, etc., they were called as such, i.e., "partkoms". At higher levels the Committees were abbreviated accordingly: obkoms (обком) at oblast (zone) levels (known earlier as gubkoms (губком) for guberniyas), raikoms (райком) at raion (district) levels (known earlier as ukoms (уком) for uyezds), gorkom (горком) at city levels, etc. The same terminology ("raikom", etc.) was used in the organizational structure of Komsomol. The bottom level of the Party was the primary party organization (первичная партийная организация) or party cell (партийная ячейка). It was created within any organizational entity of any kind
both Oromo and non-Oromo residents, there was a total of 13,107,963 followers of Christianity (8,204,908 Orthodox, 4,780,917 Protestant, 122,138 Catholic), 12,835,410 followers of Islam, 887,773 followers of Waaqeffanna, and 162,787 followers of other religions. Accordingly, the Oromia region is 48.1% Christian (8,204,908 or 30.4% Orthodox, 4,780,917 or 17.7% Protestant, 122,138 Catholic), 47.6% Muslim and 3.3% followers of Waaqeffanna and other traditional religions According to a 2016 estimate by James Minahan, about half of the Oromo people are Sunni Muslim, a third are Ethiopian Orthodox, and the rest are mostly Protestants or follow their traditional religious beliefs. The traditional religion is more common in southern Oromo populations and Christianity more common in and near the urban centers, while Muslims are more common near the Somali border and in the north. Cuisine Oromo dishes Foon Akaawwii – minced roasted meat; specially seasoned Waaddii – outdoor grilled meat on heat bead or wood fire Anchotte – a common dish in the western part of Oromia (Wallaga) Baduu – liquid remaining after milk has been curdled and strained (cheese) Maarqaa – porridge like made from wheat, honey, milk, chili and spices Chechebsaa – shredded biddena stir-fried with chili powder and cheese Qoocco – also known as kocho, it is not the Gurage type of kocho but a different kind; a common dish in the western part of Oromia Itto – comprises all sorts of vegetables (tomato, potato, ginger, garlic), meat (lamb) Chukkoo – also known as Micira; a sweet flavor of whole grain, seasoned with butter and spices Chororsaa – a common dish in the western part of Oromia Dokkee – a common dish throughout Oromia Region Qince – similar to Marqaa but made from shredded grains as opposed to flour Qorso (Akaayii) – as snacks Oromia Region Dadhii – a drink made from honey Buna – a lot of coffee Gadaa Oromo people governed themselves in accordance with Gadaa system long before the 16th century. The system regulates political, economic, social and religious activities of the community. Oromo were traditionally a culturally homogeneous society with genealogical ties. A male born in the Oromo clan went through five stages of eight years, where his life established his role and status for consideration to a Gadaa office. Every eight years, the Oromo would choose by consensus nine leaders for the office. A leader elected by the gadaa system remains in power only for 8 years, with an election taking place at the end of those 8 years. There are three Gadaa Organs of Governance: Gadaa Council, Gadaa General Assembly (gumi gayo), and the Qallu Assembly. Gadaa Council is considered as it is the collective achievements the members of the Gadaa class. It is responsible in coordinating irreecha. Gadaa General Assembly is the legislative body of the Gadaa government, while Qallu Assembly is the religious institution. Calendar The Oromo people developed a luni-solar calendar, which different geographically and religiously distinct Oromo communities use the same calendar. This calendar is sophisticated and similar to ones found among the Chinese, the Hindus and the Mayans. It was tied to the traditional religion of the Oromos, and used to schedule the Gadda system of elections and power transfer. The Borana Oromo calendar system was once thought to be based upon an earlier Cushitic calendar developed around 300 BC found at Namoratunga. Reconsideration of the Namoratunga site led astronomer and archaeologist Clive Ruggles to conclude that there is no relationship. The new year of the Oromo people, according to this calendar, falls in the month of October. The calendar has no weeks but a name for each day of the month. It is a lunar-stellar calendar system. Oromumma Some modern authors such as Gemetchu Megerssa have proposed the concept of Oromumma, or "Oromoness" as a cultural common between Oromo people. The word is derived by combining "Oromo" with the Arabic term "Ummah" (community). However, according to Terje Østebø and other scholars this term is a neologism from the late 1990s and has been questioned to its link to Oromo ethno-nationalism and Salafi Islamic discourse, in their disagreement with Christian Amhara and other ethnic groups. The Oromo people, depending on their geographical location and historical events, have variously converted to Islam, to Christianity, or remained with their traditional religion (Waaqeffanna). According to Gemetchu Megerssa, the subjective reality is that "neither traditional Oromo rituals nor traditional Oromo beliefs function any longer as a cohesive and integral symbol system" for the Oromo people, not just regionally but even locally. The cultural and ideological divergence within the Oromo people, in part from their religious differences, is apparent from the constant impetus for negotiations between broader Oromo spokespersons and those Oromo who are Ahl al-Sunna followers, states Terje Østebø. The internally evolving cultural differences within the Oromos have led some scholars such as Mario Aguilar and Abdullahi Shongolo to conclude that "a common identity acknowledged by all Oromo in general does not exist". Social stratification Like other ethnic groups in the Horn of Africa and East Africa, Oromo people regionally developed social stratification consisting of four hierarchical strata. The highest strata were the nobles called the Borana, below them were the Gabbaro (some 17th to 19th-century Ethiopian texts refer them as the dhalatta). Below these two upper castes were the despised castes of artisans, and at the lowest level were the slaves. In the Islamic Kingdom of Jimma, the Oromo society's caste strata predominantly consisted of endogamous, inherited artisanal occupations. Each caste group has specialized in a particular occupation such as iron working, carpentry, weapon making, pottery, weaving, leather working and hunting. Each caste in the Oromo society had a designated name. For example, Tumtu were smiths, Fuga were potters, Faqi were tanners and leatherworkers, Semmano were weavers, Gagurtu were bee keepers and honey makers, and Watta were hunters and foragers. While slaves were a stratum within the society, many Oromos, regardless of caste, were sold into slavery elsewhere. By the 19th century, Oromo slaves were sought after and a major part of slaves sold in Gondar and Gallabat slave markets at Ethiopia–Sudan border, as well as the Massawa and Tajura markets on the Red Sea. Livelihood The Oromo people are engaged in many occupations. The southern Oromo (specifically the Borana Oromo) are largely pastoralists who raise goats and cattle. Other Oromo groups have a more diverse economy which includes agriculture and work in urban centers. Some Oromo also sell many products and food items like coffee beans (coffee being a favorite beverage among the Oromo) at local markets. Contemporary era Human rights issues In December 2009, a 96-page report titled Human Rights in Ethiopia: Through the Eyes of the Oromo Diaspora, compiled by the Advocates for Human Rights, documented human rights violations against the Oromo in Ethiopia under three successive regimes: the Ethiopian Empire under Haile Selassie, the Marxist Derg and the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), dominated by members of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and which was accused to have arrested approximately 20,000 suspected OLF members, to have driven most OLF leadership into exile, and to have effectively neutralized the OLF as a political force in Ethiopia. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Oromia Support Group (OSG) recorded 594 extrajudicial killings of Oromos by Ethiopian government security forces and 43 disappearances in custody between 2005 and August 2008. Starting in November 2015, during a wave of mass protests, mainly by Oromos, over the expansion of the municipal boundary of the city of Addis Ababa into Oromia, over 500 people have been killed and many more have been injured, according to human-rights advocates and independent monitors. The protests have since spread to other ethnic groups and encompass wider social grievances. Ethiopia declared a state of emergency in response to Oromo and Amhara protests in October 2016. With the rising political unrest, there was ethnic violence involving the Oromo such as the Oromo–Somali clashes between the Oromo and the ethnic Somalis, leading to up to 400,000 to be displaced in 2017. Gedeo–Oromo clashes between the Oromo and the Gedeo people in the south of the country, and continued violence in the Oromia-Somali border region led to Ethiopia having the largest number of people to flee their homes in the world in 2018, with 1.4 million newly displaced people. In September 2018 in the minorities protest that took place in Oromia near Addis Ababa, 23 people were killed following the deaths of 43 Oromos in the Addis Ababa neighborhood of Saris Abo. Some have blamed the rise in ethnic violence in the Oromia Special Zone Surrounding Finfinne on the Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for giving space to groups formerly banned by previous Tigrayan led governments, such as the Oromo Liberation Front and Ginbot 7. Protests broke out across Ethiopia, chiefly in the Oromia Region, following the assassination of musician Hachalu Hundessa on 29 June 2020, leading to the deaths of at least 200 people. On 30 June 2020, a statue of former Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie in London was destroyed by Oromo protestors. in response to killing most popular and famous singer and grievances of Oromo language banned from education, and the use in administration under Haile Selassie regime. Political organizations The resettlements Oromo was affected Abyssinian state. Subsequently, the Oromo played a major role in the internal dynamics of Ethiopia. Accordingly, Oromos played major roles in all three main political movements in Ethiopia (centralist, federalist and secessionist) during the 19th and 20th century. In addition to holding high powers during the centralist government and the monarchy, the Raya Oromos in the Tigray regional state played a major role in the "Weyane" revolt, challenging Emperor Haile Selassie I's rule in the 1940s. Simultaneously, both federalist and secessionist political forces developed inside the Oromo community. At present a number of ethnic-based political organizations have been formed to promote the interests of the Oromo. The first was the Mecha and Tulama Self-Help Association founded in January 1963, but disbanded by the government after several increasingly tense confrontations in November 1966. Later groups include the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM), the United Liberation Forces of Oromia (ULFO), the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Oromia (IFLO), the Oromia Liberation Council (OLC), the Oromo National Congress (ONC, recently changed to OPC) and others. Another group, the Oromo People's Democratic Organization (OPDO), is one of the four parties that form the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition. the ONC, for example, was part of the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces coalition that challenged the EPRDF in the Ethiopian general elections of 2005. A number of these groups seek to create an independent Oromo nation, some using armed force. Meanwhile, the ruling OPDO and several opposition political parties in the Ethiopian parliament believe in the ethnic federalism. But most Oromo opposition parties in Ethiopia condemn the economic and political inequalities in the country. Progress has been very slow, with the Oromia International Bank just recently established in 2008, though Oromo-owned Awash International Bank started early in the 1990s. Radio broadcasts began in Oromo language in Somalia in 1960 by Radio Mogadishu. Within Kenya there has been radio broadcasting in Oromo (in the Borana dialect) on the Voice of Kenya since at least the 1980s. Broadcasting in Oromo thought in Ethiopia as it would break radio until 1974 revolution in which Radio Harar began broadcasting. The first private Afaan Oromoo newspaper in Ethiopia, Jimma Times, also known as , was recently established, but it has faced a lot of harassment and persecution from the Ethiopian government since its beginning.CJFE award nominee Abuse of Oromo media is widespread in Ethiopia and reflective of the general oppression Oromos face in the country. Various human rights organizations have publicized the government persecution of Oromos in Ethiopia for decades. In 2008, OFDM opposition party condemned the government's indirect role in the death of hundreds of Oromos in western Ethiopia. According to Amnesty International, "between 2011 and 2014, at least 5000 Oromos have been arrested based on their actual or suspected peaceful opposition to the government. These include thousands of peaceful protestors and hundreds of opposition political party members. The government anticipates a high level of opposition in Oromia, and signs of dissent are sought out and regularly, sometimes pre-emptively, suppressed. In numerous cases, actual or suspected dissenters have been detained without charge or trial, killed by security services during protests, arrests and in detention." According to Amnesty International, there is a sweeping repression in the Oromo region of Ethiopia. On 12 December 2015, the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported violent protests in the Oromo region of Ethiopia in which more than 20 students were killed. According to the report, the students were protesting against the government's re-zoning plan named 'Addis Ababa Master Plan'. On 2 October 2016, between 55 and 300 festival goers were massacred at the most sacred and largest event among the Oromo, the Irreecha cultural thanksgiving festival. In just one day, dozens were killed and many more injured in what will go down in history as one of the darkest days for the Oromo people. Every year, millions of Oromos, the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, gather in Bishoftu for this annual celebration. However this year, the festive mood quickly turned chaotic after Ethiopian security forces responded to peaceful protests by firing tear gas and live bullets at over two million people surrounded by a lake and cliffs. In the week that followed, angry youth attacked government buildings and private businesses. On 8 October, the government responded by abusive and far-reaching state of emergency lifted in August 2017. During the state of emergency, security forces arbitrarily detained over 21,000 people. Notable people Arts and history Ali Birra	Starting in November 2015, during a wave of mass protests, mainly by Oromos, over the expansion of the municipal boundary of the city of Addis Ababa into Oromia, over 500 people have been killed and many more have been injured, according to human-rights advocates and independent monitors. The protests have since spread to other ethnic groups and encompass wider social grievances. Ethiopia declared a state of emergency in response to Oromo and Amhara protests in October 2016. With the rising political unrest, there was ethnic violence involving the Oromo such as the Oromo–Somali clashes between the Oromo and the ethnic Somalis, leading to up to 400,000 to be displaced in 2017. Gedeo–Oromo clashes between the Oromo and the Gedeo people in the south of the country, and continued violence in the Oromia-Somali border region led to Ethiopia having the largest number of people to flee their homes in the world in 2018, with 1.4 million newly displaced people. In September 2018 in the minorities protest that took place in Oromia near Addis Ababa, 23 people were killed following the deaths of 43 Oromos in the Addis Ababa neighborhood of Saris Abo. Some have blamed the rise in ethnic violence in the Oromia Special Zone Surrounding Finfinne on the Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for giving space to groups formerly banned by previous Tigrayan led governments, such as the Oromo Liberation Front and Ginbot 7. Protests broke out across Ethiopia, chiefly in the Oromia Region, following the assassination of musician Hachalu Hundessa on 29 June 2020, leading to the deaths of at least 200 people. On 30 June 2020, a statue of former Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie in London was destroyed by Oromo protestors. in response to killing most popular and famous singer and grievances of Oromo language banned from education, and the use in administration under Haile Selassie regime. Political organizations The resettlements Oromo was affected Abyssinian state. Subsequently, the Oromo played a major role in the internal dynamics of Ethiopia. Accordingly, Oromos played major roles in all three main political movements in Ethiopia (centralist, federalist and secessionist) during the 19th and 20th century. In addition to holding high powers during the centralist government and the monarchy, the Raya Oromos in the Tigray regional state played a major role in the "Weyane" revolt, challenging Emperor Haile Selassie I's rule in the 1940s. Simultaneously, both federalist and secessionist political forces developed inside the Oromo community. At present a number of ethnic-based political organizations have been formed to promote the interests of the Oromo. The first was the Mecha and Tulama Self-Help Association founded in January 1963, but disbanded by the government after several increasingly tense confrontations in November 1966. Later groups include the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement (OFDM), the United Liberation Forces of Oromia (ULFO), the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Oromia (IFLO), the Oromia Liberation Council (OLC), the Oromo National Congress (ONC, recently changed to OPC) and others. Another group, the Oromo People's Democratic Organization (OPDO), is one of the four parties that form the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition. the ONC, for example, was part of the United Ethiopian Democratic Forces coalition that challenged the EPRDF in the Ethiopian general elections of 2005. A number of these groups seek to create an independent Oromo nation, some using armed force. Meanwhile, the ruling OPDO and several opposition political parties in the Ethiopian parliament believe in the ethnic federalism. But most Oromo opposition parties in Ethiopia condemn the economic and political inequalities in the country. Progress has been very slow, with the Oromia International Bank just recently established in 2008, though Oromo-owned Awash International Bank started early in the 1990s. Radio broadcasts began in Oromo language in Somalia in 1960 by Radio Mogadishu. Within Kenya there has been radio broadcasting in Oromo (in the Borana dialect) on the Voice of Kenya since at least the 1980s. Broadcasting in Oromo thought in Ethiopia as it would break radio until 1974 revolution in which Radio Harar began broadcasting. The first private Afaan Oromoo newspaper in Ethiopia, Jimma Times, also known as , was recently established, but it has faced a lot of harassment and persecution from the Ethiopian government since its beginning.CJFE award nominee Abuse of Oromo media is widespread in Ethiopia and reflective of the general oppression Oromos face in the country. Various human rights organizations have publicized the government persecution of Oromos in Ethiopia for decades. In 2008, OFDM opposition party condemned the government's indirect role in the death of hundreds of Oromos in western Ethiopia. According to Amnesty International, "between 2011 and 2014, at least 5000 Oromos have been arrested based on their actual or suspected peaceful opposition to the government. These include thousands of peaceful protestors and hundreds of opposition political party members. The government anticipates a high level of opposition in Oromia, and signs of dissent are sought out and regularly, sometimes pre-emptively, suppressed. In numerous cases, actual or suspected dissenters have been detained without charge or trial, killed by security services during protests, arrests and in detention." According to Amnesty International, there is a sweeping repression in the Oromo region of Ethiopia. On 12 December 2015, the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported violent protests in the Oromo region of Ethiopia in which more than 20 students were killed. According to the report, the students were protesting against the government's re-zoning plan named 'Addis Ababa Master Plan'. On 2 October 2016, between 55 and 300 festival goers were massacred at the most sacred and largest event among the Oromo, the Irreecha cultural thanksgiving festival. In just one day, dozens were killed and many more injured in what will go down in history as one of the darkest days for the Oromo people. Every year, millions of Oromos, the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, gather in Bishoftu for this annual celebration. However this year, the festive mood quickly turned chaotic after Ethiopian security forces responded to peaceful protests by firing tear gas and live bullets at over two million people surrounded by a lake and cliffs. In the week that followed, angry youth attacked government buildings and private businesses. On 8 October, the government responded by abusive and far-reaching state of emergency lifted in August 2017. During the state of emergency, security forces arbitrarily detained over 21,000 people. Notable people Arts and history Ali Birra – Artist Bakri Sapalo – Historian and Artist Boonaa Mohammed – poetry Hachalu Hundessa – Singer-songwriter Lemma Guya – Painter Shantam Shubissa – Singer-songwriter Thomas Gobena – Musician Tilahun Gessesse – Artist Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin – Artist Yadesa Bojia – Graphic Designer and Artist Athletes Abebe Bikila – Athlete Abebe Dinkesa Abebe Wakgira Abera Kuma Almaz Ayana – Athlete Asha Gigi Aselefech Mergia Atsede Bayisa Bekana Daba Belaynesh Oljira Bilisuma Shugi Bizunesh Urgesa Derartu Tulu – Athlete Deresse Mekonnen Deriba Merga Ejegayehu Dibaba Elfenesh Alemu Emebt Etea Fate Tola Fatuma Roba – Athlete Firehiwot Tufa Dado Gelete Burka Genzebe Dibaba Gezahegne Abera Gudisa Shentema Guye Adola Ibrahim Jeilan – Imane Merga Kenenisa Bekele – Athlete Lelisa Desisa Lencho Skibba Mare Dibaba Meseret Hailu Meseret Mengistu Mestawet Tufa Metiku Megersa Maryam Yusuf Jamal Mohammed Aman Netsanet Gudeta Sifan Hassan – Athlete Sileshi Sihine – Tilahun Regassa Tariku Bekele Tamiru Demisse Tesfaye Tola Tesfaye Abera Tiki Gelana Tirunesh Dibaba – Athlete Worku Bikila (born 1968), long distance runner Yacob Jarso Yomif Kejelcha – Footballer Adugna Deyas Abdusalam Abas Ibrahim Asrat Megersa Gobena Business and humanitarian Juneidi Basha- businessman Abebech Gobena - humanitarian Agitu Ideo Gudeta -Farmer, entrepreneur, environmentalist Military Abebe Aregai Ali II of Yejju Balcha Safo Birhanu Jula Gelalcha Dori of Yejju Gobana Dacche – His father was Oromo while his mother was an Amhara. HabteGiyorgis Dinagde Botera – Governor Jagama Kello Mikael of Wollo Politics Ababiya Abajobir Abadula Gemeda Abdullahi Yousuf Abiy Ahmed Ali – Prime Minister of Ethiopia Addisu Arega Kitessa Alemayehu Atomsa Aster Mamo Bekele Gerba Birtukan Mideksa Birtukan Ayano Dadi Bulcha Demeksa Dawud Ibsa Ayana Demitu Hambisa Bonsa Diriba Kuma Getachew Jigi Demeksa Girma Wolde-Giorgis – President of Ethiopia Jawar Mohammed – Activist and member of OFC Haile Fida Jaarraa Abbaa Gadaa Junedin Sado Kuma Demeksa Lemma Megersa – Ethiopian Minister of Defence Lencho Letta Merera Gudina Muktar Kedir Mulatu Teshome – President of Ethiopia Negasso Gidada Negeri Lencho Shimelis Abdisa Sinknesh Ejigu Tadesse Birru Tafari Benti Takele Uma Banti Tesfaye Dinka Workneh Gebeyehu Yilma Deressa Religion Abune Petros - Bishop Gudina Tumsa - theologian and General Secretary of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus. Onesimos Nesib – Christian convert who translated the Bible into Oromo. Royals Abba Bok'a Abba Gomol Abba Jifar I Abba Jifar II – Governor Abba Jofir Abba Magal Abba Rebu Bekere Godana Jemila Ali Iyasu V Kemeria Abajobir Abajifar Kumsa Moroda Malik Ambar Scholars Bakri Sapalo – invent Oromo script Gebisa Ejeta Mohammed Rashad Abdulle Awol Allo Martha Kuwee Kumsa Nationalism, Resistance Ahmad Taqi Sheikh Mohammed Rashid – Aster Ganno
positionalities, which Lange describes as “taking sides.” The positionality of oral history could lead to conflict and tension. The tribal histories are typically narrated by men. While histories are also told by women, they are not accepted locally as “real history.” Oral histories often detail the lives and feats of ancestors. Genealogy is a prominent subject in the area. According to Lange, the oral historians often tell their own personalized genealogies to demonstrate their credibility, both in their social standing and their expertise in the field. Uzbekistan From 2003 to 2004, Professors Marianne Kamp and Russell Zanca researched agricultural collectivization in Uzbekistan in part by using oral history methodology to fill in gaps in information missing from the Central State Archive of Uzbekistan. The goal of the project was to learn more about life in the 1920s and 1930s to study the impact of the Soviet Union's conquest. 20 interviews each were conducted in the Fergana valley, Tashkent, Bukhara, Khorezm, and Kashkadarya regions. Their interviews uncovered stories of famine and death that had not been widely known outside of local memory in the region. In Asia China The rise of oral history is a new trend in historical studies in China that began in the late twentieth century. Some oral historians, stress the collection of eyewitness accounts of the words and deeds of important historical figures and what really happened during those important historical events, which is similar to common practice in the west, while the others focus more on important people and event, asking important figures to describe the decision making and details of important historical events. In December 2004, the Chinese Association of Oral History Studies was established. The establishment of this institution is thought to signal that the field of oral history studies in China has finally moved into a new phase of organized development. Southeast Asia While oral tradition is an integral part of ancient Southeast Asian history, oral history is a relatively recent development. Since the 1960s, oral history has been accorded increasing attention both on institutional as well as individual levels, representing “history from above” and “history from below”. In Oral History and Public Memories, Blackburn writes about oral history as a tool that was used “by political elites and state-run institutions to contribute to the goal of national building” in postcolonial Southeast Asian countries. Blackburn draws most of his examples of oral history as a vehicle for “history from above” from Malaysia and Singapore. In terms of “history from below”, various oral history initiatives are being undertaken in Cambodia in an effort to record lived experiences from the rule of the Khmer Rouge regime while survivors are still living. These initiative take advantage of crowdsourced history to uncover the silences imposed on the oppressed. South Asia Two prominent and ongoing oral history projects out of South Asia stem from time periods of ethnic violence that were decades apart: 1947 and 1984. The 1947 Partition Archive was founded in 2010 by Guneeta Singe Bhalla, a physicist in Berkeley, California, who began conducting and recording interviews "to collect and preserve the stories of those who lived through this tumultuous time, to make sure this great human tragedy isn't forgotten." The Sikh Diaspora Project was founded in 2014 by Brajesh Samarth, senior lecturer in Hindi-Urdu at Emory University in Atlanta, when he was a lecturer at Stanford University in California. The project focuses on interviews with members of the Sikh diaspora in the U.S. and Canada, including the many who migrated after the 1984 massacre of Sikhs in India. In Oceania Australia Hazel de Berg began recording Australian writers, artists, musicians and others in the Arts community in 1957. She conducted nearly 1300 interviews. Together with the National Library of Australia, she was a pioneer in the field in Australia, working together for twenty-seven years. In December 1997, in response to the first recommendation of the Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families report, the Australian Government announced funding for the National Library to develop and manage an oral history project. The Bringing Them Home Oral History Project (1998–2002) collected and preserved the stories of Indigenous Australians and others involved in or affected by the child removals resulting in the Stolen Generations. Other contributors included missionaries, police and government administrators. There are now many organisations and projects all over Australia involved in recording oral histories from Australians of all ethnicities and in all walks of life. Oral History Victoria support an annual Oral history award as part of the Victorian Community History Awards held annually to recognise the contributions made by Victorians in the preservation of the state's history, published during the previous year. Academia and Institutions In 1948, Allan Nevins, a Columbia University historian, established the Columbia Oral History Research Office, now known as the Columbia Center for Oral History Research, with a mission of recording, transcribing, and preserving oral history interviews. The Regional Oral History Office was founded in 1954 as a division of the University of California, Berkeley's Bancroft Library. In 1967, American oral historians founded the Oral History Association, and British oral historians founded the Oral History Society in 1969. In 1981, Mansel G. Blackford, a business historian at Ohio State University, argued that oral history was a useful tool to write the history of corporate mergers. More recently, Harvard Business School launched the Creating Emerging Markets project, which "explores the evolution of business leadership in Africa, Asia, and Latin America throughout recent decades" through oral history. "At its core are interviews, many on video, by the School’s faculty with leaders or former leaders of firms and NGOs who have had a major impact on their societies and enterprises across three continents." There are now numerous national organizations and an International Oral History Association, which hold workshops and conferences and publish newsletters and journals devoted to oral history theory and practices. Specialized collections of oral history sometimes have archives of widespread global interest; an example is the Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington, Connecticut, a department of the University Library of Yale. Methods Historians, folklorists, anthropologists, human geographers, sociologists, journalists, linguists, and many others employ some form of interviewing in their research. Although multi-disciplinary, oral historians have promoted common ethics and standards of practice, most importantly the attaining of the "informed consent" of those being interviewed. Usually this is achieved through a deed of gift, which also establishes copyright ownership that is critical for publication and archival preservation. Oral historians generally prefer to ask open-ended questions and avoid leading questions that encourage people to say what they think the interviewer wants them to say. Some interviews are "life reviews," conducted with people at the end of their careers. Other interviews focus on a specific period or a specific event in people's lives, such as in the case of war veterans or survivors of a hurricane. Feldstein (2004) considers oral history to be akin to journalism, Both are committed to uncovering truths and compiling narratives about people, places, and events. Felstein says each could benefit from adopting techniques from the other. Journalism could benefit by emulating the exhaustive and nuanced research methodologies used by oral historians. The practice of oral historians could be enhanced by utilizing the more sophisticated interviewing techniques employed by journalists, in particular, the use of adversarial encounters as a tactic for obtaining information from a respondent. The first oral history archives focused on interviews with prominent politicians, diplomats, military officers, and business leaders. By the 1960s and '70s, influenced by the rise of new social history, interviewing began to be employed more often when historians investigated history from below. Whatever the field or focus of a project, oral historians attempt to record the memories of many different people when researching a given event. Interviewing a single person provides a single perspective. Individuals may misremember events or distort their account for personal reasons. By interviewing widely, oral historians seek points of agreement among many different sources, and also record the complexity of the issues. The nature of memory—both individual and community—is as much a part of the practice of oral history as are the stories collected. Archaeology Archaeologists sometimes conduct oral history interviews to learn more about unknown artifacts. Oral interviews can provide narratives, social meaning, and contexts for objects. When describing the use of oral histories in archaeological work, Paul Mullins emphasizes the importance of using these interviews to replace “it-narratives.” It-narratives are the voices from objects themselves rather than people; according to Mullins, these lead to narratives that are often “sober, pessimistic, or even dystopian.” Oral history interviews were used to provide context and social meaning in the Overstone excavation project in Northumberland. Overstone consists of a row of four cottages. The excavation team, consisting of Jane Webster, Louise Tolson, Richard Carlton, and volunteers, found the discovered artifacts difficult to identify. The team first took the artifacts to an archaeology group, but the only person with knowledge about a found fragment recognized the fragment from a type of pot her mother had. This inspired the team to conduct group interviews volunteers who grew up in households using such objects. The team took their reference collection of artifacts to the interviews in order to trigger the memories of volunteers, revealing a “shared cultural identity.” Legal interpretations In 1997, the Supreme Court of Canada, in the Delgamuukw v. British Columbia trial, ruled that oral histories were just as important as written testimony. Of oral histories, it said "that they are tangential to the ultimate purpose of the fact-finding process at trial – the determination of the historical truth." Writers who use oral history have often discussed its relationship to historical truth. Gilda O'Neill writes in Lost Voices, an oral history of East End hop-pickers: "I began to worry. Were the women's, and my, memories true or were they just stories? I realised that I had no 'innocent' sources of evidence - facts. I had, instead, the stories and their tellers' reasons for remembering in their own particular ways.' Duncan Barrett, one of the co-authors of The Sugar Girls describes some of the perils of relying on oral history accounts: "On two occasions, it became clear that a subject was trying to mislead us about what happened – telling a self-deprecating story in one interview, and then presenting a different, and more flattering, version of events when we tried to follow it up. ... often our interviewees were keen to persuade us of a certain interpretation of the past, supporting broad, sweeping comments about historical change with specific stories from their lives." Alessandro Portelli argues that oral history is valuable nevertheless: "it tells us less about events as such than about their meaning [...] the unique and precious element which oral sources force upon the historian ... is the speaker's subjectivity." Regarding the accuracy of oral history, Jean-Loup Gassend concludes in the book Autopsy of a Battle, "I found that each witness account can be broken down into two parts: 1) descriptions of events that the witness participated in directly, and 2) descriptions of events that the witness did not actually participate in, but that he heard about from other sources. The distinction between these two parts of a witness account is of the highest importance. I noted that concerning events that the witnesses participated in, the information provided was surprisingly reliable, as was confirmed by comparison with other sources. The imprecision or mistakes usually concerned numbers, ranks, and dates, the first two tending to become inflated with time. Concerning events that the witness had not participated in personally, the information was only as reliable as whatever the source of information had been (various rumors); that is to say, it was often very unreliable and I usually discarded such information." In 2006, American historian Caroline Elkins published Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya, detailing the Mau Mau Uprising against British rule and its suppression by the colonial government. The work received both praise and criticism over its usage of oral testimony from Kenyans. Three years later in 2009, a group of Kenyans who had been interned in concentration camps during the rebellion by the colonial authorities filed a lawsuit against the British government. The case, known as Mutua and Five Others versus the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, was heard at the High Court of Justice in London with the Honourable Justice McCombe presiding. Oral testimony detailing abuses by colonial officials, recorded by Elkins in Imperial Reckoning, was cited as evidence by the prosecution during the case, British lawyer Martyn Day and the Kenya Human Rights Commission. During the trial, over the course of discovery the FCO discovered some 300 boxes of previously undisclosed files that validated Elkins' claims in Imperial Reckoning and provided new evidence supporting the claimants' case. McCombe eventually ruled in the Kenyan claimants' favor, stressing the "substantial documentation supporting accusations of systematic abuses". Pros and Cons When using oral history as a source material, several caveats exist. The person being interviewed may not accurately recall factual information such as names or dates, and they may exaggerate. To avoid this, interviewers can do thorough research prior	Civil War, slavery, and other major historical events. The Library of Congress also began recording traditional American music and folklore onto acetate discs. With the development of audio tape recordings after World War II, the task of oral historians became easier. In 1946, David P. Boder, a professor of psychology at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, traveled to Europe to record long interviews with "displaced persons"—most of them Holocaust survivors. Using the first device capable of capturing hours of audio—the wire recorder—Boder came back with the first recorded Holocaust testimonials and in all likelihood the first recorded oral histories of significant length. Many state and local historical societies have oral history programs. Sinclair Kopp (2002) reported on the Oregon Historical Society's program. It began in 1976 with the hiring of Charles Digregorio, who had studied at Columbia with Nevins. Thousands of sound recordings, reel-to-reel tapes, transcriptions, and radio broadcasts have made it one of the largest collections of oral history on the Pacific Coast. In addition to political figures and prominent businessmen, the Oregon Historical Society has done interviews with minorities, women, farmers, and other ordinary citizens, who have contributed extraordinary stories reflecting the state's cultural and social heritage. Hill (2004) encourages oral history projects in high school courses. She demonstrates a lesson plan that encourages the study of local community history through interviews. By studying grassroots activism and the lived experiences of its participants, her high school students came to appreciate how African Americans worked to end Jim Crow laws in the 1950s. Mark D. Naison (2005) describes the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP), an oral community history project developed by the Bronx County Historical Society. Its goal was to document the histories of black working- and middle-class residents of the South Bronx neighborhood of Morrisania in New York City since the 1940s. In the Middle East The Middle East often requires oral history methods of research, mainly because of the relative lack in written and archival history and its emphasis on oral records and traditions. Furthermore, because of its population transfers, refugees and émigrés become suitable objects for oral history research. Syria Katharina Lange studied the tribal histories of Syria. The oral histories in this area could not be transposed into tangible, written form due to their positionalities, which Lange describes as “taking sides.” The positionality of oral history could lead to conflict and tension. The tribal histories are typically narrated by men. While histories are also told by women, they are not accepted locally as “real history.” Oral histories often detail the lives and feats of ancestors. Genealogy is a prominent subject in the area. According to Lange, the oral historians often tell their own personalized genealogies to demonstrate their credibility, both in their social standing and their expertise in the field. Uzbekistan From 2003 to 2004, Professors Marianne Kamp and Russell Zanca researched agricultural collectivization in Uzbekistan in part by using oral history methodology to fill in gaps in information missing from the Central State Archive of Uzbekistan. The goal of the project was to learn more about life in the 1920s and 1930s to study the impact of the Soviet Union's conquest. 20 interviews each were conducted in the Fergana valley, Tashkent, Bukhara, Khorezm, and Kashkadarya regions. Their interviews uncovered stories of famine and death that had not been widely known outside of local memory in the region. In Asia China The rise of oral history is a new trend in historical studies in China that began in the late twentieth century. Some oral historians, stress the collection of eyewitness accounts of the words and deeds of important historical figures and what really happened during those important historical events, which is similar to common practice in the west, while the others focus more on important people and event, asking important figures to describe the decision making and details of important historical events. In December 2004, the Chinese Association of Oral History Studies was established. The establishment of this institution is thought to signal that the field of oral history studies in China has finally moved into a new phase of organized development. Southeast Asia While oral tradition is an integral part of ancient Southeast Asian history, oral history is a relatively recent development. Since the 1960s, oral history has been accorded increasing attention both on institutional as well as individual levels, representing “history from above” and “history from below”. In Oral History and Public Memories, Blackburn writes about oral history as a tool that was used “by political elites and state-run institutions to contribute to the goal of national building” in postcolonial Southeast Asian countries. Blackburn draws most of his examples of oral history as a vehicle for “history from above” from Malaysia and Singapore. In terms of “history from below”, various oral history initiatives are being undertaken in Cambodia in an effort to record lived experiences from the rule of the Khmer Rouge regime while survivors are still living. These initiative take advantage of crowdsourced history to uncover the silences imposed on the oppressed. South Asia Two prominent and ongoing oral history projects out of South Asia stem from time periods of ethnic violence that were decades apart: 1947 and 1984. The 1947 Partition Archive was founded in 2010 by Guneeta Singe Bhalla, a physicist in Berkeley, California, who began conducting and recording interviews "to collect and preserve the stories of those who lived through this tumultuous time, to make sure this great human tragedy isn't forgotten." The Sikh Diaspora Project was founded in 2014 by Brajesh Samarth, senior lecturer in Hindi-Urdu at Emory University in Atlanta, when he was a lecturer at Stanford University in California. The project focuses on interviews with members of the Sikh diaspora in the U.S. and Canada, including the many who migrated after the 1984 massacre of Sikhs in India. In Oceania Australia Hazel de Berg began recording Australian writers, artists, musicians and others in the Arts community in 1957. She conducted nearly 1300 interviews. Together with the National Library of Australia, she was a pioneer in the field in Australia, working together for twenty-seven years. In December 1997, in response to the first recommendation of the Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families report, the Australian Government announced funding for the National Library to develop and manage an oral history project. The Bringing Them Home Oral History Project (1998–2002) collected and preserved the stories of Indigenous Australians and others involved in or affected by the child removals resulting in the Stolen Generations. Other contributors included missionaries, police and government administrators. There are now many organisations and projects all over Australia involved in recording oral histories from Australians of all ethnicities and in all walks of life. Oral History Victoria support an annual Oral history award as part of the Victorian Community History Awards held annually to recognise the contributions made by Victorians in the preservation of the state's history, published during the previous year. Academia and Institutions In 1948, Allan Nevins, a Columbia University historian, established the Columbia Oral History Research Office, now known as the Columbia Center for Oral History Research, with a mission of recording, transcribing, and preserving oral history interviews. The Regional Oral History Office was founded in 1954 as a division of the University of California, Berkeley's Bancroft Library. In 1967, American oral historians founded the Oral History Association, and British oral historians founded the Oral History Society in 1969. In 1981, Mansel G. Blackford, a business historian at Ohio State University, argued that oral history was a useful tool to write the history of corporate mergers. More recently, Harvard Business School launched the Creating Emerging Markets project, which "explores the evolution of business leadership in Africa, Asia, and Latin America throughout recent decades" through oral history. "At its core are interviews, many on video, by the School’s faculty with leaders or former leaders of firms and NGOs who have had a major impact on their societies and enterprises across three continents." There are now numerous national organizations and an International Oral History Association, which hold workshops and conferences and publish newsletters and journals devoted to oral history theory and practices. Specialized collections of oral history sometimes have archives of widespread global interest; an example is the Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington, Connecticut, a department of the University Library of Yale. Methods Historians, folklorists, anthropologists, human geographers, sociologists, journalists, linguists, and many others employ some form of interviewing in their research. Although multi-disciplinary, oral historians have promoted common ethics and standards of practice, most importantly the attaining of the "informed consent" of those being interviewed. Usually this is achieved through a deed of gift, which also establishes copyright ownership that is critical for publication and archival preservation. Oral historians generally prefer to ask open-ended questions and avoid leading questions that encourage people to say what they think the interviewer wants them to say. Some interviews are "life reviews," conducted with people at the end of their careers. Other interviews focus on a specific period or a specific event in people's lives, such as in the case of war veterans or survivors of a hurricane. Feldstein (2004) considers oral history to be akin to journalism, Both are committed to uncovering truths and compiling narratives about people, places, and events. Felstein says each could benefit from adopting techniques from the other. Journalism could benefit by emulating the exhaustive and nuanced research methodologies used by oral historians. The practice of oral historians could be enhanced by utilizing the more sophisticated interviewing techniques employed by journalists, in particular, the use of adversarial encounters as a tactic for obtaining information from a respondent. The first oral history archives focused on interviews with prominent politicians, diplomats, military officers, and business leaders. By the 1960s and '70s, influenced by the rise of new social history, interviewing began to be employed more often when historians investigated history from below. Whatever the field or focus of a project, oral historians attempt to record the memories of many different people when researching a given event. Interviewing a single person provides a single perspective. Individuals may misremember events or distort their account for personal reasons. By interviewing widely, oral historians seek points of agreement among many different sources, and also record the complexity of the issues. The nature of memory—both individual and community—is as much a part of the practice of oral history as are the stories collected. Archaeology Archaeologists sometimes conduct oral history interviews to learn more about unknown artifacts. Oral interviews can provide narratives, social meaning, and contexts for objects. When describing the use of oral histories in archaeological work, Paul Mullins emphasizes the importance of using these interviews to replace “it-narratives.” It-narratives are the voices from objects themselves rather than people; according to Mullins, these lead to narratives that are often “sober, pessimistic, or even dystopian.” Oral history interviews were used to provide context and social meaning in the Overstone excavation project in Northumberland. Overstone consists of a row of four cottages. The excavation team, consisting of Jane Webster, Louise Tolson, Richard Carlton, and volunteers, found the discovered artifacts difficult to identify. The team first took the artifacts to an archaeology group, but the only person with knowledge about a found fragment recognized the fragment from a type of pot her mother had. This inspired the team to conduct group interviews volunteers who grew up in households using such objects. The team took their reference collection of artifacts to the interviews in order to trigger the memories of volunteers, revealing a “shared cultural identity.” Legal interpretations In 1997, the Supreme Court of Canada, in the Delgamuukw v. British Columbia trial, ruled that oral histories were just as important as written testimony. Of oral histories, it said "that they are tangential to the ultimate purpose of the fact-finding process at trial – the determination of the historical truth." Writers who use oral history have often discussed its relationship to historical truth. Gilda O'Neill writes in Lost Voices, an oral history of East End hop-pickers: "I began to worry. Were the women's, and my, memories true or were they just stories? I realised that I had no 'innocent' sources of evidence - facts. I had, instead, the stories and their tellers' reasons for remembering in their own particular ways.' Duncan Barrett, one of the co-authors of The Sugar Girls describes some of the perils
cancer. Many cancer drugs target the proteins encoded by oncogenes. History The theory of oncogenes was foreshadowed by the German biologist Theodor Boveri in his 1914 book Zur Frage der Entstehung Maligner Tumoren (Concerning the Origin of Malignant Tumors) in which he predicted the existence of oncogenes (Teilungsfoerdernde Chromosomen) that become amplified (im permanenten Übergewicht) during tumor development. Later on, the term "oncogene" was rediscovered in 1969 by National Cancer Institute scientists George Todaro and Robert Huebner. The first confirmed oncogene was discovered in 1970 and was termed SRC (pronounced "sarc" as it is short for sarcoma). SRC was first discovered as an oncogene in a chicken retrovirus. Experiments performed by Dr. G. Steve Martin of the University of California, Berkeley demonstrated that SRC was indeed the gene of the virus that acted as an oncogene upon infection. The first nucleotide sequence of v-Src was sequenced in 1980 by A.P. Czernilofsky et al. In 1976, Drs. , J. Michael Bishop and Harold E. Varmus of the University of California, San Francisco demonstrated that oncogenes were activated proto-oncogenes as is found in many organisms, including humans. Bishop and Varmus were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1989 for their discovery of the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes. Dr. Robert Weinberg is credited with discovering the first identified human oncogene in a human bladder cancer cell line. The molecular nature of the mutation leading to oncogenesis was subsequently isolated and characterized by the Spanish biochemist Mariano Barbacid and published in Nature in 1982. Dr. Barbacid spent the following months extending his research, eventually discovering that the oncogene was a mutated allele of HRAS and characterizing its activation mechanism. The resultant protein encoded by an oncogene is termed oncoprotein. Oncogenes play an important role in the regulation or synthesis of proteins linked to tumorigenic cell growth. Some oncoproteins are accepted and used as tumor markers. Proto-oncogene A proto-oncogene is a normal gene that could become an oncogene due to mutations or increased expression. Proto-oncogenes code for proteins that help to regulate the cell growth and differentiation. Proto-oncogenes are often involved in signal transduction and execution of mitogenic signals, usually through their protein products. Upon acquiring an activating mutation, a proto-oncogene becomes a tumor-inducing agent, an oncogene. Examples of proto-oncogenes include RAS, WNT, MYC, ERK, and TRK. The MYC gene is implicated in Burkitt's lymphoma, which starts when a chromosomal translocation moves an enhancer sequence within the vicinity of the MYC gene. The MYC gene codes for widely used transcription factors. When the enhancer sequence is wrongly placed, these transcription factors are produced at much higher rates. Another example of an oncogene is the Bcr-Abl gene found on the Philadelphia chromosome, a piece of genetic material seen in Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia caused by the translocation of pieces from chromosomes 9 and 22. Bcr-Abl codes for a tyrosine kinase, which is constitutively active, leading to uncontrolled cell proliferation. (More information about the Philadelphia Chromosome below) Activation The proto-oncogene can become an oncogene by a relatively small modification of its original function. There are three basic methods of activation: A mutation within a proto-oncogene, or within a regulatory region (for example the promoter region), can cause a change in the protein structure, causing an increase in protein (enzyme) activity a loss of regulation An increase in the amount of a certain protein (protein concentration), caused by an increase of protein expression (through misregulation) an increase of protein (mRNA) stability, prolonging its existence and thus its activity in the cell gene duplication (one type of chromosome abnormality), resulting in	in concert to cause cancer. Since the 1970s, dozens of oncogenes have been identified in human cancer. Many cancer drugs target the proteins encoded by oncogenes. History The theory of oncogenes was foreshadowed by the German biologist Theodor Boveri in his 1914 book Zur Frage der Entstehung Maligner Tumoren (Concerning the Origin of Malignant Tumors) in which he predicted the existence of oncogenes (Teilungsfoerdernde Chromosomen) that become amplified (im permanenten Übergewicht) during tumor development. Later on, the term "oncogene" was rediscovered in 1969 by National Cancer Institute scientists George Todaro and Robert Huebner. The first confirmed oncogene was discovered in 1970 and was termed SRC (pronounced "sarc" as it is short for sarcoma). SRC was first discovered as an oncogene in a chicken retrovirus. Experiments performed by Dr. G. Steve Martin of the University of California, Berkeley demonstrated that SRC was indeed the gene of the virus that acted as an oncogene upon infection. The first nucleotide sequence of v-Src was sequenced in 1980 by A.P. Czernilofsky et al. In 1976, Drs. , J. Michael Bishop and Harold E. Varmus of the University of California, San Francisco demonstrated that oncogenes were activated proto-oncogenes as is found in many organisms, including humans. Bishop and Varmus were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1989 for their discovery of the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes. Dr. Robert Weinberg is credited with discovering the first identified human oncogene in a human bladder cancer cell line. The molecular nature of the mutation leading to oncogenesis was subsequently isolated and characterized by the Spanish biochemist Mariano Barbacid and published in Nature in 1982. Dr. Barbacid spent the following months extending his research, eventually discovering that the oncogene was a mutated allele of HRAS and characterizing its activation mechanism. The resultant protein encoded by an oncogene is termed oncoprotein. Oncogenes play an important role in the regulation or synthesis of proteins linked to tumorigenic cell growth. Some oncoproteins are accepted and used as tumor markers. Proto-oncogene A proto-oncogene is a normal gene that could become an oncogene due to mutations or increased expression. Proto-oncogenes code for proteins that help to regulate the cell growth and differentiation. Proto-oncogenes are often involved in signal transduction and execution of mitogenic signals, usually through their protein products. Upon acquiring an activating mutation, a proto-oncogene becomes a tumor-inducing agent, an oncogene. Examples of proto-oncogenes include RAS, WNT, MYC, ERK, and TRK. The MYC gene is implicated in Burkitt's lymphoma, which starts when a chromosomal translocation moves an enhancer sequence within the vicinity of the MYC gene. The MYC gene codes for widely used transcription factors. When the enhancer sequence is wrongly placed, these transcription factors are produced at much higher rates. Another example of an oncogene is the Bcr-Abl gene found on the Philadelphia chromosome, a piece of genetic material seen in Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia caused by the translocation of pieces from chromosomes 9 and 22. Bcr-Abl codes for a tyrosine kinase, which is constitutively active, leading to uncontrolled cell proliferation. (More information about the Philadelphia Chromosome below) Activation The proto-oncogene can become an oncogene by a relatively small modification of its original function. There are three basic methods of activation: A mutation within a proto-oncogene, or within a regulatory region (for example the promoter region), can cause a change in the protein structure, causing an increase in protein (enzyme) activity a loss of regulation An increase in the amount of a certain protein (protein concentration), caused by an increase of protein expression (through misregulation) an increase of protein (mRNA) stability, prolonging its existence and thus its activity in the cell gene duplication (one type of chromosome
intended as a successor of CDMA2000, but replaced by LTE. OFDMA is also a candidate access method for the IEEE 802.22 Wireless Regional Area Networks (WRAN). The project aims at designing the first cognitive radio-based standard operating in the VHF-low UHF spectrum (TV spectrum). the most recent amendment of 802.11 standard, namely 802.11ax, includes OFDMA for high efficiency and simultaneous communication. In multi-carrier code-division multiple access (MC-CDMA), also known as OFDM-CDMA, OFDM is combined with CDMA spread spectrum communication for coding separation of the users. Co-channel interference can be mitigated, meaning that manual fixed channel allocation (FCA) frequency planning is simplified, or complex dynamic channel allocation (DCA) schemes are avoided. Space diversity In OFDM-based wide-area broadcasting, receivers can benefit from receiving signals from several spatially dispersed transmitters simultaneously, since transmitters will only destructively interfere with each other on a limited number of subcarriers, whereas in general they will actually reinforce coverage over a wide area. This is very beneficial in many countries, as it permits the operation of national single-frequency networks (SFN), where many transmitters send the same signal simultaneously over the same channel frequency. SFNs use the available spectrum more effectively than conventional multi-frequency broadcast networks (MFN), where program content is replicated on different carrier frequencies. SFNs also result in a diversity gain in receivers situated midway between the transmitters. The coverage area is increased and the outage probability decreased in comparison to an MFN, due to increased received signal strength averaged over all subcarriers. Although the guard interval only contains redundant data, which means that it reduces the capacity, some OFDM-based systems, such as some of the broadcasting systems, deliberately use a long guard interval in order to allow the transmitters to be spaced farther apart in an SFN, and longer guard intervals allow larger SFN cell-sizes. A rule of thumb for the maximum distance between transmitters in an SFN is equal to the distance a signal travels during the guard interval — for instance, a guard interval of 200 microseconds would allow transmitters to be spaced 60 km apart. A single frequency network is a form of transmitter macrodiversity. The concept can be further used in dynamic single-frequency networks (DSFN), where the SFN grouping is changed from timeslot to timeslot. OFDM may be combined with other forms of space diversity, for example antenna arrays and MIMO channels. This is done in the IEEE 802.11 Wireless LAN standards. Linear transmitter power amplifier An OFDM signal exhibits a high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) because the independent phases of the subcarriers mean that they will often combine constructively. Handling this high PAPR requires: A high-resolution digital-to-analog converter (DAC) in the transmitter A high-resolution analog-to-digital converter (ADC) in the receiver A linear signal chain Any non-linearity in the signal chain will cause intermodulation distortion that Raises the noise floor May cause inter-carrier interference Generates out-of-band spurious radiation The linearity requirement is demanding, especially for transmitter RF output circuitry where amplifiers are often designed to be non-linear in order to minimise power consumption. In practical OFDM systems a small amount of peak clipping is allowed to limit the PAPR in a judicious trade-off against the above consequences. However, the transmitter output filter which is required to reduce out-of-band spurs to legal levels has the effect of restoring peak levels that were clipped, so clipping is not an effective way to reduce PAPR. Although the spectral efficiency of OFDM is attractive for both terrestrial and space communications, the high PAPR requirements have so far limited OFDM applications to terrestrial systems. The crest factor CF (in dB) for an OFDM system with n uncorrelated subcarriers is where CFc is the crest factor (in dB) for each subcarrier. (CFc is 3.01 dB for the sine waves used for BPSK and QPSK modulation). For example, the DVB-T signal in 2K mode is composed of 1705 subcarriers that are each QPSK-modulated, giving a crest factor of 35.32 dB. Many PAPR (or crest factor) reduction techniques have been developed, for instance, based on intertaive clipping. The dynamic range required for an FM receiver is while DAB only require about As a comparison, each extra bit per sample increases the dynamic range by Efficiency comparison between single carrier and multicarrier The performance of any communication system can be measured in terms of its power efficiency and bandwidth efficiency. The power efficiency describes the ability of communication system to preserve bit error rate (BER) of the transmitted signal at low power levels. Bandwidth efficiency reflects how efficiently the allocated bandwidth is used and is defined as the throughput data rate per hertz in a given bandwidth. If the large number of subcarriers are used, the bandwidth efficiency of multicarrier system such as OFDM with using optical fiber channel is defined as where is the symbol rate in giga-symbols per second (Gsps), is the bandwidth of OFDM signal, and the factor of 2 is due to the two polarization states in the fiber. There is saving of bandwidth by using multicarrier modulation with orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing. So the bandwidth for multicarrier system is less in comparison with single carrier system and hence bandwidth efficiency of multicarrier system is larger than single carrier system. There is only 1dBm increase in receiver power, but we get 76.7% improvement in bandwidth efficiency with using multicarrier transmission technique. Idealized system model This section describes a simple idealized OFDM system model suitable for a time-invariant AWGN channel. Transmitter An OFDM carrier signal is the sum of a number of orthogonal subcarriers, with baseband data on each subcarrier being independently modulated commonly using some type of quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) or phase-shift keying (PSK). This composite baseband signal is typically used to modulate a main RF carrier. is a serial stream of binary digits. By inverse multiplexing, these are first demultiplexed into parallel streams, and each one mapped to a (possibly complex) symbol stream using some modulation constellation (QAM, PSK, etc.). Note that the constellations may be different, so some streams may carry a higher bit-rate than others. An inverse FFT is computed on each set of symbols, giving a set of complex time-domain samples. These samples are then quadrature-mixed to passband in the standard way. The real and imaginary components are first converted to the analogue domain using digital-to-analogue converters (DACs); the analogue signals are then used to modulate cosine and sine waves at the carrier frequency, , respectively. These signals are then summed to give the transmission signal, . Receiver The receiver picks up the signal , which is then quadrature-mixed down to baseband using cosine and sine waves at the carrier frequency. This also creates signals centered on , so low-pass filters are used to reject these. The baseband signals are then sampled and digitised using analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), and a forward FFT is used to convert back to the frequency domain. This returns parallel streams, each of which is converted to a binary stream using an appropriate symbol detector. These streams are then re-combined into a serial stream, , which is an estimate of the original binary stream at the transmitter. Mathematical description If subcarriers are used, and each subcarrier is modulated using alternative symbols, the OFDM symbol alphabet consists of combined symbols. The low-pass equivalent OFDM signal is expressed as: where are the data symbols, is the number of subcarriers, and is the OFDM symbol time. The subcarrier spacing of makes them orthogonal over each symbol period; this property is expressed as: where denotes the complex conjugate operator and is the Kronecker delta. To avoid intersymbol interference in multipath fading channels, a guard interval of length is inserted prior to the OFDM block. During this interval, a cyclic prefix is transmitted such that the signal in the interval equals the signal in the interval . The OFDM signal with cyclic prefix is thus: The low-pass signal above can be either real or complex-valued. Real-valued low-pass equivalent signals are typically transmitted at baseband—wireline applications such as DSL use this approach. For wireless applications, the low-pass signal is typically complex-valued; in which case, the transmitted signal is up-converted to a carrier frequency . In general, the transmitted signal can be represented as: Usage OFDM is used in: Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) Digital television DVB-T/T2 (terrestrial), ATSC 3.0 (terrestrial), DVB-H (handheld), DMB-T/H, DVB-C2 (cable) Wireless LAN IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n, IEEE 802.11ac, and IEEE 802.11ad WiMAX Li-Fi ADSL (G.dmt/ITU G.992.1) LTE and LTE Advanced 4G mobile networks DECT cordless phones Modern narrow and broadband power line communications OFDM system comparison table Key features of some common OFDM-based systems are presented in the following table. ADSL OFDM is used in ADSL connections that follow the ANSI T1.413 and G.dmt (ITU G.992.1) standards, where it is called discrete multitone modulation (DMT). DSL achieves high-speed data connections on existing copper wires. OFDM is also used in the successor standards ADSL2, ADSL2+, VDSL, VDSL2, and G.fast. ADSL2 uses variable subcarrier modulation, ranging from BPSK to 32768QAM (in ADSL terminology this is referred to as bit-loading, or bit per tone, 1 to 15 bits per subcarrier). Long copper wires suffer from attenuation at high frequencies. The fact that OFDM can cope with this frequency selective attenuation and with narrow-band interference are the main reasons it is frequently used in applications such as ADSL modems. Powerline Technology OFDM is used by many powerline devices to extend digital connections through power wiring. Adaptive modulation is particularly important with such a noisy channel as electrical wiring. Some medium speed smart metering modems, "Prime" and "G3" use OFDM at modest frequencies (30–100 kHz) with modest numbers of channels (several hundred) in order to overcome the intersymbol interference in the power line environment. The IEEE 1901 standards include two incompatible physical layers that both use OFDM. The ITU-T G.hn standard, which provides high-speed local area networking over existing home wiring (power lines, phone lines and coaxial cables) is based on a PHY layer that specifies OFDM with adaptive modulation and a Low-Density Parity-Check (LDPC) FEC code. Wireless local area networks (LAN) and metropolitan area networks (MAN) OFDM is extensively used in wireless LAN and MAN applications, including IEEE 802.11a/g/n and WiMAX. IEEE 802.11a/g/n, operating in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands, specifies per-stream airside data rates ranging from 6 to 54 Mbit/s. If both devices can use "HT mode" (added with 802.11n), the top 20 MHz per-stream rate is increased to 72.2 Mbit/s, with the option of data rates between 13.5 and 150 Mbit/s using a 40 MHz channel. Four different modulation schemes are used: BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM, and 64-QAM, along with a set of error correcting rates (1/2–5/6). The multitude of choices allows the system to adapt the optimum data rate for the current signal conditions. Wireless personal area networks (PAN) OFDM is also now being used in the WiMedia/Ecma-368 standard for high-speed wireless personal area networks in the 3.1–10.6 GHz ultrawideband spectrum (see MultiBand-OFDM). Terrestrial digital radio and television broadcasting Much of Europe and Asia has adopted OFDM for terrestrial broadcasting of digital television (DVB-T, DVB-H and T-DMB) and radio (EUREKA 147 DAB, Digital Radio Mondiale, HD Radio and T-DMB). DVB-T By Directive of the European Commission, all television services transmitted to viewers in the European Community must use a transmission system that has been standardized by a recognized European standardization body, and such a standard has been	a diversity gain, i.e. a signal-to-noise ratio improvement. This mechanism also facilitates the design of single frequency networks (SFNs) where several adjacent transmitters send the same signal simultaneously at the same frequency, as the signals from multiple distant transmitters may be re-combined constructively, sparing interference of a traditional single-carrier system. In coded orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (COFDM), forward error correction (convolutional coding) and time/frequency interleaving are applied to the signal being transmitted. This is done to overcome errors in mobile communication channels affected by multipath propagation and Doppler effects. COFDM was introduced by Alard in 1986 for Digital Audio Broadcasting for Eureka Project 147. In practice, OFDM has become used in combination with such coding and interleaving, so that the terms COFDM and OFDM co-apply to common applications. Example of applications The following list is a summary of existing OFDM-based standards and products. For further details, see the Usage section at the end of the article. Wired version mostly known as Discrete Multi-tone Transmission (DMT) ADSL and VDSL broadband access via POTS copper wiring DVB-C2, an enhanced version of the DVB-C digital cable TV standard Power line communication (PLC) ITU-T G.hn, a standard which provides high-speed local area networking of existing home wiring (power lines, phone lines and coaxial cables) TrailBlazer telephone line modems Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) home networking DOCSIS 3.1 Broadband delivery Wireless The wireless LAN (WLAN) radio interfaces IEEE 802.11a, g, n, ac, ah and HIPERLAN/2 The digital radio systems DAB/EUREKA 147, DAB+, Digital Radio Mondiale, HD Radio, T-DMB and ISDB-TSB The terrestrial digital TV systems DVB-T and ISDB-T The terrestrial mobile TV systems DVB-H, T-DMB, ISDB-T and MediaFLO forward link The wireless personal area network (PAN) ultra-wideband (UWB) IEEE 802.15.3a implementation suggested by WiMedia Alliance The OFDM-based multiple access technology OFDMA is also used in several 4G and pre-4G cellular networks, mobile broadband standards and the next generation WLAN: The mobility mode of the wireless MAN/broadband wireless access (BWA) standard IEEE 802.16e (or Mobile-WiMAX) The mobile broadband wireless access (MBWA) standard IEEE 802.20 The downlink of the 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) fourth generation mobile broadband standard. The radio interface was formerly named High Speed OFDM Packet Access (HSOPA), now named Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) WLAN IEEE 802.11ax Key features The advantages and disadvantages listed below are further discussed in the Characteristics and principles of operation section below. Summary of advantages High spectral efficiency as compared to other double sideband modulation schemes, spread spectrum, etc. Can easily adapt to severe channel conditions without complex time-domain equalization. Robust against narrow-band co-channel interference Robust against intersymbol interference (ISI) and fading caused by multipath propagation Efficient implementation using fast Fourier transform Low sensitivity to time synchronization errors Tuned sub-channel receiver filters are not required (unlike conventional FDM) Facilitates single frequency networks (SFNs) (i.e., transmitter macrodiversity) Summary of disadvantages Sensitive to Doppler shift Sensitive to frequency synchronization problems High peak-to-average-power ratio (PAPR), requiring linear transmitter circuitry, which suffers from poor power efficiency Loss of efficiency caused by cyclic prefix/guard interval Characteristics and principles of operation Orthogonality Conceptually, OFDM is a specialized frequency-division multiplexing (FDM) method, with the additional constraint that all subcarrier signals within a communication channel are orthogonal to one another. In OFDM, the subcarrier frequencies are chosen so that the subcarriers are orthogonal to each other, meaning that crosstalk between the sub-channels is eliminated and inter-carrier guard bands are not required. This greatly simplifies the design of both the transmitter and the receiver; unlike conventional FDM, a separate filter for each sub-channel is not required. The orthogonality requires that the subcarrier spacing is Hertz, where TU seconds is the useful symbol duration (the receiver-side window size), and k is a positive integer, typically equal to 1. This stipulates that each carrier frequency undergoes k more complete cycles per symbol period than the previous carrier. Therefore, with N subcarriers, the total passband bandwidth will be B ≈ N·Δf (Hz). The orthogonality also allows high spectral efficiency, with a total symbol rate near the Nyquist rate for the equivalent baseband signal (i.e., near half the Nyquist rate for the double-side band physical passband signal). Almost the whole available frequency band can be used. OFDM generally has a nearly 'white' spectrum, giving it benign electromagnetic interference properties with respect to other co-channel users. A simple example: A useful symbol duration TU = 1 ms would require a subcarrier spacing of (or an integer multiple of that) for orthogonality. N = 1,000 subcarriers would result in a total passband bandwidth of NΔf = 1 MHz. For this symbol time, the required bandwidth in theory according to Nyquist is (half of the achieved bandwidth required by our scheme), where R is the bit rate and where N = 1,000 samples per symbol by FFT. If a guard interval is applied (see below), Nyquist bandwidth requirement would be even lower. The FFT would result in N = 1,000 samples per symbol. If no guard interval was applied, this would result in a base band complex valued signal with a sample rate of 1 MHz, which would require a baseband bandwidth of 0.5 MHz according to Nyquist. However, the passband RF signal is produced by multiplying the baseband signal with a carrier waveform (i.e., double-sideband quadrature amplitude-modulation) resulting in a passband bandwidth of 1 MHz. A single-side band (SSB) or vestigial sideband (VSB) modulation scheme would achieve almost half that bandwidth for the same symbol rate (i.e., twice as high spectral efficiency for the same symbol alphabet length). It is however more sensitive to multipath interference. OFDM requires very accurate frequency synchronization between the receiver and the transmitter; with frequency deviation the subcarriers will no longer be orthogonal, causing inter-carrier interference (ICI) (i.e., cross-talk between the subcarriers). Frequency offsets are typically caused by mismatched transmitter and receiver oscillators, or by Doppler shift due to movement. While Doppler shift alone may be compensated for by the receiver, the situation is worsened when combined with multipath, as reflections will appear at various frequency offsets, which is much harder to correct. This effect typically worsens as speed increases, and is an important factor limiting the use of OFDM in high-speed vehicles. In order to mitigate ICI in such scenarios, one can shape each subcarrier in order to minimize the interference resulting in a non-orthogonal subcarriers overlapping. For example, a low-complexity scheme referred to as WCP-OFDM (Weighted Cyclic Prefix Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing) consists of using short filters at the transmitter output in order to perform a potentially non-rectangular pulse shaping and a near perfect reconstruction using a single-tap per subcarrier equalization. Other ICI suppression techniques usually increase drastically the receiver complexity. Implementation using the FFT algorithm The orthogonality allows for efficient modulator and demodulator implementation using the FFT algorithm on the receiver side, and inverse FFT on the sender side. Although the principles and some of the benefits have been known since the 1960s, OFDM is popular for wideband communications today by way of low-cost digital signal processing components that can efficiently calculate the FFT. The time to compute the inverse-FFT or FFT transform has to take less than the time for each symbol, which for example for DVB-T means the computation has to be done in or less. For an -point FFT this may be approximated to: MIPS = Million instructions per second The computational demand approximately scales linearly with FFT size so a double size FFT needs double the amount of time and vice versa. As a comparison an Intel Pentium III CPU at 1.266 GHz is able to calculate a FFT in using FFTW. Intel Pentium M at 1.6 GHz does it in Intel Core Duo at 3.0 GHz does it in . Guard interval for elimination of intersymbol interference One key principle of OFDM is that since low symbol rate modulation schemes (i.e., where the symbols are relatively long compared to the channel time characteristics) suffer less from intersymbol interference caused by multipath propagation, it is advantageous to transmit a number of low-rate streams in parallel instead of a single high-rate stream. Since the duration of each symbol is long, it is feasible to insert a guard interval between the OFDM symbols, thus eliminating the intersymbol interference. The guard interval also eliminates the need for a pulse-shaping filter, and it reduces the sensitivity to time synchronization problems. A simple example: If one sends a million symbols per second using conventional single-carrier modulation over a wireless channel, then the duration of each symbol would be one microsecond or less. This imposes severe constraints on synchronization and necessitates the removal of multipath interference. If the same million symbols per second are spread among one thousand sub-channels, the duration of each symbol can be longer by a factor of a thousand (i.e., one millisecond) for orthogonality with approximately the same bandwidth. Assume that a guard interval of 1/8 of the symbol length is inserted between each symbol. Intersymbol interference can be avoided if the multipath time-spreading (the time between the reception of the first and the last echo) is shorter than the guard interval (i.e., 125 microseconds). This corresponds to a maximum difference of 37.5 kilometers between the lengths of the paths. The cyclic prefix, which is transmitted during the guard interval, consists of the end of the OFDM symbol copied into the guard interval, and the guard interval is transmitted followed by the OFDM symbol. The reason that the guard interval consists of a copy of the end of the OFDM symbol is so that the receiver will integrate over an integer number of sinusoid cycles for each of the multipaths when it performs OFDM demodulation with the FFT. In some standards such as Ultrawideband, in the interest of transmitted power, cyclic prefix is skipped and nothing is sent during the guard interval. The receiver will then have to mimic the cyclic prefix functionality by copying the end part of the OFDM symbol and adding it to the beginning portion. Simplified equalization The effects of frequency-selective channel conditions, for example fading caused by multipath propagation, can be considered as constant (flat) over an OFDM sub-channel if the sub-channel is sufficiently narrow-banded (i.e., if the number of sub-channels is sufficiently large). This makes frequency domain equalization possible at the receiver, which is far simpler than the time-domain equalization used in conventional single-carrier modulation. In OFDM, the equalizer only has to multiply each detected subcarrier (each Fourier coefficient) in each OFDM symbol by a constant complex number, or a rarely changed value. On a fundamental level, simpler digital equalizers are better because they require fewer operations, which translates to fewer round-off errors in the equalizer. Those round-off errors can be viewed as numerical noise and are inevitable. Our example: The OFDM equalization in the above numerical example would require one complex valued multiplication per subcarrier and symbol (i.e., complex multiplications per OFDM symbol; i.e., one million multiplications per second, at the receiver). The FFT algorithm requires [this is imprecise: over half of these complex multiplications are trivial, i.e. = to 1 and are not implemented in software or HW]. complex-valued multiplications per OFDM symbol (i.e., 10 million multiplications per second), at both the receiver and transmitter side. This should be compared with the corresponding one million symbols/second single-carrier modulation case mentioned in the example, where the equalization of 125 microseconds time-spreading using a FIR filter would require, in a naive implementation, 125 multiplications per symbol (i.e., 125 million multiplications per second). FFT techniques can be used to reduce the number of multiplications for an FIR filter-based time-domain equalizer to a number comparable with OFDM, at the cost of delay between reception and decoding which also becomes comparable with OFDM. If differential modulation such as DPSK or DQPSK is applied to each subcarrier, equalization can be completely omitted, since these non-coherent schemes are insensitive to slowly changing amplitude and phase distortion. In a sense, improvements in FIR equalization using FFTs or partial FFTs leads mathematically closer to OFDM, but the OFDM technique is easier to understand and implement, and the sub-channels can be independently adapted in other ways than varying equalization coefficients, such as switching between different QAM constellation patterns and error-correction schemes to match individual sub-channel noise and interference characteristics. Some of the subcarriers in some of the OFDM symbols may carry pilot signals for measurement of the channel conditions (i.e., the equalizer gain and phase shift for each subcarrier). Pilot signals and training symbols (preambles) may also be used for time synchronization (to avoid intersymbol interference, ISI) and frequency synchronization (to avoid inter-carrier interference, ICI, caused by Doppler shift). OFDM was initially used for wired and stationary wireless communications. However, with an increasing number of applications operating in highly mobile environments, the effect of dispersive fading caused by a combination of multi-path propagation and doppler shift is more significant. Over the last decade, research has been done on how to equalize OFDM transmission over doubly selective channels. Channel coding and interleaving OFDM is invariably used in conjunction with channel coding (forward error correction), and almost always uses frequency and/or time interleaving. Frequency (subcarrier) interleaving increases resistance to frequency-selective channel conditions such as fading. For example, when a part of the channel bandwidth fades, frequency interleaving ensures that the bit errors that would result from those subcarriers in the faded part of the bandwidth are spread out in the bit-stream rather than being concentrated. Similarly, time interleaving ensures that bits that are originally close together in the bit-stream are transmitted far apart in time, thus mitigating against severe fading as would happen when travelling at high speed. However, time interleaving is of little benefit in slowly fading channels, such as for stationary reception, and frequency interleaving offers little to no benefit for narrowband channels that suffer from flat-fading (where the whole channel bandwidth fades at the same time). The reason why interleaving is used on OFDM is to attempt to spread the errors out in the bit-stream that is presented to the error correction decoder, because when such decoders are presented with a high concentration of errors the decoder is unable to correct all the bit errors, and a burst of uncorrected errors occurs. A similar design of audio data encoding makes compact disc (CD) playback robust. A classical type of error correction coding used with OFDM-based systems is convolutional coding, often concatenated with Reed-Solomon coding. Usually, additional interleaving (on top of the time and frequency interleaving
computing, where it allows computing representations of mathematical objects to be manipulated with the same syntax as on paper. Operator overloading does not change the expressive power of a language (with functions), as it can be emulated using function calls. For example, consider variables , and of some user-defined type, such as matrices: In a language that supports operator overloading, and with the usual assumption that the '' operator has higher precedence than the '+' operator, this is a concise way of writing: However, the former syntax reflects common mathematical usage. Examples In this case, the addition operator is overloaded to allow addition on a user-defined type in C++: Time operator+(const Time& lhs, const Time& rhs) { Time temp = lhs; temp.seconds += rhs.seconds; temp.minutes += temp.seconds / 60; temp.seconds %= 60; temp.minutes += rhs.minutes; temp.hours += temp.minutes / 60; temp.minutes %= 60; temp.hours += rhs.hours; return temp; } Addition is a binary operation, which means it has two operands. In C++, the arguments being passed are the operands, and the object is the returned value. The operation could also be defined as a class method, replacing by the hidden argument; However, this forces the left operand to be of type : // The "const" right before the opening curly brace means that \|this\| is not modified. Time Time::operator+(const Time& rhs) const { Time temp = this; // \|this\| should not be modified, so make a copy. temp.seconds += rhs.seconds; temp.minutes += temp.seconds / 60; temp.seconds %= 60; temp.minutes += rhs.minutes; temp.hours += temp.minutes / 60; temp.minutes %= 60; temp.hours += rhs.hours; return temp; } Note that a unary operator defined as a class method would receive no apparent argument (it only works from ): bool Time::operator!() const { return hours == 0 && minutes == 0 && seconds == 0; } The less-than (<) operator is often overloaded to sort a structure or class: class Pair { public: bool operator<(const Pair& p) const { if (x_ == p.x_) { return y_ < p.y_;	operator overloading is done within the class. In C++, after overloading the less-than operator (<), standard sorting functions can be used to sort some classes. Criticisms Operator overloading has often been criticized because it allows programmers to reassign the semantics of operators depending on the types of their operands. For example, the use of the operator in C++ a << b shifts the bits in the variable left by bits if and are of an integer type, but if is an output stream then the above code will attempt to write a to the stream. Because operator overloading allows the original programmer to change the usual semantics of an operator and to catch any subsequent programmers by surprise, it is considered good practice to use operator overloading with care (the creators of Java decided not to use this feature, although not necessarily for this reason). Another, more subtle, issue with operators is that certain rules from mathematics can be wrongly expected or unintentionally assumed. For example, the commutativity of + (i.e. that ) does not always apply; an example of this occurs when the operands are strings, since + is commonly overloaded to perform a concatenation of strings (i.e. yields , while yields ). A typical counter to this argument comes directly from mathematics: While + is commutative on integers (and more generally any complex number), it is not commutative for other "types" of variables. In practice, + is not even always associative, for example with floating-point values due to rounding errors. Another example: In mathematics, multiplication is commutative for real and complex numbers but not commutative in matrix multiplication. Catalog A classification of some common programming languages is made according to whether their operators are overloadable by the programmer and whether the operators are limited to a predefined set. Timeline of operator overloading 1960s The ALGOL 68 specification allowed operator overloading. Extract from the ALGOL 68 language specification (page 177) where the overloaded operators ¬, =, ≠, and abs are defined: 10.2.2. Operations on Boolean Operands a) op ∨ = (bool a, b) bool:( a \| true \| b ); b) op ∧ = (bool a, b) bool: ( a \| b \| false ); c) op ¬ = (bool a) bool: ( a \| false \| true ); d) op = = (bool a, b) bool:( a∧b ) ∨ ( ¬b∧¬a ); e) op ≠ = (bool a, b) bool: ¬(a=b); f) op abs = (bool a)int: ( a \| 1 \| 0 ); Note that no special declaration is needed to overload an operator, and the programmer is free to create new operators. 1980s Ada supports overloading of operators from its inception, with the publication of the Ada 83 language standard. However, the language designers chose to preclude the definition of new operators. Only extant operators in the language may be overloaded, by defining new functions with identifiers such as "+", "*", "&" etc. Subsequent revisions of the language (in 1995 and 2005) maintain the restriction to overloading of extant operators. In C++, operator overloading is more refined than in ALGOL 68. 1990s Java language designers at Sun Microsystems chose to omit overloading. Ruby allows operator overloading as syntactic sugar for simple method calls. Lua allows operator overloading as syntactic sugar for method calls with the added feature that if the first operand doesn't define that operator, the method for the second operand will be used. 2000s Microsoft added operator overloading to C# in 2001 and to Visual Basic .NET in 2003.